The Turnaround Treasure Shop (12 page)

‘Looks like we'll have to make another date to finish off the library inventory.'

‘That's okay, Nick. We can get to it next week.' She smiled at him as she read disappointment on his face. She also wondered if she spied a little romance in his eyes…

‘Want a lift home before I head to Ray's farm?'

She was reading
far
too much from very little. ‘No thanks. Think I'll pop in and see Charlotte.'

‘Maybe you'll still be here when I've finished at the farm.' He put his hand to the base of her spine again, almost like a goodbye caress, then left her and headed for his ute.

Lily went straight to the shop on the corner. While she was in town, she might as well take a look at her dream and she had a need for the usual type of imagery she conjured up — not the romantic kind that appeared to be getting her unravelled.

Ten minutes later, rituals and silent prayers done, Lily closed and locked the door of the corner shop, happy that everything inside was safe and sound.

She saw Sammy Granger coming out of the stock feeders'. Sammy stopped to have a brief word with Ted Tillman, the owner, then crossed Main Street heading for Kookaburra's.

‘Sammy! Wait up,' Lily called.

‘Hey, saw you earlier at the bus stop. Thought you must have gone home.' Sammy hugged Lily close. ‘Something happened?' she asked in a querying tone. ‘You look flushed.'

‘I'm excited!'

‘Well that's a first.' Sammy grinned.

Lily had no intention of telling Sammy the real reason for her apparently flushed face but it was fortuitous that her other good friend was also in town. ‘Oh, stop teasing. I mean it — something good has happened for the kids. I was just going in to tell Charlotte.'

‘Come on then, let's go find her because I can't wait to hear whatever it is you're going to tell us.' Sammy hooked her arm through Lily's and they entered Kookaburra's where they found Charlotte in the bar.

‘Mum rang yesterday, wanting the kids for the rest of the holidays,' Lily said, accepting a coffee from Charlotte and settling onto her bar stool. ‘I put them on the bus to Canberra just now.' Lily's excitement kind of rushed out of her. Mostly, she supposed from the dancing she'd been doing in the empty corner shop but also because of the thrill flowing through her from the romantic sensation she'd got from Nick. ‘They won't be back until Easter Monday.'

‘That's fantastic!' Charlotte clapped her hands. ‘Perfect timing too.'

‘Why?' Lily asked.

‘You'll have to give her Sunday off work,' Sammy said to Charlotte.

‘We fully intended to — just in case.'

‘What Sunday?' Lily asked, perplexed.

‘A week on Sunday. After the Easter Bunny Ball.'

‘I won't need a day off work.'

‘But you'll be exhausted,' Charlotte said. ‘The Ball doesn't finish until midnight. You don't want to have to get up at six the next morning in order to work.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because of all the dancing you'll be doing and the free champagne you'll be drinking,' Sammy chipped in. ‘And because of any —
situation
— you might find yourself in.'

‘Especially now you'll be child-free.'

‘I don't intend to drink myself into oblivion.'

‘That's not the kind of oblivion we're hoping for,' Charlotte said, looking at Sammy as though for confirmation.

Sammy nodded agreement. ‘More the dazed, dreamy kind.'

‘What
are
you both talking about?'

‘Love!' they pronounced at the same time.

‘Or at least sex,' Charlotte added.

‘I don't think we need to worry about her not being loved too, though,' Sammy said.

‘Hello!' Lily waved. ‘I'm in the room.'

‘Hello right back,' Sammy said. ‘We've been “in the room” with you for the last year, noticing things — like how guarded you get whenever Nick Barton walks into the restaurant.'

Lily gasped.

‘And how he keeps coming into the restaurant — to see you!' Charlotte leaned over the bar top towards Sammy. ‘You know, once, when Lily was ill with the flu, he came in for breakfast, discovered she wasn't there and walked right out.'

‘We've let this drag on too long, Charlotte. He had his hand on her back earlier, at the bus shelter. At the base of her spine!'

‘Oh my God, the protective hand-on-the-back routine? That seals it.'

‘He was practically whispering in her ear.'

‘Sweet nothings?' Charlotte asked.

