Free Billionaire on Her Doorstep by Ally Blake Page B

holiday home in Portsea a couple of years ago, it was a knee-jerk reaction to a situation I was going through at home, so it was a definite spur of the moment thing. It was the first house the estate agent offered and I took it sight unseen.”
    “Are you always that spontaneous?”
    She shrugged. “I have my moments. Funnily enough, buying this place and then moving here were two of the more conspicuous ones.”
    “Hmm. I’d hoped you might have an impetuous streak.”
    Hoped? Maggie repeated inside her head. Surely he meant to say ‘imagined’.
    “Now, tell me more about Sandra,” he said. He raised one eyebrow suggestively and Maggie frowned and shuffled lower in her seat.
    “Sandra is far too young for you,” she said, concentrating on her beer.
    “When Tom stopped laughing he continued to grin down at her. “She’s seems plenty old enough to make such decisions on her own. So how old do you think that makes me?”
    Maggie tilted her head and took the opportunity to openly look at his face. She’d been invited to, after all. Square jaw. Mouth permanently on the verge of a smile. Straight nose that had never seen the back end of a fight. Scruffy dark hair, with a boyish fringe that made him seem younger than he likely was.
    And bold hazel eyes luminous with mirth. Mirth and a fierce intelligence. Intelligence that spoke of experience, and vitality, and even self-deprecation that made Maggie wonder if this seemingly easygoing guy had known times when not everything had gone his way.
    Simply put, the guy had character radiating from his pores. Man of the earth character. Nothing manicured or elegant about him. She wondered briefly if he had ever even owned a suit and tie.
    “If I say I think you’re nearer forty,” she said, “you’ll likely throw that beer in my face. And if I say you’re closer to my twenty-nine I’m certain you’ll kiss my feet. Somewhere in between is as close as I am willing to guess.”
    “Somewhere in between is pretty close.” His eyes glittered. “But no fear, Maggie, I would never let go of a good beer in such a fashion.”
    He tipped said beer her way in salute before taking another swig, and leaving her with the unspoken impression that he might yet still find it in him to kiss her feet. If she’d thought her seat uncomfortable before, she’d had no idea.
    “Did I choose a good beer?” Maggie asked, deliberately changing the subject. She slithered lower in her chair and let her legs stick out straight in front of her, crossed at the ankles.
    Tom pushed away from the back railing and came to sit in a chair beside hers. His big frame dwarfed the small seat and his long legs stretched out so that their feet almost touched.
    “I’m enjoying every second of it,” he said, smiling over the top of his haIf-empty bottle. He was teasing. She felt it skidding and sliding across her nerves and along the back of her neck, before settling in a swirling mass in her tummy.
    “Really?” she asked, taking a mouthful of confidence-inducing amber bubbles. “Because I’m beginning to wonder if underneath the grease and dust and stubble, you’re actually a merlot man at heart.”
    Again that bark of loud, confident laughter sparked against her, bringing an indulgent smile to her own face.
    Truth was, she didn’t really think he was any such thing. In fact she quite liked the fact that he was a beer and sweat and suntan man. Especially since, for the first time since she had arrived in Portsea, she found herself enjoying acting the part of a beer and sweat and suntan girl.
    “And what on earth is a merlot man?” Tom asked.
    She kicked out with her foot and pointed at his denim-clad calf, before sliding it down to nudge against his boot. “A man who wears Diesel jeans and two-hundred-dollar Doc Martens to weed a garden.”
    For a brief second she thought she saw his cheeks grow pink beneath his stubble.
    But she knew better than anyone that clothes rarely made the man. A guy in a