“Aye,” she mumbled and went to find another unwashed sheep.
It was both the best and worst afternoon of Helen’s life. Just when she had almost become accustomed to Jack’s handsome face, now she had to try to harden herself against the onslaught of his perfect, male body.
Because, of course, she found herself looking at that torso. Absorbing and memorizing every detail. How his little bit of blond chest hair darkened and curled when it was wet, lying sleekly over the rippling muscles of his chest as he wrestled with an unruly ewe. How his powerful shoulders framed that chest and the scar just below his left nipple, angling toward his hard, taut stomach. Even when he faced away from her, climbing out of the stream bed, hauling a bleating and now-clean ewe, his back was full of muscle under perfect, slightly golden skin. Golden muscle flexing in the sunlight with water beading on top of it, and the wet breeches clinging to his meaty, round buttocks . . .
How unfair that all that beauty should be concentrated in one person.
Yes, she saw how he preened for her. How he watched her face as her eyes couldn’t help going to his body. She didn’t mind that. He knew he was beautiful. He knew she thought the same. She had drunkenly said something of the sort to him at dinner, hadn’t she?
And it was not Helen’s way to hide her thoughts.
But . . . but he never looked at her. She knew her breasts, her nipples were apparent. The thin, wet shirt did nothing to hide them. So she knew he could see everything.
Not that there was much to see.
But there was something.
There was some proof she was a woman.
Look at me. Look at me, Jack.
But he didn’t. He never looked below her face. Not even at her breeches as he had at their first meeting. And he made no noticeable effort to keep his eyes up. It was natural for him to ignore her.
She gritted her teeth. How she hated him.
And then the last sheep was done. He hauled it up to join the rest of the flock. She stood in the stream, panting. Exhausted. Covered in yolk. She climbed out of the stream bed and as she stood at the top of the bank, she slipped and he was there, one arm tightly around her waist, the other arm around her upper back. She teetered for a second and collapsed into him.
Her face was on his chest, her whole body pressed against him. He took two steps back, dragging her away from the edge of the bank.
His grip loosened but she did not shift away. She stayed there with her mouth, her cheek, her forehead on his chest. And then his hands began to move, stroking her back. Long even strokes, all the way down to her bottom, where he cupped her cheeks lightly before beginning the long upward strokes, back toward her shoulder blades.
She trembled. His hands, his body, the exquisiteness of him. She could feel her center melting, an ache in her breasts and her nether regions which made her want to tear at the fall of his breeches and scream, “Take me!”
“Had a bit of a scare, eh?” he said. His chest thrummed with his low voice.
He was patronizing her, soothing her like a child when she was responding to his touch as a woman. And even as she longed to stay there, forever, against his body with his hands on her, it was too much. It hurt too much.
She stepped back and looked at him.
“I’m nae scared of anything.”
He tilted his head, scrutinizing her face. “No, I don’t think you are.”
She went to the boulder and put on her coat. “Thank ye for yer help. I couldnae have finished today without ye.”
He pulled on his shirt. “You’re welcome. Thank you for the education in sheep.”
She picked up her bucket and whistled for Luran who began to gather the sheep together.
“Goodbye, Jack Pike.”
She walked down the hill with her sheep, Luran nagging at the stragglers with barks and running back and forth. She did not look back.
There was something in her coat pocket. She took it out. Her ham sandwich. She had forgotten to eat it.
I feasted on the vision that is Jack Pike, instead.
She laughed. She had to. How silly she was being. He was just a man, after all. And this was just a sandwich. And soon, he would be gone, back to London, just as the sandwich would soon be in Mags’ belly. She would make sure of it. And when he and the sandwich had both vanished, all of her problems would still be in front of her to be solved. She needed to concentrate her mind on the problems, not on muscles and brown eyes and caressing hands.
