Promises (3 page)

Before she knew it she was standing upright, Jason was standing before her, and his hands left her waist as he stepped back.  But this time there was a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth.

“Getting a little friendly there, aren’t you?” Amused, Luke appeared beside them.

“It was the cat,” Jason simply said, like that explained it all.

Cheeks on fire, Izzy made a grab for Arnie.

The cat danced aside, only to be scruffed by Jason.

Izzy’s heart clenched when she thought he was going to haul the cat up by the scruff, but instead Jason held him secure with one hand while scooping his other beneath him and lifting him up.

“This belongs to you.”  He handed Arnie to her.

Izzy stared at those capable hands holding her cat, suddenly able to feel one of those big palms on her backside.  Flustered at the memory, humiliated beyond belief, she took Arnie from him.  “He does.  I am so sorry.  For both him and what - um - happened just now.”

“Aw, I’m sure Jason enjoyed it.” Luke stroked Arnie.  “Nothing like a pretty girl lying all over a man to make his night.”

“To make your night, you mean,” she retorted, relieved to have someone else to look at apart from the man
she’d been straddling
.

Luke grinned down at her.  “So, what were you doing rubbing yourself all over my cousin?”

“I wasn’t rubbing myself over him,” she huffed.  “It was an accident.”

“Sure.”

“It was, it - wait.  This is your cousin?”

“Yep.”

Izzy looked at Jason to find him leaning back against the sofa, hands stuck in the pockets of his dirty khaki trousers, booted ankles crossed.  “You’re Jason Dawson?”

“I am.”  He looked incredibly relaxed.

Izzy switched her attention to Luke.  “Why didn’t you tell me your cousin was moving next door to me?”

“I thought I did?”

“No, Luke, you didn’t.”

“Ah well.” He shrugged broad shoulders.  “You know now.”

Izzy rolled her eyes.

“Quite intimately, in fact.”  He grinned widely.

“You’re such a jerk.  It was an accident.”  She could feel the heat roll back into her cheeks at the memory.

“Don’t sweat it.”  Jason straightened.  “He’s going to hold this over you for weeks, so you might as well just ignore it.”

“I know and you’re right.”  Shifting Arnie in her arm, Izzy smiled at Jason.  “I’ll get going.  It was nice meeting you even if the circumstances weren’t quite ideal.”

“Would you like a coffee?” Jason asked.

The invitation was unexpected and normally she’d have been more than happy to accept, but mindful of the invasion and disaster she and Arnie had already caused, Izzy shook her head.  “Thanks, but no.  I need to get home.”

“Okay.”

“Aw, come on, Izzy.”  Luke tugged on her ponytail.  “What’s the rush?  Got a harem of toy boys waiting at home?”

“Toy boys?  How old do you think I am?”

Luke squinted thoughtfully.

“If you want to father children later, you’ll be careful what you say next.”

“Say it,” Jason said.  “You not having children will save the world and it’ll thank us one day.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Luke said.  “He wants to adopt my kids when I have them.”

Jason shuddered.

Amused, Izzy started for the doorway.  “Yeah, he looks really eager.”

Arnie crawled up her shoulder to flop over it.

Luke trailed along behind her.  “Come on, Iz.  Stay for a drink.”

“Nope.”

“You could help us unpack.”

“Ah, so there’s a reason behind your invitation.”

“Neighbours helping neighbours, it’s heart-warming, right?”

“Coming from you, I’d call it slave labour.”

There came a snort of amusement behind them.  Izzy glanced over her shoulder to find Jason following.  He was looking at Arnie, who was no doubt eyeballing him while his front paws flopped down her back.

Stepping out onto the veranda, the cool of the evening having turned chilly, Izzy started down the steps.

“It was nice meeting you, Izzy,” Jason said quietly.

Still a little mortified at the knowledge that that roughly good-looking face had been buried between her breasts, she flashed him a brief smile.  “Sorry the circumstances couldn’t have been a little more appropriate.”

He looked from the Siamese cat hanging over her shoulder to her face, his eyes crinkling a little at the corners.  “We can blame the cat.”

Sounded like a plan.  “Okay.”

Luke leaned one shoulder against a veranda post.  “Raincheck on the coffee, then?”

“Yep.”

She felt them watching her as she walked down the path.  “You don’t need to watch, Luke.”

“Just making sure you don’t jump some poor bugger on your way home, Iz.  It’s getting dark.”

Translation: He wanted to make sure she got home safely.  Sweet.  It’d been awhile since anyone had cared.

The low murmur of their voices drifted in the chill air as she walked up onto her own veranda and unlocked the front door, stepping inside.  Only then did she lower Arnie to the floor and watch him prance off to the kitchen to check out his food bowl.

Leaning back against the door, she closed her eyes.  Oh boy.  Prickling heat spiralled through her at the memory of that hard body against hers, that strong thigh between her own.  There was no way she’d imagined the way Jason’s pupils had dilated.  Instinctive reaction, no doubt, to having a woman straddling him.

Fanning herself, she pushed away from the door.  She’d certainly made an impression on him that was for sure.  Chalk that one up for the life experience book.

It was one of the more pleasant experiences lately.

~*~

Jason watched his neighbour walk to her house with her weirdo cat hanging down over her shoulder, those dark paws dangling as Arnie happily surveyed the view from his strange position.

Talking about strange positions, he’d been in an unexpected one not long before.  He never thought he’d come home and end up with a curvy chick straddling his thigh.  Not to mention being smothered by a bosom that blossomed her thin jumper out so nicely.  She’d smelled good, too, a faint flowery scent and soap.  Nice.  As nice as those generous curves had felt pressed against him.  The woman had been an armful that was for sure.

