Awakened by His Touch Read Online Free PDF

couldn’t take more than a day to give him a courtesy listen?’
    ‘Not if he’s to see the full range of our operations first hand. Too much of it is seasonal.’
    Spring and summer were all about honey-harvesting, but the remaining six months of the year they concentrated on other areas of their operation. They lived and worked through winter on the back of the honey harvest. Just like the bees did.
    ‘How many times?’
    ‘That’s up to him,’ her father suggested. ‘It’s business as usual for us.’
    ‘Easy for you to say—you’re not tasked with babysitting.’
    ‘You’re the best one to talk turkey with the man, Laney. Most of what we now do are your initiatives.’
    ‘They’re our initiatives, Dad. The whole family discussed and agreed.’
    Well, she’d discussed and her parents had agreed. Owen had just shrugged.
    ‘But you created them.’
    ‘Someone else created them. I just suggested we adopt them.’
    ‘Stop playing down your strengths,’ he grumbled. As usual.
    ‘Would you rather I took credit for the work of others?’ she battled. As usual.
    Frustration oozed from his tone. ‘I’d rather you took some credit for yourself from time to time. Who knows? If you impress him enough there might be a job in it for you.’
    ‘I have a job here.’
    ‘A better job.’
    The presumption that her job wasn’t already about the best occupation a person could hope for really rankled. ‘Why would they hire me, Dad? Not a lot of call for apiarists in the city.’
    ‘Why wouldn’t they hire you? You’re as smart and capable as anyone else. More so.’
    ‘How about because I know nothing about their industry?’
    ‘He’s trained to recognise raw talent. He’d be crazy not to take you on.’
    Laney got the tiniest thrill at the thought of being taken on in any way by Elliott Garvey, but she fought it. ‘You don’t just hire someone because they seem generally capable, Dad.’
    ‘You’re as worthy as anyone of your chance.’
    Dread pooled thick and low. Oh, here we go... ‘Dad, promise me you won’t do the whole Laney-sell job.’
    As he was so very wont to do. Over and over during her childhood, much to her dismay. But the thought of him humiliating her like that with Elliott Garvey... Ugh .
    ‘I’ll promise no such thing. I’m proud of my daughter and her achievements and not too shy to admit it.’
    ‘He’s here to study our operations, not—’
    ‘I liked him,’ her mother piped up, apropos of pretty much nothing, as she placed a heavy dish on the table with a punctuating clunk. Chicken stew, from the delicious aroma. All organic, like the rest of their farm. ‘He’s handsome.’
    Her father grunted. ‘Don’t change the subject, Ellen.’
    ‘You think everyone’s handsome, Mum.’ Laney lowered her voice instinctively as she and her father helped ferry clean plates to the table, even though she’d heard Elliott Garvey’s expensive tyres on the driveway gravel about twenty minutes earlier. ‘Besides, what do looks have to do with a person’s integrity or goodness?’
    ‘I can’t comment on those until I’ve shared a meal with the man. So can we please just do that before setting our minds in any particular direction?’
    ‘You’ll have to invite him first, and he goes home tomorrow afternoon.’ So there went the dinner plan. Conveniently.
    ‘I have invited him. That’s his setting you just laid.’
    She straightened immediately. No. She’d only set the table for the usual four. ‘Where’s Owen?’
    ‘Chasing some surfer tourist,’ his father muttered.
    At twenty-five she might still be a work in progress, but her twin had pretty much stopped emotional development at eighteen. Whatever was Owen’s perpetual outlook. If he was around to give one and not off surfing the latest hot break.
    ‘He’s taking her for a pizza, Robert. He had his Saturday night shirt on.’
    Oh, well...look out, Surfer Girl, then. If her brother had bothered with a clean shirt he