‘You think I’m dull?’
‘I don’t know you,’ she said, tracing a droplet of condensation with her fingertip. ‘But you don’t strike me as dull.’
‘And how do I demonstrate that?’
‘It’s in your eyes. It’s all in the eyes.’
Those eyes warmed as she met them.
‘You’re a connoisseur of eyes?’
‘It’s my specialist subject,’ she said. ‘My café is my laboratory. Every day people come in, and I figure them out through their eyes. I’m an expert on community.’
He made a small, dismissive sound and dropped his gaze. Her interest sharpened.
‘Community?’ she repeated. ‘You don’t like community?’
He looked up, and she read both agreement and faint surprise there.
‘Why not?’
‘What are you, some kind of witch?’ he muttered. ‘In another life, you’d have been burnt at the stake.’
‘Why, thank you. You are such a smooth-talker,’ she said, laughing. ‘Although I have to agree — I’m very glad I’m living in the twenty-first century, where the only people out to get me are the taxman and men who think they can tame me.’
‘You won’t be tamed?’
‘No. Not for anyone.’
‘Fair enough.’
She nodded, but didn’t believe him. Every man wanted to tame his woman. It was in their DNA. At least, in her experience, it was.
‘I wouldn’t want to be tamed either,’ he added.
That she did believe.
‘How fortunate,’ she said. ‘Because I’m not in the business of taming people.’
‘You’ve never wanted to change someone? Mould them more to your liking?’
‘Of course not,’ she lied lightly. ‘That way madness lies. I don’t believe people can be changed.’
Somehow they’d strayed into uncomfortable territory. To the world, she was a strong, independent woman who let nothing touch her. Her mother knew better. Maybe some of her siblings, too. But she always cut them short. She didn’t talk about emotions.
Ever.
She glanced at the menu. ‘I think I’ll have the fish.’
‘Good choice,’ he said. ‘The fish is excellent here. Now,’ he added, leaning back, ‘tell me what a woman like you is doing running a village café in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Nowhere? MacLeod’s Cove is home. It’s where I was born, where my family and friends live. That makes it somewhere.’
‘I suppose we define “somewhere” differently.’
‘How do you define it?’
‘Wherever things are going on,’ he said briskly, as if she’d strayed into territory he had no interest in. ‘Not a backwater, but the main river, if you like.’
