Carrot and Coriander Read online

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  New Excerpt

  About the Author

  Publisher Page

  A Totally Bound Publication

  Carrot and Coriander

  ISBN # 978-1-78184-991-0

  ©Copyright Ashe Barker 2014

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright February 2014

  Edited by Sarah Smeaton

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2014 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Burning and a Sexometer of 2.

  CARROT AND CORIANDER

  Ashe Barker

  Old habits die hard. Her sexy young lover can make her body hum, but can she ignore the secrets of his past?

  Rachel is drawn to the sexy young gardener offering to do odd jobs around her neighborhood, no reasonable offer refused. She soon dreams up something for him to do at the bottom of her garden, and the view from her window is much improved as he works outside.

  Callum can feel her gaze on him, can sense her fascination, but he has very particular requirements and he’s not at all sure his taste runs to middle-aged freelance accountants, and a single mother at that.

  However their attraction to each other is powerful, and as Callum starts to recognize the signals of willing submission, which Rachel unconsciously gives off, he knows he must have her. Their passionate encounters liberate Rachel, unlocking her desires and demanding her surrender, while challenging all her inhibitions.

  But when she learns the secrets of her sexy young lover’s misspent youth, can she get past her pre-conceived certainties to find a way for them to move on—together. Or was their new-found happiness doomed from the start?

  Opposites attract, but are some differences just too deep to overcome?

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to John and Hannah, as always.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Transit: Ford Motor Company

  Ford Fiesta: Ford Motor Company

  BMW: BMW AG

  Spiderman: Marvel Entertainment, LLC

  Mercedes: Daimler AG

  Volvo XC90: AB Volvo

  Dorothy Perkins: Arcadia Group Plc.

  Peugeot 205: Peugeot S.A.

  Marks & Spencer: Marks and Spencer plc

  La Senza: L Brands Inc.

  Thierry Mugler’s ALIEN: The House of Thierry Mugler

  Alton Towers: Merlin Entertainments Group PLC

  Cosmopolitan: Hearst Corporation

  Sponge Bob Square Pants: Nickelodeon Animation Studio & United Plankton Pictures Inc.

  Chapter One

  She’s there again. Watching. Always bloody watching. Nice legs though…

  Callum O’Neill flexed his shoulders as he poured a healthy glug of cool water down his throat. He replaced the half-empty plastic bottle on the wall beside him and picked up his spade. Another couple of hours should see the heavy work done, then he could get on to the planting up. Mrs Saunders wanted a rockery, so she’d have one. By Tuesday.

  He put his back into shoveling loose soil from an underused patch of scrub round the back, before hefting it onto his customer’s sturdy if somewhat battered wheelbarrow. Once full, or fullish, he shoved the load around to the front of the house. There he upturned it onto the growing heap of soil and rubble that was, by Tuesday, to become magically transformed into a rock garden.

  He stood for a few moments to assess his progress so far, contemplating once more the uncertain wisdom of creating a rockery in the shade of a horse chestnut tree and a four foot high wall. Rock plants needed dry, well-drained soil. They also needed sun. Mrs Saunders’ aubretia and candytuft would struggle to get either tucked away in this dark corner. This spot called for ferns, primulas or maybe some bluebells. Pretty, shade-loving plants not sun-worshiping perennials.

  A diligent and knowledgeable plantsman, Callum had offered his advice. Leave the rocks where they were in the sunny back yard. He could make them into a rock garden for her there if she liked, it would take him half the time to build and be so much cheaper for her. But his words had fallen on deaf ears. The lady had insisted. He needed the work so he’d shrugged pragmatically, cast another doubtful glance at her preferred rockery site, and had gotten on with the job.

  It didn’t do to argue, or to turn down trade. But he wasn’t especially happy. He took pride in his creations, he knew Mrs Saunders’ heathers and sedums wouldn’t thrive in the dark, dank spot. And despite her apparent indifference to their plight that mattered to him. Callum wanted Mrs Saunders to look out of her window and enjoy the fruits of his labor. He wanted her to be pleased with his work. He had a business to build, he needed more clients like Mrs Saunders, so it would help if she’d recommend him to her friends. She wouldn’t do that if her aubretia shriveled and her heathers flopped.

  He sighed, shook his head in resignation, and grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow to trundle it back round to the rear of the house. Best get on with it.

  He was never sure just how to refer to the half a dozen or so people who engaged his services to help them wage that war of attrition which is gardening. Strictly speaking, he was self-employed so that probably made them clients. Whatever, gardening was nice work—good, outdoors work, creative, satisfying. Better than working in an office—not that anyone in their right mind would have given him a job anywhere near their computers and phones. Plus it was a lot better than being locked up. He should know, having spent just under a year cooling his heels in HMP Leeds, that auspicious establishment in Armley where the likes of him tended to end up. By that he meant car thieves stupid enough to get caught and cocky enough to think they could manage to bluff their way through the judicial system without the services of a half-decent solicitor.

