His Plain-Jane Cinderella

by Jennie Adams

  ‘It’ll be best if we take a panel of sheeting off here.’ He indicated the area. ‘This is about the only time that I’d be saying it’s an advantage that your home doesn’t have insulation batting in the roof cavity.’

  ‘That’s on the to-do list too.’ Stacie moved in close to his side to take a better look. ‘How do we manage this?’

  He absorbed her nearness, acknowledged an awareness of her that had deepened since he’d first met her.

  Stacie Wakefield’s appeal was dangerously subtle, sneaking up on a man without him fully realising what was happening.

  ‘I’ll show you step by step.’

  They worked together on the repairs. The hardest work was securing the bent bit of tin back into place. For that, Troy’s muscles were a necessity. By then, he and Stacie were cold and soaked again from the rain. He felt a sting on his forearm as he finally got the sheet pulled into place.

  Stacie got in close beside him and worked with him to secure it. She smelled of rain, cold air and whatever shampoo she’d used on her hair, and again he struggled to think of anything but the urge to take her into his arms.

  Troy allowed himself one slow inhalation before he took care of business and turned to her. ‘That’s done.’

  ‘Thank you. Now I can take care of mop-up operations in the house.’

  Stacie followed Troy down the ladder. She was sodden in the old jeans and sweater she’d changed into. She had dirt on her face and spider webs across one shoulder and arm. The make-up she’d worn earlier was long gone and her nails were peach and stickerless now. This was Stacie in her element. Troy wanted to kiss her until they were both senseless with it, and then start all over again.

  ‘You’ve hurt yourself.’ Her fingers wrapped gently around his forearm. ‘I should have helped you more while you were wrestling with that loose piece of tin!’

  He followed her glance and considered telling her that a bit of a scratch was nothing compared to various bumps and scrapes that had been part of his working army career let alone the damage to his knee. But she knew.

  He settled on, ‘Then we both might have got cut, and I’d hate to see that happen to your pretty skin.’

  ‘Oh.’ Stacie’s cheeks filled with soft, warm colour and her hand stilled against his arm. She seemed silenced not only in word but in her thoughts, too.

  Troy’s thoughts, contrarily, were in perfect working order—thinking of things they shouldn’t be thinking of.

  ‘Come to the bathroom. We can at least clean that up before we decide whether you need to go to the hospital for a tetanus booster, stitches…’ Stacie started walking.

  ‘It won’t need either.’ She was fussing, but Troy followed her along the short corridor anyway, willing to humour her if it kept her happy.

  The bathroom was a decent size, its plumbing elderly. Along the ledge of the deep, claw-footed bathtub was an array of bath salts, bubble baths and body washes, a sea sponge and a neck pillow.

  Visions of Stacie soaking in the tub, surrounded by steam vapour, her face relaxed and filled with sensual pleasure and the room beautifully scented, flooded Troy’s mind.

  ‘I can take care of the cut at home.’ That course of action suddenly seemed necessary, his self-control shaken and in threat of crumbling at any moment. God, he wanted to kiss her.

  ‘We’re here now. We might as well look at it.’ Her words were practical; their breathy quality was not. Stacie was as affected by this as he was. As hungry to repeat shared kisses.

  The scratch, Rushton. Let her take care of the scratch and then get the heck out of here.

  Troy rolled up the sleeve of his sweater and together they bent their heads over the scrape.

  ‘You’re right. I don’t think that will need stitches.’ Stacie’s words held relief, and other undertones that Troy had to ignore.

  She reached for antiseptic fluid and asked questions about tetanus shots as she poured the stuff onto a cotton ball.

  ‘I’m up to date.’ He waited while she dabbed the antiseptic over the area. When she would have fumbled with the rest, he took charge and finished the job. He even made the task appear focused—no mean feat when all he could think of was pulling her close.

  He’d gone halfway to indulging in pointless anger at his limitations when it had come time to fixing Stacie’s roof. But in the end he’d dealt with losing his footing. It hadn’t mattered, had quickly been forgotten. Had only been one moment of his knee failing him, when all was said and done.

