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Chapter Two

ON TUESDAY morning, after he’d seen Belle safely off at the airport, Matt headed upstairs. Belle’s century-old six-bedroom Melbournian mansion was maintained in spotless condition, but she’d left his old bedroom alone and a good clean-out was well overdue. He planned to slot it in between appointments he’d arranged at the city office over the next few days.

He’d get started while waiting for this mysterious employee—Eloise someone—to put in an appearance tomorrow.

Eloise. The name reminded him of Ellie, which brought back memories of Saturday night. He’d thought he had it made. Until she’d pulled her disappearing act. He’d spent the rest of the night in acute discomfort and his body still hadn’t quite recovered. A week or so of mutual enjoyment would have filled the evenings here very nicely. He dismissed the fact that he could have enjoyed a few hours with Belinda the busty blonde and frowned as he reached the top of the stairs. It had been Ellie he’d wanted.

He knew the interest had been reciprocated. The eternal question would always be why she’d changed her mind. Obviously she had some hang-up that she hadn’t deemed fit to enlighten him about.

Still, for a few moments there in the shadows, gazing into those captivating amethyst eyes, he’d been completely charmed.

He shook the memory away. Right now he had a more immediate concern. Until Belle had phoned last week, he’d never heard her mention anyone by the name of Eloise. And seeing that look in Belle’s eyes today when he’d waved her off on this impulsive trip—visiting Miriam, some woman she’d not seen in fifty-odd years in North Queensland—was a real concern.

‘Miriam’s the sister of a man I once knew,’ she’d told him when she’d rung to see if he could house-sit while she was away—something else she’d never done.

‘After all these years, why now, Belle?’ he’d asked.

‘Because something’s happened and I need to make a decision and she’s the only one who can help me make it. I’m sorry, Matthew, I can’t tell you more. Not yet.

‘There’s something else,’ she’d continued. ‘A new employee you haven’t met will be working there while I’m away. Her name’s Eloise and I want you to look out for her.’

He’d agreed. Of course he’d agreed.

Then this morning…‘Don’t forget, I need you to be nice to Eloise,’ she’d reminded him as he’d escorted her to the departure gate.

‘I’m always nice.’

For once, Belle didn’t smile. ‘Matthew, this is not a frivolous matter.’

Belle was the closest person to a mother that he had, and he’d known her for more than twenty-five years, but he’d never seen this particular expression in her eyes before. Fear? Desperation? Hope?

He frowned. ‘If you’re worried about leaving her unsupervised, why can’t you just tell her to come back when you return?’

‘She needs the work. Moreover, I’m afraid she might leave.’

‘If she needs the work, she won’t leave.’

‘I don’t want to take that chance. She—’ Biting off her words, she smoothed a finger over his furrowed brow. ‘And don’t scare her off with that stern all-business facade.’

‘I am in business, remember?’ Which always made him wary of others’ motivations. ‘What’s so special about this particular employee?’

Her short caramel-coloured hair was permanently tamed to within an inch of its life but Belle ran a restless hand through it. ‘It’s complicated. That’s why I need to take this trip. To talk to Miriam, to consider and then to make a decision. And I need you here to keep an eye on…everything.’ She wrapped her fingers around his forearm. ‘Promise me, Matthew.’

‘Of course, Belle, you know I will.’

She presented her boarding pass to the attendant. ‘I know you have questions and I appreciate you not pushing me for answers.’ She reached up, kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you for coming. I think you’ll like Eloise—you might even become friends. She’ll be there tomorrow. You might take her out,’ she suggested. ‘Get to know her better…’

He felt his eyebrows lift. Friends? Take her out and get to know her better? Was that hope in Belle’s voice? She’d never been a matchmaker, so there was something else she wasn’t telling him. He returned the kiss absently. ‘Why the urgency, Belle? Come back with me, let’s meet this Eloise person together and we can discuss whatever it is that’s worrying you.’

