If You Can't Stand the Heat... (Harlequin Kiss) (11 page)

Jack hurried out of the room. ‘Girls squeal. Men...don’t. A rat nearly ran over my shoe! I hate rats!’

‘Well, you squeal like a girl, and I’d rather have rats than white ants,’ Ellie replied as they stepped into a massive hallway which was dominated by a two-storey-high ceiling and a thoroughly imposing staircase. Coloured sunshine from the stained glass inserts next to that imposing front door threw happy patterns onto the wooden floor.

‘Okay, this is amazing,’ Jack admitted.

‘It’s unbelievable,’ Ellie said, falling hard.

Nothing had prepared her for the immediate visceral connection she felt to this property. She walked to the bay window behind the staircase and looked out onto the wilderness beyond, with its overgrown shrubs and trees. She could easily imagine the rambling, once stunning gardens that surrounded the house, like carefully chosen accessories on a red-carpet dress. Ellie walked the area downstairs and quickly established that the place could, without a huge amount of construction, be adapted to house the bakery.

It just took imagination—and she had lots of that.

‘Why hasn’t someone converted it into a restaurant? A bed and breakfast? An art gallery?’ Jack asked when she rejoined him in the hall.

‘Many have tried. Many have failed. Mrs Hutchinson hasn’t ever been prepared to sell. She doesn’t need the money and this building was her childhood home.’ She shrugged at Jack’s enquiring face. ‘Basically, she’s bats. The town fruitcake. She’s refused offers—huge offers—for stupid reasons. Perceived lack of manners, not polishing your shoes. One man wore too much jewellery.’

‘She sounds bonkers,’ Jack said.

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Ellie said briskly, and tipped her head to look up at him. ‘Let’s finish with the breaking and entering. I could murder a drink.’

Jack followed her down the passage back to the side door, which he yanked open for her. ‘Technically, it was only entering. We didn’t break anything.’

‘Semantics,’ Ellie said as he pulled the door shut behind him and they headed back down the winding driveway to the road.

‘You really are a bit of a pansy, aren’t you?’ Jack leapt over the fence and jammed his hands in his pockets as he waited for her to climb back through the gate.

She was just straightening up when she heard a car approaching and slowing down. Ellie looked up and straight into the eyes of the driver, who was looking at her curiously.

‘Oh,
dammit
.’

Jack looked from her to the disappearing Toyota. ‘Problem?’

Ellie slapped the palm of her hand against her forehead. ‘That was Mrs Khumalo, the busiest of St James’s busybodies. Soon it will be all over town either that I am having secret trysts with a married man, or that I am buying the property, or that I’m joining a cult and this is going to be its headquarters.’

Jack laughed as she stomped down the road. ‘Cool. As the great Oscar Wilde said, “There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is
not
being talked about”.’

‘Grrr.’

* * *

They fell into an easy silence on their walk home from the pub, and Ellie enjoyed the fact that they could be quiet together, that neither of them felt the need to fill the space with empty words.

Jack took the keys from her hand and opened the front door for her, nudging the dogs out of the way with a gentle knee so that she could walk in first. In the hallway Ellie dropped her bag on the side table and placed her hands on her back, stretching while Jack examined the life-size nude painting of a blonde on a scarlet velvet couch on the opposite wall. She wore only her long hair and a waist-length string of pearls...and a very come-hither grin.

‘I can’t stop looking at this painting.’

Since it was a nude painting of a gorgeous woman, Ellie wasn’t surprised. Most men had the same reaction.

‘Who
is
that?’

‘My best friend Merri.’

Jack stepped up to the portrait and lightly touched the canvas with the back of his knuckle. ‘I meant the artist. The way he’s captured the blue veins in her pale skin, her inner glow... God, he’s amazing!’

Ellie felt a spurt of pure, unadulterated pleasure. ‘Thanks.’

Jack’s mouth fell open. ‘
You
painted this?’

‘Mmm. I studied Fine Art at uni and lived in London for a while, but I couldn’t support myself by selling my art so I came home and started work at the bakery.’

‘It’s brilliant. But you left out quite a bit between uni and coming back to Cape Town.’ He touched the frame with his fingertips. ‘And this is more than something you pass time with.’

