going for the sandwich, I promise,’ he said.
Maggie would have kicked herself if only her heel wasn’t already so sore. Instead she dug her fingernails into her palms as she willed her body to rock back on to flat feet.
‘I know. Of course. I’m—Sorry, I was startled because I was away with the fairies. Another occupational hazard.’ She stepped aside, leaving the way between the man and his food clear.
He moved, more slowly this time, picked up his meal and backed away as though he knew instinctively just how much space she needed in order to breathe. He bit off a quarter of the sandwich in one go. Then, after washing it down with a healthy slug of coffee, he leaned against the canted railing, shook his boyish fringe from his eyes and breathed out what sounded to Maggie like a sigh of contentment.
Envy of his every laid-back action arced around her as she tried to remember how long it had been since she’d done anything in contentment. The pile of half-finished canvases stacked against the wall in her great room reminded her that it had been months and months. Even since long before she had arrived in Portsea.
And then on that stinking hot day a week before, she had received a letter from her agent, Nina, asking when exactly she might have something new to show—read sell.
Maggie had sat curled up on a chair on her back veranda, playing with Smiley’s big soft ears and staring through the top of her backyard growth at the hazy horizon beyond, and it had occurred to her for the first time that day that she might never produce anything worthy of selling again. Her vibrant, abstract portraits with their distinctive lashing swathes of primary colours and movement and mirth might well be a thing of the past, for now all she seemed able to produce were nondescript, unintelligible smudges of blue.
Even the pressure of Nina’s letter, which hinted broadly at a parting of the ways if she didn’t produce and soon, hadn’t provided her with the stimulation she required, for out here it was physically impossible to build up a rich head of steam. Out here she needed something different to pull her out of her professional doldrums. Something special. She needed the possibility of a pure, unspoilt beach at the bottom of her cliff.
And for that she needed Tom Campbell. And his muscles. And his can do attitude. And his bright sunshiny contentment, no matter that it touched a raw nerve. That sounded like a plan.
She breathed in deep through her nose. ‘If you need any more coffee, help yourself,’ she said, backing up a step. ‘Ditto on the contents of my fridge.’
As Maggie headed up the stairs, she was caught in a delicious wave of hot aftershave, hot coffee and hot sunshine rolling in from the coast.
And somehow that very mix of scents only served to remind her how quickly a person’s best laid plans could unravel before their very eyes.
At the end of a long hot day grappling blackberries, lantana and what seemed like every other heinous weed known to man, Tom dusted himself off, collected his rags, tools and sweater and found his new employer in the corner of the great room, staring at her blue canvas with such concentration that he thought she might well find the answer to life, the universe and everything within its lumps and weaves.
His back muscles hurt. His forearms were scratched to hell. He was hot, filthy and lathered in sweat. Right then he’d gladly put life, the universe and everything on hold for the sake of a shower, a square meal and a cold beer.
As he neared, he saw that the red splatters from earlier had been cleared away. No, not cleared, but diffused into the blue, giving shade and depth where there had previously been none. He also realised that Maggie was humming.
Tom took another step, his boot-clad foot rolling heel, instep, toe, not yet ready to be discovered.
It was such a subtle sound it was more of a tuneful breath than a hum, but he was sure he recognised the song. Was it something classical? He was more of a classic rock fan himself, but he knew the tune. Or maybe he only recognised the feeling behind the husky, sonorous, faraway note threading from Maggie’s throat and curling itself out into the room like the thin tendrils of smoke from a torch singer’s cigarette.
Tom breathed it in, but it was too late before he realised his intake of breath was louder than her subdued singing.
Maggie turned from the hips, a skinny, dry paintbrush clenched between her teeth like a rose for a tango dancer.
‘I’m done for the day,’ he said, his right foot cocked guiltily.
She slid the paintbrush from between her teeth and blinked several times before he was entirely certain she remembered who he was and what he was doing there.
How’s that for gratitude? he thought, placing his right foot and his sensibilities firmly on the ground.
‘The backyard,’ he said by way of a reminder, ‘will take me over a week. Probably closer to two. And you were right about the chainsaw. We’ll also need a skip to dispose of the mess so the spores won’t bring it all back again by the end of the summer. My cousin Alex owns the hardware store in Rye, so I’ll talk to him tomorrow and then I can give you a formal quote.’
‘That’s fine,’ she said, her bare feet twisting until her legs caught up with her hips. ‘Go ahead. Take the two weeks. Order the equipment. Do whatever it takes.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to wait for my quote before deciding?’
‘Positive. If you think you can do it, I want to go ahead. But if you would prefer I pay you upfront, I can give you some cash now,’ she said, her gaze shifting to the edge of his face on the last couple of words. ‘I have enough. Plenty.’
She made a move to step off her drop cloth but then stopped just as her toes scrunched around the edge. Her eyes shifted again until she looked him in the eye, and out of nowhere her sharp edges softened until all he could think of was mussed hair and long lean lines and winsome entreaty.
Tom was infinitely glad in that moment that she hadn’t yet figured out that he was the man who couldn’t say no. If she asked him to work through the night he wondered whether he might just turn around and head back out to the scratchy leaves.
‘Oh no,’ she said, blushing madly. ‘I used the last of my cash on paint yesterday. Can I write you a cheque?’
‘A cheque will be fine,’ he said, his voice unusually gruff. He cleared his throat. ‘There’s no rush, though. You can hardly skip out on me. I know where you live.’
In order to ease some of the unexpected tension from the room, Tom winked and tried his charming smile on for size. But Maggie just blinked some more, those big grey eyes deep and unfathomable. If anything, she drew further inside herself, scrunching her toes into the grey sheet beneath her feet.
Tom had a sudden vision of Tess laughing herself silly at him—grinning and winking and flirting and making plans to wow the beguilingly aloof newcomer with his wit and charm—while the beguilingly aloof newcomer looked at him as if he was a piece of lint clogging what was surely a very nice view of the navel she so liked gazing at.
And Tess would have been in the right. The summer romance he had quite happily envisaged all morning wasn’t going to happen. For Maggie smelled of Sonia Rykiel. And he smelled of sweat. She was a city girl doing an abominable job of pretending to be a beach girl, and he was a beach boy trying his best to pretend he’d never had a life
