Sarah Bennett - Summer at Lavender Bay

His trip down memory lane ended abruptly when Eliza straightened up and graced him with a look likely to give him frostbite, even in the middle of the current heatwave. ‘Mr Gilbert took offence when I disturbed him at the farm earlier.’

There was enough of a trace of hurt in her voice to smack some sense into Jack, and he offered her his hand. ‘It’s Jack.’

‘The lad, I heard.’ The look she gave him said she knew exactly why her brother called him that. Jack rolled his shoulders; so he’d played the field a bit, what of it? He’d never been out with a woman who didn’t share the same expectations—and boundaries. Refusing to feel embarrassed when he’d done nothing wrong, Jack decided to skip over it. ‘Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I was in a foul mood, but that’s no excuse for being an arse. Can we start again?’

She eyed his hand warily for a moment before placing her palm against his. Her slender fingers seemed to disappear beneath his as they closed around them, adding to his early impression of her delicacy. ‘All right, then.’

Another customer hailed her, and Eliza made to step behind the bar, then froze to look back at him, then down. When Jack followed her gaze, he realised with a start that he was still holding onto her hand and dropped it with a mumbled apology. Jesus, he needed to get a grip. Or not as the case may be .

Finding his eyes straying towards where she was laughing over the bar at some comment from the man she was serving, Jack shook himself and turned his attention back to Sam. Now he knew the connection between them, it was obvious he and Eliza were related. Same sandy hair, same green eyes. He listened avidly as Sam described his plans to convert the old skittle alley beneath the pub into a high-end restaurant until eventually another customer drew him away.

Settling down on an empty stool, Jack snagged a copy of the local paper which sat folded on the bar next to him. A few minutes of browsing through the latest news, adverts and personal announcements got him halfway down his pint and feeling more relaxed. Bastian had drunk his fill from his bowl and flopped in an untidy heap with his head resting on one of Jack’s feet. His mind strayed back to the problem with the tractor—he’d checked and cleaned the connections and topped up the water in the radiator, but it shouldn’t have overheated the way it had. He would have to go over everything with a fine-toothed comb in the morning and see if he could pinpoint the fault.

A delicious waft of a rich, heady perfume caught his attention and he glanced up to find Eliza’s face an inch or two from his own, that sweet smile curling her mouth at the corners. ‘You don’t strike me as someone who’d be fascinated by the local bowls league.’

Jack frowned, and she tapped the newspaper in front of him. Lost in his thoughts over work, he’d been staring unseeing at a breathless article about the Lavender Bay bowls team’s nail-biting victory over their fiercest rivals from the next town over. His eyes lifted back up to find Eliza still leaning over the bar.

This close, her freckles stood out clearly against her milk-pale skin. The pretty mint-green dress she wore drew attention to the deeper green of her eyes. He tried not to think about touching the pad of his thumb to the dimple next to her rose-red lips. Rose-red lips? He’d clearly spent too long in the sun earlier and it’d cooked his brain. Shoving away the fanciful notions of her beauty, he cleared his throat. ‘Bowls isn’t really my thing. I was miles away.’

Eliza tilted her head, causing the wild curls of her hair to tumble over one shoulder, leaving the other one bare. Her motion drew his eyes lower to a scatter of darker freckles just below her collarbone. Their arrangement held him captive, reminding him of a constellation. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, as though if he stared long enough the pattern would reveal a secret about his future the way the stars spoke to astrologers. Bloody hell, the sun hadn’t just cooked his brain, it’d melted it into mush.

Knowing it had been too long since he’d spoken, Jack wet his lips. ‘I…I was thinking about my tractor.’ Smooth, mate .

She quirked an eyebrow at him, those pretty red lips pursing in amusement.

‘It broke down earlier, after we…ah, met.’ He scrubbed at the stubble on his chin wondering what the hell was wrong with him. He’d never been so tongue-tied in his life. ‘I decided it was probably karma catching up with me.’

Her laugh rippled through him like an electric current. Jack grabbed for his pint and drained most of what remained in the glass. Perhaps he should’ve just upended it over his head because he was acting like some stupid boy with a crush. Yes, he’d come to the pub with half a mind to meet a willing woman for a little fun, but Sam’s sister didn’t strike him as the kind of girl you fooled around with.

No time . No room for this, think about Noah . The reminder doused the embers of attraction before they had chance to do much more than smoulder. The poor kid didn’t know if he was coming or going as it was and needed all the stability Jack and his mum could give him. Introducing a woman into the mix would only cause further confusion to the already vulnerable boy—especially considering the way Noah’s own mother had behaved towards him. Apart from cards at Christmas and his birthday and the odd guilty present in the post, Lydia had remained resolutely absent from Noah’s life since he’d been a baby. Jack would cut his own arm off before he’d bring another woman into his life only to have her walk away when things didn’t work out.

Needing to draw a physical as well as mental line, Jack took a step backwards, disturbing Bastian in the process. The Labrador rose to his feet with a grumbling whine, but soon perked up when he noticed his new favourite person. Installing himself behind the bar, the dog nudged at Eliza’s hand until she began to stroke his ears. ‘Sebastian!’ Jack might as well be talking to himself for all the notice the bloody mutt took of him.

‘He’s all right,’ Eliza crooned. ‘Aren’t you, gorgeous?’

Feeling like whining himself, Jack drained the rest of his beer. ‘Well, I suppose we should be heading back.’

She glanced up at him, then over her shoulder at the clock on the wall. ‘It’s only just after eight, are you sure you don’t want another drink?’ Was she keen to get him to stay, or merely being a practical landlady with one eye on her profits? Either way, it was enough to make him hesitate. ‘Unless you need to go? I suppose you farmers have an early start.’

It would take him quarter of an hour to walk home—less if he was brisk. Even if he stayed for another drink he could still be back by nine. He was doing the school run tomorrow because his mum was heading into Truro to meet an old friend for coffee, so he’d planned to stay close to home doing chores—and trying to sort out the tractor now, of course. There would be hours for any alcohol to clear his system, but after Jason’s accident, Jack was paranoid about anything to do with driving. ‘I don’t have to rush off, but I’ll have a soft drink this time, please.’

‘Coke? Lemonade?’

Craning his neck to study the contents of the low fridge behind her, Jack shook his head. ‘Nothing too sweet…’

Eliza nudged a panting Bastian back to the public side of the bar with her knee, then washed her hands at the sink below the bar. ‘Hmm…we’ve got a nice tonic water with a hint of lime. It’s lovely and refreshing.’

‘Sounds great, thank you.’ Jack tried, and failed, not to notice the way the short skirt of her dress pulled tight around her curvy rear as Eliza bent to retrieve a glass bottle from the fridge. She added ice to a tall, slender glass, poured over half the water and placed it and the bottle on the mat in front of him. He fished a note out of his wallet and accepted the change with a smile. ‘Cheers.’ He took a mouthful and closed his eyes in appreciation at the bitter, fruity tang of his drink.