‘No. I can’t feel anything. Apart from deep mistrust.’
‘Just relax. Let your shoulders do the work.’
Caro pulled on the oars. This wasn’t as easy as Drew made it look. The boat seemed to be going backwards, not forwards.
‘You’ve got stronger shoulders than me.’ Her tone sounded unpleasantly whiny. This rowing business was bringing out the worst in her.
She felt him slide forward, planting his feet on either side of her and his hands next to hers on the oars. That was better. She could feel the raw power of his body against hers, and when he pulled on the oars the boat started to make some headway.
‘Now can you feel it?’
‘Yes. Wonderful.’ She relaxed against his chest.
‘I meant the tide.’
‘Oh. No, I think I’ll have to practise a bit more. Maybe when I’m a bit less tired.’
His lips brushed against her neck as he planted a kiss. That she’d definitely felt. ‘Why don’t you go and sit with Phoenix?’
Phoenix was sitting in the stern, wearing her red lifejacket, her nose aloft in the evening breeze. Caro slid forward, careful to keep to the centre of the small craft as she turned around.
‘That’s much better. I can watch you row.’
He grinned at her. ‘I get it. You like watching me work.’
‘Yes, I do actually. You make an excellent reindeer wrangler.’
Drew pulled on the oars. ‘I wasn’t wrangling. I was attempting to hold them still while I did their health checks. And you didn’t do so badly yourself.’
Caro chuckled. ‘Apart from when I fell flat on my face in the mud.’
‘You’re particularly delightful when you’re covered with mud.’
It had been a good day. Drew had suggested that Caro might like to come with him to see the reindeer, and he’d let her help hold the animals while he gave them a thorough examination. They’d gone to the Hungry Pelican for supper and ended up missing the tide. Caro had a video conference booked with a robotics researcher in Australia first thing in the morning, so Drew was rowing her home.
‘I can see why you like it. The sea. It makes you feel that the little things don’t matter so very much.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s been here so much longer than we have. And it’s so much bigger than us.’
‘You must have missed it. When you were in hospital.’ Drew loved the open skies, whether they were on land or sea. Being cooped up in bed for so long must have been hard on him.
‘It was the worst thing...’ His face darkened. ‘Almost the worst anyway.’
Maybe she shouldn’t ask. But talking about the bad things with Drew had helped her to begin to come to terms with them.
‘What was the worst?’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t want to hear that, do you?’
‘Yes. I do, actually. Whatever it was, it doesn’t frighten me.’
The water slopped against the side of the boat as he pulled silently on the oars. There were a lot of things that he hadn’t said about the accident, and sometimes his flat assurances to everyone that he was okay and doing well seemed more for their benefit than for his.
‘When I ran the car off the road, I was alone.’ He spoke suddenly. ‘I was dazed at first, and my leg didn’t hurt all that much. The pain came later.’
‘You were in shock.’ Caro nodded him on. Drew needed to say this and injecting her own sense of horror into the mix wasn’t going to help him.
‘Yeah. It was very quiet, and I could hear a dripping sound. I could feel blood seeping through my clothes, and...’ He stopped rowing suddenly, leaning on the oars as the boat bobbed up and down. ‘I knew that if someone didn’t come soon, I’d die.’