Bright, cheerful conversation over dinner. Draw Zane’s kids into the conversation, and ask Maureen about her lovely clothes and where she shops. How she makes all the pieces work together like that. How could anybody take exception to that?
She could handle a roomful of five-year-olds with one eye closed and one hand tied behind her back. This was nothing. It was a couple of hours, and then she’d be done with this entire mad idea and allowed to go home and … and do some yoga. Yoga was relaxing. Yoga was meditative. She’d focus on her breathing, get flexible, andnotthink about kissing Zane Mahuta.
Or having him kiss her. Wait until she told Jess that hehadput his hand on her face! It had felt so good, too. Utterly safe, and absolutely not, was how it had felt. Possibly even thrilling. His hand at her waist, too …
Oh, wait, she couldn’t tell Jess. But still. She could do yoga and meditate on it. You were meant to meditate on happythings, like the sound of waves or the scent of a new baby. Or being kissed by Zane Mahuta, for whatever reason he’d done it. It wasn’t her new normal, but it was apparently her new fantasy.
Close enough.
He could sense the difference in her as soon as he walked into the kitchen again. She had the fillets coated with a bit of flour and laid out on a baking sheet, and at sight of him, she said, “Oh, good, you’re back. I’ll finish this off now,” and turned on the induction. “You don’t look bloody, anyway,” she remarked as she added butter to frying pans.
He leaned a hip against the benchtop and folded his arms. “Nah, that was last night.’
“Oh, right,” she said, sounding a bit flustered again. “You have those Steri-Strips on your cheekbone. I saw that happen. Also that you seemed like you didn’t know there was blood streaming down your face.”
“It was raining. It all feels more or less the same.” She looked like she knew what she was doing with those fillets. Good, because he was hungry.
She gave him a sharp glance. “But it must have hurt. That was agash.”
“Secret for you.” He reached out and snagged a bit of broccolini on a foil-lined sheet, and when she slapped his hand, he laughed. “Everything hurts in rugby.”
“Ugh,” she said. “I hate it when I even get a paper cut. I’m such a baby about getting hurt.”
“Yeh, right. You had three kids.”
“Well, yes,” she said, slipping the broccolini into the oven and turning over her fish at practically the same time. “Butthat’s different. You get a baby out of it, and you sort of forget how it felt afterwards.”
“Same, then,” he said, and this time,shelaughed. And took a sip of wine and smiled at him, too. Worked for him.
“So am I able to use my dishwasher?” she asked. “Am I going to be even more impressed by your manly DIY skills? Imagining you under my sink showing your forearm muscles and solving my problems? ‘Competence porn,’ my friend Jess calls it.”
He laughed out loud. “How much wine have you had? What happened to the woman who ran away from me at the motel? I was bloody disappointed that night.”
“You were not.” She laughed, though. She also lifted the fillets out of the pans, shoved theminto the warming oven on a plate, and began doing something in the pans with wine and lemon juice and butter that made the kitchen smell like an Italian restaurant.
“I was, though,” he said. “All that effort bang in front of you in the stands, and you weren’t even impressed. I call that disappointing.”
“That’s pathetic,” she said. “Fishing for compliments. It would be bad for you if I told you how I felt watching you. I should restrain myself for the good of your character.”
“Mm. Probably. Can’t help it, though. That’s my skill set. Every man wants a woman to admire his skill set, whether it’s fixing a pipe or playing rugby. Should I be helping you with something?”
“No,” she said, sliding the fillets back into the pans and adding something else. Capers, that was. She turned off the fire, then pulled the pans of broccolini from the oven and the fettuccini noodles from the warming oven. “I’m ready to plate all this, and it’s meant to be beautiful. Why do I suspect that beautiful plating isnotyour skill set?” She set about arranging glistening fettuccini in artful twirls on each plate, then addinga crispy, golden hoki fillet or two and spooning the extra sauce over all of it. It included some thin slices of lemon, which made it pretty, and the broccolini brightened the whole thing. “I admire your skill set,” she said, while focusing fiercely on her fish. “Your skillsets.I should think that’s pretty obvious. Steri-Strips and all.”
“And I admire yours,” he said. “You’ve got some competence porn of your own.”
“What, my brilliance with the easiest fish recipe known to man? Ha.” She was flushing again, though, and he didn’t think it was the heat of the oven.
“Not just that,” he said, serious now. “Your brilliance as a teacher. And as a mum. That counts, too.”
“My female occupations.”
“Yeh. Those. We could be throwbacks, eh. Nothing wrong with that.”
“You think I’m not tough,” she said. “I can be tougher than you think. Just not physically. Put these on the table, will you? I gave you three fillets and extra broccolini. And there’ll be a platter of extra.”
He didn’t do it, not right away. He said, “Skylar.” She looked up, those green eyes staring into his, and he got another flash of—whatever it was that he kept getting flashes of with her. “I think you’ve had to be tougher than anyone can imagine,” he said. “A woman can be feminine as … as flowers and still be tough. And I think you are. Both things.”
“Feminine as flowers,” she said, and then spoiled the skepticism by asking, “Really?”
