It Was Only a Kiss - By Joss Wood Page 0,58

didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that at some point in the afternoon Luke had removed Kelly’s clothes. As for anything more than that—she couldn’t go there... Jess felt as if someone had shoved a red-hot poker in her stomach.

Luke followed her horrified stare and his muttered oath barely penetrated the roaring in her head. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’

Then the red mist cleared from her mind and she shook her head. This is Luke, she told herself, the man who says he doesn’t cheat, ever. He wouldn’t do that to her. She trusted him.

Seeing Luke’s thunderous glare, directed right at her, she knew she had to rescue the situation as quickly as she could. So she took a step forward and met Kelly at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Hi—it’s Kelly, isn’t it? Did you get caught in the storm?’

Kelly, who’d been looking rather nervous, sent her a smile. ‘I did. I was here to buy some wine. Luke, Owen and I were walking back from the cellar and we got caught in the rain.’

‘Hey, Jess!’

Owen’s voice drifted from the lounge and Jess briefly closed her eyes. Thank God she’d hadn’t gone nuts and accused Luke of cheating...

‘Luke lent me a pair of your running shorts. I hope you don’t mind.’ Kelly lifted up the edge of the rugby shirt and Jess saw her own shorts.

She told Kelly she didn’t mind at all and watched as Kelly walked back into the lounge.

Jess started to follow her, but Luke’s hand on her arm kept her in place. ‘You thought that I slept with Kelly,’ he hissed.

She thought about denying it but Luke would see right through her. She met his hard eyes and sighed. He was ticked...and he had a right to be. An apology was needed. Why did she keep putting herself in these positions?

She held up her hands. ‘Habit reaction...’ His expression didn’t change and she sighed. ‘Come on, Luke. I reacted, I realised I was wrong and then I tried to correct it. I’m sorry I doubted you but it really was for only a second.’

Luke narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Don’t do it again.’

Oh, well, this wasn’t the way she’d thought this evening was going to go. Jess sent him an uncertain look before realising that she still had the envelope in her hands. ‘Listen, I have news!’

Luke lifted his eyebrows. ‘You look like you’ve had an interesting day.’

‘I’ve had a great day,’ Jess said as they walked into the lounge. ‘I spent the day with Sbu. We finished the edit on the last advert.’

Luke frowned. ‘What advert? I thought there wasn’t anything you could use from the last shoot.’

‘There wasn’t, but I came up with something else.’ Jess pulled the disc from inside the newspaper and waved it. ‘Do you want to see it?’

Luke shrugged. ‘Sure. What’s in the envelope?’

Jess looked over at Owen and Kelly and thought that it wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with an audience.

‘I’ll tell you later.’ Jess walked over to the DVD player and inserted the disc. Flipping on the plasma screen, Jess walked back to stand next to Luke. ‘I think you’ll like this.’

* * *

He loved it.

He hated it.

He looked happy, he thought, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and he had been. It had been one of the nicest, most relaxed afternoons he could ever remember. The entire weekend had been a revelation; he’d laughed and kicked back, swallowed up by the warmth of the Sherwood clan. He wished that he could bank on the fact that there would be more of that type of family weekend, but that brought him back to the issue of permanence and commitment.

He’d noticed Jess and Clem filming that afternoon and into the evening, had thought it was just a video for the family archives. Jess had turned the footage into something special: gorgeous people in a gorgeous setting. It was an inspired move, Luke thought.

On film, Jess had captured all his hopes and dreams. There was John’s son, Kelby, filthy dirty from digging up worms in an empty flowerbed, and Clem, lying back on her elbows, relaxed and gorgeous in the late-afternoon sun. Him and her brothers, sitting on the lawn, trading insults and getting to know each other.

Then the last frames of the film appeared on screen. Someone had picked up the video camera and filmed Jess walking towards him on the lawn, wrapping her arms around his neck and boosting herself up