A Secret Between Friends: A New Zealand Sexy Beach Romance (Treats to Tempt You Book 6) (23 page)

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Authors: Serenity Woods

BOOK: A Secret Between Friends: A New Zealand Sexy Beach Romance (Treats to Tempt You Book 6)

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Sneak Peek – An Ocean Between Us (#7)

It had been a long and exhausting day.

Danny Love placed the last spade-full of earth around the new palms, knelt on the ground, and pressed it in with his hands. The cool soil sank between his fingers, rich and loamy. He’d never tire of the smell of fresh earth, cut grass, and new plants. He’d never understood the sort of people who hated being outdoors. Insects and animals, flowers and trees, they were his life, and they always had been, ever since he was a kid.

Still, he’d had enough for now. He’d worked hard all week, and today, Friday, he’d arrived at eight a.m. to continue the landscaping of Mr. and Mrs. Spencer’s huge garden. It was now seven in the evening. He’d sent his crew home at five, and had continued on his own for a while, enjoying the peace of the place, as well as its glorious view across the bay.

He pushed himself to his feet, passed his forearm across his face to wipe away some of the sweat, and began watering the new palms with the hose. Even though it was early May and therefore late autumn in New Zealand, up here in the Northland the days were still warm, and with all the lifting and carrying he’d done, he felt as if it was the height of summer.

The Spencer estate was incredibly impressive. Their large house—well, it was more of a mansion, really—sat atop a hill overlooking the Bay of Islands. The surrounding lawns led to acres of thick bush on either side. Straight in front the grass gave way to a private sandy beach, and beyond that, the Pacific Ocean sparkled a gorgeous blue in the evening sunshine.

Imagine living somewhere like this, he thought, waking up every morning to such a view out of the bedroom window. He’d love to have any kind of view. Danny lived with his elderly father in a tiny house in the center of Paihia. His bedroom window looked out onto a small garden with a high fence. He loved the garden and had worked hard to make it a place in which his father could sit in his wheelchair and enjoy feeding the birds, which was the only outdoors activity he could really take part in. But Danny would have killed for a view like this.

Still, at least he got to spend the greater part of his days on other people’s land. Danny ran his own business, Love Landscaping, and he adored his job, which earned him and his father a decent wage to live on, even if it wasn’t enough to buy a place like this.

Sighing, he curled up the hose, packed the wheelbarrow with his tools, and set off up to the house. The work the Spencers had requested was going to take him a couple more weeks, so he left his tools locked up in one of their sheds at night rather than lug them all home and bring them all back the next day. He was looking forward to treating himself for the week’s hard work by going to the
Between the Sheets
bar tonight. The notion of an ice cold beer was the only thing that had kept him going the last couple of hours.

He was halfway across the lawn when he saw a figure standing in front of the house. The woman wore a pale blue dress and sunhat and was watching him, hand raised to shield her eyes.

The couple who’d recently bought the house had temporarily returned to England, but Danny knew their daughter was supposed to be arriving today to stay for a while, so this must be her. He changed direction and slowed as he approached her. For a brief moment, he thought he’d travelled back two hundred years. She looked the spitting image of the women he’d seen in some of the early photographs of the first European settlers in New Zealand, the dress buttoned up to her neck and almost reaching her ankles. He knew Mr. and Mrs. Spencer were upper class English gentry, and he’d been amused by William Spencer’s plummy BBC accent, straight out of an old black-and-white movie. Did the daughter speak the same way?

He stopped before her, lowered the handles of the wheelbarrow, and straightened. “Kia ora,” he said, the standard Kiwi greeting, pronounced
key-ora
.

“Hello,” she replied, lifting her chin. He grinned—yes, she did have the same plummy accent. “Goodness,” she said, her nose wrinkling. “You’re filthy.”

He raised his eyebrows, then looked down at himself. She had a point—after a day spent up to his armpits in earth that he’d then turned to mud with the hose, there wasn’t a lot of clean clothing left on his body. He wore shorts to the knee but the mud had caked on his bare legs, and although he hadn’t looked in a mirror since he’d showered that morning, he was certain his face would be streaked with earth and sweat.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m a real Kiwi man. We prefer things dirty.”

He grinned, but she didn’t smile back. She was a cool one, he thought as she slid off her sunglasses. He’d imagined her eyes to be an icy blue, but to his surprise they were a warm brown. She had long brown hair she’d braided into a plait that hung over one shoulder, not a stray hair out of place. There were no freckles on her pale skin—he bet she wore factor seventy sun-lotion as soon as summer approached, very different from most Kiwi girls, the majority of whom bore a healthy tan. Still, it meant her face and neck were free of lines, and he had the feeling that if he ran a finger around her pale shoulder, the skin would feel silky smooth to the touch.

