All They Need Read online

  Men. Sometimes they really drove her crazy.

  “Are we friends or not?” she demanded.

  He looked arrested.

  “Because friends don’t make a run for it when there’s a working bee in process,” she continued.

  She tossed him her work gloves. He caught them before they slid down his belly to the ground.

  “And friends offer each other a shoulder when it’s needed and don’t make a federal case out of it.”

  He eyed her for a moment. She would have given a lot to know what was going on behind his eyes. His mouth turned up at the corners and he nodded slowly. “Okay. Point taken.”

  “Good.”

  He glanced down at the gloves. “You know, I was jealous when you told me you were having a working bee this weekend.”

  “Jealous? Of hauling heavy-ass lumps of wood around and wheelbarrows full of soil?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “You’re a very strange man, Flynn Randall.” She pushed herself to her feet. “But you should know that I am not above exploiting that.”

  “Exploit away.”

  She started for the door. “You are so going to regret those words tomorrow.”

  “We’ll see.”

  She led him to the lawn, where the remaining railway ties were stacked. There was no sign of her brother and she moved to the far end of the next tie in the pile.

  “Let’s do this, then. On the count of three,” she said, bracing her legs and getting a grip on the end.

  Flynn held up a hand, eyebrows raised. “Whoa there. You’re not lifting this thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s too heavy for you.”

  She grinned at him. “It isn’t, you know.” She patted her right shoulder with her left hand. “You think these babies are just for show?”

  “Mel. These things have to weigh at least a hundred pounds.”

  “Flynn, I’ve already carried half a dozen of these today. I think I can handle another one.”

  He continued to stare at her. She put her hands on her hips and raised both eyebrows, waiting.

  Finally he shrugged. “Okay. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but okay.”

  Mel rolled her eyes. “Thank you. Now that I have your permission, can we get on with it?”

  “As soon as you put these on.”

  Her gloves hit her in the chest. Her reflexes weren’t as fast as his and they slid to the ground before she could react. She started to object but he shook his head.

  “I’m not using your gloves while you go without. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’ve got some old gardening gear in the trunk.”

  He crossed the lawn to where he’d parked the Aston Martin in the street. Half a minute later he returned minus his leather jacket with a pair of dirt-stained gardening gloves on his hands.

  “Okay, bossy pants. Show me what you’ve got,” he said.

  She huffed out a laugh. “Bossy pants?”

  “You heard me.”

  She gave him a look that promised payback, then bent her legs and got a grip on the tie. On three they lifted, then she counted off again before they hefted the beam to their shoulders.

  “All good your end?” she asked.

  “I should be asking you that.”

  “Get over it, Randall. It’s called girl power.”

  They headed toward the clearing.

  “You’ve really done this six times already today?” he asked.

  “At least.”

  “Remind me never to arm wrestle with you.”

  She was still smiling when they rounded the last corner to find the men of her family lounging like lizards on the stacked ties. En masse, they made quite the picture: Harry, close-shaved head and bulging arms covered in inky black tribal tattoos, his ears shiny with piercings; her father, equally muscular in a white wife-beater tank top with his dark horseshoe mustache; Jacob, dressed in an old Metallica T-shirt, his hair spiked into a David Beckham faux-hawk, a hand-rolled cigarette dangling from his lips.

  They looked exactly like what they were—three working-class men enjoying a laugh in between bouts of hard labour—and she couldn’t help but notice the assessing glances they threw Flynn’s way.

  The men in her family had never rated Owen. They had never said anything to her directly, but she’d sensed the tension whenever they were in the same room as her ex-husband, which, fortunately, hadn’t been very often, particularly toward the end. She didn’t blame them, since Owen had always either been falsely hearty or smugly patronizing in most of his interactions with them. He’d never tried to simply engage with them person-to-person—probably because he’d not-so-secretly believed he was better than them and that her family was a waste of his valuable time.

