fully furnished, as caretakers have come and gone prior to my purchase of the place. I’ve claimed one of the bedrooms for office space, but there are two more, as well as all the other necessary amenities.’
‘That will be fine. Dad checked with the agency and confirmed your character references. ’ She bit her lip.
‘It’s best to feel certain that you’re safe.’ Cam led the way to the outdoor-dining setting and indicated she should take her seat. It was a large table, with half a dozen wrought-iron chairs padded with cushions facing each other around it. Lally and Cam sat at one end.
‘Thank you; I appreciate that you understand.’ Lally’s gaze went to the covered food-dishes and settled on the silver coffee-pot. ‘If all that’s as good as it smells, I think I’m being very spoiled on my first morning at work.’
Cam shrugged, though her words had pleased him. ‘It took less than half an hour to put together. I cooked while I tried to brainstorm some more ideas for my story.’ ‘Tried’ being the operative word.
‘I’ll make sure I have a good breakfast ready for you each morning from now on.’ As Lally spoke the words, the noise level at the far end of the site increased as two of the workers began to throw tiles off the roof into a steel transport-bin below.
Lally tipped her head to one side and her big, brown eyes filled with good-natured awareness. ‘Has the noise been interfering with your writing?’
‘No. I can usually work through any amount of noise.’ He wished he could blame his lack of productivity on that. Cam didn’t know what to blame it on, or how to fix it, other than sticking at the writing until he got a breakthrough with this tricky character, and using Lally’s help to allow him to really hone his focus on that. ‘But they only actually started the work this morning. I’ve been here less than a week myself, and most of that time’s been spent organising a work crew, working with the site boss to get our orders in for materials, that sort of thing.’
Cam liked a good work challenge. He just wasn’t enjoying it quite as much as usual this time, thanks to his problems with the book. He’d always managed both aspects of his life—the property development and the writing—and kept both in order. He didn’t like feeling out of control at one end of the spectrum.
‘It’s good that noise isn’t a problem to you.’ Lally glanced around her, taking in the large pool that looked more like a duck pond at the moment. ‘Oh, look at the swimming pool. It’s a nice shape, isn’t it? A kind of curvy-edged, squished-in-the-middle rectangle. Very mellow.’ Her gaze moved around the large courtyard area, and encompassed the building that surrounded it in a U-shape on three sides, before returning to meet his eyes.
‘I can see why you wanted this place. It will be wonderful when the work is done.’ An expression that seemed to combine interest in her new job and a measure of banked-down hurt came over her face. ‘At least I’ll have plenty to do here while my family don’t need me.’ She drew a breath.
‘Ah—your family?’
‘I’ll be back in the thick of it with them straight after this.’ She rushed the words out as though maybe she needed to do so, to fully believe in them herself. ‘I help out in all sorts of ways.’
‘I’m lucky to have you to look after me for a while.’ It was true. His body was exhausted, pushed by even more hard work beyond the usual state of tolerable weariness induced by him being an insomniac-workaholic. ‘It’ll be nice to have someone to take care of some of the very ordinary everyday tasks.’
Heaven knew, he could afford to pay for the help; he’d just never sought it before. Doing the cooking and cleaning for himself burned up time, and time was something he usually had oodles of on his hands. He still had lots of time, but, thanks to a female character who simply refused to come to life on the page for him, that time wasn’t productive enough.
Cam lifted the coffee pot, glanced at the cup in front of Lally and raised his eyebrows in a silent question.
‘Yes please.’ The colour of her eyes changed from dark brown to clear sherry and a dimple broke out in her cheek. ‘I’m ready for my first dose of caffeine for the day.’
They sipped in silence for a moment. Cam let the rich brew hit the back of his throat and give his body a boost. He’d tried leaving coffee out of his diet for a while, hoping it might have a positive impact on his sleep issues, but it hadn’t made any difference.
Lally laced her fingers together in front of her on the table and looked about her again. ‘This property would make a great base for a character in your book.’
She cast a sheepish glance his way. ‘I bought the first book in your series yesterday after our interview. It said in the back that you sometimes use your development projects as settings for your stories.’
‘I hope you’re enjoying the read.’ It made Cam happy to know he was providing entertainment for readers, but Lally had said she didn’t usually read crime novels. ‘My kind of books aren’t to everyone’s taste.’
Lally said earnestly, ‘Oh, I finished it! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the series so far. The only thing that could have made the story better would have been a love interest for your hero.’ She clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry. What would I know about it?’
Cam gave a wry grimace. ‘The need for a love interest is an opinion shared by my editor and agent. I’m quite prepared to add her in, but I’m having trouble cracking her characterisation.
‘Let’s eat, anyway.’ Cam lifted the covers off the hot food and invited her to help herself. He’d prepared bacon, eggs, sausages and grilled tomatoes, and had added fresh bread-rolls from the small bakery two blocks away. ‘I hope there’s something here that’s to your taste, but if not I have cereal, fruit and yoghurt inside as well.’
‘This will be fine. Thank you.’ She helped herself to an egg, two grilled tomatoes and a warmed bread roll. ‘I’m truly sorry for what I said about your book. It’s none of my business.’ Lally still looked stricken. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that I wished there was a female counterpart in that book.’
Cam said gently, ‘It’s all right. My ego can take some constructive criticism of my work. Who knows? I might bounce some of my ideas off you. In fact, I’ll almost certainly ask you to help with research, as you know your way around a computer and the Internet.’ That was a bonus Cam hadn’t expected to get in his temporary housekeeper.
‘Ooh. Helping will be fun.’ Lally’s eyes gleamed. ‘I can look up all sorts of interesting things for you.’
Cam smiled. ‘Perhaps I should just be grateful that my editor and agent waited until my sixth book to talk to me about the need to include this new character.’
‘Yes. You escaped it until now.’ Her grin started in the depths of chocolate eyes, crinkled the skin at their corners and spread across her lips like sunshine.
Teasing; she was teasing him.
And Cam was enjoying being teased. A corresponding smile spread across his face and they stared at each other; the atmosphere changed and suddenly he was looking deep into her eyes and the humour was gone. His hand lifted towards her.
He dropped it back to his side. They broke eye contact at the same