But she shook her head again and moved into the stream of passengers heading for the air bridge. ‘A few days, Matthew. I’ll explain everything when I come back…’

She’d told him that she’d phone him when she was ready. At least he’d made her promise to text him that she’d arrived safely. Still pondering his concerns and whether he should intervene in some way, he pushed open the door to the familiar bedroom.

Cartons he’d never got around to sorting were crammed against one wall. Age had faded the once-bright carpet square. Grime from storms past dulled the mullioned windows.

But nothing could dull the memories of waking up in this room to sunlight streaming through the glass and spilling rainbows across his Star Wars quilt. To the aroma of hot toast and bacon. Belle had always insisted on a good breakfast.

Unlike his biological mother, who’d not even bothered to stick around, nicking off in the middle of the night and leaving no more than a note saying she was sorry. Sorry?

Zena Johnson, single mum—and pole-dancer on her evenings off, it had turned out—had been Belle’s housekeeper until she’d skipped town, leaving her only son with her employer. The best decision Zena had ever made, for all concerned, Matt reminded himself, without a lick of regret for the woman who’d given him life.

Belle had taken that scared, lonely, introverted kid, who’d never formed attachments since they’d never been in one place long enough, and treated him as her own. Loved him as her own. To Matt, Belle was family, and fourteen years ago at the age of eighteen he’d taken her surname to prove it.

He hefted the first carton, overloaded with his old school books. Time for the recycling bin. But the box was flimsy and slid out of his grip, spilling the contents over his feet. Dust billowed over his sneakers and jeans, then rose to clog his nostrils. He swiped a dust-coated forearm over his brow. Okay, the job might take longer than he’d anticipated—

A flash of movement somewhere beyond the window caught his eye. He saw a female figure walking up the leaf-littered path. Frowning, he moved nearer, rubbing a circle on the glass with the hem of his T-shirt for a better look. Not walking, he noted now—more like bouncing, as if she had springs attached to the soles of her worn sneakers. Or a song running through her head.

Young—late teens, early twenties? Hard to tell. He couldn’t see her face, shadowed by a battered black baseball cap, nor her hair, which she’d tucked out of sight. She wore a baby-pink T-shirt under baggy khaki overalls with stains at the knees. What looked like an old army surplus backpack covered with multicoloured daisy graffiti swung from one slender shoulder.

She slowed and, with her face in shadow, uncapped the bottled water in her free hand and stood a moment, staring at the old unicorn statue in the middle of the lawn. Something about her tugged at the edges of his mind.

He tracked her progress along the carefully tended topiary and gnome garden statues. How had she slipped past the gate’s security code? She wasn’t the first trespasser on Belle’s property—the reason he’d had the damn thing installed for her in the first place.

Only one way…She’d climbed the fence.

Every hair on his body bristled. Young, agile, probably doe-eyed and short on cash—she was just the sort to take advantage of a trusting woman living alone.

Not this time, honey.

He crossed the room, descended the stairs, half expecting the front doorbell to ring. He yanked open the door but saw no sign of her.

Where the hell had she gone?

He hotfooted it through the kitchen, his sneakers squeaking over the tiles, and shoved through the back door. Scouring the grounds, he spotted her slipping inside the old garden shed, partially obscured by ivy at the far end of the estate.

Heading grimly across lawn damp from last night’s rain, he barely noticed the stiff autumn breeze whistle through his threadbare T-shirt. But he noticed the scent she’d left on the air. Subtle and clean and…somehow familiar…

Barely visible in the shed’s gloom and with her back to him, she was inspecting gardening tools, discarding some, dumping others in the wheelbarrow beside her, all the while humming some unfamiliar tune slightly off-key.

He stopped at the open doorway, leaned an arm on the doorjamb. What was her game plan? he wondered, watching her add a pair of gardening gloves to her stash.

