Shirley Jump - A Forever Family - Falling For You

‘This one?’

Hal, lying on his side as he tackled an awkward connection, turned his head a little too quickly and nearly lost the assembly he was rebuilding.

Claire Thackeray, all legs in a pair of close-fitting jeans, was offering him a large wing nut.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped. ‘Anyone with half a brain cell can see that I need that one.’

‘Pardon me.’ She dropped the wing nut and bent to pick up the small nut he’d indicated, but instead of handing it to him, she closed her hand around it and straightened up. ‘Where is Archie?’ she asked.

Archie?

‘The nut?’ he prompted. It was taking a considerable amount of pressure to hold everything in place.

‘He’s not in his meadow.’

She was serious?

‘I don’t want another quad-bike incident.’

‘I shouldn’t have sent you that link,’ she said, ignoring the irritable clicking of his fingers. ‘What have you done with him, Hal?’

‘Give me that nut and I’ll tell you.’ She offered it between finger and thumb. ‘It may have escaped your notice,’ he said, through gritted teeth, ‘but I can’t let go of this.’

She took a step closer, close enough for him to smell the crushed grass on her boots, see the way her jeans stretched across her hips, clung to a backside his hand remembered.

‘Will you get down here?’

His voice felt as if it was wading through treacle.

She dropped to her knees and now he had the full impact of skin glowing from a brisk walk, wisps of cream-coloured hair escaping the clasp at her neck, huge grey eyes.

The wish-fairy come to life…

He closed his hand around the nut and discovered that her hand was shaking. Or was it his?

For a moment their gazes locked. It was his thumb, the one holding the spring assembly together, on the point of losing it, that reminded him what he was supposed to be doing. He took the nut, fastened it in place. ‘Pass me a spanner.’

She glanced at the row of tools and, wonder of wonders, selected the right one.

‘Now, hold this.’

‘It’s greasy,’ she objected.

‘Tough, it’s you or Gary and I don’t see Gary. What have you done with him?

‘I made the magic sign of the teacup. I had to talk to you, Hal.’

‘Nice try, Claire, but I don’t…’

‘No comment won’t cut it. This isn’t work.’

‘It’s not?’ She really was worried about that stupid donkey? ‘In that case we’re both playing hooky. I’m recapturing my boyhood, what’s your excuse?’

‘The usual. Rumour, drivel…’

‘Then it can wait until we’ve finished this.’ And he kept her there for half an hour, handing him parts as he worked on the bike.

A smear of grease appeared on her cheek, on her shirt. She gritted her teeth as her hand slipped and she knocked a knuckle, but didn’t complain. By the time they’d finished she was anticipating his next move and they were working smoothly as a team.

‘Anyone would think you’d done this before,’ he said, passing her a cloth to wipe her hands.

‘I may have taken my lawnmower to bits once or twice.’

‘You are full of surprises,’ he said, standing up, offering his hand to help her to her feet. ‘Shall we go and see if Gary managed to switch on the kettle?’ He glanced back at her as they crossed the courtyard. ‘I don’t suppose you brought that cake you keep threatening me with? Or have you been too busy earthing up your potatoes?’

‘Hal…’

‘Archie’s in the stables,’ he said, taking pity on her. ‘He’s been confined to barracks until the hedging contractor has made the meadow escape-proof.’

‘Oh.’

‘Why? What did you think I’d done with him?’

‘Nothing.’ She said it too quickly. ‘Just… One of my colleagues said something. Nothing.’

‘Hardly nothing if it had you racing up here to check up on him.’

She pulled a face. ‘Just a stupid throwaway remark.’ He waited. ‘It involved the phrase “cats’ meat.”’

He would have been affronted if she hadn’t been so obviously embarrassed. If she hadn’t been so desperately concerned.

‘I suppose I should be grateful that you bothered to check rather just starting a hue and cry with a story about a missing donkey.’

‘We’re not so short of stories at the Observer that we’re reduced to manufacturing them. I’ve been remarkably restrained.’

‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’

‘I haven’t written a word about being attacked by livestock running wild on a public footpath, my trashed bicycle, the cuts and bruises I sustained without so much as a penny-piece in compensation from the landowner. On the contrary, it was the landowner who demanded—’

‘Why not?’ he asked, cutting short her list of complaints.

Claire looked at the cloth, rubbed at a stubborn grease spot, grateful for the interruption. If she reminded Hal about the on-the-spot fine he’d levied, he might also recall how enthusiastically she’d paid up.

‘You know why not,’ she said. ‘He’s had enough bad press.’

‘That doesn’t explain why you’re going easy on me. Isn’t it your public duty to warn your fellow citizens about my wicked past?’

He was closer. Too close…

‘You haven’t mentioned the poaching,’ he pointed out. ‘Or the graffiti on Cranbrook’s factory walls, or the time I rode a motorcycle up the venerated steps of Cranbrook Hall and in through the front door. Why is that, Claire?’

‘You were a kid. I’m more interested in what you’re doing now.’ Which was the truth. This was a different world, they were different people… ‘Were you?’ she asked. ‘Wicked?’

His smile took her unawares and, as he caught her hand, the heat of it went straight to her knees, burning up her lips, firing the same melting ache between her thighs as his kiss…

‘Do you want to come inside and repeat that question?’ he offered.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ she managed, her voice remarkably steady considering the fact that the rest of her appeared to be slowly melting.

‘Good decision,’ he said.

Was it? Right now melting was deeply appealing. The thought of being touched by those oil-stained hands, being kissed, being wicked…

‘Did you really ride your motorbike through the front door of Cranbrook Hall?’ she asked.

‘You hadn’t heard about that?’ He seemed surprised.

‘No one ever talked to me.’ Oh, good grief, that sounded so pathetic. ‘Was that why Sir Robert banned you from the estate?’

‘It wasn’t Sir Robert who did that, Claire, it was your father.’ And his hand slid from hers, leaving her feeling oddly bereft.

‘My dad?’

‘Acting on Robert Cranbrook’s instructions I have no doubt, but he enjoyed delivering the message.’

‘I didn’t know.’ She swallowed. ‘Not that it matters,’ she added quickly. ‘I’m far more interested in how you progressed from estate tearaway to millionaire businessman.’

‘Are you?’ His doubt suggested, worryingly, that he knew exactly the effect he had on her. ‘Well, you’re the journalist, if a somewhat ineffectual one judging by your performance so far. You won’t get far in your chosen profession unless you toughen up, learn to be ruthless.’

‘Is that how you succeeded?’

‘There is no other way. The difference between us is that in your business it doesn’t matter who you hurt so long as you sell newspapers.’

She opened her mouth to protest. Closed it. Took a breath. ‘I told you, this has nothing to do with my job.’

‘A real journalist is never off duty, Claire.’

‘Then I guess I’m not a real journalist…’

There was moment of shocked silence as the reality of what she’d just said sank in.