and away from her prickly presence. He’d endured some difficult situations in his time. But it looked as if putting up with Lizzie was going to be one of the most difficult of all. Even twenty minutes with her was stretching his patience. But there was work to be done and he’d made a commitment to Sandy.
He’d break his time working with Lizzie into manageable blocks. He reckoned he could endure two hours of forced politeness in her company; manage to ignore how lovely she was. He’d make a strict schedule and stick to it. He looked at his watch. One hour and forty minutes to go. ‘Let’s get cracking on sorting those paintings. There’s an amazing one of dolphins surfing I think you might want to look at first.’
* * *
Under her breath, Lizzie let off a string of curse words. She swore fluently in both English and French—it was difficult not to pick up some very colourful language working in the pressure cooker atmosphere of commercial kitchens.
But these days she kept a guard on her tongue. No way did she want Amy picking up any undesirable phrases. So she kept the curse words rolling only in her mind. This particular stream was directed—non-verbally of course—towards her sister. What had Sandy been thinking to trap her in such close confines with Jesse Morgan?
He was insufferable. Talking to her as if she was an idiot. Well, she had been an idiot to have fancied him so much at the wedding. To have let physical attraction overrule good sense. But that was then and this was now.
Like many chefs, during the years she had worked in other peoples’ restaurants, she had entertained the idea of running a restaurant of her own. In fact she and Philippe had been working towards just that until she’d unexpectedly fallen pregnant and everything had changed.
For sure, her dream of running her own show hadn’t centred on a café in a place like Dolphin Bay but she could make the most of her downgraded dream. She knew what it took to make customers want to come to a restaurant—and to keep them coming. She didn’t need Mr Know-It-All Jesse Morgan telling her how to choose the art for the walls. For heaven’s sake, was he going to tell her what dishes to put on the menu?
She made a point of looking at her watch too. Two could play at this game. ‘Okay, let’s unwrap the paintings one at a time and then I’ll compare them and decide which ones I like best. Without being so insensitive as to grade them, of course.’
For a moment she thought she saw a smile lurk around the corners of his grimly set mouth. It passed so quickly she could have imagined it. But for a second—just that second—she’d seen again that Jesse from the wedding who had appealed to her so much. Boy, had she got him wrong.
She walked across to the stacks of paintings. ‘Shall we start with the largest one first?’ she said.
Jesse nodded as he followed her over. ‘That’s the surfing dolphins one.’
She immediately wished she’d decided to open the smallest ones first. But she couldn’t backtrack now.
The painting was bracketed with sheets of cardboard and then wrapped with thick brown paper. She started to open it but the paper was too tough to tear. Silently, Jesse reached into his pocket and pulled out a retractable-blade utility knife. Again without saying a word, he clicked it free of its safety cover and handed it to her.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered, biting down on the urge to tell him not to keep such a dangerous tool in his pocket. She knew she was being unreasonable, but Jesse seemed to have that effect on her. As much as she hated to admit it, she’d been hurt by his behaviour at the wedding, and she would do whatever it took to protect herself from feeling that way again.
She crouched down and carefully slit the paper across the top of the wrapping. As she went to cut down the side, Jesse reached out a hand to stop her.
She flinched. Don’t touch me, she wanted to snarl. But that would sound irrational. She gritted her teeth.
‘Leave that,’ he said. ‘If you don’t cut the sides the painting will be easier to get back in the wrapping.’
She stilled for the long moment his hand stayed on her wrist. Of course he had beautiful hands, just like the rest of him—she couldn’t fail to register that. His fingers were warm and immediately familiar on her bare skin. She closed her eyes tight. She couldn’t deal with this. But she was just about to shake off his hand when he removed it. She realised she was holding her breath and she let it out in a controlled sigh that she prayed he didn’t register.
‘Good idea,’ she managed to choke out. Why did he have to stand so close beside her?
‘I’ll give you a hand to slide the painting out. It’s too heavy for one person.’
She had to acknowledge the truth in that. It would seem churlish not to. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
She stood at one end of the painting and he at the other and they lifted it free of its wrappings. As the image emerged, she could not help a gasp. The artist had perfectly captured in acrylic, on the underside of a breaking aquamarine wave, a pod of dolphins joyfully surfing towards the beach. ‘It’s wonderful. No. More than wonderful. Breathtaking.’
Jesse would have been justified in an I-told-you-so smirk. Instead he nodded. ‘I thought so too,’ he said.
Lizzie reached out a hand to touch the painting then drew it back. ‘This artist is so talented. It looks like Big Ray beach, is it?’ Big Ray was the local surf beach. It had a different name on the maps. The locals called it Big Ray because of the two enormous dark manta rays that periodically glided their way from one headland to the other. As a kid, visiting Dolphin Bay, she had been both fascinated by and frightened of them.
‘Yep. One of the smaller paintings is of the rays.’
‘Let’s open that one next.’ She couldn’t keep the excitement from her voice.
‘So the big one passes muster?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘It gets a triple A. You were absolutely right. It’s perfect.’ She indicated a central spot on the wall. ‘It would look fabulous right there.’
‘I agree,’ he said. ‘The artist will be delighted. She was really hoping you’d choose one of her paintings.’
‘She?’ The word slipped out of her mouth.
Jesse’s eyes darkened to the colour of the sea on a stormy day. ‘Yes. She. Is that a problem?’
‘Of course not. It’s just—’
‘It’s just that you’ve jumped to the immediate wrong conclusion. The artist is a friend of my mother. A retired art teacher. I know her because she taught me at high school. Not because she’s one of the infamous “Jesse’s girls”.’
‘I...I didn’t think that for one moment. Of course I didn’t.’ Of course she had.
At the wedding, she had wanted to be with Jesse so much, she had refused to acknowledge his reputation. Until he himself had shown her the truth of it.
She took a step away from him. His physical presence was so powerful she was uncomfortably aware of him. His muscular arms, tan against the white of his T-shirt. The strength of his chest. His flawless face. Stand too close and she could sense his body heat, breathe the spice of his scent that immediately evoked memories she was desperately trying to suppress.
She thought quickly. ‘I...I just thought the artist might have been a man because of the sheer size and scale of the painting.’
‘Fair enough,’ he conceded, though to her eye he didn’t look convinced. In fact she had the impression he was struggling to contain a retort. ‘If you’re sure you want this painting as the hero, let’s get it up first so we can then balance the others around it.’
‘That could work,’ she said. He was right, of course he was right. And she could not let her memories of how he had hurt her hinder her from giving him the courtesy she owed him for his help.
He