Free 12 Days At Silver Bells House by Jennie Jones Page B

wisdom from? Kate’s mouth dried out instantly. Maybe this was why she’d hung her hopes on a shooting star. She was supposed to be in Swallow’s Fall, to talk to Grandy.
    Grandy nodded down the street, towards the southern side. ‘Looks like your boyfriend’s here to give you a lift.’
    Kate glanced up and saw the Knight Works ute pull into town.
    She looked sideways at Grandy as Jamie brought his vehicle to a stop on the road in front of the hardware store. ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
    Grandy chuckled. ‘I hate to tell you, Kate, but by the end of today the whole town will know about the wellie-wearing city girl Jamie has hidden away up at the house.’ He winked. ‘They’ll have you married by dawn. They’ll be planning Wellington boot-throwing competitions for the reception.’
    â€˜Oh, ha ha.’ Grandy was jesting, but really, did Kate look like the sort of woman who’d end up in Swallow’s Fall? Did she?
    â€˜What’s with the wellies?’ Jamie asked Kate, coming up the stairs to the walkway. ‘Grandy.’ He tipped his head at the old man.
    Yes, what was with the wellies, Kate ? Nobody in town wore them. Alright, they probably did when working the paddocks and in winter. One thing she’d got wrong. The other was her interference in Jamie’s life. Finding the photo. Correction. Kate shifted on the bench. She hadn’t found the photo, she’d gone looking for something and hadn’t really known what to think about what she’d found. Serve her right if she was blushing as Jamie watched her.
    He took his attention off Kate and to Grandy, chatting about the new surgery at the homestead on Burra Burra Lane. He must have already been home and showered. He’d changed. Some guys wore T-shirts and some guys made T-shirts wear them. Jamie Knight was the latter. His dark grey short-sleeved T-shirt fitted him comfortably. It wasn’t skin tight, something Kate never liked, but neither was it loose. His 48-inch chest made her sigh inwardly. She imagined how his powerful-looking shoulders, and those triceps and biceps, would move beneath his skin as he heaved stones and boulders while building his wall.
    â€˜Thought you must have walked into town,’ he said to Kate. ‘Or got lost.’
    He’d come to collect her? A gentleman in work boots. The type of man who would always have a hand ready to place at the base of a woman’s spine to gently guide her across the road, or through a bar or restaurant. And a fist big enough to knock a bloke’s block off if a situation demanded such an event. Something Kate wouldn’t mind seeing her rescuer doing. Especially with Fat Jacques… Scumbag.
    â€˜Habit is a dragon breathing fire,’ Kate said, thinking back to the incredible representational drawings of karma young Gemma had shown her. ‘I’m hostage to my own way of thinking. I need to take action.’
    â€˜Want a lift home first?’ Jamie asked.
    Heat crawled up Kate’s neck and crept onto her face. She hadn’t meant to speak out loud. She nodded. ‘Yes please. These wellies are killing me.’ And he’d said home . So was she going to stay the whole holiday and make Silver Bells House her temporary home? Grandy had given her enough stimulation of the mental variety to get cracking on The Decision. Jamie inspired other mental pictures. On which she ought not to ponder. She was pretty sure she’d already blushed once too often in his company.
    After saying their goodbyes to Grandy, Kate settled into the cool interior of the Knight Works ute, buckling her seatbelt and admiring the choice of music playing on a low volume in the cab. Country rock.
    â€˜I forgot to do some grocery shopping,’ she said, looking back at Mr Penman’s store and wondering if he was currently standing in agony or sitting on it, then deciding she didn’t need to know