All They Need(54)

“They were all years go,” Mel explained for Flynn’s benefit. Although, by the looks of things, he was clearly enjoying the Porter family cabaret act. “Plus, I didn’t ask them to do any of those things. Anyway—” she jammed her elbow into her brother’s ribs, but Harry only tightened his grip on her neck “—you’re the one who’s the biggest man-slut this side of the equator, so you can hardly talk.”

“Yeah, except you don’t see me roping any of my girlfriends in as free labor.”

“Flynn’s not my boyfriend, and I didn’t rope anybody into anything. Unlike you, you big petrol-head, Flynn happens to enjoy gardening.”

She elbowed him again, harder this time, and took advantage of his instinctive flinch to slip out from under his arm. Feeling more than a little hot and flustered thanks to her brother’s manhandling, she straightened her top and adjusted her ponytail before glancing at Flynn to see how he was handling it all.

Now that the floor show was over, he was talking quietly with her father about his car, one hand tucked into his back pocket, his posture relaxed.

The last of her protectiveness slipped away as she watched her father laugh at something Flynn was saying. It had only been five minutes, but already the Porter men liked Flynn about five-hundred times more than they’d ever liked Owen.

She frowned. The odds were good that Flynn wasn’t going to be spending a lot of time with her family, so working up a sweat over whether they liked him or not was a waste of time—and yet she wanted them to like him, very badly, because she liked him and she wanted other people to see the same good qualities in him that she did.

She turned away, fussing with her work gloves, swiping at the small splinters and other debris on her T-shirt and jeans, thrown and more than a little overwhelmed by her own feelings. This…thing with Flynn was getting out of hand, taking on a life of its own. She’d resisted it every step of the way, yet somehow he was still standing here in her yard, talking and laughing with her family.

She slapped her gloved hands together loudly, a physical expression of her inner frustration and confusion. Four sets of eyes turned to her expectantly and she realized she’d inadvertently drawn everyone’s attention. “Who wants to go grab another tie with me?”

She marched toward the house before anyone could respond and, more importantly, before she could do or say anything too stupid.



TWO HOURS LATER, Flynn released the trigger on the circular saw.

He pushed the safety glasses high on his forehead and brushed wood splinters off his forearms as he inspected the cut he’d made.

“All done?” Mel asked from behind him.

He glanced over his shoulder. “All done. Last piece, too. Now we just have to fill these suckers with topsoil.”

“He says as though it’s going to be a walk in the park getting all that dirt from one end of the property to the other.”

She moved off to talk to her brother-in-law and Flynn’s gaze drifted over her body. It was a warm day for winter and she’d long since stripped down to a bright blue tank top and a pair of faded jeans. The stretch knit fabric hugged her breasts and belly, flaring out over her hips. With her cheeks shiny from exertion and a handful of loose curls forming a fuzzy nimbus around her face, she looked like an advertisement for the great outdoors. Full of life and sexy as hell.

His gaze gravitated to the thin strip of bright orange satin visible on her left shoulder. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed Mel’s bra strap today—it had been playing peek-a-boo with him on and off all afternoon—and it definitely wasn’t the first time he’d gotten a little lost inside his own head as he imagined her generous curves cupped in tangerine lace and silk.



He suspected he should probably be trying to rein in his schoolboy fantasies, but sometime during the past few days he’d decided to accept the inevitable where Mel was concerned. He was falling for her—hard. He’d tried in the past to make himself fall for women and failed, and he figured it was probably just as futile to try to stop himself from falling, too.

So here he was. Falling.

Where he was going to land was anybody’s guess because Mel was still a closed book to him. Sometimes he was sure they were on the same page. Others he had no idea what she was thinking or feeling. To say it was driving him crazy was something of an understatement.

“How you going with that last piece?” Harry called.

Flynn jerked his attention to the here and now. “Ten seconds.” He pulled on his gloves before lifting the shortened tie from the twin sawhorses and carrying it to where Harry and Mike were using a plumb bob and spirit level to line up the final wall of the last garden bed. They worked together to ensure it was in line and level, fixing it in place with big coach bolts that had been weather-treated to resist corrosion.