“I told Dante Pope that the day before he met you for the first time. Do you know what he said?”
“What?”
“He said “that’s why you like him, isn’t it?” As if he could see into my damn mind.”
I laughed. “Sounds like him.”
“Still?”
“Yeah, but he’s softer round the edges now. He’s in love.”
That earned me a quirked brow. Fen eased the Land Rover off the dirt track and onto an actual road. “Say what now?”
“He lives with the head gardener. They’ve been together since last summer.”
The heart-warming gossip stunned Fen into silence, and a peaceful quiet fell over us as he drove into the village closest to Christmas Mountain. I discovered that I enjoyed his company as much when he didn’t speak as when he did, and wasn’t that just something? Most people annoyed me.
Fen didn’t.
He excited me. Thrilled me, though it probably said more about me than him that I got giddy over him opening a tin of baked beans and banging them into a saucepan.
Right. It’s the baked beans that make your heart thump like this.
Actually, it was. Because it waseverythingabout Fen that lit me on fire, even the way he was chewing on his lip as we crossed the village boundary.Leave that lip alone. It’s mine.
I laughed out loud this time.
Fen shot me a droll look. “You’re the hottest weirdo I’ve ever met.”
“I’m taking that to mean you don’t meet a lot of hot people, because I know you’ve met a lot of weirdos.”
“I don’t meet many people at all around here. The closest I get are the haulage blokes who come to pick up the shipping loads.”
“They’re not hot?”
“Put it this way, the Christmas tree shipment we sent out this morning was picked up by a dude I thought might actually be Santa Claus.”
“Ho ho ho.”
“Very funny.”
“I know. I missed a trick being a PO. I should’ve been on the telly.”
“You have a great face for radio.” Fen turned onto the main street of the quiet village.
It was busier than I expected, vehicles parked along both sides with near gridlock as cars tried to force their way down the middle in both directions. “Jesus. What’s going on here?”
“You’ll see.”
“Sounds mysterious.”
“Not really.” Fen found a tiny spot and parallel parked his huge car with ease. It was so damn sexy I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
“Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Hmm?”
“Never mind.” I wasn’t about to tell him that a practical man who could doanythingwith his hands was my fucking jam. Maybe later, if the date played out.