Page 26 of Her Fantasy Husband

Tom snorted. “Lexi’s not at her best in the mornings. She doesn’t move very quickly.”

Josh cast him a sharp look. How the hell did he know what Lexi was like first thing in the morning? Last night, Lexi had said there was nothing between the two of them. What had she said about the other man—she’d met him on the Heath one day and invited him to move in? The woman was a danger to herself. She needed someone to look after her.

But not me.

He didn’t do looking after.

Not anymore. Never again.

He glanced at the chair; he didn’t want to sit. He might need to make a quick getaway. They were all studying him. Did they know who he was? He edged into the room and perched on the seat.

“Can I get you a coffee?” Jean asked, pulling him from his thoughts. He found he was staring at the chicken as it clucked softly. Who the hell had a live chicken in their kitchen?

“No, thanks.”

Nobody said anything, and he looked longingly at the door. After ten minutes, Tom put his mug down and got to his feet. “I’m off to work.”

The others all rose one by one. “I have to take the kids to school,” Sarah said.

“And you can drop me off in the High Street.” Jean collected all the mugs and put them in the sink, and a minute later Josh was alone.

The place was a complete and utter madhouse.

The house was more like a rescue center for stray humans and chickens than a civilized home. He had the urge to…tidy everything up, to ask them what they were doing—no doubt freeloading off his far too generous wife.

He thought about getting up and getting a coffee, but instead sat tracing patterns on the scrubbed wooden table with one finger. A sense of peace filled him—unexpected, but there was something about this house, despite the chaos, that was restful. Maybe it was all the sleeping animals, a lullaby of gentle snores.

He’d been restless for a long time; he hadn’t noticed as it crept up on him. Not unhappy exactly—he’d been too busy to be unhappy, but plagued by a nagging sense of futility. What was all the hard work for? He’d come so far, overcome his crappy background, but for what?

In the six weeks since that damn cruise ship had gone down, he’d examined his life from every angle, trying to come up with answers for how he wanted to move forward. It was strange, but the accident had changed him more than he would have thought possible. Coming face-to-face with death would do that. Recuperating at Vito’s villa on Sicily, he’d had a lot of time to think, but he had failed to come up with any solutions.

He’d thought all he wanted was sex. But last night he’d had sex…and now he wanted more sex. Had woken that morning with a raging hard-on, and he was fed up with jerking off in the shower.

He knew what he didn’t want—he didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else. That was never going to change. But did it mean he had to go through life alone? Wasn’t that the way he liked things?

Since he was seventeen, he’d pushed everyone away, isolated himself. But Logan and Vito had become true friends. Logan actually lived not far from here—he’d recognized the road as he drove up this morning.

The dogs all jumped up and hurled themselves at the door, dragging him from his thoughts.

Whatever else, she wasn’t trying to impress him. Lexi stood in the doorway, wearing faded jeans torn at the knee and a pale pink camisole top that looked like she might have slept in it. And nothing underneath—which meant he could see her nipples pressed against the soft cotton. He wished he hadn’t noticed that.

Her feet were bare, and her hair looked like it hadn’t been combed, a wild tangle of dark red curls. Smothering a yawn with one hand, she stroked the dogs with the other, and then she eyed him warily as she shuffled across the kitchen toward the coffee machine on the other side. With her back to him, she poured a cup and then stood staring out of the window as she sipped the coffee.

He waited for her to turn, but he didn’t speak. She was so small, tiny, almost fragile. She hadn’t felt fragile last night. He had a flashback to the feel of her arms around him, holding him tight. The taste of her. And with that thought, he had another surge of inconvenient blood to his groin.

Don’t go there.

“You have a chicken,” he said as she finally turned around. The words sounded almost like an accusation.

She blinked as though trying to make sense of his words. “That’s Prudence.” She waved a hand at the chicken by the fireplace. “But I have four. They’re rescue chickens.”

“What the hell is a rescue chicken?”

“They’re ex-battery hens. From a battery farm. There’s this organization that frees them, but then they need new homes. Did you know, chickens are actually very intelligent? They can recognize up to a hundred individuals.”

He shook his head as if it was beyond his comprehension.

“And they lay eggs.” She shrugged. “I like chickens.”

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