Jennie Adams – To Love and To Cherish (страница 2)

He gave her an odd look in return, but at least she had overcome her musings.

‘It is good to see you, Tiff.’ He reached out with one arm and hugged her against his side.

It was a friendly hug, if guarded. It didn’t matter that her head fitted against his shoulder perfectly, or that it felt like a kind of promise to be close to him like this.

That’s all in your imagination, Tiffany Campbell, and you cannot afford to be hurt again, nor to take a wrong step and lose the return of friendship he’s offered. So pull yourself together.

She wrapped her arm around his waist and briefly returned the hug, then forced herself to step away. There. See? She could do this. It just needed to be one step at a time. That was all.

Jack let go, too. Eyes narrowed, sooty black lashes concealing his expression, he searched the area around them. His voice was deep, husky, but the words were prosaic. ‘Where do you think the goat might be hiding?’

While Jack looked away from her she took the chance to study him. The jeans and lace-up boots were his usual fare for when he wasn’t at work in the city. The brown loose-fitting cotton shirt was not. He usually favoured fitted T-shirts. His hair was cropped shorter than she had ever seen it, too.

She hadn’t taken it in until this moment, but now she did, and noted something that was more than a change in appearance alone. Jack had altered somehow on the inside. Because of what had happened between them, or because his life had moved on in ways she hadn’t seen? She didn’t know, but she sensed it. ‘You seem different.’

‘No. I haven’t changed at all.’ His head whipped round and his gaze latched onto hers, demanding she believe him. One hand rose to touch a spot beneath his arm, and dropped away as quickly.

Then he forced a smile, let his eyes crinkle at the corners and gestured towards her attire. ‘I like that ensemble, though. It’s got a nice “bush walker with cork hat” feel to it.’

What was that all about? Not his joke, but what had preceded it?

Slowly, she pushed her hat back. ‘There are no corks hanging from this millinery masterpiece, and my shorts and hiking boots are sensible for this work.’

Both were boring as heck. But at least the T-shirt was pretty—bright pink and clingy, with little cap sleeves. Silly thoughts. She could be dressed in a wheat bag and it would make no difference, because Jack didn’t see her that way. And he didn’t really care how she looked right now, either. She would swear he wanted to distract her attention away from his own appearance—except that made no sense.

His gaze lifted to her face and lingered there before he spoke in a deliberately teasing tone. ‘You look like the same friend I missed all these months. Same knobbly knees and pointy chin and wild curly brown hair. Same freckles on your nose—’

‘You can’t see the hair. It’s hidden under my corkless hat.’ Had he truly missed her? His sporadic e-mails hadn’t given that impression. ‘And my knees aren’t knobbly. They have character.’

‘Knees with character. Yep, I can see that.’ He nodded, let his gaze glint with a teasing light that was so familiar and dear.

Her breath caught in her throat.

When she didn’t speak, Jack raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you work at Fred’s Fotos this morning? It’s one of your usual mornings, isn’t it?’ He watched her with a steady gaze. If any shadow lurked there now, he kept it well hidden.

‘I’m on holiday from Fred’s to look after the farm while Mum and Dad visit France and other parts of Europe. They went over to pick up a cheese award, and they’re having a bit of a break, as well.’

His brows rose. ‘You’re in charge of the farm while they’re gone? It’s a three-person operation with you helping out, as well, whenever you can. Have you got extra help? One of your brothers?’

‘I can handle it. I won’t disappoint Mum and Dad, and I don’t need Jed, Cain or Alex to help me.’ She never wanted to disappoint Colin and Sylvia. It wasn’t the same as striving to please a birth mother for whom she would never be enough.

Besides, she was over all that old stuff—the worry of trying to be good enough. It had only been on her mind a little in past months because of the upset with Jack. Everything had gone off-kilter for a while after that.

And there was nothing wrong with wanting to ensure that Colin and Sylvia would be proud of her. Any well-balanced offspring would want that.

Yeah? What about parents loving their children simply because they were their children?

Well, naturally Tiffany believed that, too. But this topic wasn’t even important right now. She forced her thoughts back to her discussion with Jack. ‘Anyway, Ron’s at the farm full time.’

