The Vengeance Affair. Carole Mortimer

      CHAPTER FOUR

      ‘WHAT the hell do you think you’re doing?’

      Jaz turned frowningly at the sound of Beau Garrett’s furious voice, struggling to hold a rather large rock in her arms as she did so. ‘Sorry?’ The wind was strong this morning, whipping her hair into her face and eyes, so that she looked at him through the screen of her tousled hair as he strode purposefully down the garden towards her.

      ‘I said,’ he grated much closer to her, reaching out to take the rock from her arms and drop it disgustedly into the wheelbarrow beside them, ‘what do you think you’re doing?’ His eyes glittered silver as Jaz was finally able to brush the hair from her eyes and look at him.

      And then wished she hadn’t.

      Not that he wasn’t worth looking at, virilely attractive in faded denims and a navy-blue sweater to keep out the cold. But the anger she could see in his face, that scar shown in stark relief, were enough to make her take a step backwards.

      She moistened wind-dry lips. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not throwing these rocks away—’

      ‘I don’t care if you smash them to pieces and scatter them to the wind,’ he cut in harshly. ‘What I want to know is why you’re picking them up in the first place!’

      Jaz’s apprehension at his obvious anger turned to confusion. ‘Exactly what I told you I would do,’ she answered slowly. ‘Clearing away all the debris so that I can see what we have to work with.’

      She had arrived at The Old Vicarage just over an hour ago, Beau Garrett obviously out when she’d got there: his Range Rover had been missing from the driveway, and there had been no answer to the ringing of the doorbell, only Dennis up on the roof industriously hammering away.

      So Jaz had simply let herself into the garden by the side gate, had already half filled the skip at the side of the house that had been delivered yesterday, with old bicycles and other rubbish that had no practical use. In fact, she couldn’t imagine how an old bath could possibly have found its way amongst the weeds; as far as she was aware, apart from the kitchen, Beau Garrett hadn’t yet started on the redecorating of the other rooms in the house. But she had dumped that into the skip along with the other accumulating rubbish.

      Beau Garrett’s expression was darkly disapproving. ‘I presumed when we agreed that you would do the work that you would have someone to help you.’

      Jaz raised dark brows. ‘Such as?’

      ‘Such as a labourer of some kind to do the heavy work,’ he bit out impatiently.

      ‘Ah.’ Jaz straightened knowingly, realizing that her five feet four inches in height were far from imposing. ‘A man, you mean?’

      ‘Well, of course I mean a man,’ he came back with barely constrained irritation. ‘I had no idea that you intended doing all this heavy work yourself.’

      ‘Mr Garrett—’

      ‘Beau,’ he snapped.

      ‘Beau,’ she complied with a nod. ‘Apart from old Fred at the garden centre, I don’t have anyone working for me. I’m a one-man band—’

      ‘One-woman band,’ he corrected grimly.

      ‘And that’s the problem,’ she guessed ruefully.

      ‘Of course that’s the problem!’ he snapped. ‘I can’t possibly allow you to collect all this rubbish up and carry it out to the skip—’

      ‘I’m using a wheelbarrow,’ she pointed out practically.

      ‘Wheeling it out to the skip, then,’ he corrected with no show of a lessening of his impatience.

      She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘I realize I’m not very big, but I’m really quite strong, you know.’

      His gaze raked over her scathingly, obviously not at all impressed with her height or her size-ten frame. ‘You may be,’ he allowed skeptically. ‘But there’s no way I’m going to let you clear all this lot on your own.’ He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed all the rubbish still scattered about the weed-engulfed garden.

      And there was no way that Jaz was going to use some of the precious money he had given her in order to hire a labourer for a couple of days to help with the clearance! Especially when she knew she was perfectly capable of doing it herself.

      ‘I’ll help you,’ Beau told her dryly as he seemed to read at least some of her thoughts.

      But hopefully he couldn’t read the ones she was having now!

      Beau Garrett, television star, urbanely elegant man, always voted in the top five in the ‘sexiest men on television’ poll that came out each year, was going to shift stones and debris like some common labourer?

      Worse—he was going to shift stones and debris like a common labourer alongside her!

      She may have given up any interest in love and marriage, but that didn’t mean she was immune to men, that she couldn’t be totally aware of one in a sexual way. As she was totally aware of Beau Garrett…

      Top five ‘sexiest men on television’ be damned—this man was too lethally attractive for his own—or anyone else’s!—good.

      She shook her head. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea—’

      ‘Why not?’ he rasped impatiently.

      Jaz had no intention of telling him the real reason ‘why not’ the truth being that, dressed in disreputable denims and a ragged sweater, her face hot and sweaty from lifting heavy weights, she felt about as feminine as one of the rusted bicycles she had thrown in the skip!

      Not that she thought a man like Beau Garrett would have looked at her twice even if she were looking her best, but she still had her pride, even if he did think she made ‘a scarecrow look well dressed’.

      No matter how determined she may have been on Monday afternoon not to let him see how hurt she had been by that insulting remark, it had definitely hit a raw nerve…

      She shrugged. ‘My insurance wouldn’t cover any injuries you—’

      ‘Insurance be damned,’ Beau Garrett cut in scathingly. ‘This is my garden, and as such my rubbish, and if I choose to help clear it away then that’s my problem, not yours.’

      Jaz could clearly see the challenge in his gaze. ‘I’m not sure an insurance company would see it quite that way—’ She broke off, knowing her protests to be completely wasted as he moved determinedly to pick up one of the larger stones that littered this particular corner of the garden.

      ‘Where could all these rocks have come from?’ he muttered disgustedly as he dumped it into the wheelbarrow.

      ‘My grandmother’s rock garden…?’ she suggested with a grimace.

      ‘I should have guessed!’ Beau shot her a rueful glance as he continued to load the rocks into the barrow.

      ‘Mmm,’ Jaz nodded, blue eyes glittering mischievously. ‘She was very fond of her rock garden.’

      He paused before bending to pick up another rock, one dark brow raised over mocking grey eyes. ‘Are you going to help or just stand there watching me all day?’

      Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment. ‘Sorry. I—I just can’t believe you’re actually doing this.’ She gave a dazed shake of her head even as she moved to pick up one of the smaller rocks.

      ‘Believe it,’ he muttered through clenched teeth as he dumped another huge rock none-too-gently on top of the others. ‘Besides…’ he straightened, running his hands down his denim-clad thighs to remove the dirt ‘…you don’t seriously think, now that I’ve seen you’re managing here alone, that I could just calmly go back into the house and read the newspaper, do you?’ His expression was grim.

      Jaz