  Now, she watched as her father, brother and brother-in-law took in Flynn’s leather boots and designer jeans and cashmere sweater and felt herself prickle defensively on his behalf.

  “You owe me fifty bucks,” Harry said to Jacob as they moved to one side to make way for the tie she and Flynn carried.

  Mel threw her brother a sharp look, ready to step in if it looked as though he and her brother-in-law were making a joke at Flynn’s expense.

  Her brother shrugged a big shoulder. “I bet Jacob you’d rope your mate into helping out.”

  “For your information, Flynn volunteered,” she said as she and Flynn set down their tie.

  Flynn immediately nodded toward her father. “Good to see you again, Mike.”

  “You, too. Don’t suppose you’ve met my son, Harry?” her father said, jerking a thumb toward her brother. “And the idiot with the nicotine addiction is Jacob, my son-in-law.”

  “So, how’d Mel talk you into helping out? Bribery? Threats?” Harry wanted to know as he and Flynn shook hands.

  Flynn shot Mel an amused look. “Like Mel said, I volunteered.”

  “You poor sucker.” Harry slung his arm around Mel’s neck and pulled her into a loose headlock.

  “Do you mind?” Mel said. She tried to wriggle free, but Harry simply ignored her.

  “You should know she’s been luring guys to their deaths for years now, making them do stuff they don’t want to do. My sister, the siren of Frankston.”

  Mel gasped with only partly feigned indignation. “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t play dumb. Remember Peter O’Donnell?” Harry addressed his comments to Flynn. “Idiot went on the Forty Hour Famine with her and passed out during a footy match he was so hungry. Then there was Simon what’s-his-name. He painted her name along the side of his car when she broke up with him. Oh, God, and that one who kept playing his guitar outside her bedroom window…” Harry made a pained strangling sound.

  “They were all years go,” Mel explained for Flynn’s benefit. Although, by the looks of things, he was clearly enjoying the Porter family cabaret act. “Plus, I didn’t ask them to do any of those things. Anyway—” she jammed her elbow into her brother’s ribs, but Harry only tightened his grip on her neck “—you’re the one who’s the biggest man-slut this side of the equator, so you can hardly talk.”

  “Yeah, except you don’t see me roping any of my girlfriends in as free labor.”

  “Flynn’s not my boyfriend, and I didn’t rope anybody into anything. Unlike you, you big petrol-head, Flynn happens to enjoy gardening.”

  She elbowed him again, harder this time, and took advantage of his instinctive flinch to slip out from under his arm. Feeling more than a little hot and flustered thanks to her brother’s manhandling, she straightened her top and adjusted her ponytail before glancing at Flynn to see how he was handling it all.

  Now that the floor show was over, he was talking quietly with her father about his car, one hand tucked into his back pocket, his posture relaxed.

  The last of her protectiveness slipped away as she watched her father laugh at something Flynn was saying. It had only been five minutes, but already the Porter men liked Flynn about five-hundred times more than they’d ever
liked Owen.

  She frowned. The odds were good that Flynn wasn’t going to be spending a lot of time with her family, so working up a sweat over whether they liked him or not was a waste of time—and yet she wanted them to like him, very badly, because she liked him and she wanted other people to see the same good qualities in him that she did.

  She turned away, fussing with her work gloves, swiping at the small splinters and other debris on her T-shirt and jeans, thrown and more than a little overwhelmed by her own feelings. This…thing with Flynn was getting out of hand, taking on a life of its own. She’d resisted it every step of the way, yet somehow he was still standing here in her yard, talking and laughing with her family.

  She slapped her gloved hands together loudly, a physical expression of her inner frustration and confusion. Four sets of eyes turned to her expectantly and she realized she’d inadvertently drawn everyone’s attention. “Who wants to go grab another tie with me?”

  She marched toward the house before anyone could respond and, more importantly, before she could do or say anything too stupid.

  TWO HOURS LATER, Flynn released the trigger on the circular saw.

