Black Diamonds Read Online Free Page B

temperature soar. She should have left the fans on, she thought fleetingly, but then, she hadn’t been expecting Xavier Antoine.
    Taking a deep breath, she swept past him, her head held high. A spark like brush fire flared between them as her arm touched his.
    Raising her voice she asked, “Shall we start the tour?”
    Xavier smiled inwardly as he followed Jacaranda through the cafe door and into the blazing sun. For the past couple of days he’d found himself thinking about her and the pent up torrent of emotion that sent her falling into his arms. His entire being hadn’t been able to forget her slender body pressed into his.
    Outside, Eve Armitage stood staring at the cafe, shading her face with her hand against the sun’s glare. “I can’t work out what your buildings are made of. It isn’t stone, is it?”
    “No,” Jacaranda answered. “The cafe is built from rammed earth, and so is my cottage.” She pointed to a pretty red-brown cottage hidden behind the gum trees that Xavier hadn’t noticed on his first visit to Paradise Truffle Farm. Paradise, he mused. The name was appropriate. Since arriving in Western Australia, he’d seen so many extraordinary shades of flora and fauna; even the parrots were feathered like rainbows. And Jacaranda Riley, with her vivid colouring, fit the landscape perfectly.
    Eve looked mystified. “Rammed earth?”
    “Yes, its compressed red earth, quite dusty stuff. It hardens, like bricks.”
    “So it’s a mud hut,” Xavier couldn’t resist commenting.
    Predictably, she stiffened. “If it’s a mud hut, it’s a sophisticated one,” she shot back at him. “It’s built to last, and it keeps out the sun.”
    She pointed to the red tiles on the roof. “Those tiles are similar to what you’d find in Italy. So I suppose it’s a Tuscan style mud hut.”
    “I think it’s gorgeous,” Eve declared. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    “It’s distinctly Australian, Mrs Armitage.” Jacaranda appeared to calm down at the compliment, though she turned her body away from Xavier. His lip curled. She’d decided to ignore him. Bonne chance , he thought. It was almost impossible to ignore the tension between them, simmering like heat.
    Eve threw them both an inquisitive glance.
    “Please, call us Bob and Eve,” she invited Jacaranda. “And I love your name. It’s a flower, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, but feel free to call me Jackie. Most people do.”
    “I love Australian flowers.” Eve sniffed the air. “What’s that gorgeous smell?”
    “What you can probably smell is good old eucalyptus. But that’s wattle,” Jacaranda pointed at some fluffy yellow flowers, “that is also called mimosa. That’s the last of it; there’s only a little left of it at this time of year. You should see this place in the spring; there are all kinds of wildflowers.”
    “Look how you’ve planted geraniums around your cottage, too. They’re such a cheerful flower. It’s like France. Don’t you think so, Xavier?”
    “Not quite,” he responded drily.
    “We’re not aiming to be like France.” Jacaranda tossed the comment towards him as though it was a hand grenade. She turned to Bob and Eve. “Now, if you’d like to follow me, I’ll take you up to our hazel trees.”
    “How long have you been here?” Bob asked as they followed her up the track.
    “About twenty years,” she replied over her shoulder. “Our production isn’t huge, of course. We started with one thousand trees, now we’ve got about three thousand. We’ve grafted a range of different truffle fungus onto the tree roots and every year we hold our breaths, waiting to see if they’ll take. Some do, some don’t. We’ve been lucky, we’re doing well.”
    “Jacaranda likes to experiment.” Xavier didn’t want to shorten her name. He liked the way her full name felt in his mouth, almost as much as he liked the way she walked. He covered his eyes with his sunglasses. All the better to look at Miss Riley in