At eight o'clock, he found a white box with veal Parmagiana, parsnip mash and a sourdough roll on the doorstep.
On the fifth night of the home delivery service, it was twice-cooked pork belly with steamed rice. That particular meal went to the top of Dan's charts.
Night six was freshly caught Coorong Mullet with tossed salad and balsamic vinaigrette.
By night seven, Dan was hungry at about a quarter to eight. Hell, he was starting to act like one of Pavlov's dogs. Every minute until eight o'clock seemed like an hour. He sat quietly, waiting to hear footsteps. Nothing. So without waiting for a knock, he opened the front door at eight o'clock on the dot. No one was there and disappointment skittered through him.
He looked down at the doormat. This time, there was a note inside the box, written by hand, restaurant messy with a big loop on the 'g'.
Tagliatelle with Blue Swimmer Crab in a tomato sugo. In case you're allergic to shellfish. Green salad.
He wasn't. This time, he didn't eat it out of the takeaway container. He'd grown tired of that. It made him feel like a uni student again, when he used to consume mountains of plastic instant noodles straight from their polystyrene cups. He found a clean dinner plate and tipped the pasta out onto it. The aroma was unbelievable. He poured himself a glass of water and moved to the table, sat down like a grown-up. He looked around the room. Silent, empty, lonely.
For the first time in months he wished he had someone to share it with.
Lizzie was feeling quite proud of herself. She had the whole meals on wheels scheme totally organised and everyone at the pub had slipped into her routine without a hitch. By seven-thirty each night, she would give the order to the chef. Twenty minutes later she would collect the food, sealed in foil-lidded containers and packed in a box, and head off. Her short walk from the pub to home was only slightly altered via the small detour to Dan's place.
She'd meant it when she'd told Ry and Julia that Dan would need space and time. She'd worked out the delivery schedule so Dan got to maintain his privacy in a respectful and dignified way. The fact that she didn't have to look into his eyes was not a deciding factor in her plan. Not one bit.
Lizzie stepped over the low fence in Dan's front yard and walked over the grass. The crunch of the gravel on the driveway would have given her away so she'd developed this little detour to slip in unnoticed. This wasn't sneaking around, she told herself. Or avoiding him. Nothing at all like that.
When she reached the veranda, she carefully placed the food parcel on the doormat. With a self-satisfied smile, she stood up, brushed her hands together and took a quick look at the front door.
Dan McSwaine was staring right at her.
CHAPTER
3
'Elizabeth.'
'Oh … Dan.' Lizzie tried to hide the catch in her voice. So much for playing it cool. Seeing him standing there, his arms crossed against his chest, looking down at her with those piercing green eyes, had given her the shock of her life. She couldn't even summon up her usual indignation at the way he used her proper name. Maybe it was something in the way he said it, gruff and deep. And while Lizzie had just two syllables, Elizabeth had a full four. Twice as much time to hear that voice. Oh no. Her heart picked up speed. She dropped her eyes to the box of food at her feet, anything to stop herself from really looking at him.
'Sprung.' Lizzie shrugged her shoulders and then looked up.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
He was kind of half naked. No, not kind of. Mostly, definitely, half-naked. In the desperate hope that her sunglasses were hiding her blatant appreciation, Lizzie took care to move only her eyeballs and not her actual head as she checked him out. His smooth chest was dusted with hair from nipple to nipple and was framed on either side by strong, muscled shoulders. And as she glanced lower, down his flat stomach, there was another smattering of hair leading to … Lizzie propped her hands on her hips for support and gulped. It led to loose, black boardshorts, only just clinging to his hipbones, so low slung that she wondered what was keeping them up.
Oh God, don't think of that!
'You're right on time,' he said.
She tore her gaze back to his face and noticed something happening to his lips. Although half-hidden by the rock star beard, there was a movement and yes, they were shifting at the corners, just the tiniest bit. In an upward direction.
'Elizabeth, I want to thank you for-.' The voice, like melting chocolate, seemed to stumble.