  Once was enough though. Short, sharp shock tactics had worked on Callum O’Neill. Lessons learnt, career change required. Hence the self-employed jobbing gardener. He’d been out of prison for six months and had spent the first few weeks applying for jobs, initially as a mechanic because he did at least know his way around motors. But he’d soon gotten tired
of trying to explain to prospective employers that he was a reformed character, and fed up of assuring them that their precious customers’ cars would be safe with him. No more dodgy number plates for him, no nicking top-end vehicles to order and passing them on to his contacts to be shipped abroad. No. All that was behind him now.

  Still though his job hunting efforts had gotten him nowhere. Too many good lads out there competing for jobs—nice little apprentices without murky pasts and a prison record—for anyone to have wanted to consider someone like him. Why would they? He wouldn’t have employed him either.

  Maybe he should have smartened himself up a bit. His hair was just a bit too long, possibly. And a lot too black. It could be said there was a little too much artwork on his forearms. Not much he could do about that, but he did seem to keep on rolling his sleeves up when he didn’t absolutely need to. Without doubt his tall, athletic build could be intimidating, on occasions. He could definitely have tried to be more personable, maybe smiling once or twice in interviews, or at least trying not to scowl. But he had been angry. Bitter. And more than a bit nervous about what his future might have held if he hadn’t been able to manage to get gainful employment, and fast. This was what he knew dragged most ex-cons back into a life of crime—the fact that there were precious few alternatives if they wanted cash to spend and a decent place to live.

  He had fast realized no one was going to give him a job, so the obvious solution had been to make one for himself. Always enterprising, Callum had worked out that a freelance gardener might stand a chance. As a lad he’d helped his granddad on his allotment in east Leeds often enough—he knew the basics. Probably. So he’d taken himself off to some of the leafy outlying suburbs, spent a few hours strolling the avenues and lanes of Adel, Alwoodley, Bramhope, Headingley. There he’d peered over garden walls, hoping not to get arrested as a Peeping Tom, or worse still, as a potential burglar. He’d identified those places where the occupants seemed to be well-heeled enough to be able to afford a posh house in an upmarket neighborhood, but didn’t seem unduly meticulous in the care of their gardens. Messy, overgrown lawns, untrimmed hedges, weeds in the flowers beds, those were the clues that here might be clients.

  When he’d found a likely place, one that looked as though they could do with the services of a jobbing gardener, he’d just marched right up to the door and knocked. He had offered to help, just casual labor at first, one-off clear ups. “I’ll mow your lawn, twenty quid, cash in hand.” He got quite a few takers on that basis, and what’s more a lot of the takers hired him again, and again. He did a good job, didn’t nick anything. Soon he had begun to build up a regular round of mowing, weeding, trimming, watering. Other odd jobs too, nothing turned down.

  He had spent one afternoon chopping logs into smaller pieces for an elderly man with a log fire who couldn’t manage the big lumps anymore. Then he’d stacked the whole lot neatly in a shed. As it turned out the old guy had a sister who’d wanted a pond digging. It had taken him days because although she called it a pond she actually meant something more akin to a bloody lake, but still, it was work. He didn’t complain, well, not out loud, especially when she’d paid him two hundred quid. Plus she’d fed him while he had been on her property. And she’d recommended him to her friend who had needed an old shed demolishing and carting off. Callum had knocked down the shed, but instead of taking the debris to the tip he’d bagged it up and offered it first to the old guy with the log fire—fuel’s fuel, after all. Another fifty quid, and the satisfaction of recycling to boot.

  His enterprise was going okay. He’d managed to earn enough ready cash to acquire a battered old van and a few tools of his own. At first he’d had to walk to his jobs or scrounge a lift from one of his mates, using the clients’ own kit. He had been relieved when he had gained his own transport, however rusty, because the last thing he needed now, just as he was getting on his feet again, was to get caught in a stolen car. And the chances were that any motor driven by one of his friends was at least slightly warm if not red hot. His next goal was to get a place of his own to live, ideally not in Cross Green where he was currently dossing on another mate’s floor. Not that he wasn’t grateful, but he was determined to play it straight. Guilt by association would still be guilt in the eyes of a jury. No, he definitely had to put some daylight between himself and his old haunts.

