“I’m not the bad guy here.”

Lexie laughed incredulously. “You’re saying I am?”

“You don’t take your responsibilities seriously,” Rafe explained. “Absentmindedness is no excuse for failing to file a tax return.”

“Humph.” She stood in an indignant tinkling of bells, swished away a few paces before she spun around in a whirl of skirt. “You’re just like my family. Oh, that scatterbrained Lexie—she can’t handle her finances, she can’t take care of herself, much less a baby. Maybe I have different priorities. Maybe money and…and receipts aren’t the most important things in life. Maybe people are.”

“That’s what I’m saying. People need hospitals and schools and roads—” His hands rested on the keyboard as he stared at her. “What baby?”

Dear Reader,

Life, it seems to me, is largely a matter of timing. What if you meet your soul mate but one or both of you aren’t ready to settle down? Would you say goodbye and hope you’ll find someone else someday who’ll be as perfect for you? Or would you grab him and never let him go, regardless of the monkey wrench it throws in your life’s plans?

When to have children is another major life decision that depends so much on “being ready.” What if one person wants a baby and the other doesn’t—or at least doesn’t yet? Is that a deal breaker?

I wasn’t interested in marriage and children until I was close to thirty years old. But when I was finally ready to settle down, my husband came along. It felt as if I’d been waiting, without knowing it, just for him.

I’ve had fun playing around with questions of timing in Two Against the Odds. Life doesn’t flow quite as smoothly for my hero and heroine as it did for me and my hubby. Add to that the fact that Lexie Thatcher is twelve years older than Rafe Ellersley and the question of babies and timing takes on a new urgency.

Two Against the Odds is the third book in the Summerside Stories trilogy. Lexie’s parents, Hetty and Steve, who have been having their own trials throughout these stories, finally find the key to their own happiness.

I love to hear from readers.

You can email me at www.joankilby.com or

write to me

c/o Harlequin Enterprises Limited,

225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills,

Ontario, Canada

M3B 3K9.

Joan Kilby

Two Against the Odds
Joan Kilby

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joan Kilby enjoys drawing and painting as a hobby. However, between her writing, her husband and three almost-grown children, going to the gym, cooking and walking her dog, Toby, she doesn’t have a lot of spare time to indulge her other interests. Instead, she lives vicariously through characters like the heroine of Two Against the Odds, artist Lexie Thatcher. Joan also loves art galleries and every year makes a point of going to see the exhibition of the Archibald Prize finalists.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

RAFE ELLERSLEY WAS kind of like Snoopy—always daydreaming about things he’d rather be doing, such as going fishing. Unlike Snoopy, he didn’t have a doghouse to lie atop, just a cramped cubicle at the Australian tax office.

“I need a volunteer for an audit in Summerside.” Larry Kiefer, balding and forty, with a slight gut, walked among the cubicles filled with tax accountants at the Australian tax office. “Who’s interested?”

Rafe shot to his feet. “I’ll do it.” He’d have gone anywhere just to get out of the office, but Summerside was ace. A small bayside village southeast of Melbourne, it was prime red snapper territory.

Sunshine, blue sky and salt water. Oh, yeah.

Larry pretended not to see him. “Anyone? This lady—” He consulted a file folder in his hand. “Lexie Thatcher is a portrait artist. She hasn’t filed a return in four years.”

Rafe cleared his throat. “Larry, I said I’d do it.”

His colleagues nearby glanced at him, then at Larry. They didn’t say a word. It was unwritten code that if someone put up their hand for a case, everyone else would bow out. One by one, they bent their heads and went back to work.

Rafe remained standing. But not quite as tall as before.

His previous audit hadn’t gone so well….

Larry made a sour face and shook his head. He was the boss. He could simply assign the case to whomever he chose. But Rafe knew he tried to hand the out-of-town files to whomever was interested.

He walked slowly over to Rafe’s cubicle, gave a last glance around then, when no one looked up, he said to Rafe, “What makes you think you’re the right guy for this job?”

“I want to make up for last time.” Rafe fumbled for an antacid and popped it in his mouth. His five-year plan depended on keeping his position and if that meant pretending to be sorry for what he’d done, so be it. The great fishing would be a bonus.

Larry checked out Rafe’s cubicle. The partition walls were papered with photos of boats, his dog Murphy and Far Side cartoons he’d clipped out of the newspaper.

“Your last audit, Mrs. Caporetto, was working under the table and collecting welfare,” Larry reminded him. “She wasn’t paying a cent of tax on her waitressing income. Do you think that’s fair to other taxpayers?”

“She was supporting her son who had cancer, plus his three children,” Rafe said, arguing anyway, to defend Mrs. Caporetto, and himself. “Like I told you, the dole wasn’t enough money for them all to live on. Not with the meds her son needed.”

“We’ve been through this. That’s not our problem,” Larry said wearily. “You deliberately turned a blind eye and didn’t impose penalties when they were clearly called for. It’s not your job to make sure auditees pay the least amount of taxes possible. You do know that, don’t you?”

Rafe nodded. He picked up a pen, clicking it in and out. Across the way, his buddy Chris Talbot faced his computer screen, heavy blond hair falling over his glasses, and pretended not to be listening.

“Not paying taxes is like stealing from the government,” Larry went on. “You’re not some Robin Hood.”

Rafe bit his lip.

“It’s essential for tax auditors to…?” Larry prompted, waiting for Rafe to complete the sentence.

“Maintain an independent state of mind,” Rafe intoned. It was the mantra of the tax office, ingrained in all tax auditors from day one.

Larry cocked his egg-shaped head to glance at Rafe’s photos of fishing boats. “Did you ever think maybe you’re not cut out to be an accountant?”

“I’m cut out for it.” Rafe chewed the softening remains of the antacid tablet. “I can do it.”

One more year and he would have saved enough money to put a down payment on a charter fishing boat. His dream was to take groups out on the weekend. Hell, why stop at the weekend? Someday he wanted to make fishing charters his livelihood.

If he could hang on to this job until then.

Lose it, and he wouldn’t easily find another that paid this well. Especially if he got fired.

“You could be one of the best accountants I’ve got,” Larry said. “Question is, do you have the balls to be that guy?”

Rafe swallowed and nodded again. “You can count on me.”

“This woman…” Larry waved the file folder. “Hasn’t responded to letters, emails or phone calls. She’s going to be a tough nut to crack.” He dropped the file on Rafe’s desk. “Screw this one up and…” He walked away, leaving the rest hanging.

Rafe swallowed. He didn’t need Larry to spell things out to know the consequences would be dire.

LEXIE THATCHER WAS a crystal lying on the sandy bottom of a quiet pond. Calm and peaceful. She was as smooth and round as a washed pebble but perfectly clear. Crystal clear. Sunlight filtering through the water filled her with a pure white light.

Thoughts crept in like dark tendrils of water weeds—her stalled portrait of Sienna, her parents’ disintegrating marriage, the letter from the tax office… Gently she pushed each thought away.

Calm. Peace. Light.

Sienna’s portrait was missing a crucial element. What was it? Why was she blocked? The deadline was approaching.

Thirty-eight years old last week.

Time was ticking.

Don’t think. Empty the mind. Slow the breathing.

Light. Peace. Calm.

Peace. Calm—

Ding-dong.

Lexie crashed to earth with a jerk. Now she felt the rough nap of the carpet beneath her palms, the weight of her legs, her yoga top bunched at her waist. The noisy thoughts came awake in her head, all clamoring for attention at once, like chattering monkeys.

The bell rang again. Ding-dong.

With a sigh she dragged herself upright and padded barefoot to the front door, pushing a hand through her long blond curls, straightening her filmy cotton skirt. Three tiny bells around her right ankle tinkled with each step.

She hoped it was Andrew, the sweet little boy from next door, come to fetch the ball he was forever accidentally throwing over the fence. She loved his adorable freckled face and big green eyes. Lexie, may I get my ball?

She opened the door, her gaze pitched to knee level. “Hey, Andrew—”

Not a four-year-old boy with curly red hair.

Charcoal-gray pant legs with a razor-sharp crease and black crocodile-skin shoes. Her gaze skimmed up the long lean figure in the well-cut suit with the white shirt open at the neck. A ripe mouth framed by dark stubble and dark eyes topped by thick black eyebrows. His hair was pushed back showing a strong widow’s peak and he had a dark mole high on his right cheek.

He was sexy. And young.