Ellie felt the familiar stab, the longing to immerse herself in a big painting that sucked her into a different dimension. ‘It used to be my passion. It isn’t any more.’

‘Why not?’

‘I painted that just before I went to the UK. I’d finished uni and was going to conquer the world. I was so in love with art, painting, creating. I was...
infused
by art.’

Jack sat on the bottom stair and patted the space next to him. Ellie sat down and rested her arms on her knees, looking at Merri’s naughty smile.

‘Were you always arty?’

Ellie shrugged. ‘I think I started when I was about six. I remember the first time I fell into a drawing.’

‘Tell me.’

Ellie felt her voice catch. ‘Mitchell was home. He’d just come back from somewhere in Africa. He was working in his study—nothing strange there—and the door was open. He was reading aloud an article he’d written...he did that. He read all his articles aloud.’

‘He still does.’

‘It was a report on the genocide happening in Rwanda—Burundi—somewhere like that. The report was graphic, horrific...’ Ellie shuddered and felt Jack’s strong arm around her waist, his hand on her hip. This time there was nothing sexual about his touch. It was pure comfort. ‘Mitchell called it like he saw it: women, old people, children. Severed heads, limbs...’

‘I know, sweetheart. Skip that part. Tell me about the art.’ Jack rested his chin on her hair, shaken by the idea of a little girl hearing that. Damn Mitch and his stupidity. The man was a talented journalist, but as a father...useless.

‘I couldn’t get the pictures his words conjured out of my brain and the only thing I could think of to do was draw. Happy things—butterflies, princesses. I had nightmares for a while, and I’d wake up and hit my desk to paint or colour.’ Ellie sighed. ‘Mitchell could never censor himself. He had no conception of sensibility—that young kids didn’t need to know that sixteen Afghan rebels had been executed and their decapitated heads paraded through the streets as a warning and that he’d witnessed it. It drove my mother mad that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut in front of me.’

‘But you had your art?’

‘I did. He reported on brutality and war, violence, and I tried—still try—to counter that by producing beauty. It used to be through oils. Now it’s through cake and icing.’ Ellie shrugged and managed a smile.

Jack saw her staring at Merri’s portrait and caught the pain and sadness in her eyes. There was more to this story or he wasn’t a journalist. ‘Why did you give it up?’

‘Can we skip this part?’ Ellie asked with a wobble in her voice.

‘I’d really like to know.’ Jack lowered his voice, made it persuasive.

‘You ask me all these questions but you won’t talk about yourself,’ Ellie complained.

True.
‘I know. I’m sorry. But tell me anyway.’

‘Short story. He was the owner of an exclusive art gallery in Soho.’ Grigson’s, Jack remembered. The short blond from that photo in his room. ‘He offered me an exhibition, told me I was the next big thing. I fell deeply, chronically in love with him. I found out later that was his
modus operandi
. I wasn’t the first young artist he’d seduced into bed with that promise.’

Jack winced.

‘I was swept away by him. He dealt in beauty and objects of art. He was a social butterfly—had invitations to something every night of the week. But he never took me along to anything. Like my father, he dropped in and out of my life. I kept asking him about the exhibition, spending time with me, taking me along, but he kept fobbing me off.’

‘Bastard,’ Jack growled.

‘I told him that I wanted to break it off and he responded by proposing. I thought that meant that he’d change, but nothing did. I saw less of him than ever.’

‘So what precipitated the break-up?’ Jack briefly wondered why he was so interested in her past, why he felt the need to find the jerk and put him into a coma.

‘I told him that I was done with waiting around for him. He responded by telling me that I was a mediocre artist who’d never amount to anything. That he’d just wanted to sleep with me occasionally but I wasn’t worth the hassle...that it was, essentially, not worth my being around, him trying to keep me happy.’

Forget the coma. He now had the urge to put the guy six feet under. When Mitch had mentioned him he’d initially felt sorry for him, because he’d thought that she must have been pushing him into marriage, but he was the one who’d messed
her
around, messed her up. No wonder she tried so hard to be indispensable to the people she loved; she thought she had to try harder to be loved.

The two men she’d loved the most had hurt her, damaged her the most. God, the ways that love could mess up people. Just another reason why he wanted nothing to do with it...

