The Turnaround Treasure Shop (11 page)

Would she even want to re-marry?

There was so much to consider beyond his attraction to the woman. His own marriage hadn't lasted long. A sham from the start. Based on physical attraction and nothing else. His wife had divorced him after three years during which time Nick had only been physically in-situ with her for about six difficult months where she nagged about his abrupt deployments, time away from home and pretty much made him feel like an also-ran. He'd been glad to agree to the separation when he and the boys had been sent to Iraq.

‘I don't have kids. Didn't get the chance,' he told Lily. ‘I've always been sorry about that.'

‘It's the one perfect thing I've done in my life.'

‘Can't be the only
two
perfect things,' he told her, reminding her there were two great kids in her life. ‘You're successful.'

She slapped a hand to her chest. ‘Me?'

Yeah, you
, Nick thought.
More than you know
. Although he wasn't sure if it was a case of her not knowing or a case of her denying herself — both the accolades and the finer things for herself.

‘I'm divorced, Nick. That's not a success story.'

‘You're not in any different a situation to many others. Sometimes marriages don't work.'

Nick had done his best to right the wrong of marrying a woman he didn't love but the struggle was over when she served divorce papers on him after he'd returned from Iraq. Relief had hit him fast. But the marriage debacle had also taught him he wasn't the marrying kind. Not then anyway, not with his type of career. And now?

He knew how he'd handle a marriage now, or rather, he had a fair idea of what he expected of himself within a marriage. If he was going to take a relationship anywhere with Lily, ‘anywhere' would have to lead to the full deal. Marriage. A lifetime. He wouldn't have it any other way. It wouldn't be fair on Lily to dip into her life now and then and he knew if he got a taste of her he'd want her forever, regardless of whatever settling-down worries were sitting in his gut. Surely he wouldn't love her and leave her? Not now. He'd been out of the Navy for over two years. He'd settled, hadn't he?

He turned to the boxes and began opening them. How could he chase Lily and ask her and her kids to become
his
impossible dream if he couldn't answer that important question?

***

Lily flipped a page in her notebook and jotted down the box numbers as Nick hefted more, slitting them open and then stacking them in number order against a wall. He carried two boxes at a time. He'd also just taken his jumper off which meant she was on the receiving end of an eye-full of Nick Barton in military-green cargo pants and black T-shirt.

She'd been right about the muscles. His T-shirt was packed with them. They spread across the breadth of his shoulders and down his back. The front view tantalised her starved senses even more. He owned one of those chests that made a woman — a single woman with an intent to take up knitting as soon as possible — want to lean against it. Run the palms of her hands up and over it. Lily thought herself tall at five-eight; Nick was almost a head taller. If she rested her cheek on a firm pectoral muscle in order to listen to his heartbeat, her face would nestle at that most perfect place. The place where protection lived.

Not that she needed protecting, or comforting come to that. But when a man put his arms around a woman with intent to safeguard, it meant the woman could also slip her arms around the man in her life and show
him
a little comfort — and maybe security too, if at times he needed it. A real partnership deal. Care and provide, love and protect. Together forever.

Heat filtered through her body and with it an awakening awareness that this was a small room and she was practically locked in it with a very attractive man. She moved to the window to undo the old-fashioned lock on the sash. It wouldn't open. It had been painted over at some point but she put her shoulder into trying to prise open the latch. It wasn't only the dust in the room that tickled her nose or the warmth in the closed atmosphere that heated her skin. She'd inhaled the sweet smell of discovery, like a cascading, summer-drenched shower of rain. She'd been transported into one of the kissing books and was living a moment of romance on a page with an extremely handsome, sensual—

‘Here. Let me.' Nick came up beside her and reached an arm over her shoulder.

Lily inhaled. He smelled of freshly washed clothes, the type hung out to dry on a washing line where the wind whipped mown-grass, eucalypt and morning freshness through them. She wondered what kissing that skin would be like.