A buzz of awareness hummed through her despite the fact that she had to be at least ten years older than he was. “What can I do for you?”

“Rafe Ellersley.” He produced a business card and held it up for her to see. “Australian Taxation Office.”

She slammed the door in his face.

She stood there, listening to her heart gallop, knowing he hadn’t moved from her welcome mat. Yes, very mature.

Ding-dong.

Lexie put her hand on the knob. Sucking in a breath, she opened the door again. “Sorry. That was dumb.”

“I’m used to it.” His gaze started to drift down her formfitting sleeveless top then flicked back to her eyes. “I normally don’t just show up on people’s doorsteps. But when people don’t respond to letters or phone calls, a personal visit is the next step.”

There had been letters, which she’d set aside to deal with later. And then there were the phone messages which she’d ignored because she’d been painting and didn’t want to be disturbed. Then when she’d gotten blocked she’d decided their negative energy was her problem and, whoops, they were accidentally-on-purpose deleted. And now her bad habit of procrastination had come around to bite her on the butt.

She breathed deep into her belly to stem her rising panic. “I’ve been very busy with my work. Is there a problem?”

Rafe set his briefcase on the mat at his feet. “You’re being audited.”

Her stomach tightened, trapping her breath. “Audited?”

“Yes. I’m here to go over your accounts with you and assess taxes owed for the period of delinquency.” He glanced over her shoulder into the small foyer. “Is this a good time?”

“No.” Her house was a mess, her work in limbo, her life in chaos. “I’m busy, very busy. I must get back to what I was doing.”

Lying on the floor pretending to be a crystal. It was vital to her creativity but hard to explain to a sexy young man in a suit. She started to close the door.

Quick as a wink he wedged a polished shoe between the door and the jamb. “I understand you’re an artist.”

“Y-yes,” she said warily. She could imagine what tax accountants thought of artists—about as useful to society as bicycles were to fish. “I’m working on a portrait for the Archibald Prize.”

“I’ll try not to take up too much of your time. May I come in?”

“As I said, I’m busy. I’ll file my tax return soon. Promise. On my honor and all that.” She gave the door another shove.

His foot didn’t budge. With his leg braced, his thigh muscle was outlined against his pant leg. “Then I’ll come back later. What time do you finish for the day?”

“I work all hours. Right through the night sometimes, when things are flowing.”

In reality, she hadn’t done any work on Sienna’s portrait for weeks but he didn’t need to know that. She hadn’t been completely idle, having whipped off a couple of small seascapes of Summerside Bay for the tourist trade. She just hadn’t done anything important.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he said.

“I’ll be busy then, too!”

Again she pushed on the door to no avail. No doubt the Australian Taxation Office issued steel-reinforced shoes for cases like hers.

Apparently the agents were reinforced with steel, too. His black eyes glinted; his smile was grim. “Ms. Thatcher, you haven’t filed a tax return in four years. I will come back every day. I will camp on your doorstep if necessary, until you make the time to go through your accounts. Whether it takes weeks or months is of no difference to me. I have a job to do and I will do it.” He let his words sink in before he added almost casually, “If you don’t comply, I have the authority to call in the Federal Police.”

A flutter of panic made her reconsider the situation. But she hadn’t done anything wrong. True, she hadn’t filed her taxes but then again, she didn’t think she’d made enough money to pay tax. This was all a misunderstanding that would be cleared up quickly once he’d had a look at her accounts.

“Okay,” she capitulated, opening the door wider. “Come in. Let’s get this over with. Shoes off, please. I have a friend with a baby who’s still crawling.”

Color tinged his cheeks as he bent to remove his croc-skin loafers. Avoiding her gaze, he placed the shoes neatly beside her sandals, making them look tiny by comparison. Then she saw the reason for his embarrassment. His fourth toe poked through a hole in the left sock.

Suddenly Rafe Ellersley seemed less daunting, more human. She would have preferred to see him as the enemy.

Lexie led him into the sunny living room. Visible through the big window was the backyard containing a trampoline, her detached studio and, in the corner, a koi pond beneath a red-flowering camellia tree. She moved some art books off an armchair. “Have a seat.”

He lowered himself onto faded chintz covered in overblown pink roses, like Ferdinand the Bull in a field of flowers. Lexie sat opposite on the matching couch beneath the window, squished in between her sleeping Burmese cats, Yin and Yang. She tucked her legs up cross-legged and pulled down her full skirt.

“Why am I being audited?” she asked. “Is it random or are you guys targeting starving artists this year?”

“The tax office is focusing on small businesses,” he explained with a shrug. “This is an election year. The government wants to be seen to be doing its job.”

“But why me?” Lexie asked. “I’m a small fish.”

“Small fish, big fish, they all get caught eventually. As I said, you haven’t filed a tax return for the past four years.” He whipped out a small notebook and consulted it. “Yet last financial year you sold two paintings to an American tourist for forty thousand dollars.”

“Oh, right.” Lexie pressed paint-stained fingers to her mouth. They’d been her best sales to date. How could she have forgotten them? “I meant to declare them, honest.” She paused. “Er, how did you find out?”

“The man hung them in his office and declared them as a tax deduction. The American Internal Revenue Service, doing a random check, cross-referenced with our tax department. And here we are.”

“I don’t have any of that money left,” she said. “It’s gone. On rent, clothes, food…” Trivial things like that.

“Why didn’t you declare it?”

Procrastination again. “I was planning to average my income over five years.”

“Yet you didn’t do that, either.”

Lexie fidgeted, disturbing Yin, who looked up through green slits of eyes and twitched her creamy tail. Lexie stroked her, soothing her back to purring slumber. “I missed the cutoff date.”

“You had seven months from the sale of the painting in which to file.” Rafe Ellersley consulted his notebook again. “I understand you were an art teacher at Summerside Primary School until five years ago. Presumably you know how to file an income tax statement.”

“As a teacher with a fixed income, preparing a statement was easy. Since I quit my regular job I haven’t figured out all the ins and outs of what I need to do as a self-employed artist.”

“So you’ve simply ignored the problem, hoping it will go away.” Rafe wrote a few lines in his notebook.

“In a nutshell.” She glanced out the window, calculating the angle of the light slanting through the trees onto her detached studio. She’d hoped to have meditated her way into a creative state and be working by now. Instead, she was stuck here, talking to a tax agent. “How much time will the audit take?”

“That depends,” he said. “If your records are in order and easily accessible it could take only a few days.”

“Records?” Her fingers pleated the soft fabric of her skirt. She hadn’t been able to find her “filing system” for over a month.

“Tax receipts. As in, when you purchase paints and canvases you keep a receipt.” His dark eyes bored into her. “You do keep your receipts, don’t you?”

“Of course. I save everything in big manila envelopes.”

“I’d like you to get them for me, please. Everything for the past five years. Plus bank statements, utility bills, home and contents insurance, et cetera.”

“I would but there’s a small problem. I put the envelopes away for safekeeping and now I can’t find them.” When his black eyebrows pulled together, she added quickly, “Oh, don’t worry. I never throw anything away.” As anyone could guess just by looking at her house.

“What have you been doing with your receipts since then?” he asked.

“They’re around,” she said vaguely. Tossed in a drawer, tucked inside a novel as a bookmark, stuffed into a shoe box.

“You’ll need to locate them and the envelopes, of course.” He glanced about the room. “Where can I set up my laptop? Is there a table or desk I can use as a workspace?”

“Um…” The coffee table, an old trunk she’d painted white, was covered in assorted debris—a used teacup, her sketch pad and box of charcoal and cat toys. The side table at his elbow was obscured by seashells and pretty stones she’d found on the beach. The dining table was strewn with magazines, newspapers and junk mail. And a framed seascape ready to be delivered to the local Manyung Gallery, where she sold works on commission.

“I guess the dining table.” She got up and placed the painting on the floor, leaning it against the wall.

Rafe set his briefcase on the table in the space cleared and removed a laptop. Lexie moved around him, gathering the newspapers and magazines. She was aware of how tall he was, at least a head higher than her. And he smelled good, spicy and warm. He was emitting enough pheromones to set her blood humming again.

“Perhaps you have a computer spreadsheet detailing items purchased and the dates?” he asked. “I’d still need the receipts, of course, for verification.”

“No spreadsheet,” Lexie said. “My sister, Renita, is a loans officer at the bank. She tried to organize a bookkeeping system for me but I couldn’t be bothered filling in all those columns.”

He turned his incredulous gaze on her. “Did you read the letter my boss sent you a month ago? Or any of his emails?”

