Twenty
Lara hadn’t meant to look in the direction of Tom’s cottage. She had made herself a pact just over a week ago now – or was it two weeks? Time seemed to fly here and one day was very much like the next if you didn’t go out much. But she had been so busy painting and decorating and furnishing her own cottage that she genuinely wasn’t sure what day it was.
She wouldn’t look at Tom’s cottage though.
She wouldn’t.
Oh, okay. Maybe just a quick glance.
Damn.
She had done it again.
No matter how many times she told herself not to, her gaze repeatedly drifted towards that damn cottage.
While washing up her breakfast things. When a flock of gulls flew by. Twice, yesterday, when she had put out some recycling, followed soon after by a bag of rubbish for the black bin.
Each time she tutted at her foolishness and quickly looked away.
Well, usually.
Unless, like today, it wasn’t so easy to avert her eyes from Tom’s cottage.
Or his garden.
Because like today, Jasper was there.
In the back garden.
With a spade.
Once again.
Just as Lara had hoped he might be.
Just as he had been each day for the last one, no two, weeks.
She made her way, somewhat hastily, to the window seat she’d had built to one side of the door. She knelt on the padded cushion and brushed the blind to one side to get a better view.
She wasn’t sure how long she watched him, but she almost fell off the seat when Jasper peeled off his jumper, followed soon after that by his T-shirt, revealing his gorgeous torso.
The Indian Summer that had been forecast to last for two weeks from the end of the first week of October had now stretched into the third, with no signs of this unseasonable heat letting up. The mornings were chilly with a definite nip in the air, as were the nights, but the days were like midsummer.
People were picnicking or sunbathing on the sandy beach and some were even swimming in the sea. Ice cream vendors were selling out of stock, and autumn clothing had been packed away again and shorts and T-shirts had been brought back out.
Lara was wearing one of the summer dresses she’d had to buy due to the fact that she had brought mainly jeans and T-shirts with her and the last two weeks had been absolute scorchers.
She knew she shouldn’t be spying on Jasper, but her willpower was weak and the man looked so damn good.
She opened the camera on her phone and zoomed in to the maximum, surveying him from the tips of his boots to the waves in his lustrous dark brown hair. He was certainly a sight to behold. A body fit for either a magazine cover, or a month ona calendar. Probably July, because that was one hot body, she couldn’t deny him that.
Nor could she deny the appreciative smile spreading across her mouth and she licked her lips unwittingly and then got cross with herself for having done so.
Then, to her surprise, he looked in her direction and she nearly dropped her phone. As if he could see her ogling him, a devastating smile appeared on his gorgeous mouth, as he ran one hand through his hair, as if to say, ‘Yes. I can see you looking at me. This is what you’re missing.’
And she was definitely missing him.
Lara hadn’t meant to, but in her state of shock her finger clicked on the camera, taking several photos of him in rapid succession. Until she did drop her phone. Almost as though that was the only way she could stop herself from taking more.