She couldn’t be more than five foot two and what he could see of her was finely boned. She didn’t look dangerous or devious, but he knew all too well that looks were deceiving. A gold-digger in overalls? Something niggled at him and he waited impatiently for her to turn around…

Ellie knew she wasn’t alone when the light spilling through the doorway dulled. A tingle swept across the back of her neck, cementing her to the spot. The tune she’d been humming stuck in her throat. The fact that whoever it was hadn’t spoken told her it wasn’t Belle.

And he was blocking her only escape route. Her mouth dried, her heart rate doubled. Trebled. The stranger was male. She could feel the power and authority radiating off him in waves. And something else. Disapproval. Red-hot disapproval, if the heat it generated down her spine was any indication. Was he a cop? She tried to recall if she’d jaywalked on her way here but her brain wasn’t computing anything as simple as short-term memory.

A cop wouldn’t sneak up on her.

She could smell sweat and dust…Barely moving, she closed the fingers of her right hand around the handle of the gardening fork which, by a stroke of luck, already lay in the wheelbarrow beside her hip.

Heart jumping, she grabbed the fork with both hands and swivelled to face him at the same time. ‘That’s close enough.’ Her voice grazed the roof of her mouth like the dry leaves at her feet. To compensate, she jutted her chin, aimed the fork in the direction of his belly and hoped he hadn’t noticed the tremor in her hands.

In the windowless shed all she could see was his silhouette. Tall, dark. Broad-shouldered. One bulging arm holding up the doorframe. Why hadn’t she flicked on the light as she came in? She aimed the fork lower, straight at his crotch. ‘I’m not afraid to use this.’

‘I don’t imagine you are.’

There was something familiar about that deep, dark voice which made her stupid heart jump some more, but in an entirely different way. More of a skip.

She jabbed the fork in his direction. ‘You’re trespassing. Miss McGregor’ll be coming out at any moment.’ At least, Ellie hoped she would…or maybe not, since Ellie would be forced to defend the woman as well as herself. ‘She’s probably already ringing the police.’

‘I don’t think so.’ His voice, frost-coated steel, sent a chill down Ellie’s spine.

‘Back off. Now.’ Heart thumping hard again, she lunged forward, rotating the fork’s tines to a vertical position so that they lay a dangerous whisker away from his jeans. From this position he towered over her and it belatedly occurred to Ellie that all he had to do was open his hand and her weapon would be his.

But he didn’t attempt to confiscate it, nor did he step back. As if he knew she couldn’t carry through with her threat, and there was nothing overtly menacing or desperate in his demeanour when he said, ‘How did you get in and what are you doing here?’

‘I used the code Miss McGregor gave me. Did you think I scaled that seven-foot fence?’ She shook her head, realising that was probably what he thought. ‘I’m the gardener—who are you?’

‘You’re Belle’s gardener?’

She drew herself up at the barely veiled sarcasm. ‘That’s what I said.’

‘What happened to Bob Sheldon?’

‘He still comes in to do the heavy stuff.’

This man knew Belle’s name and was obviously familiar with her staff. Still…Ellie’s fingers relaxed some on the fork. Her arms ached with holding the thing but she didn’t lower it. Not yet. ‘You haven’t told me who you are.’

Then he stepped back, into the sunlight, and said, ‘Matt McGregor.’

Brown eyes met hers. Familiar brown eyes. Eyes she’d dreamed about for the past couple of nights.

Her entire body went into lockdown. Oh, no. Not him. Please, please, please. Her Saturday night almost-lover couldn’t be Belle’s nephew. Couldn’t be.

‘What are you doing here?’ Her words came out on a wheeze.

A tiny twitch in his right cheek was the only sign that he recognised her. Her fingers slid off the fork as he took it from her boneless grasp and let it drop to the ground beside him. ‘I might ask you the same question, Ellie. Or should I call you Eloise?’