Shaking her head, she took a step back. Pheromones or no, she didn’t like an inquisition.

“Did you listen to the messages on your answering machine, at least?”

She rubbed at a spot of Crimson Lake paint on her knuckle. “I did. But when I’m working I tend to tune things out.”

“Tune out?” It all seemed too much for Rafe. With a grimace, he pressed a hand to his abdomen.

“Is your stomach bothering you?”

“It’ll pass.” His voice was tight, his shoulders slightly hunched.

“Is it an ulcer? My uncle had an ulcer.”

“I’m fine.” He lowered himself onto the chair in front of his laptop, the lines of his face pulled taut.

“I’ll make you a cup of peppermint tea.” Before he could object she strode out of the dining room into the adjacent kitchen. She filled the kettle at the sink. Crystals hanging in the window cast rainbows over her arms. People sometimes got exasperated with her for being scatterbrained, but she didn’t think she’d ever actually made anyone physically ill before.

“My stomach would feel better if you got me your records,” he called.

“I’m working on that.” While the water heated she looked in the cupboard beneath the telephone where she stored cookbooks. Not surprisingly, there weren’t a dozen large envelopes stuffed with receipts and tax invoices. Where had she put those things?

Ah, but here was a receipt for mat board that she’d bought last week. It was tucked inside the address book. Of course. Because she’d rung the gallery right after buying the materials for framing.

Sitting on the tiled floor, she pulled out cookbooks and riffled through the pages. She found a few grocery store receipts itemizing pitifully meager provisions.

“Can I claim food?” she yelled to the other room.

“No, it’s not a deductible business expense.” Already he sounded long-suffering and he’d been here less than an hour.

She was putting back her mother’s copy of Joy of Cooking, which she’d borrowed to make quince preserves, when an old photograph fell out of the pages. With paint-stained fingers she slanted it toward the light.

She, her brother, Jack, and sister, Renita, were playing on the front lawn of the dairy farm where they’d grown up. She couldn’t have been more than six years old. Jack would have been about four and Renita just a toddler. Lexie smiled, her eyes misting. They’d had good times as kids.

Now Jack was getting married again and Renita, too. Lexie was the only one of her siblings who hadn’t found a life partner. She’d never had the kids she longed for, either. A sharp pang for the baby she’d lost made her press a hand to her chest. She counted back the years.

Her boy would have been twenty-one years old now.

“The kettle is boiling,” Rafe said, right behind her.

Lexie tucked the photograph back in the cookbook and, rising, placed the mat board receipt in his open palm. “It’s a start.”

He stared at the crumpled slip of paper. Resignation washed over his face and his mouth firmed. He unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up over his forearms. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“You have no idea,” Lexie murmured.

RAFE TOOK a sip of peppermint tea and tried not to grimace. He would give his right arm for a strong cup of espresso—even if it did aggravate his gut. Carefully he set the delicate china teacup with the hand-painted roses in its saucer.

With Lexie’s records this disorganized he bet she had other undeclared painting sales. How was she going to pay her taxes? Anyone could see she had no money.

Not his problem. His job was to do the audit and get the hell out of Summerside.

Hopefully after he’d had a chance to sample the fishing.

Seated at the dining table, he went about setting up a spreadsheet for Lexie’s tax records. So far she’d managed to find a dozen receipts, gleaned from strange hiding places. The teapot had yielded a receipt for scented tea candles—naturally. Apparently Lexie sometimes meditated by candlelight to enhance her creativity. Too bad for her, the tax office didn’t consider them an allowable expense.

Lexie was moving around the living room, searching in decorative wooden boxes and flipping through the pages of books. Never in his six years of auditing had he come across anyone like her. She’d pick something up, carry it a few steps and put it down in another spot.

Nutbags, these artist types.

“Maybe instead of looking for individual receipts, you should concentrate on finding those envelopes you were telling me about,” he said.

“I’m deliberately not thinking about them in the hopes it’ll pop into my mind where I put them.”

Nutbag she might be, but she was easy on the eyes. With her straight back and graceful, sleek limbs she could have been mistaken for a dancer. Long tangled blond hair fell past her shoulder blades. She’d bend to search a low shelf then unfold, flipping that hair back, humming to herself as another book or a picture caught her fancy and she spent a few moments studying it. Completely unselfconscious, she didn’t seem to care if he watched her.

Not that he was watching her.

With a frown he dragged his attention back to his woefully sparse spreadsheet, labeling columns across the top.

“Do you mind music while you work?” she said, picking out a CD from the vertical rack.

“Go ahead.” He gritted his teeth and braced himself for whale songs or some such New Age thing.

“I think you’ll like this. It’s Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.” She inserted the CD and a soft haunting voice began to sing in another language.

Yep, just as he’d thought. Rafe tuned out and started tapping in numbers. The sooner he got through this, the sooner he could get down to the pier with his fishing rod.

“Ooh, here’s a whole bunch,” she said, peering into a carved wooden box. She sauntered over to the table and plunked them in front of him. “Here you go.”

Four of the six receipts were useless for tax purposes. He added the other two to his meager pile. “Fourteen down, God knows how many to go.”

Lexie slid onto a chair and pulled her legs up beneath her. “So, Rafe, did you always want to be a tax agent when you grew up?”

“Yes, accountancy fascinated me from an early age.”

“Really?” Lexie asked, with a dubious frown.

No. But he had a facility for numbers and after graduating from high school, accounting had seemed like the quickest ticket out of the small country town of Horsham where he’d grown up.

Rafe shrugged. “It’s a living.”

“It can’t be nice going to people’s houses and threatening them with the police if they don’t hand over their receipts.”

Another twinge in his stomach. He clenched his teeth to control the wince. Nobody got it. Sure, it wasn’t the most thrilling job but it wasn’t fair that people saw him as the bad guy. “I’m here to help you. You’ve gotten yourself in trouble and I’m bailing you out. At taxpayers’ expense, I might add.”

“So you think you’re doing a good thing?”

“Yes, I do.” His fingers tapped the keys as he inputted her details at the top of the spreadsheet. “Where would we be without roads, hospitals, schools? I’m not the bad guy here.”

She laughed incredulously. “You’re saying I am?”

“You don’t take your responsibilities seriously. Absentmindedness is no excuse for failing to file a tax return.”

“Humph.” She stood up in an indignant tinkling of bells, swished away a few paces then spun around, her skirt whirling. “You’re just like my family. That scatterbrained Lexie—she can’t handle her finances, she can’t take care of herself, much less a baby. Maybe I have different priorities. Maybe money and…and receipts…aren’t the most important things in life. Maybe people are.”

“That’s what I’m saying. People who need hospitals and schools and roads.” His hands rested on the keyboard as he stared at her. “What baby?”

“Pardon me?” Her skirts settled, her hands clutching the fabric. Color tinged her cheeks. “I didn’t say anything about a baby.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

CHAPTER TWO

RAFE STARED after her as she hurried from the room, wondering if he’d imagined her saying that about a baby. There was no evidence of an infant or a husband about the house, at least that he could see at a glance. She’d actually mentioned a friend’s toddler, not her own. Maybe she was pregnant and didn’t have a partner. Maybe she was worried about her future and wasn’t sure what to do.

He shrugged and shook his head. Lexie’s baby—real, imagined or pending—was none of his business. Kids. He shuddered.

He could hear her banging pots around in the kitchen and glanced at his watch. It was already past noon. The smell of food emanating from the kitchen was making his stomach rumble.

Lexie returned, carrying a tray loaded with two white-and-blue Chinese soup bowls. Steam rose, spoons clinked gently. “My mother always says that a hungry man is a crabby man.”

She set the soup in front of him. Two-minute noodles with a few slices of carrot floating on top. He glanced at her bowl and saw that she’d given him the larger portion. Either she was on a strict diet or she was hurting for money.

“You didn’t have to feed me,” he said. “I planned to go into the village and find a deli for lunch.”

“I was cooking anyway.” Picking up her spoon, she concentrated on scooping up the slippery noodles.

This was awkward. Rafe didn’t usually dine with clients. That wasn’t the way for a tax auditor to “maintain an independent state of mind.” On the other hand, two-minute noodles weren’t exactly a sumptuous bribe that would turn his head.

Lexie herself was a challenge, though. The sensuous way she moved, her blue cat’s eyes, the aura of sexuality that set his nerve endings tingling.…

Aura? Had he actually thought that word?

