She was later today. It was almost twelve. He’d thought Henry Graham must have given up.
Jake pushed up from the chair, got a sudden thought as he did so and raced out into the garden centre.
‘Can I borrow these? Ta,’ he said to Lisa, plucking her secateurs from her hand and racing off towards the native section, madly casting his eye up and down the lane.
Lisa followed him, arms folded, a look on her face that said she knew exactly what he was doing.
‘This one, Romeo,’ she said.
Jake spun around to see where she was pointing.
‘That’ll do,’ he said.
‘That’ll do? That’ll do?’ Lisa scolded, ripping the secateurs from him and snipping off a long stem. ‘This is perfect.’
She handed it to him and he admired the single spun-silver-white spidery flower at the top of a long, strong woody stem. Automatically, he sniffed it.
‘It’s a grevillea, Jake, you dummy. You won’t smell much.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t give up your day job, hey?’
‘Hey, remember when you need a referee?’ Jake said.
Her brow creased. ‘I don’t need a referee.’
‘Yeah. You might. You know, when you want another job.’ He tipped his chin at her.
‘Aww, you won’t sack me,’ Lisa laughed at him. ‘You want a flower for your swimmer lady, you know who to ask. If you get mean with me, I’m not gonna tell you what it’s even called.’
Jake made a lunge for the pot at her back, looking for the plant’s label. Lisa backed in front of the silver-white shrub, blocking it with her body, and shook her finger at him. ‘Oh no, you don’t.’
Ella appeared through the door from plumbing, stepping into the garden centre. Over Lisa’s square shoulders, Jake saw Ella’s hair bobbing with her steps, heard the gritty grate of her heels on the loose scree bitumen and he fell a little bit more in love with his famous swimmer real estate saleslady all over again.
Lisa whispered, ‘It’s called Moonlight. If she asks.’
‘You can keep your job, Leese,’ Jake said.
‘Why, thank you, Romeo.’
Lisa stepped back to let him pass, arms crossed, cocky grin on her face, and Jake thought, not for the first time, there was a reason he’d do pretty much anything for his staff. They were a good crew.
* * *
Jake was striding between a double-row jungle of potted plants towards his office when Ella saw him, and her step hitched. Each darn day he took her breath away that little bit more.
They locked gazes a long way out, and Ella’s heart bounced: one deep soft bounce that felt like she’d landed in a valley in a featherbed and wasn’t coming back up.
‘Good morning, Ella. You’re late today. I thought Henry might have given up. Unless this is a social call?’
He held one of his hands behind his back.
Ella stopped walking—it was safer in these heels—and dug out the pages of Henry’s latest offer from her handbag. ‘Not a social call, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh.’ He stopped too. ‘In that case, I guess there’s not much point giving you this?’
A grin spread across Ella’s lips; she couldn’t help it, standing there with her hand tucked in her bag, papers half out of her handbag, and Jake in front of her with a beautiful grevillea. One of those big tubular Queensland varieties, she’d guess, so silver the flower was almost white. Or was that so white it was silver?
‘Swap you, shall I?’ She held out the papers and he took them, and at the same time he pressed the flower stem into her hand: scratchy, prickly, slender grey-green leaves all branching from it. Ella sniffed the huge white-silver bloom.
‘Not sure it has much of a scent,’ Jake said. He hadn’t so much as glanced at the page. He was too busy staring at her.
‘What’s it called?’
‘Grevillea Moonlight,’ Jake said.
Ella arched her eyebrows. ‘I’m impressed you know.’
‘You’re supposed to be.’ He opened his palm towards the entry to the administration wing, ushering her in. Ella stepped into the momentarily darker breezeway and turned left to where she now knew Jake’s office lay. He followed a step or so behind her and her awareness of him felt like some live thing: an invisible network through the pores in their skin.
She didn’t get as far as Jake’s office door.
‘Ella?’
His hand touched her shoulder and she was in his arms before he had any chance to tug her close. She had sense enough to whip the flower to the side before it got crushed, before her mouth opened, her face tilted and she got the taste—oh God, the taste—of Jake’s lips moving over hers. His hands in her hair. Being slow-danced through his door, like sliding on air.
She got a close-up view of his eyes, all midnight swimming pool, before they closed to eyelashes. Big hands sliding up, down, up the skin of her arm, finding her ribs, her waist. Heat everywhere, and no time for breathing, and if she’d had to take a breath, she’d have to steal one of his.
So she stole it. A gasp of air that tasted only of him, taken with the crown of her head tucked against the spot where Jake’s jaw met his ear. Her lips touched his throat and she licked him there, felt the jut of his collarbone and tasted warm salt.
‘This is crazy,’ Ella muttered, as she blew that stolen breath onto his skin where she’d licked him and made him shiver.
‘I know. It’s great crazy, though.’ He tilted her chin and started again, lips on hers, softer now.
Kissing her to her knees, just like yesterday.
Kissing her to her knees, like the day before that.
Knees. What was scratching her knee? Something is crawling on my knee!
‘Spider!’ Ella squealed, pushing at Jake’s chest, kicking her left leg at the same time as she slapped at herself. ‘Get it off.’
‘Ella? Shit, Ella. It’s me you’re kicking. Relax. What’s up?’
‘Something on my leg,’ she got out between clenched teeth, flailing at her knee.
‘It’s the flower I gave you,
