breakfast if it’s not too much trouble.’ He glanced out towards the road and shielded his eyes against the sun. ‘There’s been some traffic on the road this morning.’ He gave her one of his considering glances. ‘You might want to get dressed. No sense advertising wares that aren’t for sale.’ He smartly stepped out of reach before she could smack him and went back to work, calling over his shoulder, ‘Nothing fancy for breakfast, mind. I like my eggs scrambled.’
He was worried about her modesty when he was the one strutting about her yard half-naked? Oh, she’d scramble those eggs, all right, right after she added incorrigible to the list of Brennan Carr’s descriptors. It was a good thing he was irresistible because that was the only thing saving him from a hand across his face. That and the truth: it had been exciting to find him outside her window.
Patra crossed her arms over her chest in a belated bid for modesty. In the commotion of finding a man outside her window and the visual feeding frenzy of feasting on that man’s rather extraordinary physique, she’d forgotten her own; forgotten that she slept in a cotton night-rail that had been quite fine when she’d sewn it seventeen years ago for her trousseau. It had only got thinner over time. It hardly mattered, there was no one to see, but today there had been. She was suddenly conscious of the frayed hemming around the neck, the worn fabric. She was conscious, too, of what that thin material might have accidentally revealed, of how she must look with her tatty night-rail and sleep-tousled hair, hardly a paragon of beauty, much like her house. It had been a long time since it had been important to care about either. It had, in fact, been important to give the outward appearance of not caring.
Patra retreated into her bedroom, careful to take her clothes behind the screen to dress. She pulled on a loose blouse and a dark skirt and tied on an apron over them. It wasn’t that she didn’t pay attention to her appearance. She did. Just like the inside of her home was neat and well kept, her appearance was tidy and clean, too. She had not let herself go after Dimitri’s death, but she’d had different priorities. She wanted no one’s attentions and there were consequences for that. When there was no one to please, no one to appreciate efforts, those efforts simply stopped being made. She missed making those efforts. She’d liked being a wife. But it was one of many things she’d given up to make sure everyone around her was safe, a small price to pay for saving lives.
Patra picked her hairbrush up from the small table that served as her vanity and ran it through her hair. She reached for her hairpins and stopped. Usually, she pinned it up in a tight bun. It was severe but practical for working around the house. Maybe, just for today since she wasn’t going anywhere... Patra reached for a ribbon instead. It was dark blue and would hardly be noticeable in her brown hair. Should anyone happen by, no one could criticise her for being too girlish, for standing out and drawing attention.
In the kitchen, she took stock of her supplies. She’d clearly overslept and her morning chores had gone undone. The goats hadn’t been milked yet or the chickens seen to, but she had a few eggs left over from yesterday, some bread and half a pitcher of goat’s milk. It would be enough and the animals could wait a short while more.
Patra set about making breakfast, cracking eggs and putting a few pieces of bread on the grill over the fire for toasting, her chagrin over Brennan’s comments disappearing as she cooked. She liked to cook, it relaxed her, it centred her. To be honest, she had entertained thoughts of making Brennan’s eggs runny and burning the toast just to make a point about his ‘wants’, but food was hard to come by and while she enjoyed preparing food, it was time consuming—too time consuming not to do it right the first time. Besides, she had her pride. She could hardly have Brennan believing Katerina Stefanos was a better cook.
Not, of course, that it mattered what Brennan thought, she reminded herself as she laid the breakfast tray. She was not competing for him. Just because she decided to use a cloth napkin and had picked a blue ceramic plate to serve the eggs on because it brought out their rich yellow colouring, it didn’t mean anything. A Greek woman always took pride in her hospitality. It had nothing to do with a half-naked Englishman working in her yard. Perhaps it was simply time she started taking pride in the little things again. There was no harm in it. It had been four years, after all. Perhaps it had been enough time.
Those were perilous thoughts and it wasn’t the first time she’d entertained them since the moment Brennan had drawn her out on the dance floor. Each grin, each wink, each audacious touch of his, had her thinking she could risk a little more each time, that perhaps she was being overcautious without reason. It was hard to remember the darkness and the danger Castor Apollonius posed when Brennan smiled. Maybe just this once...
* * *
Brennan approached the little citrus grove on the edge of the property with its rough-hewn table and chairs, cautiously eyeing the tray Patra set down. Breakfast smelled good, damn good to a man who’d had little sleep and had worked most of the morning through on an empty stomach. He breathed in the morning aroma of toast and eggs. He loved breakfast. It was his favourite meal of the day, his favourite time of day. But he half-expected it to be a trick. He’d made her angry or embarrassed with his comments about her attire, or perhaps she’d been angry before that when she’d assumed he would want something in exchange for his efforts. She’d clearly seen his offer as a bid for what could be delicately termed ‘compensated companionship’.
She wasn’t entirely wrong. He did want something from her, but not that, at least not in that way. If sex followed, so be it. He wouldn’t say no, but the deal he wanted to offer her didn’t require it. It would be a long time coming before he had to negotiate for sex. Brennan pulled his shirt over his head before settling at the little table, aware that she watched him. He winked and sat down. ‘Disappointed? Do you prefer I keep it off?’
Patra laughed, which was what he’d hoped. ‘Hardly.’
He grinned over a forkful of eggs. ‘Well, don’t worry, it’s only temporary. I’ll take it off again later.’
‘Are you always like this?’ Patra spread butter on her own toast, a small smile tempting her mouth. She was enjoying this even if she wouldn’t admit it.
‘Mostly, but I like getting a rise out of you,’ Brennan answered boldly. ‘It makes you come alive, it makes your eyes light up.’ He watched her take in the words. They might be too personal for the brevity of their association, but they were no less true. He’d felt it last night when they’d danced, when they’d kissed, when they’d briefly quarrelled. He wondered when was the last time anyone had prompted such a response from her. ‘How long have you been out here alone?’ It was a delicate way of asking how long she’d been widowed without being too direct.
‘Twelve years this summer.’
Brennan did the maths. She’d been young, twenty-three at most when her husband had passed. They would have had no more than five years together if she’d married at eighteen or seventeen. It wasn’t likely she’d married any younger. That meant twelve years of trying to care for this place on her own. No wonder it looked a bit rough. There were a hundred questions he wanted to ask. What kind of man had her husband been? Young like herself? Older? Had he died of illness or natural causes? Disease? How devoted was she to his memory? Did she mean to spend the rest of her life devoted to it? But he knew before asking that those questions were entirely too personal. Instead, he said, ‘There’s a shed on the corner of the property. It looks like it was once used as a barn of sorts.’ Perhaps it would be easier for her to talk about the land.
‘Yes, the roof finally caved in last year and I haven’t repaired it. The goats have been living outside.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Brennan put in quickly. ‘It will only take a couple of days and that way the goats can get out of the olive grove. They’ll chew it to sticks if they don’t and that won’t