She must really be getting to him. It was ridiculous. She wasn’t even his age. He couldn’t tell exactly how old she was but she was definitely older.

Picking up his bowl, he moved to the side of the table so he didn’t slop soup onto his computer and papers. Keeping his eyes down and not on the woman opposite, he tasted the bland, watery broth. “Mmm, good.”

She combed her hands through her hair, pushing it back. Despite the paint stains, she wore a lot of rings. How did she keep them clean? “You should try meditating. It might help your ulcer.”

“If I had an ulcer, acid-blocking medicine would help it more than New Age rubbish.”

“How do you know unless you try it?”

“How do you know I haven’t?”

A tiny smile curled her lips as she bent her head to her bowl. Rafe watched her full pink lips purse and her cheeks hollow as she sucked in the long noodles. He hadn’t tried meditating, of course, but he hated it when people made assumptions about him.

He wasn’t some weedy dweeb with ink-stained fingers bent over a ledger. In his heart he was a sea-faring man, hunting schools of plump red snapper. Snapper would have been nice right now.

Setting to with his spoon, he emptied the meager contents of his bowl. Then he pushed it away. “I’d better get on with your taxes.”

“Finished already? You’re like my father and brother. They inhale food.” She reached for his bowl. “Do you want more? I could open another packet.”

“No, thanks.” He patted his belly. “I couldn’t eat another thing. Now, Lexie, I really need those envelopes.”

She rose to gather the dishes. “I’ll go look in my studio. You have my permission to search the house for them. At this point, your guess is as good as mine.”

Rafe glanced around at the cluttered room crammed with pottery, books, paintings, notepads, sketch pads, flowers—including fresh, dried and dead—and all the rest of the flotsam and jetsam. No doubt every room in her house was similarly jam-packed. The thought of plowing through it—and on a curdled stomach—made him wince.

He had to get out of this job before it killed him.

LEXIE PERCHED on a wooden stool and studied the portrait of Sienna from across the room. To hell with looking for the envelopes, she needed to get this painting finished.

The canvas was large, six foot by four, and was executed in her signature style, so highly detailed it looked almost as real as a photograph but with a magical quality. Sienna was posed like Botticelli’s Venus, draped in royal-blue cloth to set off her Titian hair, which cascaded over her shoulders in abundant loose curls. Her clear grey-green eyes gazed out above a narrow nose very faintly dusted with freckles.

Lexie was satisfied she’d gotten the face right, was pleased she’d captured an expression of alert curiosity. Every hair was painted with attention to texture and color. Along with the creamy skin of Sienna’s shoulder and one exposed breast. Sienna looked…alive.

Yet the painting didn’t feel complete. Something was missing, Lexie knew it instinctively. She just couldn’t put her finger on what. She’d done six versions and this was the best. If she started mucking about again she might ruin what she’d already done.

She tried instead to concentrate on the theme. Sienna by the bay. The unseen half seashell. Borne on the waves. Born of the sea…

It was no use. Lexie glanced toward the house, wondering what Rafe was up to. Should she have allowed him to look through her things? He was a stranger, after all. He might be going through her underwear. Wouldn’t that be… Exciting.

Stop it. Why was she thinking like that? He was way too young for her, practically a boy in short pants. It must be because she was blocked. She always got antsy under pressure.

Sliding off the stool, she walked over to the tall cupboards at the back of the studio. She flung them open, hoping the tax envelopes would jump out at her. Nothing but painting supplies. Crouching lower, she looked through brushes, turpentine, old palettes, sketchbooks, flattened and twisted tubes of used oil paints.

From the doorway, Rafe cleared his throat. “Excuse me. I need to calculate the percentage of household expenses accounted for by your studio.”

Lexie stood up, shutting the cupboard. Rafe had walked across the lawn in his socks and a tuft of grass had caught between his bare toe and the torn sock edge.

“This space is roughly a quarter of the square footage of the house. I paint out here and do my framing,” she said, gesturing to the trestle table along the side wall piled with off cuts of mat board and empty frames. “But I also use the house to research things on the internet, read art books and magazines.”

“Since those are all deductible I’ll adjust the percentage upward.” He moved into the studio, glancing at Sienna’s portrait. “Is this your Archibald Prize entry?”

“It’s supposed to be. I can’t seem to finish it.”

He walked over to the canvas, peered up at Sienna’s face. “It looks finished.”

Picking a brush out of the jar of turpentine, Lexie cleaned it on a rag. “Something’s missing.”

Rafe adopted the classic pose of someone looking at a painting, arm across the waist, the other palm cupping the jaw, the studious frown. His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his white shirt. Lexie’s gaze drifted lower. His cocked hip emphasized his butt muscles and the length of his extended leg.

“It’s very romantic,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t actually mean that as a compliment.”

“Why not?” she asked, frowning. With her brother Jack and Sienna falling in love it had been impossible to paint Sienna without an air of romance.

“It needs something to counteract all the beauty. To raise it above sentimentality.”

She tossed the brush onto the table with a clatter. He dared to give her advice? “Sentimental!”

He shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

Lexie forced herself to study the painting again. She worked hard at being objective about her own work and she had a pretty thick skin. But she’d never thought her interpretation of Sienna was sentimental. The very word conjured paint-by-number kits and kitschy paintings of doe-eyed children holding floppy sunflowers.

“The hair, the skin, the robe…all lush. The expression in her eyes is very emotional,” Rafe explained.

“I know,” she said through gritted teeth. “It’s what I was trying to achieve. It’s supposed to be emotional.”

In a series of sittings spanning several months, she and Sienna had talked about many things. A recurring theme had been Sienna’s yearning for another child besides Oliver, her teenage son from her first marriage. Now that Sienna was marrying Lexie’s brother, Jack, she probably would have a baby. Naturally, there’d been emotion involved. “There’s nothing wrong with portraying feelings.”

“I didn’t say there was.”

“It’s not sentimental.”

“No need to get defensive. I think it’s wonderful. I’m just trying to help.”

“It’s not your cup of tea, that’s all.”

“You’re wrong. I like it a lot,” he insisted. “I just think it needs a contrasting note.”

That stopped her dead. He turned to her, one eyebrow lifted. Damn. Her silence was starting to look like agreement. He was cocky enough as it was. She couldn’t let him think he’d solved her problem. Not that he had solved it. It was one thing to toss off the phrase “contrasting note” like he knew what he was talking about and quite another to figure out what form the contrast should take.

“It has occurred to me that it needs more interior depth,” Lexie mused aloud, trying to baffle him with bullshit. “Perhaps a smidgeon more archetypal mystery in her smile. The goddess within, juxtaposed with the beast, as manifested by the exposed breast.”

Rafe seemed skeptical at this display of gobbledygook. He studied her a moment then finally laughed.

Lexie lifted her chin, holding his gaze rather than admit she was full of it. Damn. He’d seen right through her.

His laughter faded, his amusement replaced by something intent, almost…hungry. Lexie felt herself growing warm, her breathing shallow.

What was happening here?

Rafe blinked. “I’ve got to get back to number crunching. I, uh…” He shook his head. “What did I come in here for? Oh, yeah. Would you say you spend eighty percent of your work time in the studio and twenty percent in the house? Less? More?”

Lexie thought for a moment. She’d never considered this before. “Make it seventy percent studio.”

“Okay.” He started to leave then paused at the door. “I’ll need copies of your utility bills for the past five years. Would they also be in the envelopes?”

“Er, probably.”

He nodded and left. Through the window, Lexie watched him walk back across the lawn to the kitchen door and disappear inside the house. He had a great ass. And great shoulders. Long legs. Narrow hips. Really, he was perfectly proportioned. She wouldn’t mind painting him nude….

Stop it. She was behaving like a…a cougar. She hated that term. It was so predatory.

She turned back to the canvas. Contrasting note, huh? He might actually have something there. The trick was hitting the right note.

Lexie mulled it over while she continued to search the studio for the envelopes. At the end of half an hour she had no further clues to her painting. Hadn’t located the envelopes, either. Giving up, she grabbed a pad of heavy paper and a handful of pencils and went back inside the house. Sometimes when she sketched at random, ideas came to her.

Rafe was carrying a large purple cardboard box over to the coffee table when she walked into the living room. “I found this in your hall closet.”

Lexie recognized the all-purpose box she’d bought at a stationery store. She tossed stuff in there to get it out of sight. Sinking onto the couch, she propped herself on a layer of cushions and tucked her legs beneath her skirt. She doubted he’d find any receipts in there but looking would keep him busy.

