The Other Side of Us (Harlequin Superromance) (14 page)

“Oh.” She blinked. “Um, okay.”

There was a beat of awkward silence and her forehead creased
into furrows.

“Better go feed Strudel. She usually starts trying to gnaw her
own leg off if we’re up too long with no sustenance.”

“Sure. Of course.”

He lifted a hand in farewell. “See you around.”

“Yes. See you.”

He released his grip on the fence and stepped down to the
ground, very aware that his armpits were damp with clammy, nervous sweat.

If he never had to have another conversation like that in his
lifetime, he would die a happy man.

“Oliver?”

He took a moment to put his game face firmly in place before
bracing his foot on the crossbar again and hoisting himself up so he could see
her.

She was still frowning, but there was a determined tilt to her
chin now.

“I didn’t— Your wires weren’t crossed. Me pulling away like
that wasn’t about you.”

He nodded, even though he didn’t really understand what she was
getting at. “Okay.”

She stared at him, her expression troubled. He waited for her
to say more but she made a helpless gesture with one hand.

“I guess I’m pretty rusty with this stuff, too.”

“Good to know I’m not alone. Gives me hope.”

“Yes. There’s always comfort in numbers, isn’t there?”

They both fell silent. Against his will, his gaze shifted from
her upturned face to the shadowy neckline of her pajama top. He hadn’t noticed
before, but his vantage point gave him a perfect view of her cleavage.

Maybe it was just him, but it seemed like a really bad time to
register that she wasn’t wearing a bra under all that yellow flannel.

“I should go,” he said abruptly, dragging his gaze to her
face.

“Okay.”

For the second time he raised a hand in farewell before
dropping to the ground. He mouthed a curse as he made his way to the house. He
had no idea what their conversation had been about, apart from the fact that
he’d apologized and she’d accepted. But he now knew that Mackenzie had the
tiniest of freckles on the upper curve of her right breast and that her skin
looked smoother than velvet.

You are officially beyond help. You know
that, right?

He was. Only last night he’d spent an hour staring at the
ceiling, regretting the stupid impulse that had led him to kiss Mackenzie, and
yet here he was, eyeing her cleavage even as she let him off the hook for his
unwelcome advance.

Shaking his head at himself, he went to make breakfast. Maybe
food would bring his brain back online.

He flicked the radio on when he entered the kitchen, listening
to a morning talk show as he put eggs on to boil. He was slotting two pieces of
bread into the toaster when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen and went
still. Last night, Edie had caught him off guard because he hadn’t recognized
the number she was calling from. Not so this morning. He let his breath out in a
rush before taking the call. Might as well get it over with, since she’d only
try again later if he didn’t answer this time.

“Edie.”

“Hi. Sorry to call so early. I didn’t wake you, did I?” She
sounded guilty and nervous. As she had last night.

“I’m awake. What’s the problem?”

“I’m at the house, but I can’t find that file you were talking
about. I’ve looked through both drawers in the filing cabinet.”

“It’s in the top drawer. Right at the back. Marked
Insurance.”

“I looked. It’s not there.”

He sighed. Edie was a self-styled incompetent when it came to
business matters and he’d taken care of all the administrative aspects of their
life together—the mortgage, the bills, any residual band business. He hadn’t
minded doing it, but he wasn’t about to pander to her laziness now.

“Then I guess you’ll have to look again.”

It was her turn to sigh. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet
he almost didn’t hear her.

“For what it’s worth, I miss you. I miss us. I miss Strudel and
going to the bake house on Saturdays for bagels and lattes. I miss listening to
you play your guitar.”

The element in the toaster glowed red. Without thinking about
it, he reached out and held his hand over the slots, absorbing the heat.

“Do you miss the lying?” It was a genuine question, but he was
a little surprised to hear the lack of rancor in his own voice. He hoped it was
a sign that her power to hurt and anger him was fading.

“You think I enjoyed that?” She sounded wounded.

“Part of you must have, Edie.”

She’d kept it up for nearly six years, after all.

“I hated lying to you. I hated myself for it. Every time I
promised myself it would be the last.”

The toast popped up, golden-brown.

“Tell me something. Do you love him?” he asked.

There was the smallest of hesitations. He braced himself for
more excuses and prevarications.

“Yes.”

Honesty. A refreshing change.

“Did you ever love me?”

“Of course, Ollie. Always. How can you doubt that?”

He made a rude noise. It was a stupid question and she was
smart enough to know it.

“If I’d never met Nick, if he and I didn’t have this...
thing
between us, you would have been it for me,
Ollie. If it’s any consolation to you, I know I’m going to regret losing you.”
She made a sound that could have been a self-deprecating laugh. “Hell, I already
do. This thing with Nick...I know it won’t last. It’s too damaged. And I know
I’ll never meet anyone like you again.”

