She nodded. The gathering dusk was taking the colour and detail out of her hair and eyes, gradually hiding her from him. ‘I saw you today.’ She cleared her throat. ‘You were on a bus.’
He nodded.
‘You’re amodel.’
He frowned. ‘That a problem?’
She turned to lean against the door, crossing her arms. ‘Of course not. I just feel so stupid.’
‘Why?’ he asked, blankly.
‘Because when your sisters gave you a hard time about only working a few days each month, I assumed you were down on your luck.’
A laugh shook through him. ‘No. I do OK.’
‘“OK”! I guess you do. I’msoglad I didn’t offer you yard work. I nearly did, thinking you would maybe welcome a little extra in your pocket.’
‘Offer. I might do it.’ A picture flickered through his mind of working alongside her in the sunshine on the patch of sandy grass that constituted a lawn, rolling up his manly sleeves to tackle the jobs she couldn’t manage.
‘Not now I know! That was before you rode past me this afternoon, fifteen-foot tall, looking like the Dolce & Gabbana guy in your skivvies.’
He winced. ‘I’m not the face of Dolce & Gabbana, that contract belongs to a big name.’ She was looking at him as if he was suddenly speaking in tongues. He tried to explain. ‘Don’t mix le Dur up with Dolce & Gabbana or Hugo Boss. Le Dur isn’t a global brand. It’s a UK company with mass appeal — i.e. the product doesn’t cost that much. It’s cheerfully aimed at an unsophisticated consumer likely to be impressed by a French name that, literally translated, means “the hard”. I’m not “the face of” anything. I’m not those stratospheric guys. Le Dur’s campaigns are buses, not performance cars. Weekly magazines, not monthly glossies.’
‘I just never met a model before.’
He tried to read her face in the fading light. ‘Did you really worry that I was out of work?’
She scrunched up her face in embarrassment. ‘Clarissa and Zoë always talked about you only working a few days a month.’
‘I do only work a few days a month. On shoots, anyway. Modelling really only takes up so much time, but I do promo stuff, talk to my agent. And do my books, like any self-employed person.’
‘And you devote a lot of time to keeping in shape? That’s why all the working out and stuff?’
He let his shoulder settle against the door beside her. He could feel her warmth, even though the breeze fluttered around them like an anxious bird. ‘I don’t really work out. I’m not a gym rat and I haven’t had a personal trainer for ages. At school, I ran and played rugby and tennis, and I just accelerated the programme to include stuff like volleyball and swimming when I began making money as a model. It’s what I like to do and it stops the pounds from settling. The only thing I have to be careful of is getting tanned in stripes — that’s why it’s usually either long sleeves or no shirt.’
Slowly, she nodded. ‘I have to admit that it makes a whole lot more sense than you being unemployed. I always wondered why your sisters were so mean to you, but now I see it was just teasing.’
Turning, she put her key in the lock. ‘You were good to Rufus, tonight.’
‘You were the one who pulled his nuts out of the fire.’
She frowned down at her hand, as if waiting for it to turn the key and let her into the bungalow. ‘I like Ru.’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say Ilikethe kid, with his woeful eyes, obviously always expecting to be left out of everything good. Sympathy, yes. Empathy, even, living with three women, dippy women at that, and no adult male in his life.’ But a needy adolescent son of loopy lustful Robina Gordon was strife in waiting; just offering to give the kid a lift had made his instincts howl at him to stay away. ‘He’s an unhappy kid. Not surprising, with a mum like that.’
‘No.’ Honor nodded, sadly. She heaved a sigh. ‘She’s a piece of work.’
‘And to think you came all the way over here to find your own mother.’
She laughed shortly. ‘Robina’s enough to put a girl off having a mother. Maybe meeting her the way I have is meant — telling me to leave well enough alone.’
He allowed himself to be distracted by the way the wind was whipping her hair gradually out of its ponytail. Until—
‘Robina’s in love with you—’
‘No, she’s not,’ he cut across her. ‘Lust, possibly, but it’s a lot more stalky than love. Love means that you do the best for the other person, not make life uncomfortable for them to satisfy your own transient and unrealistic desires.’
‘She thinks you and she could be “relationshippy”.’ Honor continued to study the door lock.