She opened the sketch pad, intending to play around with ideas, drawing things she associated with Sienna—a stethoscope, Venus on the half shell. Instead she found herself studying Rafe as he opened the box. As if anticipating treasure, his eyes gleamed.

With a 4B pencil she drew dramatic slashes of black, blocking in his thick eyebrows. Working quickly, she captured his face in a few bold strokes. Not satisfied with the jaw, she smudged out the line with her gum eraser and made it sharper, the angle steeper. Then she chose a finer pencil to work in the shading on the hollows of the cheeks, around the eyes, the black stubble.

As he leafed through the bits and pieces in the box he began to frown. No receipts. She hadn’t thought so. He rolled his shoulders, working out the kinks.

Lexie paused. He carried a lot of tension. She could see it in the lines of his face and the set of his neck. She was the one who should be tense; she was being audited. But she was good at putting unpleasant things out of her mind. Maybe a little too good.

He dug through the box, shaking his head as he lifted out nail clippers, a pencil sharpener, a broken pedometer, a small wooden bowl, assorted colored pencils, marbles, paper clips and matchbooks.

He had eyes that slanted down at the outer corner, an aquiline nose and a mouth that was far too sensuous for someone who worked with columns and rows.

Glancing up, Rafe noticed her sketch pad on her upraised knee. “What are you drawing?”

“Nothing. Just playing around.” Lexie started on his ear. Every person’s whorls were different, like fingerprints.

“Playing?” he repeated as he piled everything back into the box. “Perhaps you don’t understand the seriousness of your situation.”

Lexie stretched her legs along the length of the couch, wriggling her bare toes.

Rafe’s gaze, drawn to the movement, lingered on her bare calves. Their gazes met for a fraction of a second. Lexie’s mind flashed back to the outline of his thigh muscle under his pants. She drew her skirt down. Rafe glanced away.

He cleared his throat. “You need to—” He broke off, frowning. Apparently he was having trouble formulating the sentence. “You need to find those receipts if you want to offset expenses against the income from the paintings you sold to the American. If not, you’ll be charged the maximum amount of tax.”

Lexie stilled. “What would that be?”

He started piling things back into the box. “Tax on the forty thousand dollars, with minimal deductions, would be around fifteen thousand.”

Fifteen thousand dollars.

“Where am I going to get that kind of money?” she demanded. She may have sounded angry, but she wasn’t. She was scared.

He shrugged. Not his problem, in other words.

She had to find those envelopes.

But she also had to finish Sienna’s portrait. It was the best thing she’d ever done and she really thought she had a shot at winning the Archibald Prize and the fifty-thousand dollars that went to first place. Fear speared through her. She had to win the cash prize. She would need it to pay her tax bill.

Lexie closed her eyes and slowly breathed out all the way. Calm. Peace. Light.

“Utility bills?” Rafe reminded her.

Ooh.

“I’ll go look for them now.” She set her sketch pad aside and rose. He was going to be in her house for days, possibly the rest of the week. Even without being blocked it was hard to see how she was going to get any work done.

Lexie went down the hall, past her bedroom to the spare room where she kept a small whitewashed desk and a single bed covered in a patchwork quilt. Her early paintings, seascapes mainly, covered the walls. Rifling the desk drawers, she came up with…nothing. This was ridiculous even for her. She knew she didn’t have five years’ worth of household bills, but she’d kept some. They must be with her tax envelopes. Where were they?

She opened the double doors of the closet. Piles of old clothing she would never wear again, jigsaw puzzles—mostly with one or two pieces missing—and the hair dryer that sparked. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t throw away broken and useless items? It was no wonder she could never find anything. Pretty soon she’d have to rent another house just to store the things she didn’t use.

What was this? She pulled out a small antique clock. She’d forgotten she had this. It had a hand-painted white enamel face and was mounted on a rosewood base. She’d been attracted to it originally because the mechanism was exposed. Every cog, wheel and spring was visible and could be seen moving. When it worked.

“That’s a skeleton clock.”

She leaped back and almost dropped the thing. How long had he been standing in the doorway? “You have to stop sneaking up on me.”

Rafe ignored her reaction and moved closer to get a better look. “Quite a nice example, too. My father repairs clocks for a living. He’s taught me a bit over the years. Where did you get that one?”

“I must have picked it up at a flea market years ago.” She looked underneath and found a tiny key taped to the base. She inserted it into the slot and wound it. Nothing happened. “It’s broken,” she said, disappointed.

“Let me see.”

While he inspected the mechanism of springs and cogged wheels, she studied the thick black hair that fell over his forehead, the way his mouth compressed in concentration.

Suddenly, he stilled, as if aware of how close they were standing. “Speaking of time, it’s getting late.” He handed the clock back to her, cautious about making contact, either by skin or by eye.

Rafe walked back to the dining room. Lexie followed carrying the clock. He began packing up his briefcase. His movements appeared casual, but she noticed he was cramming papers in any old how.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Rafe said. “I suggest you keep looking—”

Someone knocked.

Before Lexie could answer it, the front door opened. Her mother, Hetty, stood on the step in a long tunic top and flowing cotton pants, a suitcase in either hand. Her spiky gray hair stood up from her head.

“Mom,” Lexie said, going forward to embrace her. “What are you doing here? Is everything all right?”

“No, it’s not,” Hetty said tartly. “Your father and I had a terrible fight. I’m moving in with you.” She stepped inside, and noticed Rafe. “Sorry. I didn’t know you had company.”

“He’s not company, he’s—” Lexie broke off. “Moving in?”

RAFE SLIPPED OUT while Lexie bombarded her mother with questions and Hetty made vague and weary responses. He got behind the wheel of his ten-year-old Mazda and had to slam the door twice before it would stay shut.

He glanced at his fishing rod lying across the backseat. That would have to wait another day. He was tired and Murphy, his dog, would be waiting for him. As it was, he had to drive home in the late-afternoon heat through the tail end of rush hour traffic. With the windows rolled down because the air-conditioning didn’t work, he headed north, away from Melbourne’s bayside suburbs and into the Dandenong Mountains.

Mulling over the day, he found himself worrying about Lexie, if she would find her envelopes, if she could pay her taxes—

He was doing it again. Getting involved, feeling compassion.

Hell.

“YOUR TAX AUDITOR is rather gorgeous.” Hetty dumped her suitcase on the antique quilt covering the single bed in Lexie’s spare room. “Where did you find him?”

“He’s not mine, he belongs to the government. And he’s turning my house upside down,” Lexie said from the doorway. “I wish he was never coming back.”

Did she? Or was she already thinking she’d wash her hair tonight.

“It’s no fun being audited but surely it’s just a matter of letting him do his job.” Hetty opened her suitcase and started to unpack.

“The problem is, I can’t find the envelopes that have all my tax receipts in them. They’re somewhere in the house but I have no idea where. Plus I’m going to have to pay back taxes with money I don’t have. Plus I have to finish Sienna’s portrait because the deadline for the Archibald is coming up and I can’t tell what’s missing but something is. Something crucial.” Lexie’s voice seemed to have risen an octave. She sucked in a breath. “I’ve been blocked for ages. All I can do is paint stupid beach huts and make pencil sketches—”

She broke off, thinking about the sketch of Rafe and how there was a hint of something tragic in his eyes. She would try to capture that tomorrow. No, she wouldn’t. Tomorrow she would work on Sienna. Or find the envelopes.

“Oh, God. My life is unfolding like a Greek tragedy.”

“Don’t overdramatize. Everything will be fine.” Hetty draped a cotton blouse over a hanger. “I know you. You get blocked and it feels as if it’ll be forever. Then one day something clicks and away you go again.”

Lexie slumped onto the bed. “I hope you’re right.”

Hetty went to hang the blouse and clicked her tongue at the crowded closet. She pushed through the hangers and brought out a faded pink dress. “Honestly, Lexie, I recognize this from when you went to art school. Why not get rid of it?”

Lexie’s mouth dried as she recalled being seventeen and living away from home in her first year at art school. She’d bought the dress because the cut was loose and hid her thickening waist. No one in her family knew, then or now, that she’d been pregnant.

“It holds memories. I—I can’t throw it away.” The crush of soft fabric between her fingers brought a sudden rush of grief and guilt. Why did she torture herself by keeping it around? She should get rid of it. In fact…

What if it was all the excess stuff in her house that was blocking her? Declutter. Wasn’t that what all the women’s magazines were telling her to do?