She sounded sad and broken, but he didn’t have room in his
heart to feel any sympathy for her. She’d destroyed six years of his life. He
was working on moving past it, but he knew he’d never forgive her. She’d abused
his trust too comprehensively.

His toast was going to be cold.

“I need to go,” he said.

“Okay. If I need anything else, is it okay if I call?”

He didn’t need to think about his answer. “No.”

He wanted to put all this behind him. No way was he going to
let her keep dragging him backward.

“Okay.”

He hung up. The toast was hard, utterly unappetizing, and he
pulled it out of the toaster and walked to the back door. He flung it outside
for the birds, then toasted two fresh slices that he slathered with butter and
Vegemite then sat at the kitchen table.

He felt...calm. Not angry. Not resentful. Certainly not
wounded.

What a freaking relief.

It was startling after carrying around that solid burden of
righteous emotions. He’d become so accustomed to their weight, to the way they
alternately motivated him and depressed the hell out of him. This...this felt
more normal. More like the Oliver he recognized.

At the same time, this calmness seemed too new and—dare he say
it?—too temporary. He decided not to examine the situation too closely lest he
jinx himself and welcome back the anger.

He was rinsing his plate at the sink when he heard the scrape
of metal on concrete. Curious, he walked into the living room to look out the
side window. Dressed in her workout gear, Mackenzie was clearing the gravel from
the paved area in front of her house.

As she transferred a load to the wheelbarrow she’d positioned
nearby, he remembered the nasty job it had been cleaning up this place—and he
hadn’t been flooded the way she had. He’d ached for two days after—shoveling
gravel was hard work. It had taken her days to recover from their late-night
battle with the water, and he could only imagine how exhausted she’d be today
after hours of spadework.

“Stubborn idiot.”

He knew her well enough now to know she would have convinced
herself she could handle it. It would be a point of pride for her, a way of
proving something to herself.

Not your problem.

It wasn’t. He had more than his fair share of work to tackle on
this side of the fence. The kitchen was only half-sorted, and there were still
various cupboards, the attic and the rear shed to clear out.

The scrape of metal set his teeth on edge as Mackenzie hefted
another shovelful. He watched as she tipped it into the wheelbarrow then paused
to wipe her forehead and survey the remaining gravel. After a few seconds, she
squared her shoulders and set to it again, the plucky little engine that
could.

He shook his head, annoyed with himself and her. She wasn’t his
responsibility. Far from it. Yet there was no way he was going to be able to
listen to her toiling away, potentially exhausting herself, without doing
something to help.

Which probably made him a misguided sap of the worst order.

So be it.

More than a little bemused at himself, he went to change into
his work clothes.

CHAPTER NINE

M
ACKENZIE
DUMPED
a shovelful of
gravel into the wheelbarrow, enjoying the feeling of using her muscles for
something real instead of a series of pointless exercises on her gym equipment.
It felt good to be outside, accomplishing something, instead of floating around
aimlessly inside her house and her own head. Ever since she’d learned via
Patrick that her job was history she’d been living in a sort of holding pattern,
allowing herself a chance to regroup without the pressure of expectation.

There was only so much regrouping she could tolerate, however.
She wasn’t used to floating around. She was used to setting goals and going for
them, hell for leather. The problem was, several days of allowing herself
downtime hadn’t teased a new goal or direction out of her subconscious. She
still had no idea what to do now that she’d reconciled herself to the fact that
high-pressure, long working weeks were not a realistic possibility for her
anymore.

Hence the shovel and the gravel. The storm damage needed
clearing, and even though it was something she could easily pay a handyman from
the village to do, it was also something she could tackle herself, and she damn
well would.

It didn’t hurt that it was also a great distraction from the
deeply uncomfortable, awkward conversation she’d had with Oliver. She’d
embarrassed both of them last night, and while she’d tried to explain to him
this morning that her rejection had been more about her than him, she was aware
that she’d been woefully inarticulate. It would serve her right if he avoided
her like the plague for the rest of his time in Flinders.

It was an unpleasant thought and she pushed it away,
concentrating on heaving her latest shovelful into the wheelbarrow. She assessed
the growing pile of gravel. The wheelbarrow was half-f, and she was conscious
that if she made it too heavy she’d struggle to push it up the driveway. She set
down her shovel and tried the handles. Not too bad. Another few shovelfuls
wouldn’t hurt.

The sound of footsteps made her glance up. Oliver appeared
around the curve in her driveway, dressed in faded jeans and a long-sleeved
T-shirt, a shovel balanced on one shoulder.

She was momentarily arrested by the sight he presented. Then
her brain kicked in.

“No,” she said, holding up a hand to halt his progress. “It’s a
lovely offer, but I couldn’t possibly let you do that.”

His gaze swept over her body and she was suddenly acutely aware
of the fact that there were half-moons of sweat beneath her arms and a damp
patch between her breasts.