‘Anybody since then?’ Jack asked, although he knew there hadn’t been.

‘No.’

Needing to move, to work off his anger, Jack jumped up and jogged up the stairs to inspect another painting. He placed his hands on his hips and looked around at the art covering the walls.

‘Good grief, Ellie, some of these paintings are utterly fantastic. I’m trying to work out which ones are yours, because not all of them are.’

‘Some are by fellow art students; others I’ve picked up along the way,’ Ellie said, pride streaking through her voice. ‘You like art?’

‘I love art. Sculpture. Architecture,’ Jack confirmed, quickly moving up the stairs to examine a seascape.

He placed a hand on his hip and winced at the movement. Ellie watched his body tense. His face was illuminated by the spotlight above his head. The violet shadows beneath his eyes were back and his face was pale beneath his slight tan.

Jack Chapman, she decided, had no concept of how to pace himself. He’d recently suffered a horrendous beating, had a nasty knife wound, and yet he’d spent the day sightseeing. She could see that he was exhausted and in pain, and she knew that he was one of those men who would carry on until he fell down.

He came across as easygoing and charming but there was a solid streak beneath the charm, a strength of character that people probably never saw beneath the good looks and air of success. His thought-processes were clear-headed and practical. While he’d challenged her decisions and her actions she didn’t feel as if he was judging
her
.

He’d coaxed her past out of her and he was a fabulous listener. He listened intently and knew when to back away from the subject to give the guts-spiller some time to compose themselves.

Ellie caught his slight wince as he walked back down the stairs and she shook her head at him. ‘For goodness’ sake—will you sit down before you fall down?’

Jack’s strong eyebrows pulled together. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Jack, you’re not fine. You’re exhausted and your body is protesting. Take a seat in the lounge, watch some TV. Do you want something to drink?’

Jack raked his hand through his hair. ‘Nothing, thanks. Mind if I veg out on the veranda for a while?’

‘Knock yourself out,’ Ellie said. ‘I’ll plate up the Chinese.’

‘Hey, El?’ Jack called.

Ellie poked her head around the kitchen door. ‘Yes?’

Jack rattled off an Arabic curse and Ellie wrinkled her nose. ‘Something...something donkey. Sorry...what?’

‘I just called your ex a bleeping-bleeping horse’s bleeping ass.’

Ellie laughed.
Nice, Jack.

* * *

After supper they headed back to the veranda and watched as dusk fell over the long coastline. Lights winked on as they sipped their red wine, sharing the couch with their bare feet up on the stone wall. Jack placed his arm along the back of the couch and Ellie felt his fingers in her hair. She turned to look at him but Jack was watching her hair slide between his fingers.

‘It’s so straight, so thick.’

Ellie felt his hands tug the band from her hair and felt the heavy drop as her hair cascaded down her back, could imagine it flowing over Jack’s broad hand. She heard his swift intake of breath, felt his fingers combing her hair.

‘I love the coloured streaks. They remind me of the flash of colour in a starling’s wing.’

There was that creative flair again—this time with words. And there was that sexual buzz again. Ellie licked her lips. ‘They’re not my real hair.’

‘Still pretty.’ Jack lifted a strand of her hair and because it was so long easily brought it to his nose. ‘Mmm...apple, lemon...flour.’

Ellie could not believe that she was so turned on by a man sniffing her hair. ‘Jack...’

His eyes deepened, flooded with gold. He drifted the ends of her hair over his lips before dropping it and sliding his big hand around her neck. ‘Yeah?’

Ellie dropped her eyes. ‘We weren’t going to do this, remember?’

‘Shh, nothing is going to happen,’ Jack said.

He dropped his arm behind her back, wrapped it around her waist and pulled her so that she was plastered against his hard body. Ellie swung around and rested her head against his chest, deeply conscious of his warm arm under her breasts.

‘Did you submit your piece on that Somalian pirate-slash-warlord?’ Ellie asked, to take her mind off the fact that she wanted to move his hands to more deserving areas of her body. Her breasts, the backs of her knees, between her legs.

‘Yes. I didn’t get as much information from him as I wanted to, but it was okay.’

‘Have you worked out what you said that set him off?’

She felt Jack shake his head. ‘Nah. I think he was high...and psychotic.’