Free The House On Burra Burra Lane by Jennie Jones Page B

he had to get this done and remove the need from his system.
    Leggy like a colt. Her russet hair a long straight mane. The way she moved, even hanging out washing, set his lower belly ablaze. She wore little running shorts today. Skin-tight over her bottom and the tops of smooth thighs. An unfortunate pleasure which fed the desperation of wanting her beneath him. Well … he’d wanted to make an evaluation of her body and he was getting it.
    She stretched up to the line, the little muscles in her arms gracefully taut and the T-shirt riding up, exposing her stomach.
    This was ridiculous . He took his study away with a jerk of his head and an indrawn breath. She didn’t need this nonsense from him, she needed his friendship, his help.
    Something in Sammy needed healing. He didn’t know what had happened to her, but she was here in the country because she’d run away from an event and persons who had harmed her. Must have been the man she’d spoken of who’d caused her pain.
    What could her mother do except make gripes, or have too high an expectation? But a man was a whole other issue. A man could manipulate and play her for his own gains and this guy had obviously done just that, with her mother’s approval.
    Dysfunctional relationships. Dysfunctional families. He’d had his share of both. He hadn’t been a decent son, or a better husband. What goodness would he give to any children he had? Sammy would want children, and he didn’t know anything about parenting except how to …
    He slapped his hand on the makeshift table. What the hell was he thinking? He sounded like a guy about to get down on one knee.
    He dragged the toolbox off the table and bent to put it on the floor. Don’t go there . But the memories of his wife, Carla, were suddenly so vivid he couldn’t breathe. His brother, Robert, hadn’t cared about anyone. Carla hadn’t cared either, not about her unborn child or about Ethan. He’d pushed those people into something he should have stayed well out of. They hadn’t wanted his interference. His mother had told him, advised him against it, but he’d known better. Big, strong, heroic Ethan Granger had thought he’d known it all.
    He wasn’t about to push Sammy into anything.
    When Sammy got to the kitchen she put both hands on the table and hung her head, breathing deeply.
    To hell with friendship … she wanted the man. She ached to kiss him, wind her arms around him, hold him, pull him tightly into her until he let go of whatever he was holding onto and loved her. Physically loved her.
    She turned, and looked out of the kitchen window, tugging at the memory of the first sensual awareness she’d felt with him until it sat clear and vivid in her mind and liquefied her body to honey. The instant she’d set eyes on him. And again, in his truck. In the field with his horses. Again, when he’d kissed her so quietly, so tenderly, in the stables.
    She raised the back of her hand to her mouth. Her skin warmed her lips, like the touch of Ethan’s mouth had. She’d relaxed into his kiss and he’d pulled away. He’d stayed away for three days … because of embarrassment. Had she messed this up, like everything else? Had she done the wrong thing by kissing him back? What did he see when he looked at her? What did he feel? Impossible to tell. He was too damned private.
    She glanced at the hole in the hem of her white jersey T-shirt. She plucked at it, ripped the material, making the hole bigger.
    Oliver Dolan had never made her feel anything but useless and below par. He’d tried to lead her down a better road, advising her what to wear and certainly what not to wear. What would Mr Perfect-Suit-and-Tie think if he saw her now?
    Thank God she’d got out of that quarrel when she had, although in some ways the whole mess was of her own making, but at least she wasn’t being influenced by Oliver or her mother here.
    Verity had a hold over Oliver and Oliver had a hold over Verity—both of them going