‘But you don’t have it quite right. Russ is doing me a favour, organising this job for me.’
He remained silent, not pressing her, and she was grateful for that.
‘You see, Russ’s heart attack and my fear that he was going to die brought me face to face with my own mortality.’
He flinched and she bit back a curse. What did she know about mortality compared to this man? She reached across to clasp his hand in a sign of automatic sympathy, but he froze. A bad taste rose in her mouth and she pulled her hand back into her lap. Her heart pounded. He wouldn’t welcome her touch. Of course he wouldn’t.
‘I expect you know what I’m talking about.’
Mac’s accident had left him with serious burns, but it had left a young apprentice fighting for his life. She remembered Russ’s relief when the young man had finally been taken off the critical list.
‘What I’m trying to say is that it’s made me reassess my life. It’s forced me to admit I wasn’t very happy, that I didn’t really like my job. I don’t want to spend the next twenty years feeling like that.’
She blew out a breath.
‘So when Russ found out you needed a housekeeper and mentioned it to me I jumped at the chance. It’ll give me two or three months to come up with a game plan.’
* * *
Mac stared at her. ‘You’re changing careers?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She looked a bit green.
‘To do what?’
She turned greener. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’
He knew that feeling.
Mac didn’t want to be touched by her story—he didn’t want to be touched by anything—but he was. Maybe it was the sheer simplicity of the telling, the lack of fanfare. Or maybe it was because he understood that sense of dissatisfaction she described. He’d stalled out here in his isolation and his self-pity while she was determined to surge forward.
Maybe if he watched her he’d learn—
He cut that thought off. He didn’t deserve the chance to move forward. He’d ruined a man’s life. He deserved to spend the rest of his life making amends.
But not at the expense of other people. Like Russ. Or Jo.
‘You’re wrong, you know?’
She glanced up. ‘About...?’
‘You seem to think you’re plain—invisible, even.’ Not beautiful.
‘Invisible?’ She snorted. ‘I’m six feet tall with a build some charitably call generous. Invisible is the one thing I’m not.’
‘Generous’ was the perfect word to describe her. She had glorious curves in all the right places. A fact that his male hormones acknowledged and appreciated even while his brain told him to leave that well enough alone.
He leaned back, careful to keep the good side of his face to her. ‘You’re a very striking woman.’ Don’t drool. ‘So what if you’re tall? You’re in proportion.’ She looked strong, athletic and full of life. ‘You have lovely eyes, your hair is shiny, and you have skin that most women would kill for. You may not fit in with conventional magazine cover ideals of beauty, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful. Stop selling yourself short. I can assure you that you’re not plain.’
She gaped at him. It made him scowl and shuffle back in his seat. ‘Well, you’re not.’
She snapped her mouth shut. She wiped her hands down the front of her shirt, which only proved to him how truly womanly she happened to be. The colour in her cheeks deepened as if she’d read that thought in his face.
‘There’s another reason I’m here,’ she blurted out.
The hurried confession and the way her words tripped over themselves, the fact that she looked cute when flustered, all conspired to make him want to grin. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled, let alone grinned. He resisted the urge now too. In the end, grinning... Well, it would just make things harder, in the same way the sunlight and the sea breeze did.
But he did take pity on her. ‘Another reason?’ he prompted.
She moistened her lips. Like the rest of her they were generous, and full of promise.
‘Mac, one of the reasons I came out here was to ask if you would teach me to cook.’ She grimaced. ‘Well, if we’re being completely accurate, if you’d teach me to make a macaron tower.’
His every muscle froze. His nerve-endings started to scream. For a moment all he could see in his mind was fire—all red and heat. A lump the size of a saucepan wedged in his throat. It took three goes to swallow it.
‘No.’ The word croaked out of him.
He closed his eyes to force air into protesting lungs and then opened them again, his skin growing slick with perspiration.
‘No.’ The single word came out cold and clear. ‘That’s out of the question. I don’t cook any more.’
‘But—’
‘Ever.’ He pinned her with his gaze and knew it must be pitiless when she shivered. ‘It’s absolutely out of the question.’
He rose.
‘Now if you don’t mind. I’m going to do a bit of work before I retire for the night. I’ll move my sleeping quarters to the end bedroom tomorrow.’
She seemed to gather herself. ‘I’ll clean it first thing.’
That reminded him that she meant to do a grocery shop tomorrow too. ‘There’s housekeeping money in the tin on the mantel in the kitchen.’
‘Right.’
He hated the way she surveyed him. Turning his back, he left, forcing knees that trembled to carry him up the stairs and into his room. He lowered himself to the chair at his desk and dropped his head to his hands, did what he could to quieten the scream stretching through his brain.
Teach Jo to cook?
Impossible.
His chest pounded in time with his temples. Blood surged in his ears, deafening him. He didn’t know how long it took for the pounding to slow, for his chest to unclench, and for his breathing to regain a more natural rhythm. It felt like a lifetime.
Eventually he lifted his head. He couldn’t teach her to cook. She’d saved his brother’s life and he owed her, but he couldn’t teach her to cook.
He rose and went to the double glass doors. With the curtains pushed back they stood open to the moonlight. Below, starlight dappled navy water. He couldn’t teach her to cook, but he could do everything else she’d asked of him. He could ensure that Russ didn’t have one thing to worry about on Mac’s account.
One week of halfway human behaviour? He could manage that.
He thought back to the way he’d just left the dining room and dragged a hand through his hair. She must think him a madman. Hauling in a breath, he rested his forehead against cool glass. He might not be able to help her on the cooking front, but could he help her in her search for a new vocation?
The sooner she found a new direction the sooner she’d go, leaving him in peace again. A low, savage laugh scraped from his throat. He would never find peace. He didn’t deserve it. But he could have her gone. He’d settle for that.
* * *
Mac had been awake for over an hour before he heard Jo’s firm tread on the stairs. She moved past his door and on to the bedroom at the end. No doubt to clean it, as she’d promised. The need for caffeine pounded through him. So far he’d resisted it—not ready to face Jo yet.
He