“So, that’s Izzy,” he drawled.

“Yep.” Leaning against the veranda post, Luke observed her progress.

“Something between you two?”

“Me and Iz?”  Luke laughed.  “Nah.  We’re just friends.”

“You know her well?”

“Kind of.  We met through one of Blue’s friends a long time ago.  She works at the local supermarket.”

“Huh.”

Luke slanted him a look.  “You interested?”

Jason shook his head.  “Nope.”

“She’s pretty.”

He nodded.  Yeah, she was, no doubting that - sandy hair in a ponytail with the ends bouncing around her shoulders, and a straight little nose with a tip-tilted end giving her a mischievous air.  But the real kicker was those eyes - light green framed by long, thick eyelashes.  Pretty and voluptuous, that described her to a T.  But nope, he wasn’t interested in dating her.

“She’s fun,” Luke added.  “You could do with some fun.”

Jason’s eyebrows rose.

“You need someone to rattle your cage.  Tickle your funny bone.  Make you laugh.”

“I laugh.”

“You crack a smile now and again, and something resembling the croaking of a cane toad issues out of you when the situation requires it, but apart from that?  Zilch.”

“I laughed yesterday.”

“Me tripping over a hose and going face-first into a mud pile is not a laughing matter.”

Jason grinned at the memory.

“That’s malicious humour,” Luke added.

“Depends on your point of view.”

“At least you now know that landscaping is dangerous work.”

Jason snorted.

“Izzy’s gone inside.”  Luke pushed away from the veranda post.  “I need a drink.”

Jason lingered a few minutes outside as his cousin disappeared into the house.  Looking around, he silently catalogued things that needed doing in the yard.  Half dead grass to be torn up, new turf to lay down, just a couple of garden beds to put in, he didn’t want anything fancy, just easy-care stuff but enough to look pleasant.  Rip out the old broken path and place down a new paving path, or maybe a concrete one.  Concrete would be good, there’d be no weeds to grow between pavers.  And that was just the front.  The backyard needed doing as well, not to mention all the repairs inside the big, old house.

Tipping his head back, he closed his eyes as the chill breeze caressed his face.  Man, he was buggered.  Today had been hard, so much to do and so little time.  The contract his uncle had gotten had a time limit, a tight one, but they were working hard.  Luke was already doing the landscaping, while he and the other men hired by his uncle worked their arses off from dawn to almost dusk.  But it’d be worth it.

Six years working for his uncle and look where he was now.  His own place.  Okay, mortgaged, sure, but it had been a steal at the price, mostly because it was in need of a crap-load of repairs, but nothing he couldn’t fix.  The fact it was a big, double-story house with heaps of promise if he could return it to its former glory - or the glory he imagined, anyway, he wasn’t into a house that was a showpiece and not a home - was a bonus.

Rolling his shoulders, he entered his house.

Luke was perched on a stool in the kitchen with his booted feet hooked on the rungs, one elbow on the kitchen counter while he sipped on an Iced Coffee.  “Man, you have no good shit in your ‘fridge.”

“What do you mean?”  Jason opened the ‘fridge.  “There’s food in there.”

“Let’s not even start on the food.  Right now, I’m talking drink.”

“There’s Iced Coffee, Coke, water, orange juice, light beer.”

“There!  That right there is so wrong!”

As if Jason didn’t know what his cousin was babbling about.  “I don’t stock normal beer, you know that.”

“Light beer is like lolly water.  It doesn’t have the same kind of kick.”

Remembering the kind of kicks he used to get when he got drunk with his brother and raised hell, Jason grimaced.  “I can do without the kick.”

Luke sobered.  “You’ve drunk straight beer since leaving Gully’s Fall without a problem.”

Pulling out a can of Coke, Jason popped the tab, took a long swallow and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth with a sigh of pleasure.  “I choose not to when I can, as you know.”

Luke sighed.  “Okay.  But you could at least have a couple of cans in there for your hard-working cousins.”

“When you’re in my house you put up with what I have.  You don’t like it,” Jason shrugged unconcernedly, “tough.”

“Geez.  That’s a bit rough.”  Luke drained the glass of Iced Coffee, pulled the bottle over and refilled the glass.  “I have feelings, you know.”

“That’s the word around the Tender Feelings Department.”

Luke flipped his middle finger at him.

“Is that from the Mature Men’s Department?”

“It’s from the Real Men have Feelings Department.”

“You’ve been around Mum too long.”

“Speaking of Aunt Lora, how about her and this upcoming date, huh?”

“What date?  Did I forget a birthday or something?”  Jason took another mouthful of drink.

“Aunt Lora’s date.  You know, with a bloke?”

Jason’s breath sucked in sharply, drink went down the wrong way and he coughed and spluttered.  Part of his mind was trying to process what Luke had said, the other part of his brain was trying to organise his lungs not to drown in drink but cough the offending liquid back up.

It took a minute before he was able to choke out, “Date?  Mum is going on a
date
?  With a
bloke
?”

Luke looked pained.  “Ah…you didn’t know?”

“With a
man
?”

“I’m thinking so, unless she’s decided men are too much problem and is swinging the other way?”

“What the hell?”  Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, Jason wheezed, “
Mum
is going on a date?”

“Something tells me you didn’t know about this.”

“No, I didn’t know about this.”  Breath regained, Jason frowned.  “Who is he?  Do you know him?”

Luke shook his head.  “Nope.”

Jason’s frown grew.  “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Hey, man, she probably did.”

“I’m damned sure I’d remember something like that.”

“Maybe she meant to, but you haven’t been around to the house to see her for a week or so.”

“I’ve been busy shifting.  Are you sure you don’t know him?”