wooden boat.
He was quiet for so long Meg could hear the sound of wings beating in the forest, the soft lapping of water against the side of the boat, and her own slow, deep breaths. Then he put the oars back where they were meant to be and pushed off.
He said, ‘Ruby attends a local weekly boarding school.’
Meg could have kissed him. Right then and there. She had no clue why he’d let her off the hook when she’d been pressing herself into his personal life with barely concealed vigour. All she knew was that if he looked her in the eye rather than at some point over her shoulder she would probably have gone right ahead and kissed him.
‘Where Felicia used to teach,’ she encouraged, her voice soft, her words clearly thought out before she uttered a single word.
The muscle beneath his left eye twitched. Then as he pulled the oars through the water he said, ‘It’s barely a ten-minute drive from here. The same one she was attending before her mother passed away a few months ago.’
And there it was.
Meg’s hands clasped one another so tight her fingers hurt. Ruby’s mum had been gone only a few months. Oh, that poor little creature. No wonder he wanted to keep Ruby wrapped up in cotton wool. The fact she was able to go back to school at all was amazing. As for Zach …
She opened her mouth to ask how he was doing, when he cleared his throat and pushed the oars deeper into the water, sending them spearing back towards shore.
He said, ‘This isn’t the first time since she moved in with me that she’s had a sore throat, a finger that twitches so hard she can’t write, a foot so itchy she can’t walk. So far all she’s needed is a day at home and she’s been right for another few weeks. So all in all I think we’re doing okay.’
Doing okay? He cared. He considered. It was important to him to be a good father. In her humble opinion Zach was doing everything in his considerable power to do right by his little girl. And just like that all sorts of bone-deep, neglected, wishful, hopeful feelings beat to life inside her.
‘Zach, I had no idea,’ she said as she tried to collect herself. ‘Truly. I’m so sorry about your wife—’
He cut her off unceremoniously. ‘Ruby’s mother and I knew one another for a short time several years ago when I was visiting with a view to building this place. I didn’t even know Ruby existed until after Isabel died.’
‘So you weren’t—’
So you’re not still in love with her, was what she was trying not to ask.
‘We weren’t,’ he said, insistent enough Meg had the feeling he’d heard all too clearly nonetheless. ‘I was in Turkey when my lawyer contacted me with the news. After much legal wrangling I met a social worker here, at the house. And I met Ruby. She had one small suitcase and carried a teddy bear wearing a purple fairy dress under one skinny arm. I never expected her to be so small—’
Zach came to an abrupt halt, frowned deeply and glared down into his lap.
The backs of Meg’s eyes burned. It took her a few moments to recognise it was the sharp sting of oncoming tears.
She never cried. Ever. Never sweated, never blushed, never cried. The moments she’d let herself succumb to her emotions were the times she’d been most deeply hurt—by careless whispers of envious types, by stories of horrendous depravity at the Valley Women’s Shelter, even by herself. But this guy tugged shamelessly at hidden parts of her that didn’t know the rules.
She blinked until the sensation went away.
‘We’re both trying to get used to our new living situation. To each other,’ he went on, his voice raw, his eyes staring at some point on the bottom of the boat as it drifted steadily on. ‘The last thing we need at this point is for her existence to come to the attention of the press. You obviously do know what they can be like. She needs to find her feet without constantly looking over her shoulder. She’ll trip. She’ll fall. She’ll be hurt even more.’
He lifted his dark eyes to hers. There was a newfound lightness within them that came with getting everything off his chest. But the second he remembered he’d been divulging his story to her, it was gone.
‘Meg,’ he said, his voice rough, beseeching.
She breathed deep to calm her thundering heart and said, ‘I know I haven’t done much to make you believe this, but you really can trust me. I’m exceptionally good at keeping secrets. You have no idea how good, which only proves my point. I’ll not breathe a word.’
‘I truly hope so.’
She smiled. He managed to do a shadow of the same. And in that moment of silent communion something rare and magical was forged between them.
It felt a lot like trust.
CHAPTER SIX
THE boat bumped against solid ground.
Meg flinched, her flat shoes slipping on the wet wood, but she caught herself in time. She’d been so engrossed in Zach, in his story, in the man, she hadn’t even noticed the head-high reeds encroaching.
Zach tied them off. He threw the cooler onto the wooden deck, then leaned over and held out a hand.
She took it, the loaded silence of the lingering moment of amity still making her feel all floaty and surreal.
Once on the jetty she took off his hat, ran a quick hand through her messy curls and handed it to him along with his blanket. He wrapped his hands around both, but didn’t tug. Meg looked up into his dark eyes.
Her heart felt heavy in her chest. Her body felt heavy on her legs. The only thing about her that felt light was her head. Which was probably why she said, ‘Now that I know everything there is to know about you, are you finally going to give in and stop stalking me?’
His dark brows rose. His voice, on the other hand, deepened. ‘Is that what I’ve been doing?’
She said, ‘Either that or fifty acres really isn’t quite as much room as it sounds.’
From nowhere his head rocked back and he laughed. The sexy sound reverberated deep in her stomach, leaving it feeling hollow. As it faded to a smile in his eyes it left a new kind of warmth in its place she wasn’t sure what to do with.
‘I like you better this way,’ she admitted.
‘What way?’
‘Not bossing me around. You should try that more.’
He gave the blanket and hat a tug. She shuffled forward a step before letting go and he threw them lazily onto the cooler.
He looked back at her. The earlier glints in his dark eyes had been mere imitations of the glints glinting at her now. The kind of glints she now wished she’d not wished for. They were dazzling, they were blistering, they were completely incapacitating.
His voice rumbled, low and deep. ‘By that logic if I continue that way you’ll only like me more.’
‘You can’t