The middle-aged worker provided all the help she required. ‘We made sure things were up to date before Mum and Dad left, and I can still make time to visit with you today. I’ll just catch up later.’

‘Let’s deal with this goat problem, then.’ He turned away, gave her a view of the back of his head, his strong neck and broad shoulders, and the way his ears sat close to his skull.

Jack was beautiful. She’d always known that, but over time she had come to feel it with her senses, too. Just staring into his eyes gave her shivers sometimes. Or if she looked at the way his mouth softened in kindness, or watched him interact with her brothers, her parents.

Tiffany had loved him since she was eight years old, and far more recently had started to fall maybe a little in love with him. Now she had to go back—to put those newer feelings behind her once and for all.

‘Um, yes, let’s get my goat rounded up. She’s over there, watching us from behind that clump of bushes.’ Tiffany pointed to Amalthea’s hiding place. ‘See the beady eye and the bit of white? That’s her.’

‘Your goat?’ He glanced towards the goat’s hiding place.

‘Yes. I bought her to be my personal pet. Her name is Amalthea.’ Tiffany watched the goat watch them, and thought about the many un-pet-like things Amalthea had done so far. ‘To date it’s been a rocky relationship.’

‘Amalthea?’ After a moment, he gave an almost reluctant smile. ‘Ah, yes. That’s the goat goddess who purportedly sustained Zeus with milk. I take it she acts like a goddess, too?’

Tiffany grimaced. ‘She has come across as somewhat goddessy at times. Yes.’

A sulphur-crested cockatoo flew out of the branches of a eucalypt tree. It would have made a good ‘In Flight’ picture, but Tiffany had no time to think about photography right now. She turned back to face Jack.

He began to inch quietly to the right. ‘You go left. We’ll encourage the goat towards the gate. The first one of us near enough can open it to let her through.’

It took a bit of running. Tiffany uttered more than one stifled curse, while Jack seemed to welcome the physical activity. Eventually they got Amalthea back where she should be.

They stood there then, Tiffany and Jack, in front of the gate, facing each other. His body formed a half-cradle for hers, blocked her in against the gate, and she wanted to close the distance between them and have more than a friendly hug.

Did he realise how close they were? What if he knew his closeness still affected her in a way he didn’t welcome?

‘You could stay for dinner. It’s nearly that time now.’ Only after she’d issued the invitation did her thoughts go back to the last time she had invited him to her cottage for a meal.

Heat climbed into her cheeks and she hurried on. ‘I’ve got Mexican rice left over in the fridge, or I could meet you somewhere else if you’d rather. You could invite your mother along, or we could just visit for a while now.’

‘Tiff.’ His hand closed over hers. Regret seemed to fill his eyes for a moment, before he let go and looked away. Then he straightened away from her completely, and she let out her breath in slow increments so he wouldn’t notice she’d been holding it.

Jack’s head tilted to the side. ‘There’s someone coming up the road towards your place.’

Tiffany heard only the pounding of her heart and the cacophony of regret and uncertainty. The sudden wail of a siren, when it came, made her jump. ‘That’s—it’s turned in at the farm gate. They must have run the siren to warn us they were here. It sounded like an ambulance.’

‘We need to see what’s wrong.’ Jack started to stride back towards the footbridge. ‘My Jeep’s parked behind the peppercorn trees. Let’s go.’

When she didn’t immediately follow, instead stood rooted to the spot as she tried to make it add up—ambulance, farm, someone hurt—Jack turned back. ‘You said it’s you and Ron. Would he still be here this late?’

‘It’s possible. He stayed to finish the hoof trimming so I could check the water troughs. We had some delays today that put us behind, and then I had to retrieve goats. I haven’t heard him drive away.’ She murmured the words, and as she did so injury scenarios began to play through her mind.

Quickly, she gathered the tools she’d used to try to fix the fence where the goats had got through, and hurried after Jack.

Once they were in his Jeep he swung the wheel and covered the distance to the farm gateway as quickly as possible. The Jeep barrelled up the lane.