‘No!' Lily declared. ‘He was talking about tractor parts.'

***

Exasperation, rain, and gravelly stones underfoot fuelled Lily's frustration at her friends' interference in a love life she didn't have. Her flat white pumps weren't much use on the track home. She hadn't been thinking — because she'd been driven in and out of town this week. She'd got used to being chauffeured around by an attractive man in the king of vehicles. Should have worn her walking boots and jeans. Instead, the skirt of her green cotton dress stuck to her bare legs as she walked.

She pulled her cardigan around her. Roll on Monday when she'd get the Orange Bullet and her independence back. She hadn't even brought her jacket!

A car horn sounded behind her and Lily moved to the verge.

‘Hi,' Nick said through the open passenger window. ‘Thought I might find you half-way home. Hop in.'

‘I'm wet.'

He leaned over and opened the passenger door. ‘And if you don't hop in, you'll be soaked.'

‘Thanks,' Lily said, trying not to feel relief and comfort as she sank into the leather seat. ‘How's the tractor?'

‘Fixed. No real issue after all.'

‘That's good.' The young man Ray employed was skilled and reasonably experienced, but Lily knew that her stepfather would have turned the Winnebago homeward if he'd heard of even the slightest problem with the farm. ‘Thanks,' she said again.

‘What for?'

‘Fixing the tractor. I bet you checked a lot more than the tractor while you were there, too.'

‘Took a look at the truck. While I was there.'

‘Thank you, Nick.'

‘Stop apologising, Lily.'

‘I wasn't! I was thanking you.'

‘There's an apology in every thank you.'

What did that mean
? ‘No there isn't.'

Nick looked her in the eye, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

Lily sighed. ‘All right, so it was an apology. I'm—' She bit her bottom lip.

‘Sorry,' Nick finished for her.

‘I'll be happy to get my car back. Then I won't have to thank you for chauffeuring me around.'

‘I like chauffeuring you around. Think of it as my input for the Support to Survive program.'

She felt affronted by that. ‘I'd have supported my own survival if I'd worn walking boots and jeans.' Lily didn't need supporting; she was doing fine on her own. More than fine.

‘Wasn't saying you couldn't.'

She shook her head, pulled a face but resisted saying, ‘Sorry.'

Nick simply laughed. ‘No arguing. Let's just enjoy the last of our road trips.'

‘A five minute car ride is a road trip?'

‘You bet. Let's live it.'

He bumped the vehicle over the verge and into the bushland that was Lily's back garden. ‘Hold on,' he told her. ‘We're taking a detour.'

Lily grabbed hold of the handrail above the passenger door as he put the ute into four-wheel-drive. She was a farm kid; she'd been driving since she was 12 years old. Her father had run a reasonably profitable piggery and market garden up until his death. Her mother had continued with equal success, with Lily's help, until financial disaster had hit the world and everything had gone pear-shaped. Lily could drive tractors, trucks and pretty much anything with wheels — but she hadn't done anything derring-do in a very long time.

‘If you really intend to drive up that hill,' she called out as excited pleasure — and a little terror — surged through her, ‘you're going to need to lock the diff.'

He laughed. ‘You let me worry about the diff. This is a workhorse.'

Lily nodded. And the man knew how to drive.

***

Nick smiled broadly when Lily let out another laughter-filled yelp. He'd made up his mind up at her stepfather's farm. This lady wouldn't feel comfortable having lunch with him. She needed a different kind of romancing and yeah, he was going to romance her. The second decision he'd made: Lily Johnson needed adventure and Nick Barton wanted to be the man who gave it to her.

He increased speed a little as he drove the ute up a steep, tussocky hill, swerving to avoid rocks and boulders and a few deep trenches that looked like they'd been there for a decade or more.

‘Looks like someone else has been using your land for off-road driving.'

‘Me,' she said, taking a firmer grip of the handrail as the ute rocked. ‘When I was younger. My dad taught me how to four-wheel drive.'

‘How long since you've done it?'

‘Too long!' she told him with a half-laugh, half-squeal as Nick turned the ute sharply at the top of the hill and drove along the ridge. ‘You can still see some of the deep tracks I made all those years ago.'