Nick snapped the lock open and lifted the sash window, letting the autumn breeze flow into the room. Lily breathed in the cool air, hoping it would lower her temperature.

‘What was the first thing you did after discovering your marriage wasn't working?' Nick asked, as he moved back to the boxes at the other side of the room.

More intriguing than the substantial physique he possessed and the image of kisses that she couldn't shake from her mind, was the conversation they were having.

‘Um…' Lily took her focus off big work boots and long, sturdy legs anchored to firm, balanced hips. ‘I didn't do anything for a while. I had the kids…you know.' She wasn't asking him to understand why she hadn't left. Not many people would understand. ‘I think I closed down. Didn't go out much, didn't further any friendships — except when I had to because of the children.'

‘I sort of did the same thing,' he said. ‘After my divorce I shut myself off from relationships for a while. Even friendships.'

He was telling her things about himself. To further the unexpected friendship growing between them? Albeit a tentative growth. And…
What had he just said
? ‘You were married?'

He paused and smiled at her. ‘Does that surprise you?'

Lily shook her head. ‘No,' she said quickly. ‘Sorry. Of course not.'

‘My marriage didn't last long. Three years — and most of that time I was away. We weren't right for each other.'

‘Still — I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be.'

‘I guess it was hard, being in the Navy. Going away a lot.'

‘It was, a bit. It wasn't my ex-wife's fault that things didn't work out. Mostly mine.'

Lily desperately wanted to ask him if his failed marriage was one of the reason he'd come to Swallow's Fall, and obviously she wanted to know if he still held feelings for his ex-wife but that would be prying — and she wasn't sure where their friendship lay just yet.

She took her focus back to her notebook and pretended to review her list while her thoughts travelled. He did drive to Cooma and Canberra occasionally. Probably on knife-making business. Sometimes he went as far as Queensland apparently. He could meet a woman in any of those places. He might meet someone and start travelling back and forth, visiting her and growing a relationship. So it wasn't as though getting re-married was an impossibility for him. But if he got himself a fiancée from one of the bigger towns or cities, he'd be hard-pressed to get her to move to Swallow's Fall, population over the 100 mark but not by many. Unless he moved out of town.

Lily tried to erase the feeling that thought gave her. The town wouldn't be the same without Nick around. For some reason she couldn't figure —
she
wouldn't be the same without him around either. They'd grown into a friendship these last few days but somehow, she figured it was only a progression of the knowledge they both shared: they'd known each other for a year, and if she'd let him kiss her at the Easter Bunny Ball, their friendship might have gone places long before now.

A loud thump from the hall beyond the back-room library startled them both.

‘What the hell was that?' Nick said, heading for the door.

‘Stop faffing about and zip it!' Ted Tillman's voice held its usual disgruntled authority.

‘Dad — we told you — it's too small,' Jillian Tillman said.

‘You've put on too much weight, Dad,' her twin, Jessica, told him.

‘Blasted thing's shrunk in the wash. I told your mother not to meddle with it, but would she listen?'

‘Ted's out,' Nick said as he moved back from the door with a barely held-together grin. ‘And he's wearing a fluffy yellow—' He laughed, unable to finish his sentence.

Lily pulled her own grin into line as she caught sight of Ted, his daughters either side of him, attempting to get him into the bunny costume he'd been wearing for the Easter Ball for the last 10 years. ‘He gets agitated whenever there's a big fussy do coming up. He's been in the Town Hall every day this week, getting his party gear organised for the Ball.'

Nick stepped back from the door as though he didn't want to be seen and perhaps pulled into the fray.

Lily couldn't blame Nick for wanting to stay out of it. She knew well enough how persuasive Ted could be when he asked for assistance — demanded, more like — in his official position as Swallow's Fall Community Spirit committee chairman. He took the role seriously.

‘Let's give him a wide berth,' she said, starting to close the door to as Ted wriggled his torso in the bunny costume. ‘He's been trying to lose weight for ages.'

