He shrugged. ‘She’s my friend. I tend not to notice things like that about her.’
But he’d said that he found Caro beautiful. It was better not to think about that, particularly if she was spending the night at Drew’s place.
‘It must be nice. To have a friend like that.’
‘Yeah, it is.’ He stopped the car outside his cottage.
‘You don’t?’
‘No. Like I said, my parents moved around a lot, they still do. It’s tough enough to keep up with them, let alone anyone else.’
‘Apart from the robots.’
Suddenly that didn’t seem enough. If she’d had somewhere like this to call home... Caro could see why Drew never wanted to leave.
‘I noticed something at the pub tonight.’ It was time for a change of subject.
‘Yeah?’
‘All of the people who stopped to talk to you... Not one asked you how you were.’
He thought for a moment. ‘No, I don’t believe they did. Perhaps telling everyone exactly the same thing is starting to work.’
‘Or perhaps it’s just that you seem so much better. You’re hardly using your stick now and you move much more confidently.’
‘My leg still hurts from time to time, but I don’t feel as if it’s going to give way under me.’ He shrugged. ‘My physio told me that I’d get to the point where suddenly I started to forget all about it.’
He broke off suddenly, gazing at her. Nothing that was ever said or done between them made Caro shiver quite so deliciously as the silences. And this silence told her that she’d helped him forget that he was a recovering invalid and remember who he really was.
Drew had done that all by himself. She might have been there when he finally made that transition, but Caro couldn’t take any of the credit for it. All the same, the warmth of his gaze was compelling, and for a moment she couldn’t break free.
Finally, Drew moved. ‘Let’s get inside.’
His cottage was...just Drew all over. She could imagine him on winter evenings in the book-lined sitting room, sprawled on the comfortable sofa. Surrounded by the things he loved, stones and shells on the mantelpiece and in front of the rows of books memories dredged up from the sea. Photographs on the wall, of boats, divers and underwater scenes, and one of Drew with his arm around a dark-haired beauty on the beach. The large kitchen diner at the back would be full of light in the daytime, and now it was cosy and inviting. A place where serious cooking and a lot of informal entertaining might take place. At the back, the kitchen lights illuminated a small garden, which was a riot of different shrubs, probably all planted with an eye to giving shelter and nourishment to different species of birds and insects.
He dumped her diving gear in the hall, and Caro followed him upstairs with the smaller bag that contained a change of clothes. The spare room doubled up as an office, with more books and a desk, and a pull-out sofa bed.
‘I’ll leave you to take a shower.’ He jerked his thumb towards a door that led out to the top half of the kitchen extension downstairs and must be the bathroom.
‘Thanks.’ Caro couldn’t suppress a yawn. She was rather hoping that Drew wouldn’t want to talk too much now, because all she wanted to do was sleep.
‘I’ll make the bed up for you now. Would you like a hot drink before you turn in?’
‘Um... Thank you. That would be lovely.’ She couldn’t stop herself from yawning again. A shower, a hot drink and then a comfortable bed sounded wonderful. Second only to curling up with Drew and falling asleep to the soft sound of his breathing, and neither of them were going to let that happen.
‘Go, before you fall asleep in the shower.’ He smiled, shooing her out of the room.
The warm water on her shoulder made it throb, and when Caro inspected it in the mirror there was a red mark that looked as if it was going to form into a bruise. The dolphin hadn’t meant to attack her, she had just got in the way, and the damage was well worth the glimpse of the two dolphins circling the boats.
When she returned to the bedroom, the overhead light was off and a lamp burned by the bedside, throwing soft shadows across the room. The sofa bed was made up, with a warm blanket the colour of a stormy sea draped over the duvet. There was a folded T-shirt with the logo of the diving centre on the back, and Caro smiled, reckoning that this was Drew’s way of telling her she’d earned her stripes as a diver. She towelled herself dry and slipped it over her head.
There was a mug with a saucer perched on top of it by the bed, and on further inspection it contained hot chocolate. Drew clearly wasn’t expecting her to go back downstairs, and she slipped gratefully under the duvet. She’d only drunk half of the hot chocolate when drowsiness overtook her, and she snuggled down in the fresh-smelling sheets and closed her eyes.
* * *
It had been a while since Drew had cooked breakfast for more than one person. Sometimes it had just been him and Luna, and sometimes a whole gang of divers, who’d camped out in the spare bedroom and on the floor in the living room.
He’d woken early and rather than lie in his bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing that Caro was curled up next to him, he’d got up and gone downstairs. When he heard the quiet sounds of her moving around, and the noise of the shower, he started to make breakfast.