Her gaze went to Nina, then, and she lost the smile. “Oh,” she said again, her tone entirely different.

  What, she thought that Finn Douglas, famous family man, he of the three kids and pregnant wife, was having a secret tryst in his hometown library? Probably not happening.

  However funny it was, Iain might be better off preserving Finn’s reputation, for his own sake as much as Finn’s. There was nobody more fearsome than the Blues’ new strength and conditioning coach in a temper. Which was why Iain had always been glad to be playing his rugby with Finn and not against him.

  “Finn’s not playing anymore, unfortunately for us,” he told the woman. “I’m afraid I’m not him. Just another big unit packing down in the scrum.”

  “Oh.” She did look disappointed, and he almost laughed. “Well, if your parents do live here, I suppose we can make an exception.” She handed him a form. “Fill this out and bring it back, please.”

  “All right,” Nina said when he moved aside to fill in his details. “Explain.”

  She was glaring at him worse than the librarian, and he got a little confused. “What?” he said. “Nothing too exciting. I’m a sportsman, that’s all. And apparently, I got above myself. Got cut down like the tall poppy I was, too.”

  “You’re famous.” She was still glaring. Not quite the reaction he was used to.

  “Well, not that famous, apparently,” he pointed out. “As you heard. A lock’s not exactly a glamour position. Not as bad as a prop, but not too far off. My ears aren’t as shocking, though, if you notice.”

  “You realize that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “About which part of it?”

  “About any part. Start at the beginning and explain very slowly.”

  “Right, then,” he said. “Seems this is my day not to impress. I’m a rugby player. A forward, not one of the flash boys at the back, meaning I do the hard yards. More tackling,” he explained when she still looked blank. “I bash people for a living, you could say. I play for the Auckland Blues, and I play for the All Blacks. Which is En Zed’s national team,” he added with a sigh. “World champions for the past ten years or so, as it happens. We like to think we’re known a bit outside the country. Apparently not.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m not what you’d call a sports fan.”

  “Despite the hat.”

  That one took her a moment. “Oh. Right. That’s a team too, I guess. I never really looked at it.”

  He groaned. “If you live in the States and you don’t even know gridiron­—football, I mean—there’s probably no hope.”

  “Well, football’s boring,” she said. “Sorry, but it is. Is rugby more exciting?”

  “We like to think so. Faster, anyway, if that appeals.”

  “And you play it.”

  “I do.”

  “The reason for the scars. And you’re . . . semi-famous.”

  He couldn’t help it. He laughed. Which got him a disapproving glance from the librarian. “Semi. Though I’m apparently no Finn Douglas.”

  “Well, I’m not happy,” Nina said, “but all right. So are you going to get a library card, or what?”

  “Yeh,” he said. “I’m going to get a library card. So I can get you your . . .” He glanced at the stack of books, then took a more careful look. “Cookery books. Thirty Dinners in Thirty Minutes, eh. Kiwi Classics the Easy Way. Cookery for Kids.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her for that one, and she said, “Sounded like my speed.”

  He was still exploring. “Not to mention Senior Yoga. Hmm. You get Granddad doing Senior Yoga, and we’re going to have to alert the media.”

  “I’ll never do it if I don’t get the book,” she said.

  So he applied himself to the serious business of obtaining a library card. If he wasn’t going to impress her, he’d have to settle for making her happy.

  One Emotion. Or More.

  Once Iain finally had his card, he insisted on carrying her stack of books to the car, which made Nina smile.

  “You know what your dirty secret is?” she asked when he opened the car door for her, then set her books in the back seat before heading around to his side.

  He gave her a quick, startled look and said, “What?”

  “You’re a gentleman.”

  “Oh. Well, no. But we’ll let that go.”

  Wow. All righty, then. Probably best. It wasn’t a good idea to flirt with a regular guy. It was a much worse one to flirt with a star athlete, no matter what Iain had said about his lack of fame. A teenage girl had come up to him while he’d been getting that library card and asked him to pose for a selfie with her, which had inspired a few more shy autograph requests before Iain had cut it short and made their escape. He might not be this Finn guy, but he wasn’t nearly as anonymous as he’d pretended. And Nina was done with celebrities. She was done with all men, for a good long while. She had enough problems. She’d make an exception for Arthur, but that was it.

