not going anywhere,” he said. “I just moved my truck closer to the cottage. What else do you need?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
He stared at her for a long moment. When he finally looked away, Annie felt the butterflies in her stomach intensify. It was clear he was attracted to her. He wasn’t even trying to hide it.
“Tea,” he said. “I’ll make some tea.” He shrugged out of his jacket and then moved to the sink. She watched as he glanced around, looking for the water faucet.
“You have to pump it,” she said. “There is no indoor plumbing.”
“No indoor—” He turned to face her. “You don’t have a shower? Or a toilet?”
“Sure. But they run on a rainwater catch system. I put it in about five years ago. There’s a shower in the lighthouse with a water heater. But here in the house, there’s just a bath, with water from the hand pump heated on the stove.”
“There’s no electricity either?”
Annie shook her head. “I don’t really need it. There’s nothing I need to run.”
“No television? No computer?”
“I have a phone. I recharge that in the lighthouse. There’s a little refrigerator out there, too, but I rarely use it. It’s really not that unusual. A lot of people live this way.”
“For this day and age it is,” he said. “Where do you get the firewood?”
“Sam Decker brings it around,” she said. “Except for food and taxes, it’s my only expense.”
Sam Decker had been one of the bullies who had taunted her as a child, making fun of her stammer by doing a dead-on imitation of her. But he’d come to regret his actions and one day, after her grandmother had passed away, he’d shown up on her front porch with a cord of split wood and an apology.
Since then, he’d brought wood every month and helped her with little jobs around the house. Though they were both adults now, and they were able to be cordial, even friendly, the wounds ran deep. She’d outgrown her stammer, but she still couldn’t fully trust Sam. And so she kept him at arm’s length.
Annie knew Sam had romantic feelings for her and hoped for something more than just friendship. But there was absolutely no attraction on her end. When there was attraction, she couldn’t deny it...like now...with Rourke.
She watched as he built a fire in the stove, studying his backside, clad in faded denim. He added small pieces of kindling from the basket beneath the sink and when the flames were high enough, he dropped a log on top of the fire. Rourke closed the cast-iron door, then worked to fill the battered kettle with water from the pump.
Annie walked over to the cabinets above the sink. She pulled back the gingham fabric and revealed two jars of loose tea. “I have black or green. Which do you prefer?”
“Black,” he said.
She retrieved an old china teapot from the breakfront and set it on the stove, then scooped a measure of the tea into it. After that, she found a pair of mugs and set them beside the pot. “I don’t have real cream. Or milk. Just powdered milk,” she said.
“Just a little sugar would be good,” he said.
* * *
ROURKE WASN’T QUITE sure what to think about all of this. Of course, he’d known there were people in the world who lived without the trappings of technology. He’d never actually met one, though. And a single woman living alone seemed like an unlikely candidate for pioneer of the year.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, watching him with an inquisitive expression.
“I’m just...I don’t know. Surprised. Maybe a little confused.”
“About how I live?”
He nodded. “That...among other things.”
“I didn’t really choose this life,” she said. “I guess it chose me—out of necessity. I don’t have a lot of money, so I have to be careful what I spend. You’d be surprised at how little you can live on when you simplify things.”
“I can imagine,” he said.
“I think everyone should at least try to reduce the impact they have on our environment. It’s just healthier. For me and the planet.”
“What about a car?”
“I don’t have one. I bike into town. In the winter, I walk. It’s only three miles. It’s good exercise.”
He’d never known anyone quite like her. And Rourke had known a lot of women. Though he’d admired beauty and wit in the opposite sex, there had always been something he found lacking in his female companions. But here was a woman who was strong and independent. She had courage and determination and a quiet confidence that he found endlessly attractive.
He was curious about her life. How had she transformed herself from that painfully shy girl with the stutter into a strong, capable woman? “You remembered my name,” he said.
Annie nodded. “You were kind to me once.”
“You’ve changed. A lot.”
“I’ve grown up.” She paused. “You probably mean the stammer? That disappeared after I got out of school. I didn’t want to live my life in a constant state of fear and I reached a point where I just stopped fighting. I didn’t feel it necessary to defend myself anymore. I found an inner calm and I think my mind caught up with my words.”
“You seem happy,” Rourke said.
“I am.”
“But you don’t have many friends on the island.”
“I don’t need a lot of friends. Those that I have are good to me. Besides, how many true friends do we really have? Most people in your life are acquaintances not friends. How many would come to you if you called?”
He shrugged. She was right. He didn’t have that many good friends. He could count them on one hand. The whistle from the teakettle shattered the silence between them and Rourke stood up and walked back to the stove. He poured the water into the pot.
“There’s a strainer on the stove,” she said.
He tossed the strainer into one of the mugs, then carried everything over to the hearth, carefully setting the china pot on the flat stone. “Don’t you ever get lonely?”
“All the time,” she said. “But there’s really not much I can do about it. Leaving the island would be like cutting out a part of my heart.”
“Have you ever left the island?” he asked.
This brought a laugh. “Of course I have. All the time.”
He could see it in her eyes. She was lying. But now was not the time to call her on it. “I live in New York,” he said.
