Daisy stared down at the item in her palm in confusion. She still felt hot and flustered by his nearness and that damned delicious scent of his, so her brain was a bit delayed, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was she had in her hand. It looked like an earring, a really ugly earring. It was spherical in shape, weighty, and seemed to be made of lead. She turned it over and bent her head to examine it more closely.
“It’s a sinker.” Mason’s warm breath stirred her hair as he spoke, and she repressed a shiver at the intimate sensation.
“What do you use it for?”
“Fishing.”
“Fishing for what?” she asked stupidly and looked up just in time to catch a grin flirting with the corners of his mouth.
“For fish.”
“I don’t . . .” Her words faded as comprehension dawned and horror replaced confusion. “No.”
“The blacktail are really biting at Kleinbekkie this week,” he said, and his complete butchering of the Afrikaans word, which meant “small mouth,” momentarily distracted Daisy. It was endearing how bad the pronunciation was, and she guessed his grasp of the language was probably as terrible as hers. Kleinbekkie was the smaller river mouth just outside town, and it was a popular local spot for fishing, picnicking, and surfing. “I thought we could catch some for lunch.”
“No. This is why I hate surprises, see? This is the worst surprise ever.”
“It’s actually more an IOU at this point,” he confessed, and she glared at him. He wrong-footed her at every turn, and she had given up on understanding him.
“What?”
“You’re right, the weather is too damned terrible for fishing today. I was hoping it’d clear up a little overnight, but—while I wouldn’t mind going out there today—it’s not ideal for a novice. So I figure we’d take a rain check on the fishing and do it some other time.”
“Try never.”
“Come on, Daisy, you’ll like it.”
“Doubtful. And if you knew the weather was too bad for fishing, why did you drag me out of bed at this ungodly hour anyway?”
“I thought we could do something else.”
“Like what?”
“Dunno.”
“You’re a very frustrating man.”
“So I’ve been told. What do you want to do today? And don’t say go back to bed.”
“Well, I’m awake now, aren’t I?” she pointed out huffily.
“Want to go somewhere for breakfast?”
“Nothing’s open yet,” she groused, and he shrugged.
“Not here, but I know this great place about forty minutes away.”
“That’s pretty far; if we just waited forty minutes, we could go to MJ’s.”
“We were at MJ’s last night.” He looked a little annoyed by her suggestion, but Daisy definitely did not want to be confined in a car with him for that long. Not with the crazy awareness and tension simmering between them. Okay, so the tension and awareness were probably totally one-sided, but why put herself through unnecessary stress?
“I thought the point was to be seen around town together.”
“People will see us coming and going together, and they’ll wonder. That is the point. We want them to speculate. If we’re always out at MJ’s putting on a performance, it’ll start to look unnatural.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she conceded, and he reached over to tweak a curl, but his hand lingered and he wrapped one of the strands around his finger, his knuckles brushing across her cheekbone in the process. She stilled at his touch, telling herself that it wasn’t a big deal. Still, the gesture felt alarmingly intimate, and he must have thought so too because he quickly withdrew his hand and resumed tapping the back of the sofa.
“Trust me, Daisy.”
“I’m trying.”
They were quiet for a long moment, the only sounds coming from the howling wind and rain outside and Peaches’s light snoring from one of the armchairs. Daisy finished her coffee as quickly as she could and reached out to take his empty mug before getting up to carry them to the kitchen. In the process she “accidentally” pushed her bra off the back off the couch. She ignored Mason’s knowing chuckle and rounded the couch to pick up the bra before retreating to the kitchen with mugs and underwear safely in hand.
“We should hit the road soon,” he said, stretching lazily as he spoke, and she nodded, shoving her bra into the junk drawer to retrieve later, before rinsing the mugs. “I hope you’re not scared of bikes,” he said, as he leapt agilely to his feet. Daisy paused in the act of drying her hands on a tea towel and stared at him in dismay.
“What?”
“Motorbikes. I hope you’re not . . .” His voice tapered off, and a snort escaped. His shoulders started shaking before he started to guffaw, huge “heeyucks” that had him folding his arms over his middle and doubling over. If he started slapping his thighs, Daisy would have to find a way to comprehensively kick his ass. “You . . . you should see your face.”