Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 3 Read Online Free PDF

really seemed to want to watch, though, so he turned it off, found an easy-listening CD, soft and lazy and romantic, and instead of going back to his chair he went over to the sofa and sat down beside her, giving her shoulder an affectionate little rub.
    ‘You OK, my love?’
    She nodded, but she didn’t meet his eyes and there wasn’t a trace of a smile. ‘Just tired. I’ll be glad when the holidays come.’
    ‘So will I. You can give me a hand—we’ll try that new fresh curd cheese you’ve been talking about.’
    Beneath his hand her shoulder drooped a little, then shestraightened up. ‘Yes, we can do that. I might give Sarah a hand with the ice cream as well. See if we can get the raspberry one smoother. It’s a bit too juicy and it tends to get ice crystals.’
    ‘It’s gorgeous. Maybe it just needs stirring for longer as it cools, and agitating more often. You’ve got it cracked with the strawberry, doing that. Maybe it just needs more of the same.’
    ‘Maybe. We’ll try a few things, see how we do.’
    She stood up, moving away from him, and went out, coming back a moment later with a book. So much for cuddling up together on the sofa. He peered at the cover.
    ‘Anything interesting?’ he asked, and she lifted the book so he could see it.
    ‘CBT—cognitive behaviour therapy. One of my pupils is having it, so I thought I’d read up a bit.’
    And she curled up in the corner of the sofa again, opened the book and shut him out as effectively as if she’d left the room.
    So he did.
    He went upstairs, had a shower for the second time that day and came back down in a clean pair of jeans. He hadn’t bothered with a T-shirt. It was still hot and, anyway, she’d never been able to keep her hands off him when he took his shirt off. All that rippling muscle, she’d say with a smoky laugh, and grab him.
    But she didn’t even look up.
    The CD had finished, so he put the television back on and settled down to watch a repeat of something he hadn’t enjoyed a lot the first time round.
    Anything rather than be ignored.
    What was happening to them?
    She raised her eyes slightly from the book and let them dwell on his body. Long, lean and rangy, his muscles sleek and strong, not the muscles of a weightlifter but of a man who worked hard with his body, and it showed.
    Lord, it showed, and there’d been a time not so very long ago when she would have got up and gone over to him and run her hand over that bare, deep chest with its scattering of dark hair, teasing the flat copper coins of his nipples until they were tight and pebbled under her fingertips. Then she’d run her hands down his ribcage, feeling the bones, the muscles, the heat of his body radiating out, warming her to her heart.
    He would have pulled her onto his lap, his eyes laughing, and then the laughter would fade, and he’d kiss her, his hands exploring her body, searching out its secret places, driving her crazy with his sure, gentle touch.
    What was that song about a lover with a slow hand? That was Mike—or it had been. Just lately he didn’t seem to be interested, and if he had been, she wouldn’t have. Just the thought of him touching her so intimately made her shrink away. She didn’t think she could cope with the intimacy, baring her soul to him as well as her body. Not when her soul was hurting so much and her body had become public property with all the investigations. Even the idea of being touched there…
    And he’d give her a lecture on getting too thin, which probably wasn’t unjustified but wouldn’t make her feel sexy. Right now, she didn’t think anything would make her feel sexy.
    Not that he’d tried recently. He’d been too busy, andevery night he was buried in the farm office until late. It was almost as if he was avoiding her. Hard to say, when she was so busy avoiding him, holding herself back because if she did that, if they didn’t try, then it didn’t hurt so much.
    If you didn’t try, you couldn’t fail,