Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 33474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 134(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 134(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
The guy looks from me to the hedge and back again. He mouths thanks. “Sorry for my implication before.”
I pick up the shovel and he moves on.
I shake my head and lift a shovelful; the wheelbarrow fills steadily. Five minutes, ten minutes. I’m still frowning. What a way to meet the neighbours . . .
A gleeful bark and before I even have a chance to look up a big ball of yellow fur bounds into me and my precariously heaped shovel. I stumble, jerking the shovel skyward and cringe a moment before the inevitable. Damp, crumbly manure-rich compost slips and slides onto my head and shoulders, clinging to the sweat on my exposed chest. I look down at myself, brain struggling to catch up.
Well-worn hiking boots skid to a stop on the footpath in front of me and the owner of the dog gasps, hands frantically chasing a trailing leash. “Are you okay? Can I help?” I shake off the worst of the compost and blink.
When I look up, my stomach flips, stealing away a moment of irritation. Such concerned sea-green eyes, and teeth worriedly teasing pink lips. I laugh and pull myself up. “Shit happens.”
He sucks in a smile and glares at the golden retriever now lazily headbutting his side. “Tool, what is it with you?”
A bark is met with a fond rub behind floppy ears, and curious eyes look my way. “Are you new to the street?”
I hold out my gloved hand, and then draw back my filth-covered fingers. “Jase.”
“Robin. I live a few curves down, seventeen. Come over for a beer sometime.”
“Let me shower, and I’ll take you up on that right now.”
He grins, and bloody hell.
It feels like magic.
Chapter Two
Monk Estate. The gardens are huge, and ordinarily I’d be captivated by them—their layout, the planting choices for all the different soil types and conditions, the seasonal growth patterns—but I’m distracted. I drift around, half-heartedly installing irrigation sprinklers, for the next week and a half. It’s so easy with Robin. He’d invited me over that first day and we’d hit it off, spent every other day together since. He’d even let my visiting brother tag along. And yesterday, the way his eyes lit up as he leaned over to me on the couch—
Water jets out of the sprinkler head, hitting me at the waist, and I lurch back.
“Get your head out your arse,” Boss Cole says, brushing a hand over his salt and pepper beard to hide his smirk. “What’s got you grinning like a love-struck puppy, anyway?”
I peel off my gloves and toss them at him, grinning as I catch him smack in the chest. “Oh, look at that. Day’s over. I gotta pick Scott up from my neighbour’s.”
Cole’s eyebrows waggle. “The one you’re mooning over?”
I wish I had another glove to toss. “Robin. He wasn’t working so he suggested the two of them hang out. That way I was free to slog it here on this hot Saturday with you. And quite the delight it was.”
He laughs, and it’s followed up with a wheeze. “Smart arse. I’ll pack up, you get out of here to your two boys.”
I leave him with a grin and boot it to my truck. I slide in and hightail out of there, and twenty minutes later I ease into a parking spot outside Robin’s house.
I wipe my face free of dirt and pluck my singlet from my chest to give it a sniff.
Could be worse.
I crack open the door and get out, flipping my keys over my finger after I lock up. As I move up the hydrangea-lined path, Tool the Golden Retriever looks up from his spot on the deck. My identity verified, he lowers his head and resumes his kip. This level of comfort is how far we’ve come in this short time.
I jump gleefully up the one-foot rise onto the wooden deck, and barely lift my hand to knock before the door swings in.
“The man himself. We were just talking about you.”
“Good stuff, I hope?”
“Just that you’re the best brother in the world.”
Robin grins, leaning on the doorjamb, ankles crossed. His baggy teal shorts stop just above his knees, showing off smooth tanned legs. His t-shirt is covered with pet fur, cat and dog. The fur is a regular feature of his outfits.
He brushes ineffectually at it. “My critters shed like you wouldn’t believe.” He pushes off the jamb and beckons me in with a tilt of his head. “Scott’s feeding Dusky.”
Dusky, a blue-tongued skink, is the most recent addition to Robin’s household—brought in to the SPCA with a broken leg. Robin was in charge of his care and I guess he just couldn’t bear to leave him. As comfy as they make the enclosures and as caring and dedicated as they all are there, for most of the animals it’s not a home. Quite a few end up here, when Robin has space. His heart’s too big for him to turn them away.