She’d just mounted her bike when a pick-up truck reversed through the gates and began backing up towards the kitchen garden, forcing her to swerve.
‘Hey!’ she said. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
The driver stopped alongside her, grinned. ‘We’re doing some clearance work for Ben.’ Then, ‘You must be Ellie. Any chance of a cup of tea before we start?’
‘I couldn’t say. Why don’t you wake Ben and ask him?’
She didn’t wait for a reply, didn’t even know if Ben was home. She didn’t stop to find out. He’d organised the clearance squad, he could give them tea and biscuits. She rode on, ignoring the whistle of appreciation that followed her.
‘Moron,’ she muttered.
Was that where he’d gone yesterday after he’d dropped her? To organise some heavy labour? He really meant to go ahead with the herb garden?
All through an unusually long day, catching up with some of the people she’d missed the day before, after Ellie had convinced Sue she was fit enough to work, her head wouldn’t let it go.
She’d already decided not to continue the column after the six-month initial contract. She already felt bad enough about it. But telling Sue had somehow made it all much more real. Much more dangerous. Much less a triumph.
She still had three to write, however, and she’d already mentioned the overgrown herb garden. Restoring it would offer something less personal to write about, and finishing with the completed garden would round things off. Make a suitable ending.
By the time she got home, just after four, the pick-up had gone, and she went straight to the kitchen garden to see what they’d done. Ben was there, tending to the dying remains of a bonfire at one end of the plot. At the far end, hundreds of young plants in trays had been laid out, waiting to be planted.
‘When you make your mind up to do something, Doc,’ she said, feeling oddly defensive, ‘you don’t hang about, do you?’
‘Laura found me someone who could clear the ground quickly. And a nursery for the herbs.’
‘That’s where you were yesterday evening?’
She half expected him to ask her about the
Laura hadn’t told…
‘Sue missed you. She wanted to see if you lived up to your internet billing.’ Then, before he could comment, ‘You’re going to be busy.’
‘This was your idea, Ellie. I’m relying on you to pitch in and help.’
‘Me? I know nothing about gardening.’
‘Neither do I, but how hard can it be? You make a hole, drop in a plant.’
‘There’s got to be more to it than that.’
‘I suspect you’re right, but it’s a beginning. There’s something in the potting shed that might help.’
‘Alan Titchmarsh? Gift-wrapped?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Cuddly, good-looking, the country’s favourite television gardener?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Not the entire
‘Gift-wrapped is all I can offer. As for the rest, it’s just you and me,’ he said, sticking the fork he was holding into the ground.
The box lying on the bench in the potting shed was indeed gift-wrapped. It wasn’t very big, but the red bow more than made up for that. She tugged on the ribbon, lifted the lid to reveal the stainless steel trowel she’d been looking at on their first visit to the garden centre. She picked it up, felt the weight of it, the smoothness of the polished wooden handle. It was a fine tool.
The perfect gift.
The promise of partnership, of working together, being together. The promise of her future here, in his house.
She turned, knowing that he’d followed her, was standing in the doorway. ‘It’s beautiful, Ben. Thank you.’ And without actually meaning to, or knowing how it had happened, she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.
It was a spontaneous, over-in-a-second, thank-you kiss. No one could have mistaken it for anything else. But he’d caught her as she’d flung herself at him. His strong hands were holding her just above the waist, and as she drew back he didn’t let her go.
There was a streak of wood ash across his cheek, and she touched it, silky smooth against the stubble of his beard. Laid her hand against his cheek.
There was a stillness about him that seemed to spread to the air around them, and the world, a moment before filled with small noises-a blackbird pinking with annoyance at some disturbance, a car door banging, the steady humming of a lawnmower-was silent.
The only thing she could see was the small fan of lines that radiated from the corner of his eye. Not a smile, but the promise of one. The incredible blue of a gaze that seemed to see, to know everything that she was thinking. No, not thinking, feeling.
Take the balloon ride, Ellie…
The words seemed to come from inside her head, but it was Sean’s voice she heard, and her eyes were prickling with tears as she kissed Ben Faulkner again, not impulsively, not an over-in-a-second peck, but slowly, thoughtfully, in a lingering touch of her lips to his.
Someone sighed, it might have been her, and Ben drew her closer, wrapping her in the elemental scents of woodsmoke, clean sweat, hard physical work, deepening the kiss to something that had nothing of the boy-next- door about it, but with something raw and powerful that seeped through every part of her body, firing up damped- down desires, melting her bones, licking over her thighs so that her legs buckled, weak with need.
He caught her close as she dissolved against him, held her so that she could feel his own powerful response, while his other hand gently touched her cheek with dry, garden-roughened fingers, before sliding through her hair. He cradled her head in his palm as she responded to this purely physical raid on her senses, tightening her arms about his neck, opening up to the silk of his tongue, answering him with everything in her that was female, intuitive.
She dropped the trowel as he backed her against the bench, pushed up the T-shirt she was wearing, lowered his mouth to her navel, curling his tongue around the ring she wore there.
‘Ben!’
He looked up at her. ‘I’ve wanted to do that since the first moment I saw you.’
‘Oh.’ She felt a bit giddy. ‘Does it, um, live up to expectations?’
‘I’ll have to try it again to be sure…’
Yes! She was shivery, giddy, first warm, then cold, as his mouth trailed moist kisses over her belly, pushing her T-shirt further as he advanced on her breasts, sucked in a nipple over the thin lace of her bra.
She held in her breath as hot, urgent waves of pure pleasure spread in widening circles from the epicentre of his touch, stoking a hunger, firing a need so strong that it blocked out every thought, everything but this moment, now. Then he touched her, and she was flying, no hot air involved…
‘Ben…’ She murmured his name.
‘Ben.’
There was a sharper echo…
Or maybe not. The voice was not hers, and Ben had stilled. Without a word, he straightened, tugged her T-shirt back to respectability, never once taking his eyes off her.
‘Basic Gardening, Lesson One, Ellie,’ he said. ‘Always lock the potting shed door…’ Only then did he turn and say, ‘Hello, Natasha.’
CHAPTER TEN
