Joss Wood - If You Can't Stand the Heat...

‘And another wright,’ Jack added.

‘You’re just making that up,’ she grumbled.

‘I’m not. It’s one of the few four-word homophones.’ Jack’s grin flashed. ‘W.R.I.G.H.T. Someone who constructs or repairs things—as in a millwright.’

‘Homophones? Huh.’ Ellie heaved an exaggerated, forlorn sigh. ‘Good grief, I’m sharing my house with a swot. What did I do to deserve that?’

Jack laughed, delighted. ‘Life does throw challenges at one.’

After they’d finished collecting the papers Ellie sat down on the couch, rolling her head on her shoulders.

Jack sat on the low stone wall in front of her. ‘Tough day?’ he asked, conversationally.

Ellie slumped in the chair. ‘Very. How can you tell?’

Jack lifted his hands. ‘I heard you talking to your grandmother.’

‘And how much did you hear?’

‘You’re pissed, you’re stressed, something about having to move the bakery. You’ve had worse house guests than me.’

Even in the dim light he could see Ellie flush. ‘Sorry. Mitchell tends to use me as his own personal B&B... I didn’t mean to make you feel unwelcome.’

‘Am I?’

Ellie threw her hands up and sent him a miserable look. ‘You’re not. I’m more frustrated at Mitchell’s high-handedness than at the actual reality of a house guest, if that makes sense.’

Jack nodded, hearing the truth in her statement, and relaxed. ‘Mitch does have a very nebulous concept of the word no,’ he stated calmly.

‘And he’s had twenty-eight years to perfect the art of manipulating me,’ Ellie muttered. ‘Again, that’s not directed at you personally.’

Jack laughed. ‘I get it, Ellie. Relax. Talking about relaxing...’ Jack walked back into the house, found a wine rack and remembered that he’d seen a corkscrew in the middle drawer when he was looking for a bread knife earlier. He took the wine and two glasses back to the veranda. ‘If I ever saw a girl in need of the stress-relieving qualities of alcohol, it’s you.’

‘If I have any of that I’ll fall over,’ Ellie told him, covering a yawn with her hand.

‘A glass or two won’t hurt.’ Jack yanked the cork out, poured the Merlot and handed her a glass.

Ellie took the glass from him and took the first delicious sip. ‘Yum. I could drink this all night.’

‘Then it would definitely hurt when you wake up.’ After a moment’s silence, he succumbed to his curiosity. ‘Tell me what that conversation was about.’

Ellie cradled the glass in her hand and eyed Jack across the rim. Shirtless, and with bare feet, he was a delectable sight for sore eyes at the end of a hectic day. ‘You’re very nosy.’

‘I’m a journalist. It’s a job requirement. Talk.’

She wanted to object, to tell him he was bossy—which he was—but she didn’t. Couldn’t. She needed someone to offload on and maybe it would be easier to talk to a stranger who was leaving... When was he leaving? She asked him.

Jack grinned. ‘Not sure yet. Is it a problem if I stay for another night or two? I like your house,’ he added, and Ellie’s glass stopped halfway to her mouth.

‘You want to stay because you like my house? Uh...why?’

‘Well, apart from the fact that we haven’t yet talked about Mitch, it’s...restful.’ Jack lifted a bare muscled shoulder. ‘It shouldn’t be with such bright colours but it is. I like hearing the sea, the wind coming off the mountain. I like it.’

‘Thanks.’ Ellie took a sip of wine. It would be nice to know if he liked her as much as he liked her house, but since she’d only spent a couple of hours with him what could she expect? Ellie couldn’t believe she was even thinking about him like that. It was so high school—and she had bigger problems than thinking about boys and their nice bodies and whether they liked her back.

Jack topped up her wine glass and then his. He squinted at the label on the bottle. ‘This is a nice wine. Maybe I should go on a wine-tasting tour of the vineyards.’

‘That’s a St Sylve Merlot. My friend Luke owns the winery and his fiancée Jess does the advertising for the bakery.’

‘And we’re back full circle to your bakery. Talk.’ Jack boosted himself up so that he sat cross-legged on the stone wall, his back to a wooden beam.

His eyes rested on her face and they encouraged her to trust him, to let it out, to talk to him...

Damn, he was good at this.

Ellie’s smile was small and held a hint of pride. ‘Pari’s Perfect Cakes—’

‘Who was Pari, by the way?’ Jack interrupted her.

‘My grandmother. It was her bakery originally. It means “fairy” in India.’ Pain flashed in her eyes. ‘As you saw, Pari’s is a retail bakery and delicatessen, with a small coffee shop.’

‘It doesn’t look like a small operation. How do you manage it all?’

‘Well, that’s one of my problems. We have two shifts of bakers who make the bread and the high turnover items, and Merri, my best friend, used to do the specialised pastries. I do special function cakes. My mum did the books, stock and payroll and chivvied us along. It all worked brilliantly until recently.’

Jack held up his hand. ‘Wait—back up. Special function cakes? Like wedding cakes?’

‘Sure—but any type of cakes.’ Ellie picked up her mobile and quickly pressed some buttons. ‘Look.’

Jack put his glass of wine next to him on the wall and leaned forward to take the device. He flipped through the screens, looking at her designs.

‘These are amazing, Ellie.’

‘Thank you.’

He looked down at her mobile again. ‘I can’t believe that you made a cake that looks exactly like a crocodile leather shoe.’

‘Not any shoe—a Christian Louboutin shoe.’

Jack looked puzzled. ‘A what?’

‘Great designer of shoes?’ Ellie shook her head.

‘Sorry, I’m more of a trainers and boots kind of guy.’ Jack handed the mobile back to her. ‘So, what went wrong at the bakery?’

‘Not wrong, exactly. Merri had a baby and started her maternity leave. She told me yesterday that she’s extending it.’

‘She told you?’

Ellie heard the disbelief in Jack’s voice and quickly responded, ‘She asked...suggested...kind of.’

Jack frowned. ‘And you said yes?’

‘I didn’t have much of a choice. She doesn’t need to work and I didn’t want to push her into a corner and...’

‘And you couldn’t say no,’ Jack stated with a slight shake of his head.

‘And I suppose you’ve never said yes when you wanted to say no?’ Ellie demanded.

‘I can’t say that I’ve never done that. I generally say what I mean and I never let anyone push me around...’

‘She didn’t...’ Ellie started to protest but fell silent when she saw the challenging expression on Jack’s face. This wasn’t an argument she would win because—well, she did get pushed around. Sometimes. Would he understand if she told him that, as grown-up and confident as she now was, she still had intense periods of self-doubt? Would he think her an absolute drip because her habit reaction was to make sure everyone around her was happy? And if they were they would love her more?

‘What else?’ Jack asked, after taking a sip of wine.

Ellie swirled the wine in her glass. ‘My mother has taken a year’s sabbatical. She always had this dream to travel, so for her fiftieth birthday I gave her a year off. A grand gesture that I am deeply regretting now. But she’s in seventh heaven. She’s got a tattoo, has had at least one affair and has put dreadlocks in her hair.’

‘You sound more upset about the dreadlocks than the affair.’

Ellie shrugged. ‘I just want her home—back in the bakery. She managed the place, did the paperwork and the accounts, the payroll and just made the place run smoothly.’