  “Actually,” Iain said, his hand on the key but still not starting up the car, “we should go for lunch before the shopping.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m fine. Besides . . . Arthur’s lunch.”

  “You may be fine, but I’ve just done my second workout, and if I don’t eat soon, I’ll be the one passing out. And I wouldn’t put money on your being able to hold me up. If I hit the floor in the supermarket, I’ll probably take the whole rack of eggs down with me. Imagine your embarrassment.”

  “I’m very strong,” she assured him.

  “Enough to hold up a hundred thirteen kg’s of dead weight? You’re not that strong. And Arthur,” he added, forestalling her next objection, “can go over to my parents’ place and make himself a sandwich, since you’ve binned all his green meat and moldy cheese. He told you, he knows how. I’ll text him straight away and tell him he’s on his own.”

  “He’ll whine,” she said, and Iain laughed.

  “Yeh. He will. Come on.” He was climbing out of the car again. “Lunch.”

  Which was why they were sitting, twenty minutes later, at one of those sidewalk tables under their very own umbrella, drinking coffee and eating flattened, grilled sandwiches filled with chicken, vegetables, and, yes, cheese. Toasties, in fact.

  She’d tried to order hers without cheese, and Iain had said, “Doesn’t taste nearly as good without it.”

  “I never eat cheese,” she’d explained. “Fattening.”

  He’d wrapped one of those giant hands around her wrist and lifted her arm for inspection, which would have bothered her, except that he’d had a teasing glint in his eye. “Not a problem, I’d have said.”

  She’d tried to ignore the touch of that hand, the feel of his strong fingers wrapping around her wrist, and hadn’t succeeded one bit. She’d looked at him, her eyes widening, and something in his own eyes had changed, the warmth kindling in them the same way it was spreading through her body, making her knees tremble.

  His voice had been lower than ever, and a little husky, too, when he’d said, “I’d say you could eat a bit more. If you wanted to, of course. I’d say you could indulge. Sin a little.”

  She’d pulled her hand away, even though a treacherous part of her had wanted him to keep holding her, and had told the young man waiting patiently behind the counter, “A little cheese, then, please. Just a bit.” Not because Iain had said it. She wasn’t doing everything everyone told her anymore. But she’d lost nearly four pounds during her two weeks in Neuenstein, and she was on vacation. Other people ate and drank on vacation, right? Other people did all sorts of crazy things on vacation.

  So, yes. She was eating cheese. And bread. And it tasted good. The tangy white cheddar was trying to ooze out the sides between the toasted, flavorful slices of flat Turkish bread; the chicken breast—the real thing, not pressed—was warm, too, and a little smoky; and the red peppers, onions, and whatever else was stuffed inside this thing didn’t hurt one bit either. She could tell they’d used butter, or something equally fat-intensive. There was oil in the dressing on the salad of mixed baby greens piled beside the sandwich, too, and she didn’t even care.

  She held up the messy concoction and studied it. “I could manage this, maybe,” she told Iain. “Making it, I mean. Your granddad said ‘toasties.’ It’s just a sandwich that you smash. How do you smash it, though?”

  “Full directions?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Right, then. Put it in a frying pan, one you’ve heated up, with a bit of butter melted in it. Not too hot, or you’ll burn it. You want it to cook slowly, so the cheese melts. Press on it with a spatula as it cooks. A bit gently, like, so you don’t squash all the filling out. Slice everything else thin, the veggies and all. And ham’s the best in these, from a man’s point of view. Or if you do use chicken, put some bacon in there as well. The way to a man’s heart is through pork products, eh.”

  “Wait a second.” She reached for the little notebook and pen in her purse, turned to the latest page, and wrote it all down.

  “I can’t believe you’re writing down a recipe for toasties,” Iain said.