  He pushed the safety glasses high on his forehead and brushed wood splinters off his forearms as he inspected the cut he’d made.

  “All done?” Mel asked from behind him.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “All done. Last piece, too. Now we just have to fill these suckers with topsoil.”

  “He says as though it’s going to be a walk in the park getting all that dirt from one end of the property to the other.”

  She moved off to talk to her brother-in-law and Flynn’s gaze drifted over her body. It was a warm day for winter and she’d long since stripped down to a bright blue tank top and a pair of faded jeans. The stretch knit fabric hugged her breasts and belly, flaring out over her hips. With her cheeks shiny from exertion and a handful of loose curls forming a fuzzy nimbus around her face, she looked like an advertisement for the great outdoors. Full of life and sexy as hell.

  His gaze gravitated to the thin strip of bright orange satin visible on her left shoulder. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed Mel’s bra strap today—it had been playing peek-a-boo with him on and off all afternoon—and it definitely wasn’t the first time he’d gotten a little lost inside his own head as he imagined her generous curves cupped in tangerine lace and silk.

  He suspected he should probably be trying to rein in his schoolboy fantasies, but sometime during the past few days he’d decided to accept the inevitable where Mel was concerned. He was falling for her—hard. He’d tried in the past to make himself fall for women and failed, and he figured it was probably just as futile to try to stop himself from falling, too.

  So here he was. Falling.

  Where he was going to land was anybody’s guess because Mel was still a closed book to him. Sometimes he was sure they were on the same page. Others he had no idea what she was thinking or feeling. To say it was driving him crazy was something of an understatement.

  “How you going with that last piece?” Harry called.

  Flynn jerked his attention to the here and now. “Ten seconds.” He pulled on his gloves before lifting the shortened tie from the twin sawhorses and carrying it to where Harry and Mike were using a plumb bob and spirit level to line up the final wall of the last garden bed. They worked together to ensure it was in line and level, fixing it in place with big coach bolts that had been weather-treated to resist corrosion.

  “Excuse me, fearless leader,” Harry said to Mel once they’d finished. “When might your faithful servants expect to be fed?”

  “Mom said she’d make sandwiches. I’ll call and let her know we’re ready to eat.” Mel pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed.

  Flynn admired the length of her athletic legs as she propped her butt against one of the completed walls while she waited for her call to connect.

  “The eagle has landed, Mom,” she said into the phone.

  She listened for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. As always, the rich, full sound made Flynn smile in response. Mel shot a mischievous look at her brother. “Mom says you’re more of a vulture than an eagle, Harry.”

  “Tell Mom she’s a riot. And if I’m a vulture, she’s a turkey.”

  Mel dutifully relayed his message to their mother. She was grinning fit to bust when she hung up. Flynn had a sudden image of her as a kid, mischievous and full of beans, more than ready to give as good as she got.

  It struck him suddenly that this was the first time that he’d seen Mel truly carefree, her habitual wariness completely absent. Clearly, she felt safe with her family.

  And, perhaps, with him?

  “What’s so funny?” Harry asked suspiciously.

  “Mom said she’s going to accidentally drop all the cheese-and-pickle sandwiches on the floor as payback,” Mel said as she pocketed her phone.

  “Are we talking Mom’s floor? Because everyone knows you could perform surgery on Mom’s floor. Your floor, on the other hand…”

  They continued to bicker cheerfully, Jacob and Mike throwing their two cents in when the mood struck them. Flynn watched from the sidelines, enjoying the interplay and this rare insight into Mel with her guard down.

  “What’s this I hear about me being a turkey? Harold Neville Porter, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  A slim woman of average height entered the clearing bearing a tray piled high with sandwiches. He guessed she must be in her early fifties, although she was dressed like a much younger woman. Her sweater was red and tight, the V-neck cut low, and her jeans fitted snugly from thigh to ankle. Her hair was a color somewhere between caramel and blond, and she was wearing the kind of makeup his own mother usually reserved for big occasions. Large gold hoops dangled from her ears, while a series of chunky metal bracelets clanked at her wrist.

