She’d be needing to tip a glass of water over herself if she continued like this. Instead, she picked up her glass and drank.
“How did your first day go?” Finn asked, leaning one hip against the veranda railing.
“It was good, thanks. The women were a little wary of me to begin with, the men hopeless wannabe Romeos, which was sweet. Overall I think I held my own. Next week will probably be easier. At least, I hope so.”
“They didn’t scare you off?”
“It’d take more than that to put me off. When I commit to something, I like to go all the way.”
The words hung in the air between them, her unintended double entendre assuming the proportions of a six-foot-high neon sign. Tamsyn wished the wooden floor could just open up and swallow her whole.
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Finn said, putting his glass on the wide veranda railing and fixing her with his gaze.
A flutter started in her chest and she knew they weren’t talking about the community work anymore. The fine hairs on her forearms rose in a prickle of awareness and heat flooded the lower regions of her body. Her fingers curled tight around her glass. Any minute now there’d be steam rising, she thought. If she reacted like this to just a look, how would she feel when he touched her—really touched her?
She couldn’t wait to find out.
“I’d better get back to the lawns,” he said, breaking the spell that bound her in its sensual haze. “I’m heading out tonight and will be away until Friday afternoon. Will you be okay until then?”
“Okay? Of course. I should be fine.” Tamsyn smiled to hide the disappointment that flooded her at his words. It shocked her to realize just how easily she’d become dependent on these moments they’d shared each day. “It’ll give me time to do some more research in my hunt for my mother.”
Was it her imagination or did Finn’s face suddenly harden? No, it had to just be the effect of the sun slipping behind a cloud, casting him into a pocket of shade, she decided.
“How’s that going?” he asked, picking up his glass and bringing it over to put it on the tray beside her.
He smelled delicious. Warm and slightly sweaty, but with a freshness about him that made her wish she could press her nose against his bare flesh and inhale more deeply. If she knew him better, more intimately, she’d close that final distance between them, lay her hand on the broad plane of his chest—feel the hardness of his strength, the nub of his nipple, beneath her palm.
“Tamsyn?” he asked, jerking her from her suddenly inconvenient daydream.
“Um, not so well, actually,” she said, trying to gather her scattered thoughts together. It was about as easy as hunting down the free-range eggs the chickens on the property seemed to delight in hiding all over the place. “But I’m going to go to Blenheim tomorrow to see if I can find her on the electoral roll. It’ll be a start. What I don’t understand is why Dad’s lawyer is certain that your address is the right one for her. It’s where they insist they’ve been sending her mail. You’re not hiding her somewhere, are you?”
Tamsyn laughed but didn’t miss the change in Finn’s body language. He angled himself away from her and she felt a definite cooling in the air between them.
“I’m certainly not hiding anyone at my house,” he said firmly.
She put a hand out, touched his forearm. His skin was moist and hot, his muscles bunching under her fingertips.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, Finn.”
He moved away. “You didn’t. I’m going to finish the lawns and then I’m heading back up to my place. I’ll put the ride-on back in the shed when I’m done.”
“Thanks, and thanks for doing the lawns for me. I was getting around to it.”
“No problem,” he said, stepping down off the veranda and striding toward the mower.
The roar of its engine precluded any further attempt at communication. What had she said to make him so reserved all of a sudden? She played their conversation over in her mind. The only thing she could think of was her allusion to him hiding her mother. Had there been some truth to her question? No, there couldn’t be. If there was, why would he have denied her mother’s being there right from the start? Tamsyn couldn’t quite figure it out. But one way or another, she was going to.
Twelve
Finn shoved the earmuffs back onto his head and steered the mower around the back of the property. Irritation burned inside his gut. Irritation at himself, at Tamsyn, at Lorenzo—hell, at the whole world. It was crazy having her stay here right in Lorenzo and Ellen’s home. She was bound to discover the truth eventually, yet Lorenzo was still adamant that Finn do whatever he could to ensure she be kept in the dark. Lorenzo was lucky that the network of friends they had in and around town were equally as protective of Ellen’s fragile peace of mind as he was. So far no one had let anything slip.