  “There’s a lot to remember. And your grandfather specifically mentioned not burning things. I’ll make a salad for him too, though. I’m guessing he’s not getting enough vitamins in his diet.” She put the notebook and pen away, picked up her sandwich again, but didn’t take a bite yet. “When did your grandmother die?”

  He lost his smile. “Over a year ago. Just after Christmas. Cancer. She went fast. Over eighty, and she was never much of a one for going to the doctor, or complaining, either.”

  “Oh.” Nina remembered those shoes still on the shelf in the back porch, as if the owner would be back at any moment to step into them. Or as if Arthur couldn’t bear to clear away the evidence of her presence in his house. In his life. “Poor man. The holidays this year must have been so rough, then. No wonder he’s grumpy. What a tough Christmas for him.”

  “I reckon,” Iain said. “I wasn’t here.”

  “You weren’t? And your mum and sister were in the UK? So it was just your dad and granddad here alone?”

  He shifted a little in his chair, not meeting her eyes. “Yeh. I was overseas until a few days ago.”

  “Oh. Playing rugby?”

  “Nah. On holiday.”

  “Oh,” she said again.

  “Trust me,” he said, “it wouldn’t have been better if I’d been here. Just three of us being that narky together instead of two.”

  “Not my business anyway,” she said. “What you do. So what’s­—” She stopped, hesitated.

  He sighed. “I can’t wait. What?”

  “Well . . . your parents. Is that what’s wrong between your mum and dad? Is it that your mum left? Or are they always like that?”

  “I don’t know that either,” he said. “What’s wrong, I mean. The atmosphere’s a bit fraught, eh. And you weren’t at their house last night. It wasn’t what you’d call relaxed.”

  “So are they retired?”

  “Not even close. They run a kayak hire and sea shuttle business here in town. My grandparents started it yonks ago, and it’s still in the family. Maybe Dad wasn’t happy that Mum left just as business got busy. I don’t know. But I can’t believe he’d begrudge her going to help Vanessa. He’s got a soft spot for her.”

  Nina blinked. “But­—no wife, no kids at Christmas, and not seeing his grandchild, either? How many other siblings do you have?”

  “None. Just the two of us.”

  “Iain.” She couldn’t help an exasperated sigh. “You don’t get that he might have been lonely, just like your granddad?”

  “My dad’s not what you’d call the sentimental type.”

  “Right,” she said. “No emotions. Just like you.”

  “You don’t know whether I have emotions.”

  “Sure I do. Everybody’s got emotions. You can show them or not, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have them.”

  “Well, what do you call all the narkiness? Ha. Hate to tell you, but anger’s an emotion. Least it is the way I do it.”

  “Well, congratulations. One. There are a whole bunch of others, you know.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Being emotionally stunted and all.”

  She sighed. “I didn’t say that.”

  “If you’ll eat that sandwich,” he said, “we’ll go grocery shopping, and I’ll see if I can manage a sobbing meltdown amongst the fruit and veg, if you like. I’ll work up some tears while you finish up, how’s that? Looks like I’ll have heaps of time. Anybody ever tell you that you eat slowly?”

  “I savor my food,” she said with dignity. “Rather than inhaling it. It’s a concept you might want to study. It makes it last longer, too. I have to watch my weight.”

  His smile made the skin around his eyes crinkle again amongst the faint white lines of his various scars. He’d been cut around the eyes and chin a lot. There were marks on both cheekbones, too, she’d noticed. She didn’t think she wanted to watch rugby.

  “I watch my weight, too,” he said. “Watch that it stays up where it’s meant to be, that is. I eat five thousand calories a day while I’m training. If I savored, I’d never have time to do anything else. But when it’s special? When I’m really enjoying it? I take my time. I savor, no worries. ”

  His voice had dropped, got that husky note in it again, and his eyes were . . . she’d call that look “intense.” She took a deliberately tiny bite of her sandwich. He could just wait, that was all. “I’ve got some more news for you,” she told him once she’d swallowed it down. “You think you’re being subtle, but you’re not.”