“On second thought…” Lexie grabbed the pink dress and an armful of hangers and hauled them out of the closet.

Seeing space open up felt good. With a burst of enthusiasm she took down the folded piles of clothes from the shelf and threw them into the hallway along with the clothes on hangers. This might be another form of procrastination but at least it would achieve something.

“What’s going on with you and Dad?” she asked, standing on tiptoe to reach the jigsaw puzzles. “I thought you wanted to get back together with him. I thought you were going to give him another chance.”

“He’s not giving me another chance,” Hetty said, hanging up her blouses in the space Lexie’d created. “Even though Smedley is fine, Steve still blames me for the dog eating fox bait.” Hetty’s voice wobbled. “Steve wouldn’t even look at me at the Fun Run. It’s been two weeks now and we barely speak. While I was at the yoga retreat in Queensland he converted our house to a bachelor pad complete with car parts on the kitchen floor and a pool table in the living room.”

“Get him to change it back.”

“He’s never home to do anything! He’s out all the time, volunteering at the Men’s Shed Jack founded, at Toastmasters meetings….”

“You wanted him to find a hobby,” Lexie reminded her.

“He’s found a hobby all right.” Lexie read the anger in Hetty’s gray eyes. “Her name is Susan Dwyer.”

Huh? Lexie dropped the puzzle boxes on top of the pile of clothes. Steve, her stolid conservative father, the man who’d been dependent on Hetty for years, had another woman? “No way. Dad wouldn’t have an affair.”

Hetty lifted her shoulders, her mouth twisting. “What do you call it when he’s out with her three nights of the week? He says they’re on a committee to organize some speech contest or other. And he says she’s his mentor and is helping him with his entry. But he’s not the type to get caught up in committees. He has to be doing it because of her.”

“Not necessarily,” Lexie said, trying to be fair. “Renita and I went to the Toastmasters meeting the night he did his Icebreaker speech. It was obvious he enjoys the meetings and everyone there, not just Susan Dwyer.” She paused before adding, “He really has changed while you’ve been in Queensland. Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”

“I don’t know him at all anymore.” Hetty burst into tears. “Lexie, what am I going to do?”

“It’ll be all right.” Dismayed, Lexie pulled her mother into a hug. “You wanted him to be more self-sufficient.”

“I didn’t want him to stop needing me.” Hetty hiccupped on a sob. “Or loving me.”

“He loves you. He needs you,” Lexie said helplessly. Her father had been through a lot in the past six months, including being diagnosed with type two diabetes. Renita had encouraged him to join the gym and start jogging. Steve had taken up Toastmasters of his own accord as a way to get out and meet people. He was a completely different person from the over-weight depressed man who couldn’t adjust to retirement. Everything should have been great for him and Hetty.

“You changed when you took up yoga,” Lexie reminded her mother, easing back to meet Hetty’s gaze. “You need to let him change, too.”

“You’re right.” Hetty blinked, sniffed, dragged in a shuddering breath. “I need to learn to accept him as he’s becoming. Even if it means that from now on we follow different paths.”

“Wait a minute. No,” Lexie said, alarmed. “You’ll get back together. You have to. You can’t throw away forty years of marriage.”

“I don’t want to,” Hetty said. “But right now, I can’t live at home.”

Lexie gave her mum another hug. “Stay here as long as you want. You could help me look for my receipts.”

She didn’t want to mention she was low on groceries or that she had a cash flow problem. With luck she would sell a painting this week. The seascapes she did were bread and butter between the odd commission she got for portraits.

“I’ll pay rent, of course,” Hetty said, somehow reading her mind.

“Don’t even think about it,” Lexie said. “But I’d love you to show me some of the new yoga techniques you learned at the retreat.”

“Gladly.” Hetty gave her a watery smile.

Lexie released her mother. She picked up the bundle of clothes in the hallway and carried them to the front door. First thing tomorrow she would donate them to the thrift shop.

She was already beginning to feel lighter. It was good to start afresh. With a clearer mind she might find the key to finishing Sienna’s portrait.

But as she walked toward the spare room her footsteps slowed.

Lexie reached the box of clothes and removed the pink dress. She took it to her bedroom and hung it at the back of her closet.

CHAPTER THREE

“WHAT THE HELL’S going on, Murph?” Rafe said as he pulled up in front of Lexie’s house the next morning. Bulging plastic garbage bags were piled along the path. Boxes of odds and ends were stacked behind her car. The front door was propped open. Was she turning the house inside out in her search for the envelopes?

He parked at the curb and unloaded his briefcase and a couple bags of groceries. Murphy, his black-and-white mutt, scampered at his heel, sniffing boxes, relieving himself on the gardenia bush, barking at the brown cat that hissed at him before darting into the shrubbery.

Rafe stopped. The skeleton clock was in one of the boxes clearly destined for rubbish. He tucked it under his arm and knocked on the open door. Soft music was playing and vanilla incense drifted through the house. “Lexie?”

“Come in.” Her voice sounded constricted.

Rafe slipped off his shoes and walked through the hall, turning left into the living room. The coffee table and armchair had been pushed back so Lexie and her mother had space for yoga. Hetty was in a deep lunge, arms outstretched. Lexie was standing on one leg, doubled over and touching the floor. Her other long and shapely leg straight up in the air, toe pointed. Her hair hung in a curtain around her head.

It was rude to stare but he couldn’t help it. Lexie’s aqua blue tank top and low-slung cropped pants fit her like a second skin, molding to every slender curve. Man, she could bend.

Cool it, Ellersley. Independent state of mind, remember?

Positioning his briefcase in front of him, he began to recite the Taxation Administration Act of 1953 in his head. Murphy settled onto his haunches at Rafe’s feet.

Lexie lowered her leg with exquisite control and straightened, flipping her hair back. “Rafe, I found the envelopes!”

“Excellent.” His name on her lips, her excitement… Pursuant to Schedule A, Section D, the party of the first part shall pay a portion of their income to the Commonwealth of Australia, calculated for the financial period from the first day of July to the thirtieth day of June…

Then, before he could ask where the envelopes were, Lexie noticed Murphy. “Oh, my God, a stray followed you in. Quick, get him out before he goes after Yin and Yang.” She came at him, making shooing motions. “Go on, bad doggy, out!”

Murphy started licking her hands. She snatched her hands away.

“This is Murphy,” Rafe said. “Sorry, I should have asked first if I could bring him here. I couldn’t leave him home alone for days on end. He’s a good boy. He likes cats.”

Likes to annoy them. The truth was, Rafe had forgotten all about Lexie’s Burmese cats.

“All right,” Lexie said reluctantly. “But if they get stressed, he’ll have to stay in the backyard.” She noticed the grocery bags. “What’s this?”

“I thought I’d pick up a few things since I’ll be around a lot this week. You know how crabby I get when I’m hungry.” His conscience wouldn’t allow him to go out to eat knowing she was lunching on two-minute noodles.

Hetty straightened out of her yoga pose. “Hello,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Hetty. I arrived yesterday just as you were leaving.”

“Pleased to meet you officially,” he said, shaking hands.

Lexie peeked inside the grocery bags at the meat, cheese, eggs, fruit and vegetables he’d bought. She gazed at him, her eyes so dazzling they were hard to look at and impossible to turn away from. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“So,” he said, rubbing his hands together like some cartoon character because otherwise he’d reach out and touch her or do something equally inappropriate. “Show me to the envelopes.”

“Ta-da!” She gestured grandly to the dining table.

Rafe’s heart plummeted to the soles of his croc skins.

Holy shit.

Manila envelopes full to bursting were stacked four high and five or six wide. There must be dozens of them. As he looked, a precariously balanced envelope slid off the top of the pile and fell on the floor.

“I’ll put away the groceries.” Hetty picked up the bags and carried them to the kitchen.

“Thanks, Mum,” Lexie said.

Rafe walked over to the table and picked up one of the bulging envelopes. “Where did you find them?”

“In the garden shed,” she said excitedly. “I remembered where they were in the middle of the night. You know how sometimes you wake up and the answer to something that’s been puzzling you is right there, clear as a bell? I woke up with a picture in my mind of me shoving them on the potting table.”

The woman was certifiable.

And she was standing too close. Her perfume combined with the scent of her warm skin was stirring his hormones. Occasionally he was attracted to women he audited, but until Lexie they’d always been easy to resist. All he could think of right now was wanting to grab her and kiss her breathless.

