Grace cleared her throat, uncomfortable at whatever was going unspoken. Why didn’t people say what they were thinking? “Well, I guess I should be going.”
“Aren’t you going to stay and chew me out for sneaking into your house when you were asleep?” he teased.
Her cheeks grew warm. “I haven’t forgotten about that. I’m not happy with you.”
“Clearly.” He didn’t seem upset. He smiled again, rolling his eyes as Jodi came out, caught the smile and winked at him. “Go away, missy. You’re a regular thorn in my side.”
“Have fun,” Jodi said, grinning. “Thanks for the help, Miss Fox.”
“You’re welcome.”
“See you later,” Ash said, kissing Jodi on the top of her head.
She stood and whispered something in his ear, and he gave her an exasperated look and turned her toward the door. “Out.”
Laughing, Jodi and Liv left, promising to be back by eight that evening.
The door closed, and Ash sighed. “Thank God for that.”
“What was that all about?” Grace said. “What did she whisper to you?”
“Ah…I’d rather not say.” He walked over to the table and started putting Jodi’s pens back in her pencil case. He looked vaguely embarrassed.
She crossed her arms. “I don’t have a say in what comes out of my mouth. I don’t see why you should have that option.”
He gave her a wry glance. “Believe me, you don’t want to know everything that goes through my daughter’s head.” His gaze dropped briefly down her, then came back again mischievously. “Or mine, for that matter.” She looked over her glasses at him. He stood and put his hands on his hips. “Is that supposed to intimidate me?”
She waited. In the classroom, waiting patiently was often the key to getting someone to do what you wanted.
He studied her. Then he began to smile. “Okay.” He turned back to the table and continued tidying up. “She asked whether I had any protection.”
Grace stared at him. She hadn’t been sure what she’d expected him to say, but whatever it was, it was the complete opposite of that. “Protection?” she asked faintly. “As in ‘do you have any security guards?’”
“Not so much.” He gestured toward the kitchen. “She thinks we’re going to get down to it on the kitchen table.” He glanced up at her, clearly amused now.
“What—whatever gave her that idea?” Grace knew her cheeks must be scarlet.
Everything tidied away, he turned back to her and sighed. “She knows I like you.” His gaze caressed her for a moment. “She said you make me smile.” He proved it with a curve of his lips.
Grace continued to stare at him, remembering what Jodi had told her in the kitchen. “You didn’t ask for my birth date for security reasons, did you?”
“No.”
“You did something astronomical with it.”
“I think you mean ‘astrological’, unless you actually meant ‘enormous’. And yes, I drew up your birth chart.”
“What does Scorpio rising mean?”
“That little minx…” He sighed. “I need a cup of tea.” He walked through to the kitchen, re-emerging a few seconds later when it was clear she wasn’t going to follow and indicating with a jerk of his head for her to go with him. “Come on.” He winked at her. “I promise I won’t ravage you on the table.”
Not knowing whether to be relieved or disappointed, she followed him out and sat at the table as he boiled the kettle. He tipped his head at her. “You want anything? I have herbal teas.”
“Peppermint?”
“Yep.”
“Yes, please.” She watched him take down a cup and saucer and place it next to his mug. “I don’t get a mug?”
He flashed her a smile. “You strike me as a cup-and-saucer type of girl.”
She was indeed but she wasn’t about to admit he was right. “Did Scorpio rising tell you that?”
He laughed, put a teabag in her cup and turned around and leaned on the worktop, crossing his arms. “Okay, Astrology 101. Your birth sign is the astrological constellation that the sun was passing through when you were born. It’s the sign that all the newspapers call your horoscope, but it only gives a tiny piece of the whole picture.”
“Right, because how can they predict what’s going to happen to a twelfth of all the people in the world?”
“Exactly. Your sun sign reflects how you present yourself to the world. You’re a Pisces. Pisces people are quiet, cautious, honest, gentle and generous.”
“I think that sums me up.”
He laughed. “Your ascendant, or your rising sign, is the constellation that was on the horizon when you were born. It represents your true self. What you’re really like deep down.”
“And what’s Scorpio, then?”
He studied her for a moment. Gradually, he started to smile. “Sexy. Sensual. Passionate.”
“Doesn’t sound like me at all.”
“Hey, I’ve seen the stockings. Twice. It sounds very much like you.” Grinning, he turned to make the tea.
“What do you mean, twice?”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “It was windy out by your car.”
Her face grew hot. “You shouldn’t have looked.”
He dunked the teabag a few times and brought the cup and saucer over to her. “Hey, there’s no chance I’m going to look the other way if stockings are on show.”
She glared at him as he put the cup in front of her. “You’re incorrigible. I should get up now and leave this house and never come back.”
“Absolutely you should.” He pulled out the chair opposite her, sat and sipped his drink, watching her over the top of the mug.
She pulled her cup toward her. “I’ll do it straight after I finish my tea.”
He chuckled. “Sure thing.”
Chapter Five
They studied each other as they sipped the hot tea. His warm gaze made her heart beat faster. “Don’t go getting any ideas just because the moon is in Uranus or something,” she warned him.
He laughed out loud at that and sat back in the chair, hooking one arm over the back. “Actually, the most interesting thing about your chart is not only do you have Scorpio rising, you also have the moon and Venus in the same sign.”
“Which means?”
“The planet of love? In the sexiest sign of the zodiac?” He sipped his tea, smiling. “I think that’s more than enough to prove to me whoever said you were bad in bed is a complete idiot.”
Her cheeks burned but she kept his gaze. “Do you really believe where the planets are in the sky when you’re born can affect your character?” It was such a load of nonsense. How could anybody think it was the case? And yet a small part of her was desperate to believe it was true.
