She reached into her pocket, bringing out the stone he’d given her. ‘First of all, I have to find somewhere nice to put my milpreve. I want to be able to look at it.’
That didn’t seem so bad. Caro’s rented house didn’t contain anything that seemed personal to her, and it was warming to think that this one thing was important enough to her to break that rule.
‘I’ll let you get on, then.’
If she kissed him again, he wouldn’t let her go. Drew stepped back, and all the wild possibilities that had been swirling in his head began to fade.
She nodded, and then turned, shouldering her heavy diving bag, and made for her car. If she looked back...
Caro didn’t look back. She already had her eyes set on what was ahead of her, and she’d probably be working late tonight in her workshop to make up for the time she’d lost this week. He watched as she got in and drove away.
That was the first time he’d kissed a woman since Luna had died. Apart from his mother, of course, and Ellie, but that wasn’t the same. It was the first time that his body had thrilled to a woman’s touch.
And strangely it was all right. Gramps had said that guilt and loss wouldn’t always paralyse him, and that one day he’d wake up and find he was moving on. And Luna would have wanted that, her zest for life wouldn’t have tolerated him remembering her any other way.
He picked up his stick and began to walk to his car. The one thing that he couldn’t move on from was the present. Caro’s work was all-important to her, all-encompassing. That was her choice to make, but Drew had choices too. He couldn’t deal with it, and this mustn’t happen again.
* * *
Why? Why? Caro hauled her heavy bag up the stone steps of Smugglers’ Top. The morning had been a whole kaleidoscope of delights in all shapes and sizes, the greatest of which had been the Drew-shaped one.
She’d kissed him. It had been wonderful, and Caro was in no doubt that Drew had liked it too. He’d said that she was beautiful, and Drew didn’t lie. She’d known he wasn’t lying; no one could fake that kind of passion.
And then she’d cut and run, like a scared rabbit.
It was the only thing possible. If she let Drew into her life, then what happened next? The light out at sea? The rowing boat, braving the swell of the tide in the darkness? The knock on her door at midnight by a handsome adventurer? She’d trusted once before, and then she’d lost one of her most important projects and her home.
She balanced the equation carefully in her head. On one side, Drew. On the other side, everything else. If he seemed to outweigh everything else, then that was just faulty calculation.
She dumped her bags in the hall and walked into the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. Her fingers grazed her lips, and she could almost feel his kiss, still there.
Beautiful. The word made her smile.
‘Nonsense,’ she reproved her reflection. Drew had reclaimed a part of his life this morning, and it was natural that he would feel a sense of euphoria. He’d got carried away.
She took the milpreve from her pocket, turning it over in her hand. It had been a wonderful morning, and the glistening stone, worn smooth by the sea, would always remind her of his kiss. But now she had work to do.
CHAPTER NINE
CARO WAS BRIGHT and early on Monday morning, and looking as smart as she always did when she visited the clinic. The briskness of her manner told Drew that she’d made the same resolution as he had. Their kiss had been wonderful, and if it had settled the question about whether Caro was beautiful or not, he would be completely happy. But it was something that shouldn’t be repeated.
‘I made something. It’s a thank-you gift for the clinic.’ She dumped the box she was carrying in front of him on his desk.
‘That’s nice. May I open it?’
‘If you don’t, it’s not going to be a great deal of use, is it.’
Okay. Logic trounced pretty much everything else in Caro’s book. Drew flipped open the lid of the box and saw a small robot dog crouched at the bottom.
‘Oh. That’s great. Thank you.’ Drew wasn’t quite sure what they were going to do with it, they had enough real dogs around here, but it was a nice thought.
‘You haven’t seen what it does yet.’
He lifted the dog out of the box and tried to stand it on its legs on his desk. The legs weren’t stiff enough to hold the body and the dog collapsed into a sitting position. Maybe there was something wrong with it.
‘It’s supposed to be lying down. This is a very specific, sole-purpose dog.’
Sole-purpose dogs were a new one on Drew, but he went with the flow. No doubt Caro was about to dazzle him with something clever. ‘What’s its sole purpose?’