She gave a tiny sniff and looked away, down to the palm island he’d been working on. “I thought you’d be farther along by now. Is that all you’ve done so far?”

Irritation fought with amusement. Completing the island had taken him all week. Clearly, this posh bird had never picked up a spade in her life, and almost certainly she had no idea of the work involved in landscaping grounds the size of these.

“I’m sorry it doesn’t meet with your approval.”

She turned her frosty gaze back to him. “Where’s Mr. Love? I’d like to talk to the owner rather than one of his hands.”

One of his…? Who the fuck did this girl thinks she was?

He put his hands on his hips. If he wasn’t sitting in the bar drinking a beer within thirty minutes, he was going to end up murdering someone, and if the snooty girl kept talking like that, she would end up the prime contender. “He’s not here.”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “What’s your name?”

“Danny.”

“Danny…”

“Mellors,” he said, deadpan.

She gave a small nod, and he stifled a chuckle. Clearly, D.H. Lawrence hadn’t been on the curriculum when she was at Oxford or Cambridge, or wherever she’d received her stuffy, upper-class education.

“Well, Mr. Mellors, you can tell Mr. Love from me that I am not impressed. He knew I was arriving on Friday, and I had expected him to be here.”

“I’m not sure he was aware what time you’d be arriving.”

Huffing an irritated sigh, she pulled her smart phone out, tapped on the screen, and handed it to him. “I sent him an email this morning.”

Danny read it through—he hadn’t checked his emails since yesterday evening and hadn’t seen her message. He read the last line. “Hermy-wun? Is that your name?”

Her eyes flared. “It’s pronounced Her-my-on-ee.”

He stifled a laugh as he handed the phone back. “Sorry. But I don’t think Mr. Love saw your email.”

“Even so—I expected him to wait for me.”

“It’s seven o’clock,” he pointed out. “On a Friday. Any decent guy would be on his second beer by now.”

“You’re here.”

“I’m not decent,” he said, and grinned. “What are you doing tonight? I don’t suppose you’d like to come out for a drink with me?”

Hermione narrowed her eyes. Walking forward a few steps—daintily, to ensure the high heels she wore didn’t sink into the grass—she stopped before him and gave him a cold stare. “Don’t even think about getting fresh with me, Mr. Mellors. I don’t cavort with hired hands, and I certainly don’t drink beer.”

Cavort? This chick really was straight out of the 1840s.

He looked down at her. Even though she wore heels, he topped her by a good six inches. If asked what perfume she would be wearing, he would have said lavender water or something else equally as bland, but to his surprise an enticing, sensual scent rose from her, stirring his blood. Her eyes flashed and she’d pursed her mouth, but all it did was draw attention to her pale pink lips. If he kissed them, they’d be soft as rose petals.

Not bothering to hide his amusement, he tugged the peak of an imaginary cap and dipped his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

For a second, he thought he saw the flicker of a smile on her lips. Then she turned around and strode off.

He watched her hips swing as she walked, the heels giving her a gorgeous wiggle he rarely saw on girls these days. After a few steps, she stopped and turned around. “Please tell Mr. Love I would like to see him on Monday, come hell or high water. Oh, and Mr. Mellors?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Please don’t stare at my bottom when I walk. It makes me uncomfortable.”

He laughed. “Whatever you say, ma’am.” He saw a definite lift of her lips before she turned and walked off again.

Picking up the handles of the wheelbarrow, he headed for the shed. Lady Chatterley was going to prove a fun distraction.

Read the rest of Danny and Hermione’s story in An Ocean Between Us

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Author’s Note

Thank you for reading this book! I so hope you enjoyed the story. If you did enjoy it, I would be very grateful for a review – even a short one. Reviews are essential for encouraging other people to buy the book, and plenty of reviews are sometimes necessary for the author to purchase promotions, so it really helps!

Other Books by Serenity Woods

Treats to Tempt You

Books 1 to 5 (The Treats Quintet) are sexy beach reads focused in Doubtless Bay in the Treats to Tempt You chocolate and coffee shop.

Books 6 to 10 (The Between Quintet) move the action to the beautiful Bay of Islands. Set around a cocktail bar called Between the Sheets, the stories follow a new group of characters but frequently feature the guys and gals from the Treats Quintet.