  “Easy with the Neville, Mom,” Harry said with a grimace.

  “Easy with the ugly poultry references, Harold,” she said.

  “You started it with the vulture thing,” Harry said.

  “Now, now, children. Let’s not argue when there are sandwiches to be eaten,” Jacob said, stepping up to take the tray from Mel’s mother’s hands.

  “Thank you, Jacob,” Mel’s mother said pointedly. Then she glanced past his shoulder and caught sight of Flynn, her brown eyes suddenly bright with curiousity. “Hello. I don’t think I know you.”

  “This is Flynn, Mom. Flynn, this is my mother, Valerie.”

  “Nice to meet you, Valerie.”

  “Please, call me Val.” She smiled, her gaze sweeping his body in a disconcertingly thorough survey.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Flynn saw Mel frown.

  “Did you bring anything to drink, Mom?” Harry asked.

  “The cooler’s in the back of the car.”

  Harry sighed and headed for the path.

  “Can you grab some serviettes from the kitchen?” Mel called after him. “Second drawer down to the left of the dishwasher.”

  “Sure. Anything else you need while I’m at it? Shoes shined, your taxes done?”

  Mel didn’t respond, which struck Flynn as being a missed opportunity. He glanced over and caught Val giving Mel a big thumbs-up, accompanied by what he could only describe as a salacious wink and a gesture in his direction. Unaware that she was being observed, Mel frowned and shook her head, a signal that Flynn guessed was meant to inform her mother that she was barking up the wrong tree. Val’s mouth turned down at the corners and she mouthed the words Why not? at Mel. At which point Mel caught his eye.

  He offered her his best innocent smile and watched as a tide of pink washed up her face. She turned away and started fussing pointlessly with the garden tools. He decided to take it as a hopeful sign.

  A few minutes later Harry returned with a cooler full of canned drinks. Val placed both the cooler and the tray of sandwiches together on the grass and Mike, Harry and Jacob dropped to the ground and do
ve in. Flynn loitered, waiting until Mel sat before oh, so casually taking the spot beside her, feeling about as suave and sophisticated as a fourteen-year-old with his first crush, and probably just as obvious.

  “So what do you do, Flynn?” a voice asked from his other side and he realized Mel’s mother had nabbed the spot next to him.

  “I work in property development.”

  “Help yourself to a sandwich before my son hoovers them all up,” Val said. “The Porter family motto is He Who Hesitates is Lost. You’ll starve if you hang back.”

  She waited until he had his mouth full before hitting him with her next question. “I believe I’ve heard Mel mention that you bought Summerlea recently. That’s a big project to take on.”

  Flynn swallowed before responding. “I figure if I take it bit by bit, I’ll eventually get things under control. And if that turns out to be completely delusional, I can always call in the pros.”

  “So you like a bit of handyman work, do you?” Val asked.

  “I’m more of a gardener, to be honest. But I’d like to think I’m not completely useless with a power drill.”

  “You should talk to Harry. He does some handyman work on the side.”

  “Mom.” Mel’s voice held a not-so-subtle warning.

  “Thanks, I will,” he said, shooting Mel a look to let her know he didn’t mind her mother’s suggestion. He was new to the area, and he’d much prefer to have someone he knew working with him than a random tradesperson he’d plucked from the phone book or the classifieds.

  “And are you married, Flynn?” Val asked, nibbling delicately on the crust of a chicken salad sandwich.

  Mel choked and he glanced at her in enquiry.

  “Need me to Heimlich you again?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, her eyes watering.

  He grabbed a can of Coke from the cooler. Pulling the tab, he passed it to her. When he returned his attention to Val, her expression indicated she was still waiting for his answer.

  “I’m not married,” he said.

  “Ah. Divorced, then?”