  “Nah.” He was smiling again, watching her eat, obviously knowing she was dragging it out just to tease him. “I never said I was subtle. I’m trying to chat you up. Could be I’m out of practice, though. If I’m not doing it right, I’m open to suggestion.”

  “Then I suggest,” she said, “that we go grocery shopping. And if it’s entertaining you, go for it. But don’t imagine that you’ll get anywhere. I’m not much of one for sinning.”

  “This just practice for me, then, you reckon?”

  “That’s it,” she said, setting the remnants of her sandwich down and wiping her hands on her napkin. She hadn’t finished, but for once, she was stopping because she was full, not because she had to. “You practice your chatting-up technique, and I’ll practice my cool, witty rejections. I’d say we could both use the practice. How’s that? Win-win?”

  He sighed and got to his feet along with her. “Well, not so much. But I’ll keep practicing anyway, probably, now and then. Can’t seem to help it.”

  Wolf Eyes

  Nina cooked fish that night. It only took a few minutes, to her surprise.

  Iain had steered her toward thin fillets of snapper. “It’s the best, and the easiest,” he’d said. “If it’s fresh enough, you just fry it up in a bit of olive oil. Salt, pepper, and lemon, and you’re all good. Easy as.”

  She’d asked him exactly what to do and what to cook with it, and had taken notes. He’d been amused, as usual, but he’d told her. So she’d roasted little potatoes in the oven, following his directions, had put together a simple salad of baby mixed greens, cucumber, and avocado all by herself, and had even made her own salad dressing out of olive oil and lemon juice, following a recipe in one of her new cookbooks. The whole thing really had only taken thirty minutes, including the potatoes. She hadn’t realized cooking could be that simple.

  Of course, all the good smells had made her hungry again, but she was on vacation. And the only forbidden items had been two very small potatoes and a tiny bit of olive oil, not chocolate cake. Or cheese.

  Arthur even ate the salad. “It’s not cooked,” he said grudgingly, “but not too bad.”

  “So am I fired?”

  “Reckon I’ll keep you one more day, anyway. What are we having tomorrow?”

  “Steak, remember?” And she was going to eat it, too. “And green beans, and more salad.”

  “Also not cooked.”

  “Elder abuse,” she agreed, and got a huff out of him that might have been a laugh.

  “You watch yourself, missy,” he said. “You get too saucy, I will send you packing.”

  “Well, wait until I wash your sheets, all right? I’m going to tackle the washing machine tomorrow. Good times. And Iain said he’d take me kayaking, once he finishes scraping the shed so he can repaint it. I have to say, you people really don’t know how to take a vacation.”

  “What, lying on the beach, boring yourself to tears, and giving yourself skin cancer into the bargain? Nah. A man likes to stay busy. May go give him a hand myself.”

  “Do that,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate the help. Plus give him more time for that kayaking. I want to try it.” And it would be good for Arthur to feel useful, too, she thought privately and didn’t say.

  “Tell him to trail a line if he’s going to go out on the boat, see if he can bring me back something,” Arthur said. “I don’t trust you with those hamburgers. At least I know you know how to cook fish. Or we could freeze it for when you burn something. Sure to happen soon.”

  “You could tell him yourself,” she suggested, “if you’re going to be working with him and all. I know you don’t like to talk, but you might be able to bring yourself to open your mouth enough to impart that suggestion.”

  “Careful, Miss Sauce.”

  She had to smile at that. “He’ll agree with you about the necessity of a backup plan to my dinner preparations, I’m sure. And about the sauciness, for that matter. He’s well aware of all my limitations. But I was wondering,” she went on while she was on a roll, “why all of them are right next door, and yet we’re . . . here? If Carmella was worried about you eating, why weren’t you eating with them? Before I arrived to save you from your desperate straits, of course, with my extreme skills.”

  Carmella had stopped by tonight to check on Nina and Arthur, had been her usual brisk self, but with an undertone of sadness and fatigue that seemed like more than jet lag to Nina. As if Iain’s mum were lonely, too.