“There’s no way you can do this on your own without falling in
a heap.”

She blinked at his bluntness. “Wow. Pull your punches, why
don’t you?”

“Just stating the truth.”

“I was planning on doing it in stages, if you must know. A bit
today, a bit tomorrow and so on. The water-on-a-rock approach.”

“So I’ll help, and you’ll get it done faster.” He shrugged.

She breathed in through her nose, reminding herself that he was
being sweet and generous and thoughtful—as well as presumptuous, bossy and
overbearing. More importantly, he was here, talking to her, engaging with her,
when common sense said, after the awkwardness of last night, he should be giving
her a wide berth.

“You do know I’m not your responsibility, right?” she said.

“Okay. If you want me to go, I will. If you want to move all
this on your own—” his hand swept in an arc over her messy,
flotsam-and-jetsam-strewn concrete pad “—far be it from me to stand in the
way.”

He waited for her to respond, his hand resting on top of the
long handle of his shovel, a challenging glint in his eye.

“Who in their right mind would want to do this all on their
own?” And she was in her right mind—most of the time. “But I can’t keep
accepting favors from you.”

“I’m sure we can think of some way you can pay me back.”

He wore his poker face, his tone utterly neutral, but there was
no getting away from the suggestiveness of his words. As if he could read her
mind, he cocked an eyebrow.

“You could pay me in lemon tarts, for example.”

“I could. Or I could barter my labor for yours. There must be
something I can help you with on your side of the fence.”

The tart would be easier, but she’d always feel as though she’d
taken the easy option, and that simply wasn’t her way.

“Good God, yes. There’s still a ton of old clothes, the crawl
space in the roof, the back shed...”

“Done. I’ll match you hour for hour,” she said, sticking her
hand out to shake on their bargain.

He eyed her hand for a moment before grasping it. His skin was
warm, his palm and fingers much bigger than hers.

“You drive a hard bargain, Williams.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m a real hard-ass,” she said drily.

They both knew he’d had her whipped the moment he appeared. As
she’d already noted, no one in her right mind would choose to take on the
thankless task of moving so much debris on her own.

He surveyed the work she’d already done and, without another
word, began shoveling gravel into the wheelbarrow.

“I was going to empty that, actually,” she said doubtfully.
“It’s getting really heavy.”

“That won’t be a problem, because you won’t be pushing it.”

“Won’t I?” She gave him a look.

“Nope.”

He didn’t cease shoveling the whole time. She toyed with the
idea of embarking on another tussle of wills with him, just for the fun of it,
then decided to save her energy. No doubt they’d find plenty of things to
disagree about as the day wore on.

Instead, she added her efforts to his, piling the barrow high.
Once it was full, he pushed it to the top of the driveway and upended the
load.

“We can rake it out later. Let’s concentrate on clearing the
area first,” he suggested as he returned.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” she said, giving him a salute.

He gave her a quizzical look. “Am I being too bossy?”

“Not yet. Skating close, but I’ll let you know when you get
there.”

“I can hardly wait.”

He smiled at her and the last of this morning’s awkwardness
evaporated as she found herself smiling in return. Maybe she hadn’t completely
ruined things between them with her scaredy-cat routine last night.

“Hey,” he said after a few minutes of working. “I heard
something on the radio this morning that will make you feel better. Apparently
some researchers have done a study and discovered that people who sit down all
day die younger. So you may have dodged a bullet when they gave your job
away.”

“Great. I’ll add that to my list of requirements for my job
search. ‘Must not be sedentary.’”

There must have been something in her tone because he threw her
a look. “Still beating yourself up on that one, huh?”

“Not beating myself up, as such, but I’m not feeling too
inspired at the moment. So maybe there is such a thing as having too many
options.” She was aware that he was working twice as fast as her.

Well, she was pacing herself. Contrary to his belief, she
wasn’t foolish or reckless with her well-being. She valued her hard-fought-for
stamina too much to blow it all in one day.

“What did you want to be when you were a kid?”

His question was so out of left field she stopped and stared at
him.

He grinned. “Sometimes when I’m having trouble with a song I go
back to the inspiration. Doesn’t get better than childish dreams.”

There was something incredibly appealing about the warmth in
his eyes. For the hundredth time she found herself wondering how any woman could
cheat on this man.

“I wanted to own a candy shop when I was a kid,” she said. “And
when I got a little older, I wanted to be a flight attendant.”

He laughed, clearly amused by the idea of her pushing a
food-service cart up the aisle. “You would totally suck at that.”

“No kidding.”

“So why did you choose TV?”

They’d filled the wheelbarrow again and she pondered his
question as he pushed it up the driveway and dumped the load.

“I saw this documentary when I was about to finish high
school—
Baraka.
It’s a nonnarrative feature, an
amazing journey around the planet exploring humanity and nature....” She
remembered the impact the film had on her when she’d first seen it.

