Know Your Heart: A New Zealand - Tracey Alvarez Page 0,20
the knife and fork and bowl just so.
Heel clicks on decking with a waft of sunscreen announced a visitor. Prickles of anticipation swept down his spine as he faced her with his best bored-lawyer expression fixed in place. Hard to maintain the bored expression when Savannah pre-empted his snarky opener of No, you can’t have a taste of my sausage by saying, “You, are, offensive.”
Her slitted gaze skipped away from his face and skimmed down his throat to his bare chest. Yeah, he’d stripped off his shirt before coming outside to grill his steaks—so sue him. It was warm out, and being a guy, shirtless was his prerogative. Savannah’s cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink was an additional perk.
Glen took his time lowering his beer to the barbecue’s side shelf, because being this close to her threw him off guard.
He needed to get his head in the game, he really did.
“For a woman who reportedly licked Trent David’s bare chest in Mad about Mitch, don’t you think you’re over-reacting? Just a little?”
“What?”
Her brow crinkled, as did her nose. Cute as a baby bunny—except this baby bunny was a carnivore in disguise. A Tasmanian Devil or one of those ferretty things with wicked teeth.
“Be thankful I’m not like your pal Jakob Carmichael who likes to pose on hotel balconies in his Y-fronts. Now that’s offensive.”
Her forehead smoothed, eyebrows lifting and almost disappearing into the mussed strands of her hair.
“He’s not my pal, and I’m not talking about your pale and fish-like skin being an eyesore on this otherwise perfect evening.” She huffed out a sigh he recognized from dealings with his younger sister as meaning you are such a dumbass. “I’m talking about the disgusting stench of slaughtered animals coming from the barbecue.”
Glen’s spine straightened as if an invisible cattle prod had zapped him in the tailbone. Pale and fish like? His summer tan may’ve faded a bit from working six fourteen-hour days a week without much time for many weekend runs. He’d let the tan barb slide, but the disgusting stench? No way in hell.
“That’s premium eye fillet steak, lady. Forty-six bucks a kilo.”
She fisted her hands on her hips, torso tilting forward belligerently. “You’re cooking dead cow on my barbecue.”
He clacked the tongs under her nose, and she jerked back.
“Yup. And some dead pig sausages just to round my dinner out.”
Savannah’s lip curled, and the flush on her cheeks climbed higher. Would be a shame if she stroked out, but it’d certainly solve the problem of his increasingly frustrating landlady.
“Think I’ll barbecue up a storm every night while the weather’s good.”
Likely in preparation to tell him to go to hell, Savannah sucked in a breath, causing her amazing breasts to thrust out in his direction. They were nearly but not quite enough to distract him from the black smoke seeping out of the caravan’s door.
Glen’s heart plummeted into his grumbling stomach. They were surrounded by thousands of acres of bushfire waiting to happen, with the nearest fire station a forty-minute drive away. If Daisy the caravan went up with gas bottles on board…
Glen dropped the tongs, dodged around Savannah, and sprinted along the deck.
“Hey—” came her indignant yell, immediately followed by a higher-pitched, “Oh shit!”
Glen threw himself over the grass and leaped into the caravan. Squinting to see through the smoke, he spotted the blackened causes in a small frying pan on the cooker. He lunged for an oven mitt and shoved his hand inside. The caravan rocked as Savannah entered.
“Stay out of the way.” He flicked off the gas flame with one hand, using the mitt-covered one to grab the handle.
After a quick check over his shoulder to ensure he wouldn’t clock Savannah with a red-hot fry pan, Glen spun around and carried the smoking lumps of charcoaled somethings outside and dumped the whole thing, pan and all, upside down on a patch of bare earth behind the caravan. His heart, still thundering like a drum solo on a heavy metal soundtrack, transitioned up from his knotted stomach into his chest.
A small, wounded sound came from behind him. Savannah, arms wrapped around her middle, stared dejectedly at the still-smoking pan.
“That was my dinner,” she said.
Glen tugged off the oven mitt and held it out. “Sausages?”
“Gluten-free tofu sausages.”
“No wonder you chose to incinerate them.”
She snatched the oven mitt from his hand. “It was an accident.”
“Uh-huh.” Burn the caravan down and play the poor-little-homeless-actress card? He wouldn’t put it past her. “Starting a bushfire is a hell of a