the mistake he had made and the truth that he was leaving his daughter virtually penniless. They were fortunate indeed that her father had arranged and settled the expenses of his own funeral as soon as he had appreciated that his condition was incurable. But only their landlord’s forbearance had kept a roof over their heads as they had inevitably fallen behind with the rent, and that was a debt that Willow was determined to somehow settle.
‘I’ll get by,’ she parried with a stiff little smile. ‘Dad and I were always alone.’
‘Let me give you a lift,’ Jai urged smoothly.
‘No, thank you. Our neighbour, Charlie, is waiting outside for us,’ she responded with a rueful smile that threatened to turn into a grimace.
Shelley, proclaiming that she would’ve enjoyed the opportunity to travel in a limousine, hurried after Willow in dismay as she turned on her heel to head out to the ancient car awaiting them beyond the cemetery wall. Willow, not having noticed her friend’s disappointment, was all of a silly flutter, and furious with herself, butterflies darting and dancing in her tummy and leaving her breathless as a schoolgirl simply because she had been talking to Jai. Any normal woman would have grown out of such immature behaviour by now, she told herself in mortification. Unfortunately, through living with and caring for her father and lack of opportunity, Willow hadn’t yet managed to gain much real-world experience of the opposite sex.
Aside of a couple of summer residential stays, she had always lived at home, having studied garden design both online and through classes at the nearest college. Add in the work experience she had had to complete with a local landscape firm, the need to earn some money simply to eat while they had steadily fallen behind with the rent, the demands of her father’s illness and his many medical appointments, and there hadn’t been enough hours in the day for Willow to enjoy a social life with her friends as well. Gradually most of her friends had dropped away, but Shelley had been in her life since primary school and had continued to visit, oblivious to Brian Allerton’s cool, snobbish attitude to her.
Willow arrived back at the tiny terraced house and she put on the kettle while Shelley set out the drinks and a solitary tray of shortbread. Just as Jai arrived, the vicar anxiously asked Willow where she was planning to move to.
‘My sofa!’ Shelley revealed with a chuckle. ‘I wouldn’t leave her stuck.’
‘Yes, I’ll be fine with Shelley until I can organise something more permanent. I have to move out of here tomorrow. The landlord has been wonderfully understanding but it would be selfish of me to stay here one day longer than necessary,’ Willow explained, thinking that, tough though the last weeks had been, she had met with kindness in unexpected places.
A sofa? Willow was homeless? Expected to pack up and move in with a friend the same week that she had buried her father? Jai was appalled at that news. Honour demanded that he intervene but Willow had been raised to be proud and independent like her father and Jai would have to be sensitive in his approach. He was convinced that out of principle Willow would refuse his financial assistance.
‘Coffee, Jai?’ Willow prompted as she handed the vicar a cup of tea.
‘Thank you,’ he murmured, following her into the small kitchen to say, ‘Was your father at home at the end, or had he been moved to a hospice?’
‘It was to happen next week,’ Willow conceded tightly, throwing his tall dark figure a rueful appraisal, her heart giving a sudden thud as she collided involuntarily with ice-blue eyes enhanced by wondrously dense black lashes. ‘But he didn’t make it. His heart gave out.’
In an abrupt movement, she stepped back from him, disturbingly conscious of his height and the proximity of more masculinity than she felt able to bear. The very faint scent of some designer cologne drifted into her nostrils and she sucked in a sudden steadying breath, her level of awareness heightening exponentially to add to her discomfiture. She could feel her face heating, her knees wobbling as her tension rose even higher.
‘What are you planning to do next?’ Jai enquired, shifting his attention hurriedly from her lush pink lips and the X-rated images bombarding him while he questioned his behaviour.
Yes, she was indisputably beautiful, but he was neither a hormonal schoolboy, nor a sex-starved one, and he was challenged to explain his lack of self-discipline in her radius. She did, however, possess a quality that was exclusively her own, he acknowledged grudgingly, a slow-burning sensual appeal that tugged hard at his senses. It was there in the flicker of her languorous emerald eyes, the slight curve of her generous lower lip, the upward angle of challenge in her chin as she tilted her head back, strawberry-blond hair falling in waves tumbling across her slim shoulders like a swathe of rumpled silk.
‘I’ll be fine as soon as I find full-time work. These last weeks, I was only able to work part-time hours. Once I’ve saved up some money, I’ll move on and leave Shelley in peace.’ She opened the fridge to extract milk and Jai noticed its empty interior.
‘You have no food,’ he remarked grimly.
‘I genuinely haven’t had much of an appetite recently,’ she confided truthfully. ‘And Dad ate next to nothing, so I haven’t been cooking.’
She had removed her coat and the simple grey dress she wore hung loose on her slender body. Her cheekbones were sharp, her eyes hollow and his misgivings increased because she looked haunted and frail. Of course, common sense warned him that nursing her father would have sapped her energy and left her at a low ebb. Certainly, she was vulnerable, but she was a young and healthy woman and she would probably be fine. But probably wasn’t quite good enough to satisfy Jai. He would make his own checks and in the short term he would do what he could to make her future less insecure.
Willow watched Jai leave, a sinking tightening sensation inside her chest as it occurred to her that she would probably never see him again now that her father was gone. Why would she want to see him again anyway? she asked herself irritably. They were only casual acquaintances and calling him a friend would have been pushing that slight bond to the limits.
Shelley departed only under protest.
‘Are you sure you’re going to be OK alone here tonight?’ the brunette pressed, unconvinced. ‘I don’t feel right leaving you on your own.’
‘I’m going to have a bath and go to bed early. I’m exhausted,’ Willow told her ruefully. ‘But thanks for caring.’
The two women hugged on the doorstep and Shelley went on her way. Willow cleared away the glasses and left the kitchen immaculate before heading upstairs for her bath. First thing in the morning a local dealer was coming to clear the house contents and sell them. There wasn’t much left because almost everything that could be sold had been sold off weeks earlier. Even so, her father’s beloved books might be worth something, she thought hopefully, her teeth worrying at her lower lip as she anxiously recalled the rent still owing. It would be a weight off her mind if she could clear that debt because their landlord belonged to her church and she suspected that he had felt that he’d had no choice but to allow them to remain as tenants even though the rent was in arrears. The sooner he was reimbursed for his kindness, the happier she would be.
The bell shrilled while she was putting on her pyjamas and she groaned, snatching her robe off the back of the bathroom door to hurry barefoot down the steep stairs and answer the door.
When she saw Jai outside, she froze in disconcertion.
‘I brought dinner,’ Jai informed her as she hovered, her grip on the robe she was holding closed loosening to reveal the shorts and T-shirt she wore beneath and her long, shapely legs. He drew in a stark little breath as she stepped back and the robe shifted again to expose the tilted peaks of her small breasts. In a split second he was hard as a rock, his body impervious to his belief that he preferred curvier women.
‘D-dinner?’ she stammered in wonderment as Jai stepped back and two men with a trolley moved out from behind him and, with some difficulty, trundled the unwieldy item through the tiny hall into the cramped living room with its small table and two chairs.
Those wolf-blue eyes of his