‘Ready?' he asked, aiming for the downward slope.

‘Watch out for the dip.' She pointed to a place where the land appeared to be compact and flat. ‘It's overgrown now, but there's a big depression just after the ridge.'

‘I see it.'

She squealed again as they plunged downhill, pleasure and laughter mingled in the sound, and Nick's heart swelled.

‘You're good!' she told him. ‘Although you're going a bit faster than I would.'

‘Years of speeding along in an insertion boat. Wanna drive?'

‘Maybe if I had my boots on.'

A few minutes later and the adventure was over. Nick parked at the front of her house. He pulled on the handbrake and turned to look at her.

‘Oh, God, that was good!' She swept her hands through her hair, pushing back loosened strands, her smile as wide as a barn door thrown open to the sunshine. ‘D'you think the Orange Bullet would still handle off-road?'

‘Is that what you call your car?'

She turned his way as she undid her seatbelt. ‘The kids'd
love
it!'

It ought not to, but every time she looked at him, whether nervous or happy, he felt like a commander and hero. Something inside him wanted to be all pillars of strength for her. Build her a fortress.

Excitement still sparkled in her eyes, her smile wide and contagious. Her pleasure overwhelmed him. And she smelled beautiful. Like fine powder and silk, softened by warm rain.

He took hold of her and pulled her into his arms the way he'd been longing to do for what felt like an eternity.

***

Lily's heart seemed to stop beating and start again with a jolt. Then her heart rate roared in her ears. All sounds around her swelled. Birdsong, the engine idling, the rainfall rustling the leaves on the gum trees, and the faraway drone of a tractor. She was being kissed! Firmly kissed.

Nick put more pressure on her mouth, willing her to follow. She parted her lips. Her kissing life had ended years ago and if she'd
ever
been kissed like this, she would have died from heartbreak for the loss.

He held her tightly, his grip as firm as his mouth. He kissed her as though she were a long-awaited prize.

Her hands rose, all by themselves, no brain-to-muscle instruction she was aware of, they just lifted until the palms of her hands were flat on his broad chest and Lily became engulfed in Nick's hot, masculine embrace. She was in the middle of a dream she didn't want to wake up from. A road trip she never wanted to stop.

She met his kiss with her own, and decided to put her insecurity aside, in case she wasn't kissed again for another decade.

When he pulled from her it was such a gentle move that for a few seconds the kiss lingered on Lily's mouth as though her lips were still locked to his. He looked long and deep into her eyes, as though he were drinking in all of her thoughts. ‘I've wanted to do that since I first met you,' he said steadily.

She could have had a kiss like that 12 months ago. Where had her brain been? She smiled through the dizzy, hazy pleasure wrapped around her. Passionate-Lily had been teased out of hesitating-Lily. Passionate-Lily hadn't had a man's touch in so long that the foolish woman wanted more.

‘And I want to do it again,' he said.

Lily swallowed, and blinked through the now returned awareness, strumming her insides like worrying, marching ants. ‘Why me?' she asked. The kiss had happened. She wasn't sure what was going to happen next. Best to be blatant.

He paused a moment, eyeing her with a slight frown. ‘Because you're beautiful. Everything you hold inside you, I can see it.'

See all the hesitancy when she was around him? Or see how much she'd loved that kiss — and his embrace.

‘I see the gentleness and the playfulness in you. You're an angel, Lily.
That's
why you.'

Lily peered into his eyes, waiting for the punchline.

‘You don't believe me.'

She'd been brave all by herself, without a man's touch, without a man's attention or even one tiny, weeny compliment for over a decade. Now she wasn't sure what to believe.

‘Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror?' he asked.

‘I don't have time.' What was she supposed to look for, other than to make sure her hair was secured, and that she didn't have glue or paint splashed on her face?

He smiled, and the look of warmth in his eyes deepened from friendship to headily romantic. ‘Well then, you'd better let me be the judge of what you reflect.'

She closed her eyes briefly. The brain-to-muscle thing had numbed her again. ‘I'm a bit unsure what this means.'