He shrugged. “I don’t know how it works, but birth charts are often amazingly accurate. I don’t look too deep into the whys and wherefores. I just accept it happens.”
“I couldn’t do that.” She frowned. “I couldn’t accept anything without proof. Faith is just a convenient way of pushing aside the little irrelevancies and evidence that something doesn’t add up.”
He sipped his tea. “In your opinion.”
She met his clear, open gaze. “I suppose,” she admitted reluctantly. She fiddled with her cup. “How did you know about the scarf?”
He continued to hold her gaze. “I didn’t sneak into your house, nor did I pay for anyone else to sneak into your house, and I didn’t ask your friends. Will that suffice?”
“Quite clearly not.” She studied him. “Why won’t you tell me? What are you afraid of?”
He hesitated and then sighed. “That you’ll freak out.”
“I promise I won’t freak out.”
“You swear?”
“You want me to cross my heart and stick a needle in my eye?”
He put down his mug. “Your dad told me.”
The kitchen fell silent. She could hear the tick of the clock above the sink and the distinctive cry of a rosella out in the garden.
“My dad’s dead,” she said flatly.
He rolled his eyes. “That’s kind of what I meant.”
She stared at him. “You’re saying you spoke to his ghost?”
“His spirit. Yes. Well, I didn’t speak to him, he spoke to me. He told me to tell you where your scarf was.”
She put her cup back on the saucer with a rattle. “My dad produced a miracle and broke the laws of physics, but he didn’t come through with the meaning of life or even next week’s Lotto numbers. He told you where my red scarf was.”
Ash tipped his head at her. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I don’t make the rules.”
She felt completely flummoxed, as confused as if he’d told her rivers ran uphill. “When did he supposedly tell you this?”
“On the night of the parents’ evening, while I was talking to you.”
She vaguely remembered a point when he’d looked past her as if listening to someone’s voice. She kept her voice even. “Did he say anything else?”
Ash turned his mug around in his hands. “I know he died from a heart attack.”
“That’s hardly a shocking prediction,” she said sharply. “Heart disease is the most common cause of death for both men and women.”
“That’s true.” He finished off his tea. “Did he die from a heart attack?”
Her eyes were stinging. “You could have found that out from anywhere. His obituary. You could have phoned my brothers or my mother. You could have listened to me talking to Freya or Mia about him. There’s any number of sensible, rational ways you could have worked that out.”
“Also true.” His eyes were gentle. “But I didn’t.”
Ash saw the emotion come in a rush, making her catch her breath. She took off her glasses, and as the tears spilled out, she tried to catch them with embarrassment, but they tumbled over her fingers and down her cheeks.
He stood calmly, walked over to the worktop and retrieved a piece of kitchen towel, then came over and handed it to her. As she crushed it to her eyes, he bent and kissed the top of her head. Then he picked up her cup and his mug, took them over to the sink and started running the tap, his back to her.
He squeezed the dishwasher liquid into the bowl and waited for the hot water to fill it up. Behind him, Grace sniffed and snuffled into the kitchen towel, but he didn’t turn around, giving her some privacy. Outside, it was a beautifully sunny afternoon, and as bubbles began to rise from the sink, the sun’s rays turned them into a kaleidoscope of colours.
Slowly, he began to wash the cups and the dishes left over from lunch, waiting for her to recover and then react, probably by calling him something rude and storming out of the house.
After another minute, however, he felt a presence at his side and in his peripheral vision saw Grace appear beside him. She’d replaced her glasses. She picked up a tea towel and, without further ado, started to dry the crockery he’d washed.
Relieved that she hadn’t walked out, he kept his gaze on the sink and continued to do the dishes.
She dried half a dozen glasses and a few plates in silence and then leaned on the worktop, looking out at the garden.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “I don’t know how you found out about the scarf, but I don’t believe you spoke to my dead father. And you knew I wouldn’t believe, but you still told me. You knew it would make me angry and upset. Why did you say that?”
He scrubbed the plate in his hands with the brush until it gleamed clean. “I don’t get to choose what the messages are or where they’re from. I just get to pass them on. And I told you because you asked, and because I’m not going to lie to you and say I asked your friend when I didn’t.” He balanced the edge of the plate on one of the mugs so the water could slide onto the draining board.
She stared at it for a moment. Then she picked it up and dried it, placing it carefully on the pile of clean crockery on the worktop.
He picked up the next mug, aware she’d folded up the cloth and put it next to the crockery.
“I should go,” she said absently, lifting a hand to catch a soap bubble that was drifting toward the window.
“Okay.” He washed the mug and put it on the draining board.
She turned to face him, leaning a hip on the worktop. “Do you make all your women peppermint tea and let them cry at your kitchen table?”
He laughed. “The only women who have stood in my kitchen are Liv, Jodi and my mother. I have a room for my clients with its own entrance at the other end of the house. I keep my work and my home life very separate.” He looked across at her. “And I told you, Miss Fox, I don’t sleep around.”
Her face was slightly red where she’d cried, and behind the glasses, her brown eyes were shiny, like wood left out in the rain. Her white blouse, pink skirt, stockings—and the sexy underwear she was probably wearing—made her soft and feminine, and along with the brown wisps of curls framing her face and her soft pink lips, made him want to kiss her. How come he was so crazy about this woman when he’d only just got to know her?
She inhaled now as she saw his gaze linger on her lips, her own parting involuntarily. “I don’t understand how I’m so attracted to you when I don’t agree with anything you believe in. We’re poles apart, Ash, and I’m upset that you’d use my dad to get close to me. I know there’s no way you speak to the dead, and you must have somehow found out about him and used that information to try to get me to trust you, and that makes me uncomfortable. I know I should run a mile.”