  Now all Troy could think about was the soft feel of Stacie’s fingers against his arm, her down-bent head as she took on the task of cleaning up his wounds.

  He drew a breath. ‘It’s almost worth getting hurt for this.’

  ‘If you were a little child you’d want to be kissed—’

  She broke off, unsure why she’d spoken the words aloud, but they were out there, meshed with his, each making the same statement in different ways.

  ‘Kissed better?’ Could Stacie heal him with her kisses? Heal the parts of him that had been harmed more than physically when his knee had been shattered?

  As the questions registered, Troy frowned.

  What rubbish were they? He’d adjusted to the injury and everything else that went with it. There was nothing more.

  Right now he should move out of this room. Instead, his gaze caught Stacie’s. The wish to kiss, and be kissed, passed between them. Not because of what she’d said—certainly not due to a scratch he’d barely felt.

  Just because this was Troy, and this was Stacie, and when they were together that need seemed always to be there, whether either one of them wanted it to be or not.

  Tonight Stacie’s eyes had shone as she’d anticipated trying to fix a problem here at her house.

  Something inside Troy valued the way she responded so positively to a challenge. He felt he could identify with her excitement, her enthusiasm, and with her determination to get the job done—in this case with pink tool-kit in hand.

  ‘I’d love to know what just went through your mind.’ She spoke the words as she cleared away the items she’d used to tend the graze on his arm, and they finally made their way back through the house, past the area Stacie needed to mop up.

  Troy forced his feet to take him to the front door. ‘I was thinking about your penchant for girly colours in dog attire, nail-polish and tool-kits. You’re quirkiness, I suppose. I…like it.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her expression showed that she thought about being uncertain of herself, but it was a short battle. She grinned, then gestured towards the front door. ‘I know it isn’t far, but you’ll drive carefully? This rain just doesn’t seem to want to stop.’

  Her concern was genuine and something deep inside him reacted to that. What was happening to him? Where were these feelings coming from? Because that was what they were—reactions and responses to Stacie that came from inside him and were no part of his plans. No part of him, or so he’d thought. So his mother had always told him.

  He’d been a withdrawn son, happy to ignore his father as his father had ignored all of life, unwilling to buy into his mother’s desire to load all of her dependence on him.

  Had his mismatched parents trained Troy to lock his emotions away rather than their having been missing from his make-up, as his mum had said? And then the need to survive in army life had encouraged that behaviour. Was that the case, rather than the emotions truly not being there to tap into?

  Troy wasn’t sure what to make of these thoughts. They couldn’t really make any difference to who he was anyway.

  Could they?

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ He asked Stacie to hold onto the dog so it didn’t get out and get covered in muck or, worse, run off. Troy hated to admit it, but he seemed to have developed a bit of a soft spot for th
e recalcitrant animal. Perhaps he admired its determination and independent streak.

  Troy now needed to obey the dictates of what shreds were left of his common sense and leave—before he simply swept Stacie up and kissed her until he’d had his fill.

  Which would be never.

  Their gazes clashed and Stacie drew a shaky breath. ‘Goodnight, Troy. Thanks for your help tonight. I couldn’t have taken care of that sheet of tin without you.’

  ‘At least all you have left to do now is mop up inside.’ He’d leave her to that. Go back to his place and let the rain drown out the need to stay with her, to draw this out for purposes he shouldn’t even let himself consider.

  Troy said his goodnights, disappeared through the driving rain to his car and make the short trip to his house.

  ‘Good morning, Troy.’ Stacie called the words from the front porch of her home the next day. It was still raining. Indeed the air was cold, the sky dismal and grey, and there seemed to be no sign of this weather letting up.

  Yet for Stacie the sky might as well have been bursting with sunshine. She tried to put down her pleasure to anything other than what it was—a reaction to the sight of Troy drawing his car to a halt at the end of her path.

