Free Secrets and Seductions by Jane Beckenham

teased, “but then again it could be quite fun. I’d have to keep playing doctor and do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
    Oh, dear Lord. “Go put a shirt on, Mac.”
    His brows rose suggestively. “Too hot for you, is it, sweetheart?”
    Leah shoved herself up from the kitchen stool, not even sure how she actually got there in the first place, shook her head and then tucked strands of hair that had loosened from her ponytail behind her ear. “If you’re going to cook, Mac, please just go and do it.” She needed to be alone, to think. To get back to normal… Whatever that was. Because right now she wasn’t sure if she could even find a semblance of normal ever again.
    All she knew was this awareness stuff going on shouldn’t be happening. Trouble was, her conscience and body sure as heck weren’t listening to her.
    She tried not to compare the brothers, but that didn’t help one iota, either.
    She’d been naive when she’d met Curtis, taken in by his easy charm and banter and his good looks. When she walked at his side, they’d receive admiring glances. Oh, she’d known they’d been all for Curtis, not for her. She was the drab young woman at his side, but the attention had made her feel special too, and for the first time in her life, she had felt important. Wanted.
    And to give Curtis credit, she believed he did want her, at first, only to realise when it was too late that he’d used her as a personal ego-booster.
    Her grandfather had told her that her mother had been a late bloomer, and so Leah guessed that was what had happened to her, but by then she was married to Curtis and suddenly, as her confidence as a young woman grew and her strength and knowledge and passion about the grove increased, she garnered the respect of the agricultural community. Curtis didn’t like it. He wasn’t the kingpin anymore.
    Then Charlee came into their lives, and as Curtis’s addiction took over, Leah was once again that insecure girl who had no choice but to stay.
    Now, as she watched Mac return to his grill, an adoring Charlee close by his side, she reminded herself not to trust too much in his charm and kindness. They could be as false as his brother’s had proved to be.
     
     
    For two weeks, Mac had been under her roof, and there was no hint of him leaving.
    Funny how life had become somewhat of a ritual.
    They worked in the grove all day, and while they barely said a word to each other, there was a chemistry, a silent avowal of… The words that came to her mind were mutual respect.
    Mac worked hard.
    She worked harder. There was no way on earth she wanted him to think she couldn’t hack it. This was her land, her home, her livelihood, and she would do anything in her power to ensure it stayed that way.
    After too many years of moving from one rented home to another and the uncertainty of life that had scarred her childhood, there was no way she’d ever let that happen to Charlee.
    Later that night, with Charlee in bed, Leah relaxed with a book, though she realized she hadn’t actually turned a page for some time.
    That was Mac’s fault.
    He sat across from her in the lounge, busy on his laptop, though every now and again he would look up and catch her staring at him. He never said anything. Just lifted one dark brow in acknowledgment, and she would drop her gaze to her book again, having no clue what her characters were up to. It was as if they were a real couple.
    When the phone rang, jolting her out of her reverie, for some reason she had an unearthly premonition of disaster lurking.
    No one phoned at ten thirty at night, unless the aforementioned disaster was about to strike or had already hit dirt. Scrambling from the sofa, she snatched up the phone and turned away from Mac. “Hello.”
    “Leah, it’s Howard Parker.”
    “Howard,” she acknowledged. She liked Howard, a rough and tough guy whose crew of pickers worked the circuit of small independent farms like hers. He was good value, at a price she