I snorted. ‘Great-uncle. And even if hecouldhelp me, he wouldn’t. He’d probably help you though. Help you dig a hole to bury me in.’
‘I take it you guys don’t get along.’
I pushed off the warm rocks and flipped over onto my back, staring up at the stars dotted across the sky and the moon that was only half full but was bright enough that I’d picked my way down the track to the beach without using a torch. The water buoyed me up, supporting me like an old friend. ‘You could say that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Long story.’
‘OK. So to get back to my question, a stranger, who happens to be of the masculine persuasion?—’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ I rolled back over onto my stomach and stared at him. I could see his broad shoulders above the water, his tousled hair silhouetted against the sky behind him. Before he’d got in, before he’d realized I was here, I’d had the chance to study him, purely from a defensive viewpoint of course. The way a boxer studies his opponent before a fight. Looks for weaknesses. All I could think while studying Jack was,damn he’s big.He was all in proportion, wide shoulders, muscular arms and legs and a trunk that was broad at the chest but narrower at the waist, but all of it together was just… big. I should have felt afraid. I didn’t.
‘Well, you know. The whole, man versus bear thing,’ he clarified. ‘Hashtag-not-all-men.’
I smiled, knowing he couldn’t see it in the dark. ‘Right, of course.’
‘So this male stranger starts to get in the water with you in the middle of nowhere, and you’re telling me you weren’t scared?’
‘How do you know I wasn’t?’
‘You didn’tseemscared.’
‘Pure bravado. Never show fear. Also, I live in New York,’ I said, as if that explained everything.
He was understandably not satisfied with this explanation. ‘So?’
‘So I know how to take care of myself. My friends and I have done self-defense classes at the gym. The instructor said he’d never seen anyone with natural self-preservation instincts like mine.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks. Although,’ I added thoughtfully, ‘given the size of you, I might not have been able to fight you off. But I would have one-hundred-percent gone down trying.’
‘The size of me?’ I could hear a smirk in his voice.
‘You’re not exactly small, are you.’
‘Thanks. I guess the moonlight exposed more of me than I thought.’
It took me a few moments to realize what he was referring to. ‘I wasn’t talking aboutthat,’ I blurted, grateful for the dark so he couldn’t see me blush.
He laughed. ‘I know. I’m teasing.’
‘Well,anyway,’ I said, keen to change the subject. It felt like he was flirting with me, and even though I wasn’t technically doing anything wrong, it was difficult to shake the muscle memory of being married. It was hard enough remembering to say my maiden name again. ‘To answer your question?—’
‘Finally.’
I ignored that. ‘I figured that you were here to swim in the pool, not specifically to attack me. Like you said, we’re in the middle of nowhere, so how would you have known I was here? Besides, I gaveyoumore of a fright than you did me. That was quite some scream.’
‘I didn’t scream,’ he protested. ‘Maybe I yelped a little. But that’s understandable. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be down here.’
‘Neither was I, but I still didn’t scream.’
‘You had the advantage of watching me approach.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself, I wasn’t watching you.’
He was quiet for a while, swimming lazy strokes across the pool. I watched him unobtrusively, trying to get more of a sense of what he looked like, but the moon had dipped behind a cloud and only his profile was visible. Still, it was a strong profile. Chiseled jawline, sharp cheekbones.