‘I already told you, I work here. And only Belle calls me Eloise and gets away with it.’ Forcing herself to meet his gaze, she squinted up at him from beneath the bill of her cap. Same eyes—without the heat. Same beautiful mouth. The same mouth that had kissed her crazy. A tremor rippled down her body, her nipples puckered in loving memory.

That mouth wasn’t smiling now.

‘I’m here to keep an eye on things in Belle’s absence.’

By sheer force of will, she drew herself up and attempted casual. ‘Belle’s gone already? I thought she was leaving tomorrow.’

‘She left at six this morning. As you’d have discovered if you’d knocked at the house first.’

She glared up at him. So this was Belle’s hot-shot architect nephew with the million-dollar business—which she’d have known if she’d only looked at his card. What were the odds? She should buy a lottery ticket.

‘Belle sometimes sleeps late,’ she informed him coolly. ‘I like to start early. I usually greet her when she comes outside with her morning coffee. I’m running late today because—’

‘You had to wash your hair?’

How did he know? Her hand rose automatically to her cap and she sighed. ‘Several times, actually.’ But it hadn’t made much of a difference. It was still pink.

‘Ellie.’ The sound of her name rolled out like a boulder over a grassy knoll. ‘Ellie…what?’

She straightened her spine. ‘Ellie Rose.’

‘As in hyphenated?’

‘As in Rose is my surname. My mum’s surname, actually,’ she explained. ‘My father didn’t want a kid so Mum…’ She trailed off. Too much information, Ellie.

‘Well, Ellie Rose,’ he said, still eyeing her as if she might pick up the fork the moment he turned his back. And, by crikey, she was tempted. ‘If you’d come up to the house…’

A sense of foreboding slid through her. ‘Pardon? Belle doesn’t—’

‘Belle’s not here. I’m asking you.’ He inclined his head. ‘Please.’

‘Is this because I didn’t come to work last Friday? I went on a field trip to the botanic gardens and I thought I’d make it up today, so that’s why I’m a day earlier.’

‘Just come with me,’ he said, gesturing towards the house, and she realised her tongue had run away from her. Again. Stress, that’s what it was, but trying to explain would only make it worse. Was it because she’d left him on Saturday night without any explanation?

He was already walking away, his lanky stride putting more distance between them every second. Ellie couldn’t help it; she couldn’t drag her eyes away from those tight jeans clenched around that familiar butt. Temptation on legs.

No, she told herself and darted back into the shed to grab her backpack. Never again. Gorgeous overbearing men were not her type.

Lose the attitude, Ellie. You need the work. Focus on the work. Swinging her pack over her shoulder, she hurried to catch up, the nervous fingers of her left hand twirling around the button on her overalls strap. And wouldn’t you know it—the pesky thing came away in her hand. The bill of her cap bumped into him, knocking it off and sending the brass disc spinning over the grass in front of him. ‘Oops,’ she mumbled to his back. His very broad, very hard back.

He spun around, firm hands closing around her upper arms. She barely had time to absorb their heat and the long lean feel of them before he let her go.

‘My button…Sorry,’ she muttered again, and while she was rubbing away the tingles his touch had wrought, he was bending over and searching for her button in the grass. She watched the muscles flex and roll on either side of that long curve of spine, the enticing sliver of bronze flesh below his T-shirt. She wondered what he’d do if she just reached out now and ran her fingernail across—

He straightened abruptly as if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. She cleared her throat, attempted a smile and held out her hand. ‘Thanks.’

He didn’t smile back or answer. He was too busy staring at her hair.

And she’d been too busy checking out his butt—his back—to pick up her cap. She swiped it up, aware that her cheeks probably matched her hair by now. ‘Supermarket brands…Never mind.’ She jammed her cap back on. She was never, ever going to put a colour through her hair again.

‘Fairy floss,’ he murmured to himself, still eyeing her cap as if he could see through it.

He dropped the button into her outstretched palm before turning and continuing to the back door, leaving her to struggle with the strap as she followed. She slipped its end through the bib’s buttonhole and tied it into a temporary knot and prayed it held.