  Well, she’d just have to be practical, enough so she convinced Troy she had nothing but sensible thoughts in her mind. ‘Don’t get out. I’ll come get Houdini. I’m assuming you have him? And I have my umbrella.’

  She launched forth in her gumboots with the umbrella held aloft.

  Troy’s face froze into a disapproving mask. He’d already had his door thrown half-open. Stacie just grinned all the more, slogged straight to his side of the car and reached in to take the dog from him. Houdini settled into her arms with a doggy sigh.

  As though he’d missed her, when he’d run off to Troy’s place yet again!

  ‘You shouldn’t be tromping around in this rain.’ Troy’s words scolded. His gaze tracked over her face and hair, lingering on the tip of her nose, before dropping to her lips and shifting abruptly back to her eyes.

  She felt a sense of power that was quite inappropriate as he looked at her in that way.

  And it’s probably nothing more than wishful thinking. Just because he looks at you, doesn’t mean he’s bursting to kiss you again. If he wanted that, he would have done it last night.

  ‘Any clue how the dog is escaping?’

  ‘No. I still don’t see where the yard is less than Houdini-proof.’ It was somewhat of an oxymoron given the dog’s name, of course.

  Troy’s mouth pulled into a dry expression. ‘I thought my place was Houdini-repellent but he shot inside the door when I opened it anyway.’

  ‘Maybe he preferred your company to lying in a depressive huddle with Fang, glaring at the rain.’ Stacie warned herself to keep a distance, but somehow she felt she was beyond that now. She found Troy attractive. She liked him. There were things about him that called to core parts of her in ways she hadn’t even begun to define as yet.

  She was as hopeless as Houdini, and she truly couldn’t understand how those feelings had crept in on her when she’d had so much hurt over Andrew. Over the build-up of every occasion before that when a man had ignored her for her prettier sisters, if she was completely honest.

  She’d tried not to see that happening, but she hadn’t been able to pretend when Andrew had dumped her for Gemma. Stacie still didn’t want to go home while her sister was there, yet she missed Gemma. And she was becoming more and more attracted to Troy when she hadn’t believed she could be attracted to a man ever again.

  Troy’s told you he doesn’t want a relationship. That was more than enough of a deterrent, even without risking him finding someone he liked better. You have to stay away from developing real feelings towards him, Stacie, even if they are only a strong liking.

  Well, she wasn’t about to let herself fall in love with him, for goodness’ sake.

  ‘Houdini isn’t the only reason I’ve come over. The creek is on the rise, Stacie.’ Troy spoke the words into a silence she suspected might have gone on too long while she stood there daydreaming in gumboots in the rain—asking herself questions that she didn’t want to think about or try to find answers for.

  ‘There’s been a decent amount of rain.’ Stacie forced her thoughts to focus, even if she still couldn’t entirely drag her gaze from Troy’s mouth. ‘Now and then the creek crosses the road, but it hasn’t been a real problem.’

  ‘In decades.’ Troy nodded. His gaze lingered on her lips, before he snapped it determinedly back to her eyes. ‘The real-estate agent said the same to me when I bought the farm. I guess we’ll see how things go over the next day or two. It’s safe for the moment. I hope it stays that way because I’ve ordered a hot-water service to be delivered and installed. Mine decided to chuck it in. I only realised that this morning when the water was lukewarm.’

  He didn’t wait for her to empathise. Instead, he said his goodbyes and left to drive back to his orchards and do what he could in the rain.

  Stacie also prepared to leave for work. She’d be fine once she got there. She wasn’t obsessing over Troy—and she didn’t have a whole lot of irresolvable issues about family, either. She was busy. She didn’t have time to worry about sorting out things that she hadn’t caused in the first place. If her thoughts contradicted her desire to shove all the problems away, Stacie didn’t want to know about it.

  And at least she no longer had a house leaking bucket-loads of water through the roof!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TROY walked towards Stacie’s home. A sense of anticipation walked with him, and there was only one reason for that: her name was Stacie Wakefield. That was something Troy had to address somehow before the vibe between him and Stacie developed any more strength.