He’d never encountered anyone like her—sexy and exasperating in almost equal measures. “Why would you put them in the garden shed?”

“They were driving me nuts. I had to paint.” Her gaze seemed to get stuck on the open neck of his shirt. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

“What if you needed to garden?” And didn’t that just make him picture her kneeling in the garden bed, her ass in the air?

“It was the middle of the summer.” She gathered her hair in a bunch and let it fall down her back. He followed the line of her upraised arms with his eyes. “The, um, grass doesn’t even need mowing. Because…it doesn’t get enough water. To grow.”

“That’s…logical.”

With difficulty, Rafe dragged his eyes back to the envelope. Opening it, he pulled out a handful of loose pieces of paper. “You must spend a lot on art supplies.”

“They’re not all from buying art supplies. I’m never sure what’s allowable and what isn’t, so just to be on the safe side, I keep every receipt I get.”

“O-kay. Every receipt?” he echoed faintly, feeling a sharp twinge in his stomach. He put the envelope down and opened his briefcase. He found that if he avoided looking at her, it was easier to concentrate.

“I’ll go through them with you,” Lexie said. “But first, I’ve got to take a load of stuff to the thrift store. I’ve got to declutter. I can’t think.”

“I’ll help,” Hetty volunteered, returning from the kitchen.

“Thanks, Mum.” Lexie abandoned the receipts, grabbed her purse from the table and headed for the front door. She yelled over her shoulder, “I’ll be back.”

Hetty took a seat at the table and gazed expectantly at Rafe. “What would you like me to do?”

Rafe scanned the slips of paper in his hand and shook his head. Lexie had put receipts from different years in the same envelope. “You could start sorting these by year.”

Murphy was doing the rounds of the living room, sniffing at every chair. Yin watched him through slitted green eyes from the arm of the couch. “Murphy, here.” The dog trotted over and lay at his feet under the table.

Hetty started separating the receipts into piles. “I don’t mind telling you the family has been worried about Lexie’s finances. Ever since she quit teaching to paint full-time she’s had trouble making ends meet. But she refuses to accept help. She says she made the decision to be an artist, and she’s willing to live with the consequences. It’s nice of you to come to her house and do this for her.”

“It’s my job.” He wondered if he should mention that Lexie would likely cop a fine. He felt bad about that—

Not his problem. Feeling sorry for the taxpayer was how he’d gotten into trouble over his last audit.

He heard Lexie return for another box. A moment later he heard her car start.

Rafe called up the spreadsheet onto the screen. He pulled a calculator out of his briefcase and began entering numbers. When he’d done all he could, he reached for an envelope and began sorting. There were receipts for the hairdresser (not deductible), art gallery entry (deductible), a car battery (debatable)—

“Do you live locally?” Hetty asked.

“Sassafras, up in the Dandenongs. But I’m booked into a bed and breakfast just down the road.”

“Myrna Bailey’s, right?” She waited for him to nod then went on, “Do you have family?”

Rafe suppressed a sigh. What was it about middle-aged women that they had to know everything about a person? That they couldn’t sit at the same table without making conversation. “My parents live in Western Victoria, in Horsham. I have a sister in Brisbane.”

“Do your parents farm?”

It was a natural enough question given the location but he hated answering it. His parents, Darryl and Ellen, had moved to the country years ago, after Darryl’s accident, because it was cheaper than the city. Rafe always wanted to explain that although his father was in a wheelchair, there’d been a time when he’d had bigger dreams.

“No, my father has a home-based business repairing clocks and watches.” He should go see them. It had been months since he’d last been out there.

Rafe continued sifting through Lexie’s receipts. He came across an application form for an artist’s society. He noted down the amount of annual dues and saw she’d filled in her birth date.

Before he could censor himself, he blurted, “Is Lexie really thirty-eight years old?”

“Yes,” Hetty said. “It was her birthday last month.”

Twelve years older than him. He’d figured she was older but not by that much.

“She looks a lot younger.”

“It’s the yoga and the meditation,” Hetty said. “Plus she has a naturally serene disposition. Nothing bothers her.”

“The portrait she’s painting is bothering her.”

“Well, yes,” Hetty conceded.

Rafe sat back in his chair, still staring at the year Lexie was born. She could have easily passed for thirty. If that was the result of meditation and yoga maybe he ought to take it up. Or not.

Twelve years.

He added the art society annual dues to the column. Afternoon sun shone through the crystals hanging from the window frame, making rainbows on his page of numbers. There seemed to be crystals everywhere in the house. He’d noticed them in the kitchen, too. From below the table, Murphy snored.

“Do you have a wife or girlfriend?” Hetty asked.

Rafe stifled another sigh. “Never married. No girlfriend at present.”

“You’re young yet,” she said comfortably. “There’s plenty of time to marry and have children.”

The other thing about middle-aged women was, they wanted to marry a guy off and tie him down with kids before he’d had a chance to enjoy life. What was up with that?

He stabbed at the keypad on his calculator. “How are you doing with the sorting?”

“Don’t you like kids?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, you have plenty of time to marry and have kids,” Hetty recapped patiently, as she dealt out receipts like playing cards at a bridge game. “You didn’t reply. So then I asked, don’t you like children?”

How did she get child-hater from silence? There’d been nothing to say in response to her statement so he hadn’t bothered with meaningless chatter. “Kids are fine, I guess. As long as they’re other people’s.”

Tamsin, his ex-girlfriend, had made him gun-shy. They’d been together nearly a year when she’d gotten clucky. Then he’d discovered she’d “accidentally” forgotten to take her birth control pills and the huge fight that ensued had killed their relationship. Fortunately, she hadn’t got pregnant.

Feeling Hetty’s gaze on him, he could sense the questions forming in her mind. “I’ve got plans, okay? I’m not ready to get married or have children. Maybe in ten years I’ll think about it. But first I want to start my own fishing charter business.”

“That’s interesting,” she said, leaning forward, chin on her palm. “When are you going to do that?”

“Next year, if all goes well.” Then he pointedly began entering numbers into his calculator. He’d had enough soul baring for one day. And he’d jeopardize his job if he didn’t do this audit properly.

Hetty went back to sorting receipts. The only sound was the clicking of the keys as Rafe entered data.

After a few minutes her hands stilled. Out of the blue she said, “I’ve lost touch with my husband.” She stared at the receipts in her hand.

Fresh pain stabbed his stomach. Now she expected him to ask her questions. News flash! He wasn’t a woman. Hell. Why did she have to look so unhappy? “What happened?” he asked heavily.

“We grew apart when we weren’t looking,” she said, launching into what was sure to be a long-winded explanation. “We’d been up and down for six months or more, ever since we retired. Then I went away to Queensland for a yoga retreat. He didn’t like that. Now that I’m back, well, he doesn’t seem to need me anymore.”

She paused, apparently waiting for another response.

“Has he said he doesn’t need you?” Rafe asked gruffly. “Sometimes women read stuff into things that guys don’t mean.”

“No, but—”

“Did he tell you to leave?”

“I told you, I left him. I share the blame, I do.” She waved a veined hand weighted with silver rings. “But I’m ready to try again. Only he has a whole new life and there doesn’t seem to be any place in it for me.” Her large gray eyes swam with tears. “He doesn’t care if I’m here or not. He won’t talk to me, barely looks at me. Forty years of marriage and it’s over. I’m pretty sure there’s another woman. I don’t know what to do.”

Rafe just nodded. Why was she confiding in him? He was no marriage counselor.

“If I was your husband,” he improvised, hoping that a solution would shut her up. “I’d want you to prove you would never go away again before I took you back.”

Hetty blinked away moisture. “How can I do that?”

“By going home and staying put. By not running off to your daughter’s house. It takes time to win back trust.”

Hetty stared. “For a young man you’re very wise.”

She started sorting again. After ten minutes she put down the receipts. “He’s got to meet me halfway. Talk to me, for a start. Listen to how I feel.”

Rafe grunted. His calculator clicked steadily.

Hetty’s voice flowed on.

THE HOUSE WAS QUIET when Lexie entered an hour later. Odd. Her mother liked to chat. She’d thought Hetty would be talking Rafe’s ear off. Peering into the living room, she could see that Rafe was alone, his back to her, bent over the table. His computer sat idle.

She dropped her purse on the hall table and kicked off her shoes. “I’m back. Where’s Mum?”