The kitchen smelled of lemons, cinnamon and rosemary. A homey room with sparkling red and white china and a friendly collection of ceramic cows on the pine dresser. The fragrant miniature potted herbs on the windowsill had been a gift to Belle from Ellie.

‘Have a seat.’ He pulled out a chair at the table for her.

Their knees bumped as he sat and his eyes flicked to hers, as if he, too, had felt that zing of sensation. She shifted her legs out of harm’s way. Wringing her hands beneath the tabletop, she chewed on her lip to stop herself speaking before he got started on whatever he had in mind.

He set his hands, palms down, in front of him on the table and considered them carefully before he looked at her. ‘I have some questions.’

About Saturday night? Why she’d changed her mind? Rushed off? Not called him?

No. His eyes weren’t asking those questions. This was more like a job interview. It didn’t seem to matter to him that Belle had already hired her. ‘I thought Belle would’ve told you about me.’

While she spoke he pulled out a fancy-looking black and silver electronic organiser and began tapping. ‘Not enough, I’m afraid.’ His finger paused over the buttons. ‘First up, how did you come by this job?’

‘Belle contacted me through an ad I posted in the local paper. And she hired me on the spot because I’m a damn good gardener,’ she finished, leaning back and crossing her arms. ‘That was a month ago, and it must be true because I’m still here.’

He didn’t reply, just continued to study her with a steady, impenetrable gaze. Not a hint of Saturday night’s heat there. Ellie refused to be disappointed. Refused.

Maybe if she explained why he could trust her to do a good job…Leaning forward again, she said, ‘This house holds a special significance for me. When I was a kid my mum and I used to walk past here on the way to the tram. She told me the property had been in my grandfather’s family at one time. The house was a little girl’s fantasy and I loved it—especially the unicorn statue in the front garden. Its horn used to be gold, you know.’

His gaze turned considering. ‘I know.’ He studied her in silence a moment longer, then tapped his fingers on the table. ‘References?’

‘I’ve moved around a lot.’ Call me irresponsible. Her words spoken in part jest, part bravado last Saturday night spun back to haunt her. Racking her brain, she tried to recall what else she’d said, but unfortunately could think of nothing that would instil confidence.

‘Ah, of course, the free spirit.’

She watched those long fingers punch more buttons while heat bled up her neck and her nipples tingled. Those fingers had—

‘No references. Your address and phone number?’

Her gaze whipped up to his face. That tiny muscle twitched in his jaw again but his eyes betrayed nothing. Not a thing. The heat continued to rise, suffusing her cheeks. She twisted restless fingers around the locket at her neck. ‘Look, I really don’t see that this is any of your concern. I’m Belle’s employee, not yours.’

‘Belle can be a little too naive sometimes. I’m making sure she’s taken care of. Address? Phone number?’

‘Belle has them.’

‘She’s incommunicado. What if something comes up? I need to be able to contact you.’

Holding his gaze defiantly, she snapped out the information.

‘What days do you work?’

‘Wednesdays and Fridays and I alternate Mondays and Tuesdays, but—’

‘I value responsibility. Belle values responsibility. You call yourself irresponsible. So I’m wondering where that leaves us. Or more to the point, where it leaves you. I’d like you to think about that while you’re working here.’ He leaned back in his chair and placed his hands on the table. Interview over.

Thank goodness his unfathomable dark eyes didn’t drop below her face. Thank goodness her chest was hidden beneath her overalls, because no way her skinny T-shirt would have been enough to hide the sudden way her nipples begged for more of that attention he’d given so generously Saturday night.

But then the cool business facade disappeared. His eyes thawed to a warm chocolate, lips curving into that lazy smile she’d seen across a crowded nightclub. ‘Now we’ve got that out of the way,’ he said in that deep sexy tone she’d been fantasising about in her daydreams. ‘Have dinner with me tonight.’