‘It’s a pity you wore those shoes or we could’ve walked around the peninsula.’
‘Isn’t the path paved?’ She’d forgotten about the walk when she’d been preening herself for the evening.
‘Unfortunately not.’
‘Then I’ll have to come back in the day time because I do want to go around there and sit down by the water.’ It would have been wonderful at night with Kristof, but this was a fling, not something romantic, so the shoes had saved her from getting her old hopes up.
‘You should do that. There are also some buildings in the township to check out.’ He didn’t seem perturbed at having missed out on a night stroll with her. ‘Are you into kayaking?’
‘It’s been a while but, yes, I could hire one and take a look at the town from out on the harbour.’ Another day sorted. ‘Tomorrow I am going to take that mini tour up the hill and on to the waterfall.’
‘You’ll love it.’
‘Unless you need me at the children’s centre again?’ She’d be just as happy working alongside Kristof.
He stood up and reached for her hand, pulled her chair out as she rose. ‘No, Alesha. You’re here to see the sights and have already lost a day for the kids, so go out and make the most of the days you have left.’
Not mentioning the nights? ‘I’ll find time to read to Capeka though.’
‘Don’t feel bad if you find you’re busy having fun and run out of time for a visit. She’s still settling in and getting lots of attention from everyone else.’
So the reading times weren’t important? Alesha thought otherwise. ‘I’m sure I can find half an hour for her.’ Unless she was causing more harm than good, but so far no one thought she was.
‘Do you always let people close so quickly?’ Kristof asked once they’d left the restaurant and were strolling down towards the harbour and their boat ride back to the city.
Did she? To a point, maybe. ‘I like to be open with people.’ Was he referring to Capeka? Or himself? ‘Capeka needs people to care about what happens to her, and I want to give her some little thing to help her on that journey.’
She wasn’t doing this for herself. Or was she? Could this be a way to avoid thinking too much about how much she’d hoped there was a future for her and Luke? But now she understood she hadn’t been decimated by his news. She’d been hurt, angry, let down—all of the above. But heartbroken? Deep breath. Really gutted to the point she hadn’t been able to get out of bed to face the next day? No, not even immediately after he’d told her. Kristof was probably rebound sex. But hey, if that was what it was so be it. It had helped, been fun, enjoyable, and she didn’t feel ashamed at all. Kristof had made it all so easy. He’d had fun too, and that was that. Very civilised. Funny how bitter her laugh tasted.
‘You need to guard your heart, or one day you’re going to get hurt badly.’
Did he really just say that? Kristof, the man who was serious at work, and fun at play? She stared at him. He was wearing that professional look that grated, as though this was something he’d talk about but not on a personal level. So he’d been hurt in the past too. Find a normal adult who hadn’t in one way or another to a varying degree. ‘My heart’s safe.’
‘Then Luke didn’t mean as much to you as I thought.’
‘Maybe he’s why it’s safe.’ Or the guy before him, or the one before that.
Kristof’s arm was deliciously heavy over her shoulders, and she liked that she could tuck against his side and not look into those eyes that didn’t miss a thing.
‘What’s your past, Alesha?’
Go for the big question, why don’t you?
‘Oh, I don’t know. Unlucky in love?’
‘A commitment-phobe?’
‘It wasn’t me who finished my last relationship. Or any of the others.’
‘That doesn’t really answer my question. You might be putting men off with a “you can look and touch but you can’t keep” attitude.’
‘And here I thought you were a surgeon.’ Not an analyst who believed he could unravel her. ‘Are you basing these questions on your past experiences?’
The muscles in his arm tensed on her shoulders. ‘It’s possible.’
They reached the jetty and joined the queue to board their return trip. There was no way they’d continue the discussion when surrounded by happy couples and groups laughing and making lots of noise. Instead they stood at the bow of the boat, Kristof using his body to shelter her from the cooler breeze created by the boat’s forward motion, holding her close, his arms wrapped around her, his hands linked at her waist. Snuggling back against him, Alesha went with the moment, not thinking about tomorrow or next week or anything other than the lights on the hills they passed on the way back to Dubrovnik. Wasn’t that the free and easy way to go?
Meandering through the Old City after disembarking, Alesha sighed with pleasure. A simple night out, no complexities, no one demanding more of her than she was prepared to give. There was something warming, and comfortable, and just plain lovely about it all. Something she didn’t remember experiencing in any relationship in the past. Usually men expected more of her than they gave back.
Yes, and whose fault was that?
She’d gone along with them because she’d believed it was the way to a man’s heart. Now she was starting to see how wrong she might’ve been. This going it alone wasn’t such a bad idea at all. It meant she had begun standing up for herself. Another first.
When Kristof pulled his car into a park outside the apartments where she was staying it wasn’t hard for Alesha to ask, ‘Do you want to come in?’
‘Yes.’
Her heart swelled and her body warmed. As far as flings went this was great. And they didn’t have to talk, just hold each other and touch and feel and give and take...
CHAPTER SIX
IF THE DAYS sped past, the nights went even quicker. Alesha toured the city, the outlying environs, many of the islands nearby. She ate in bakeries, cafés, and at night enjoyed restaurants with Kristof. She told stories to Capeka every day, sometimes twice a day, and Friday, the day before she was leaving for London, the little girl gave her a smile filled with nothing but pleasure, which showed the lack of understanding of each other’s language meant absolutely nothing. They were on the same page.
‘Seeing her smile directly at me, her eyes meeting mine for the first time...it just blew me away,’ she told Kristof over a quick coffee before heading into town. ‘Now we need to get her to stop standing on one foot in the corner.’
‘You’re getting too involved,’ he warned. ‘Be careful.’
‘Your mother’s monitoring everything and I don’t believe for one minute she’d let me visit if she thought it was detrimental for Capeka.’ They still didn’t know the girl’s real name, or where she’d come from before arriving at the bridge. Apparently this wasn’t unusual in similar cases. Alesha could understand the child not wanting to trust anyone with information about herself. People could use it in ways that hurt, and given how young Capeka was it was frightening to think she understood such danger.
While Alesha hadn’t been in danger as such, when her parents had locked her out of their lives mentally she’d turned to her best friend and her family. They’d been kind at first, but after a few weeks her situation had begun to pall and soon the gossip had been flying around school about how her parents didn’t want her so why should anyone else? The first time she’d heard that her parents couldn’t face her now that their son had died and they wished it had been her, she’d confronted her girlfriend and asked why she wanted to tell lies about her. The blunt reply that she’d been speaking the truth had gutted Alesha so much she’d hidden in her bedroom for days, denying the truth slowly dawning on her for months. It was only when the school rang to ask her mother why she wasn’t attending that she said she wanted to change schools, and when that happ