She held up a hand. 'It's no trouble, Dan, really.'
He pushed his midnight-dark hair back from his forehead. All kinds of muscles Lizzie didn't even know the names of moved in his upper arms and broadened his chest.
'The food has been amazing. I can see why Ry bought the pub.'
'Fantastic,' she sighed, totally distracted by his body, all hard ridges and muscles. He might have dropped a few kilos during his recovery but, upon closer inspection, Lizzie couldn't seem to figure out where. 'Err … good. Great. I'll tell Ry. I don't know why but he seems obsessively interested in your eating habits.'
'That's a change.' Dan chuckled and the sexy sound of it flipped her insides. 'He's always been more interested in my drinking habits.' When he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his boardshorts dropped lower still.
Lizzie swallowed hard. 'Well, enjoy.' She nudged the box with her foot, pushing it a little closer to him.
'Thanks,' he said, almost under his breath. 'I appreciate it.'
'It's no problem, Dan, really. I live just up the rise, a few streets from here, so it's on the way home.'
And then he looked at her and smiled. Not a grin or a smirk, which she'd seen practised to perfection in the old Dan McSwaine. This seemed genuine and honest and it scared the hell out of her. She knew how to deal with the swaggering city boy. This guy? That was another thing altogether and way too much to think about.
'Enjoy the food.' Lizzie gave him a little girly wave, which she instantly regretted, and turned to go. The sun-scorched grass crinkled underfoot as she crossed it and then she stepped out onto the road.
She didn't have to look back at him to know that he was watching her walk away. She could feel it; the awareness she'd seen in his eyes was now heavy in her chest. So what if he was? He might simply be admiring the view, sucking in the sea breeze or watching the seagulls swoop and dive above the beach.
She looked back over her shoulder to see if her instinct was right. It was, in spades. Dan was still at his front door, the hint of that smile still lingering, his emerald eyes trained on her like a heat-seeking missile.
Lizzie sighed. Too much time in such close proximity to that half-nakedness and she might do things she would regret later. Like put her hands all over that six foot, four inches of man and then decide she wanted to have sex with Dan McSwaine.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
She shook that thought away, hoping it would cross the esplanade, wash out to sea and disappear forever.
'You. Are. One. Stupid. Prick.' Dan grabbed the box of food and closed the door behind him with a slam. What the hell would have been so hard about inviting Lizzie inside? She'd only stopped by every night for the past week to bring him one unbelievable meal after another, no questions asked, no expectations. So what if she'd taken to scarpering before he'd even opened the door.
Could he really blame her? He dropped the food onto his kitchen table with a thud, pulled out a chair and lowered himself into it. Slamming the door in her face the week before hadn't been his smoothest move. It was definitely up there on the list of the top three dumbest things he'd ever done. And just then, when he'd had the chance to, he hadn't even apologised for it. Seeing her standing at the door, her eyes wide in surprise and those full lips dropped open. All the words he'd been working on had slipped out of his hands like a fumbled catch in the slips.
He had to fix this. He couldn't leave things hanging any longer.
Ry's phone beeped against his thigh. He reached inside his jeans pocket, gently mining the very small space between his body and his fiancée's. They were sprawled on the white leather sofas in the house next to Dan's, watching a movie, entwined.
He grinned when he saw the message. 'JJ, look at this. Dan's asking where Lizzie lives.' Ry flipped the phone around so Julia could read the display and she simultaneously propped herself up, pressed pause on the remote control and snatched the phone from Ry's fingers.
'What's Lizzie's address,' she read out loud. 'Mmm. Such sub-text. Such poetry.'
'Give me that. You're missing the point, JJ. Operation Dan seems to be going just as we planned.'
'Don't you mean Operation Dan and Lizzie?' Julia tossed the phone in his lap.
Ry looked confused. 'I don't know what plan you're talking about but I mean the plan we hatched to get Lizzie to help Dan out of this … this whatever the hell he's going through.'