He straightened and glanced over his shoulder, brushing a thick strand of black hair out of his eyes. “No idea. She said something but I wasn’t listening. I think she left.”

He was working on the skeleton clock. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up over forearms smattered with dark hair. His hands were well shaped, his long fingers delicately manipulating the inner workings with a tiny screwdriver and tweezers.

She sank into the chair next to him.

“I replaced a spring, tightened a few things.” He sat back. From the compartment at the bottom of the base he took the small key and inserted it into the keyhole. He turned it a few times and listened.

The clock started to tick.

Rafe grunted with satisfaction and glanced sideways at her.

Lexie’s eyes blurred. The clock wasn’t going to help her finish her portrait or do her taxes but it felt like the first thing that had gone right in days. Maybe weeks. “You did it.”

As if he’d fixed her life.

Without stopping to think she leaned over, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him.

CHAPTER FOUR

KISSING HIM was like touching her lips to a live electrical wire. A current flowed through her, lifting her off her chair and onto her feet. Rafe surged upward, too, his hands framing her face as he pressed his mouth to hers in a long breathless kiss. She slid her arms around his neck. He gathered her close, pressing hot kisses to her cheeks, her nose, her neck. Then his mouth found hers again and his tongue plunged inside, flooding her with heat and sensation…

Her hands slid down his shirtfront, pushing against his chest. “Stop,” she gasped.

Instantly, he released her, breathing hard, eyes wild. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Aghast, Lexie fled down the hall to her bedroom. She slammed the door shut and paced between the end of the bed and the closet. Rafe was a government tax accountant here to audit her, not to…to…

She breathed in deeply and slowly, taking the air all the way to her stomach. Then she let it out through her mouth. Normally that would calm her. Not quite.

Another breath. She would go back out there, act normally and not do anything dumb. Shoulders back and down, she opened the door.

Rafe was standing on the other side, fist raised to knock. Face-to-face. She stared. That mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, the words tumbling out. “I don’t know what came over me. That was inappropriate. Please forget it ever happened. I’ll go out to my studio. Stay out of your way. I go a little crazy when I’m not working. Please don’t think anything of it.”

She paused for breath.

“What just happened out there?” He looked shell-shocked, as if he hadn’t taken in a word she’d said.

“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” she babbled. “I didn’t mean to kiss you. Well, obviously on one level I did. I’ve been thinking of it all day. And yesterday—”

“I’ve been thinking about nothing else.” His dazed eyes settled on her mouth. “I only know two things. I shouldn’t be doing this. And I don’t want to stop.” He kissed her again. “Tell me to stop.” His voice was low and rasping. Almost pleading.

Holding his gaze, she took his hands and settled them on her hips. The heat of his fingers burned through her thin cotton yoga pants. He drew her closer.

Rafe glided the tip of his tongue into the hollow behind her ear. His mouth moved over her neck, his breath warm against her skin.

“I don’t want you to stop.” Easing back, she met his hot dark eyes and melted. “I want to go to bed with you.”

He went still. Lexie felt every hair on her body stand on end. She held her breath.

“I should not be doing this,” he said again, stripping his shirt off. Underneath he wore a white T-shirt that accentuated his tanned shoulders and strapping chest.

If he was prey to her cougar, he was willing prey.

Her nerves jumping, she stepped back, pulling him toward her by his belt. Kissing him as he stumbled forward. Her breath got stuck somewhere between her throat and her chest as she worked his buckle.

And then he was shucking off his gray trousers and tossing them, along with his shirt. Lexie drank in the sight of him. Her last lover had been in his for ties with the beginnings of a paunch and a softening jawline. Although a hard body wasn’t everything, Rafe’s smooth skin, sculpted muscles and erection were just…wow.

She practically tore her clothes off, trembling with need, almost unable to stand. She pushed down his black boxers as he fumbled her bra off. He cupped her breasts in his hands, sucking hard on one nipple, as he slid her panties over her hips. They were both naked, pressing against each other, so hot she could swear she heard her skin sizzle against his.

“Oh, hell,” he groaned into her ear. His hands tightened. “I don’t have any condoms. Do you?”

“No. But I have an IUD.” She rested her fore head against his chest, breathing hard, praying they weren’t stopping now. “I’m healthy.” She glanced up, searching his eyes. “You?”

He met her gaze straight on. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Growling low in her throat, she pulled him down on top of her on the bed in a tangle of limbs, tongues and hands. She was aching to feel him inside her. His biceps tensed as he poised over her. His thighs nudged between hers. So much power, so much heat. Lexie ran her restless hands over his hips, urging him.

Thick and hard, he plunged. Lexie thrust her hips upward until he filled her completely. She savored the delicious sensation, her legs trembling with strain.

He thrust again, grinding into her, his breath hot against her cheek. “Tell me if I’m too rough.”

She was so aroused she couldn’t speak.

His low voice rumbled next to her ear, saying wicked things that made her laugh and gasp. And all the time he was moving, pumping, hard and fast.

She climaxed quickly in a white heat that obliterated everything but the waves of pleasure pulsing through her. Dimly she was aware of Rafe, every muscle taut as he strained above her. And then an unearthly groan as he spilled himself into her.

RAFE OPENED his eyes. In the dim light of Lexie’s bedroom he could see her tangled blond hair, a bare shoulder and a small square of pillow. He nuzzled her neck, breathed in her scent.

He rolled over onto his back. She stirred sleepily and rolled with him, draping an arm across his chest.

Suddenly he felt very cold.

What the hell had he been thinking?

Obviously, he hadn’t been thinking.

He didn’t want to think. He wanted to bury himself in Lexie again. To trace the whorls of the shell tattoo on her hip with his tongue, to dip lower, licking his way up the slender muscle of her inner thigh. He was getting hard again just thinking about it.

Larry didn’t have to hear about this.

Not if Rafe did the audit properly, everything aboveboard. No fudging to save Lexie money. No going easy on her, overlooking the odd painting sale to reduce her income. After all, she wasn’t expecting anything like that—

Was she?

He felt even colder. Could she have seduced him so he’d reduce her taxes? People tried offering much less with the same expectation.

Nah. That was crazy. She wasn’t the type.

On the other hand, how well did he really know her?

LEXIE PEERED over the mound of files between her and Rafe. The best sex she’d ever had, bar none. This morning, though, he was ignoring her. He’d barely looked at her.

“Can I claim video rentals?” she asked.

Rafe kept his head down, the calculator clicking nonstop. “Did they inspire you to paint?”

“Everything inspires me.” She frowned at the receipt in her hand. “Except doing my taxes.”

“Claim the video.”

She dropped it on the Save pile.

Theirs was just a fling, she knew that. Rafe was a government tax agent. She’d known him for all of two days. As soon as the audit was over he’d be hitting the road.

Anyway, he was too young for her.

“Dinner at the pub?” she asked, moving on to the next receipt.

“Not unless it was a meeting with a gallery owner or a potential buyer or somehow business-related.”

She tossed the receipt in the rubbish bin. Going through receipts was the most boring thing in the world. Her gaze kept drifting to Rafe. She wanted to go over there and wrestle him to the ground and kiss him until he cried uncle.

She rose restlessly, and paced through the living room, coming to a halt at the bookshelf. The quietly ticking skeleton clock caught her eye. She carried it back to the table.

Lexie laid her chin on her folded hands and studied the series of linked wheels of decreasing size. In the time it took the largest wheel to turn a quarter of the way around, the next wheel had spun a full circle and the next one down had gone around five times. The final wheel turned a spring that was coiled in a loose spiral that expanded and contracted with each click of a cog.

Like a heartbeat.

The minute hand ticked over to twelve and the hour hand pointed to three. There was a whirring noise and a tiny hammer struck a chime.

She glanced up to share her delight and found Rafe watching her. Finally, he was looking at her. “Do you want to…” She nodded in the direction of her bedroom.

A red flush spread across his cheeks. “I have to get this finished.”

God, what was wrong with her? She shouldn’t have been so direct. She was scaring him. But they couldn’t just act as if nothing had happened. Last night they’d stopped long enough to eat dinner then had gone back to bed. He’d gotten up before she awoke and went back to his B&B.

“I know what’s going on,” she said. “You’re feeling guilty because you’re not supposed to sleep with clients.”

“Something like that.” he muttered.

“That doesn’t mean you have to ignore me,” she said matter-of-factly. “Last night was amazing. Can’t we just accept that we have this freakish natural chemistry and enjoy it until you have to ride into the sunset?”

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