were they—unbelievably—flirting? ‘I’ve just been walking through the gardens to assess the damage,’ she explained, her tone a little stilted. Her heart was beating just a little too hard.
‘So you’ll take the job.’
Now she actually laughed. ‘I suppose I should have said that first.’
‘Never mind. I’m glad you got right to it.’
Jacob looked so grave that Mollie’s tone turned stilted again. ‘Thank you. It’s an amazing opportunity.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He glanced around the enclosed garden. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.’
‘It’s the Children’s Garden.’
‘Is it?’ He continued looking around, as if he’d find a stray child hiding underneath one of the lilac bushes like some kind of fairy or elf.
‘I always thought there should be something more childlike about it,’ Mollie admitted ruefully. ‘Like toys.’
Jacob nodded in the direction of the fountain that reigned as the centre piece of the small space. ‘I suppose that’s where it gets its name from.’
‘You’re quick,’ Mollie said with a little laugh. ‘It took me years to suss that.’ She glanced at the fountain of three cherubic youths, each one reaching for a ball that had just rolled out of reach. It was dry and empty now, the basin filled with dead leaves.
‘Did you come here as a child?’ Jacob asked, and Mollie nodded.
‘My dad took me everywhere. I know these gardens like my own hand, or I did once.’ She gave a small, sad laugh. ‘To tell you the truth, it’s been years since I’ve walked through them properly.’ She lapsed into silence, and when Jacob did not respond, she cleared her throat and attempted to change the subject, at least somewhat. ‘When are you hoping to sell the manor?’ she asked, a bit diffidently, for she wasn’t even sure how she felt about the manor being sold. It had been Jacob Wolfe’s home, but it had encompassed hers as well.
‘By the end of the summer. I can’t stay here longer than that.’
‘Why not?’ She couldn’t keep the curiosity from her voice; she had no idea what Jacob did or had been doing with his life. Did he have a job? A home? A wife?
Mollie didn’t know why that last thought had popped into her head, or why it left her with a strange, restless sense of discontent. She shrugged the feeling away.
‘I have obligations,’ Jacob replied flatly. He obviously wasn’t going to say any more. ‘Why don’t you come back to the house? We can discuss whatever you need to begin your landscaping, and agree on terms.’
‘All right,’ Mollie agreed. She glanced down at the blank page of her notebook, and wondered just how much they would have to discuss. If Jacob wanted to hear her ideas, she didn’t have any yet. The sun was getting warmer as she followed Jacob back to the manor, and while she felt her own hair curl and frizz and sweat break out along her shoulders and back, she noticed a bit resentfully that Jacob looked utterly immaculate, as unruffled as stone, as cold as marble. Nothing affected him. Nothing touched him.
Was that why he’d been able to walk away? To leave his brothers and sister, his entire family, without so much as a backwards glance?
And what of his father? Mollie felt a chilly ripple of remembrance. She’d only been eight, but she remembered the furore of the press, the gossip of the village, when Jacob had been arrested for the murder of his father. In the end he’d been let off; everyone agreed it was self-defence. And William Wolfe had been a brute in any case. The entire village had rallied around Jacob, and there had never been any doubt that he’d been simply protecting himself and his sister. Yet walking behind Jacob, Mollie could not keep herself from thinking: he killed a man.
Almost as if he guessed the nature of her thoughts, Jacob paused on the threshold of the house, turning around to give her the flicker of a cool smile. ‘I realise that as we’re the only two living on the estate, you might feel, at times, vulnerable. I want to assure you that you are completely safe with me.’
Mollie flushed with shame at the nature of her own thoughts. They were utterly unworthy of either her or Jacob. She might be a bit angry at him, and bitter about all the lost years, but she was not at all afraid. In fact, there was something almost comforting about Jacob’s steady presence, and she realised that despite the fact he’d broken into her cottage last night, she did feel safe with him. Secure. The thought surprised her, even as she acknowledged the rightness of it.
‘Thank you for that reassurance,’ she said a bit pertly, desperate to lighten the mood even a little bit, ‘but it’s really not necessary. I know I’m safe.’
Something flickered in Jacob’s eyes, and his mouth twitched. She might feel safe with him, but Mollie knew she had no idea what he thought. Felt. He gave a brief nod and led the way inside.
Outside, the manor was covered in scaffolding, and inside, Mollie could see how much work was being done. The floor was draped with drop cloths, and ladders lay propped against different walls; nearly all the furniture was covered in dust sheets. From somewhere in the distance she heard the steady rhythm of a hammer.
‘You’re hard at work, I see,’ she said, parroting his words back at him, and was rewarded with a tiny smile, one corner of his mouth flicking gently upwards. It was, Mollie realised, the first time he’d smiled since she’d seen him, and it did something strange to her insides; she felt as if she’d just gulped too much fizzy soda and was filled with bubbles.
Then he turned away from her and she was left flat.
Uh-oh. She didn’t want to be feeling like that, didn’t want to have any kind of ephemeral, effervescent reaction to Jacob Wolfe. She knew what that kind of feeling signified, what it meant.
Attraction.
Desire.
No way. Jacob Wolfe was not a man to dally with. Yes, he might exude a steady presence, but that control had a ruthless, unyielding core. He’d walked away from his family and responsibilities without a single explanation, had remained silent for nineteen years, letting his siblings fear and think the worst. She could not, would not, allow herself to be attracted to him even for an instant, even if he was incredibly good-looking, even if she’d always thought he had the same perfectly sculpted look as the prince in her old book of fairy tales, except with dark hair and no smile.
Even when he was younger he hadn’t smiled much—at least, not that she could remember. He’d always seemed serious, preoccupied, as if the weight of the world rested on those boyish shoulders. Of all the Wolfe children, Jacob had fascinated her the most. Something in his eyes, in his beautiful, unsmiling face, had called out to her. Not that he’d ever noticed.
He turned back to her again, and she took in the clean, strong lines of his cheek and jaw. She smelled his aftershave, something understated and woodsy.
‘Right this way,’ Jacob murmured, and led her into what seemed to be the only room that remained untouched by the renovations. William Wolfe’s study.
Mollie gazed around the oak-panelled room with its huge partners’ desk and deep leather chairs and a memory flooded over with her such sudden, merciless detail that she