“I think I saw that. Is there a scene with monkeys bathing in
hot springs in the mountains somewhere?”

“That’s the one. I was so inspired, I saw it nearly a dozen
times before embarking on the biggest documentary glom the world has ever seen.
Nature, current events, history, I was insatiable. I’d registered to study
business at university, but I changed my preferences at the last minute and took
film and media classes instead.”

“How did the high-achieving parents take that?”

She was surprised that he recalled her throwaway comment
regarding her parents. “They were worried. With good cause. As I discovered
after I graduated and started doing the rounds with a proposal for my passion
project—a documentary about Dr. Mary De Garis—there’s not a lot of money or
interest in documentaries. Especially ones about obscure pioneering feminists in
the medical field.” She pulled a face. “In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the
best put together proposal, either. A little too much idealism, not enough
commercialism.”

“So your dreams were crushed?”

“In a way. But I was so persistent, one of the producers I
tried to get interested in the project was impressed by my ‘formidable pestering
powers.’ That’s a direct quote, by the way.”

“Makes you wonder how he formed such a wrongheaded impression
of your personality.”

God, she truly appreciated this man’s wit. It was a challenge
to keep a straight face and stay on topic. “It does, doesn’t it? Anyway, he
offered me a job as a production assistant, and I was away.”

Oliver paused, leaning his shovel against the wheelbarrow. “So
deep inside the hard-nosed producer is a passionate documentary filmmaker?”

He grasped the bottom of his top and lifted it over his head,
revealing a black tank top underneath.

“Um, I wouldn’t say that,” she said, more than a little
distracted by the play of muscles in his arms and shoulders as he folded his
shirt neatly and draped it over the railing of the porch. “I’ve always enjoyed
the challenge of my work.”

“Not even a little itch to be behind the camera more
directly?”

The sun chose that moment to come out from behind a cloud,
gilding him in sunlight, and she lost the power of speech entirely. He had a
very, very good body. Shoulders to weep over, arms to sigh over, a chest that
made her fingers curl into her palms with the need to touch. Then there was his
fine ass and awesome thighs....

She was staring, and she suspected that her mouth was slightly
agape, too. Somehow she got a grip on her galloping, unruly libido and prodded
her brain into action.

He’d asked her a question. She needed to answer it—and then she
needed to check that she didn’t have drool on her chin.

“I don’t think so,” she said, a vague enough answer since she
couldn’t really remember his question.

“How you doing? You need to take a break?” he asked, his
concerned gaze scanning her face.

“No, no. I’m fine,” she said, even though she was uncomfortably
aware that she was suddenly very hot.

She waited until he’d turned away before fanning the front of
her top and rolling her eyes at herself. Honestly, anyone would think she’d
never seen a good-looking man up close before.

But it wasn’t only that Oliver was extensively easy on the
eyes. He was also
lovely,
pure and simple. Sweet and
funny and generous and smart. He remembered throwaway comments she’d made and
teased her and seemed genuinely interested in her and her life.

And you pushed him away last night when he
kissed you.

She muttered a four-letter word beneath her breath as she drove
the shovel into a pile of gravel. She didn’t have a long list of wholehearted
regrets in her life—the accident, moments during her marriage—but her knee-jerk
reaction last night was on its way to qualifying.

If only she’d been better prepared. If only she’d been more
conscious of where things had been going with her and Oliver...

But she hadn’t, and the moment was gone and she needed to move
on.

One of those concepts that definitely came under the heading
Easier Said Than Done.

As they toiled, no matter which way she turned, Oliver was in
her line of sight, either directly or peripherally. He was a hard worker, giving
the task his all, and soon he was gleaming with sweat. His tank top clung to the
planes of his chest, and his jeans slipped down his hips an inch or so. Every
now and then he stopped and wiped his brow with his forearm and she was treated
to a flash of hairy male armpit.

She wasn’t sure what planet she’d been living on, but never had
the differences between a man’s body and her own been so compelling. Her own
chest and underarms were smooth as silk, thanks to Mother Nature and the regular
attention of a razor, respectively. Oliver’s hairier, rougher body had her mind
and heart racing. She wanted to press her face to his chest and inhale the smell
of him. She wanted to wrap her hands around his big biceps. She wanted to lick
the point where his neck became his shoulder, right in the little hollow between
his collarbone and trapezius muscle. She wanted to slide her hand down his flat
belly and inside the waistband of his jeans. She wanted—

She gave herself a mental slap. She was out of control, like
one of those oversexed, humpy dogs that went to town on unsuspecting
houseguests. Next thing she knew, Oliver would be shaking his leg, trying to
remove her from his person.

“Maybe we should take a break,” she said, mostly out of
desperation. Energywise, she was holding up well, but mentally she was a mess. A
turned-on, confused, aroused mess.