‘I know. He came for a run with Dan and me one day last week. Said he thought he might shape-up faster if he hung around with us.'

‘Oh, my God! How far did he get?'

‘Not far.'

Lily couldn't envisage Ted getting much farther than half way up the hill on the eastern side of town.

Nick leaned over her shoulder to look out the small gap between the door and the doorframe. ‘He's not actually going to be wearing that, is he?' he asked, nodding at Ted as his daughters tried to zip up the duck-yellow costume adorning his Easter-egg shaped body.

Was there such a thing as sensual claustrophobia? If so, Lily was in the middle of an attack. She was heady with Nick's male fragrance. ‘He wore it last year, don't you remember?' She pushed the door and gently closed it then turned to the desk, feeling a flush creep up her neck. She shouldn't have made reference to last year's Ball. Now they'd both be remembering…

‘Lily.' Nick's lowered, softened voice had Lily trembling. ‘Lily,' he said again.

She couldn't appear rude and ignore him a second time. She pressed the palms of her hands to her burning cheeks, and reluctantly turned to face him.

She met his gaze and immediately got sucked into it. A
zing
moment passed between them.

‘About the Ball,' he said.

Confusion stalled every thought in Lily's head except one. Was he going to ask her to go with him? ‘Are you going?' she asked first.

‘Yes. I'm going,' he said, his voice a deep, lingering caress. His eyes fixed on hers, as though he were tightening an invisible cord between them. ‘I've got some unfinished business I'd like to settle.'

Lily's eyes widened, and all too soon she envisioned herself and Nick finishing off some daring business at the Easter Bunny Ball. Business that definitely didn't include knit-one, pearl-one.

The next morning Lily stood in Main Street and watched the bus leave town, her heart torn by mixed emotions as her kids waved from the tinted back window. She'd dipped into her savings to give them spending money, but that was all right. A month or two more on the savings agenda for the lease of Turnaround Treasures wouldn't hurt. Getting the shop was at least two years away. She'd had the first seven months' lease saved, but nowhere near the first year's. She wasn't going to do anything about getting the shop until she had a full 12-month lease money saved. After she opened, her hopes were on making enough profit to see her through the following year's lease.

So many hopes, not enough dedicated backing of the financial variety. Still. Hope was good, wasn't it? Now she'd given two months' worth over to ereaders, higher internet usage, budgie cages and holidays in Sydney. Still…there was five months' worth of hope left in the Turnaround Treasure Shop Piggy Bank Fund.

She turned to find Nick, to thank him for running them all into town, even though the rain had only just started. The low clouds in the sky threatened a heavier shower though. He'd taken a call on his mobile just as the bus pulled out. He was nodding now. ‘No problem, I'll come right over. No — really. Let's get it done.' He snapped a button on the mobile phone and pocketed it as he turned to Lily.

‘I've been called out on a job.'

‘Something important?' She knew that Nick had recently become part of the volunteer firefighter service in the area. Something most of the able-bodied men in town — and those who were really too old to be hefting hoses — volunteered for.

‘Ray's young manager up at the farm has a problem with the wheel bearings on the tractor.'

‘Has he called Ray?'

Nick put a hand at the base of her spine and gently moved her to beneath the metal awning of the bus shelter as rain pattered on their shoulders.

‘Said he didn't want to bother Ray. Asked if I'd take a look first. From what he said, it sounds to me like it's the pivot pin and we don't want him driving an unsafe tractor.'

He paused, and studied her. ‘Are you all right?' He looked towards the northern end of town where the bus had now disappeared. ‘They're good kids and Andy has sense. The driver's watching out for them too.'

Lily sighed. ‘You're right. A woman I know from down south is on the bus too. She said she'd keep an eye on them.'

He leaned down, his face beside hers and whispered in her ear. ‘They'll be fine. Don't worry so much.'

The warmth of his breath punctured the bubble of worry and the confident tone in his voice soothed her concern about the children. Her heart seemed to swell.