  Oh yes? Then maybe you should stop thinking twenty-four hours a day about kissing her.

  In fact, he was so busy thinking about her that he didn’t notice the car parked to the side of her yard until he’d already walked through her gate with Houdini at his heels. He’d made a decision about the mutt. It had been coming, and Troy had been avoiding it, but he needed to tell Stacie. He hadn’t realised she would have company. Maybe it was a visitor to her Bow-wow-tique.

  ‘Well, it’s certainly been a surprise to have you both drop by like this.’ It was Stacie’s voice, infused with determined cheerfulness.

  Troy could hear her tension from this distance.

  She went on. ‘Congratulations on your pregnancy. I’m happy for you of course, Gemma, and…Andrew.’

  Troy frowned. What was going on? Who were these people? Why was Stacie upset and working hard to hide it? Troy had been ready to turn back. But if Stacie was struggling, he’d rather barge in and find some way to help her. He resumed his stride towards her front door.

  Stacie stood on her porch with a man and an extremely beautiful woman.

  ‘Troy. You’re here.’ For just a moment, relief showed in Stacie’s expression—before dismay replaced it. She seemed to wrestle deep within herself, to be overwhelmed, before her chin lifted and she gestured to the couple. ‘This is my sister Gemma and her fiancé, Andrew Gale. They’ve just shared the news of a baby on the way.’

  Stacie cleared her throat. ‘Gemma and Andrew, meet Troy Rushton, my—’

  ‘Neighbour, co-worker, joint custodian of a stray pet and…friend.’ Troy positioned himself at her side. He held out his hand to Andrew Gale. ‘Stacie’s mentioned the family.’

  None of his statements was incorrect, but his tone of voice and his stance at Stacie’s side suggested a degree of commitment and intimacy between them that was perhaps not exactly real. The surge of protectiveness that had driven him was plenty strong, though.

  ‘Troy?’ Stacie stiffened at his side.

  He turned a
nd met her gaze with his own steady one.

  Stacie calmed from the inside out. Her body eased and leaned towards his, just the tiniest bit.

  ‘Another busy weekend ahead again isn’t it, Stace?’

  ‘Yes.’ She let her glance move about her, latched on to his words and ran with them. ‘I’ve a lot of work to do, inside and out, and then there’s everything you’ll be doing at your place. And my Bow-wow-tique work.’

  ‘We should go.’ Gemma said it with an edge of relief that she tried hard to hide, and perhaps with a little surprise. ‘We should have checked before we just turned up.’ Her glance shifted to Troy before it returned to Stacie. ‘We didn’t realise you wouldn’t be by yourself.’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps phoning first would have been best.’ Stacie’s chest rose and fell with a deep breath. ‘It was good to see you, Gemmie. You’ll understand if I’m busy…’

  ‘Yes.’ Relief filled her sister’s face for another reason.

  Emotion crossed Stacie’s—deep, grateful, torn, a little angry and hurt all at once, before she blinked and she seemed to calm a little.

  ‘We’d best let you get on.’ Gemma reached forward awkwardly to hug her sister.

  Stacie returned the hug, fiercely, briefly, before letting go quickly to wave them off.

  The fiancé, Andrew, drove away too quickly, the rear of his car slipping a bit before he slowed to a more sensible pace. He’d been silent throughout the exchange, but Troy had seen the discomfort in his face, the edge of guilt. So the man should feel guilty!

  ‘He needs to do better than that with a baby on board.’ Stacie’s words were tight before she turned to face Troy. ‘I can see you’ve worked it all out. I don’t hate her. I love my sister. I just…don’t really want to see too much of her at the moment.’

  And they’d just driven out here to tell Stacie she was pregnant. Tight, primal instincts roared in Troy to protect her, to allow her to let whatever feelings this had raised in her out in a safe environment.

  With him?