The Other Side of Us - By Sarah Mayberry Page 0,11

desk. He had the kind of body women fantasized over—broad shoulders, deep chest, flat belly, tight, firm little backside...

He pushed his hair out of his eyes, then turned to say something to his dog. There was a smile lurking around his mouth. Both times she’d met him she’d had the sense that he was a man who laughed easily. One of those comfortable-in-his-own-skin men. She wondered idly if he was married. He seemed like a married man to her. Hard to put her finger on why, but she usually had good instincts about that sort of thing.

He glanced up, his gaze locking with hers across twenty meters of garden and fence. Feeling caught, she took an instinctive step backward, then realized retreating only made her look guilty and furtive. She forced herself to stand her ground and hold his gaze. After a beat, he broke the contact, refocusing on his work.

She escaped to the kitchen, feeling oddly rattled. She wondered how long he planned to hang around. She hoped it wouldn’t be for long. She didn’t have time for distractions.

The painkiller was starting to make the world go fuzzy at the edges, but it didn’t ease the panic left over from Gordon’s phone call. She returned to the living room and sat in the corner of the couch.

If she lost her job—

She clamped down on the thought. It wasn’t going to happen. She wouldn’t let it happen. That job was her life. No way was she letting it slip through her fingers.

* * *

OLIVER FIXED TWO of the holes in the fence before he’d exhausted the small stash of nails he’d had in his tool chest. He’d taken the precaution of packing it and a few power tools before he left Sydney, based on the assumption that Aunt Marion’s place might need a few hinges fixed. He hadn’t expected to be getting down and dirty on his first day.

There were still holes to patch, but he decided they could wait until tomorrow and packed his gear away for the night. He got takeout from the local Chinese restaurant and spent the evening staring into the fire he built, downing a six-pack of beer and feeling disconnected from the world in general. Since distancing himself from his old life had been the whole point of his trip, he figured he was off to a good start.

He woke to overcast skies and the realization that he should have turned on the water heater last night. An icy-cold shower left him shivering and pissy. He whistled for Strudel to get in the car then drove into town, wondering if he had a chance of getting the remaining holes in the fence repaired before it started to rain. Judging by the dark, moody-looking clouds overhead, probably not.

He spotted a small, soberly clad woman the moment he entered the hardware store. For a few seconds he thought it was his surly neighbor, then the woman turned and he saw she was much older than Mackenzie. Just as well. He wasn’t in the mood to be polite this morning. Not that Mackenzie seemed overly concerned about social niceties.

He remembered the look they’d shared across the fence yesterday as he trawled the shelves for nails. He’d felt her watching him before he’d glanced up. Not that he’d known he was being observed per se; he’d simply known that something was not quite right. And there she was, watching him from her window, a slim figure, arms wrapped tightly around herself as she studied him.

She was one of those people who had perfected the art of giving nothing away—expressionless face, emotionless eyes. She’d held his gaze, cool, unreadable. Assessing.

He made a rude noise in the back of his throat. She’d probably been congratulating herself on getting her fence repaired for free. Certainly she hadn’t seemed in a hurry to do anything about it when they’d spoken, and she hadn’t rushed out to offer her assistance yesterday, either.

Belatedly he recalled her scar and the labored way she’d gotten to her feet. Maybe she wasn’t in a position to offer her assistance, physically speaking. He immediately dismissed the notion as he remembered the lean strength of her body and the fact that she’d clearly finished a workout when he’d first knocked yesterday.

She probably simply considered manual work beneath her, in the same way that common courtesy seemed to be beyond her.

Aware that he’d let himself get bent out of shape over her once again, he concentrated on his search. By