  His strategy was working so far because now he was working for another friend of a friend of one of his clients—the pretty lady with nice legs who wanted a rockery building. A lady who seemed inclined to supervise his every move from her bedroom window, although she’d offered no comments or suggestions for the task. Just left him to get on with it. While she watched. He’d been at it for two days, and pretty much every time he glanced up she was there. Tall, though nowhere near his height. Maybe a little too thin, long wavy hair, sort of brown but maybe more reddish. She must be short-sighted because she always wore glasses. And she had lovely hands. He’d particularly noticed those when she’d handed him a mug of tea half way through his first morning. He’d thanked her, and she had said he was welcome. She had come back out later that day with another mug with some biscuits this time. And a chirpy toddler trotting behind her. That had surprised him—she didn’t look old enough to be a grandmother, although maybe she’d worn well. Very well, in fact. His gran had never looked anything like that. Close up she was—what? Attractive? More than that. She was bloody stunning.

  The little kid was called Jacob, apparently, and was blessed with an extraordinary affinity for worms. This was not a fondness shared by his grandma, who had cast an embarrassed glance in Callum’s direction as she’d shuddered and asked the child to put the wriggling little pink knot back in the ground, where its babies could find it. She’d dropped her gaze almost immediately when she’d made eye contact with him, and Callum had still been puzzling about that when he’d heard the childish response—

  “But I love it, mummy. It’s my pet.” Jacob had sniffled all the way back to the house, but to no avail. Callum had stared after the retreating pair.

  Mummy! Well…

  And now, she was there again. Watching him, always watching from the kitchen window and finding some pressing business to conduct on the windowsill the instant he turned in her direction. She’d wipe the paint away if she wasn’t careful.

  Christ, he’s gorgeous. A little on the beefy side perhaps but what the hell? I would.

  Except she knew she wouldn’t. Didn’t. Ever. Might have once, given the chance, but now there was Jacob to consider. She had responsibilities. Wonderful, life-affirming responsibilities. She wouldn’t change things for the world. But she definitely had no time for casual sex. Or any other sort. No, Rachel Saunders was not on the market. Still, it was a pity.

  Not that someone like him would be interested in any case. Not in her. She was at least twenty years too old for him. He must have some lovely, sexy girlfriend tucked away somewhere—a lovely, sexy companion to go to pubs with, or to parties or football matches. And to sleep with afterwards. Someone who probably shared a cup of coffee with him in the mornings before he turned up here, or wherever else he might work. She knew he did a lot of gardening and other odd jobs in the neighborhood, had noticed him around. Who wouldn’t, he didn’t exactly blend in here—not the usual scenery at all. Gorgeous young men, built like athletes, ready to jump to it to do her bidding were not exactly thick on the ground here in leafy Adel.

  And if she were brutally honest, the notion of building a rockery had never occurred to her until Jacob’s child minder had mentioned that her uncle had found this particularly enterprising young man who chopped logs, sold firewood and could trim hedges, and would do whatever needed doing around the garden. Putting two and two together, suddenly Rachel had found herself wanting a rockery. So the child minder had obligingly gotten the gardener’s mobile number from her uncle, she’d texted him and here he was. In her garden, digging and humping and generally providing the best floorshow she’d seen in years.r />
  Christ, how pathetic. In a few days he’d move on, she’d be two hundred quid down, and all she’d have to show for it would be a pile of soil with a few strategically positioned boulders and some heathers poking out of it. It wasn’t even as though her rockery would thrive, the gardener had told her as much and he seemed to know what he was talking about. He had even suggested a better location for it, but Rachel had rejected that notion out of hand as it would have entailed him completing the work in much less time. She wanted him here, for as long as she could spin the job out.

  She really, really had to get out more. Just had to. But it wasn’t easy with a three-year-old, and she had to earn a living. Working from home as a freelance accountant paid the bills and made things a little easier with Jacob, but it meant no social life at all. At least not for the next few years.

  Not that life BJ—Before Jacob—had been one endless social whirl exactly. Back then she’d worked for a huge firm in Leeds city center, but had tended to keep herself to herself, had had lunch with female friends from time to time, and once or twice joined in girlie nights out. But no relationships, nothing to speak of. She had been too busy building her career, establishing herself, eventually managing to reach the dizzy heights of Small Business Adviser. That had meant that any client of the firm with less than fifty employees had gotten the not inconsiderable benefit of Rachel’s advice on their tax affairs. She was good with tax, prided herself on never letting the taxman get his hands on one penny he wasn’t absolutely and irrefutably entitled to. Never anything remotely shady, of course, always straight as a die, but Rachel knew tax law inside out, upside down and backwards, and ‘tax efficiency’ was her middle name.

  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately depending on her view of such matters, ‘contraceptive efficiency’ had become something of an alien concept. She used to be good at that stuff—as a teenager with all her life ahead of her she’d known with absolute certainty the value of avoiding unwanted pregnancies or worse, and had taken particular care. Then she’d ‘grown up’, gotten all sensible and serious, and stopped bothering with all that messy business entirely. Eventually all the men she might have been interested in had sort of drifted off and gotten married to other women. Some had gotten divorced, and there might have been opportunities over the years, but she was never in the right place at the right time, or was just too busy…and she had sort of gotten out of practice.