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He laced his shoes, slipped his phone into his pocket and paused, watching her as she sat in a crouch, the sheet held modestly under her chin, hair in her eyes, lashes still at half-mast.
His expression was difficult to read, but it altered as a blush spread over her cheeks, became more tender. He leaned over and kissed her once on the mouth.
“Fly safely,” he ordered softly, and then he was gone, closing the door quietly behind him.
Sophy dropped back among the pillows and stared at the ceiling. She felt as if someone had picked her up and moved her to a new square on the chessboard when she wasn’t looking. Everything still looked familiar, but the view was different and she wasn’t quite sure where she was or if she was happy to be there.
And she had no idea if the game was playing out in her favour.
***
The flight home was free of turbulence and attractive seating companions, but her immediate neighbour was an inveterate chatterer and a nervous flier who kept up a running commentary from take-off to landing. Sophy couldn’t be wholly sorry for the distraction. She felt like there were home truths looming that she wasn’t quite ready to face yet.
Melissa had texted to say that she had a Sunday night date to the roller derby so wouldn’t be able to pick her up, so sorry, kisses. It sounded wildly improbable, given her cousin’s total disinterest in anything remotely athletic, but Sophy had no problem getting the courtesy coach into town. It was one of the few advantages of living in a hotel zone. She was dropped off with a stream of tourists just one block from the house and walked home with her bag slung over her shoulder. When she arrived at her front door step, she was greeted by ecstatic spasms from Jeeves and the sight of another mystery box.
One arm around the dog’s neck, trying to fend off an unsavoury French kiss, she grabbed the carton and yanked it open with more impatience than caution this time. It was a complete set of her favourite oil paints. She rarely did much painting, partly because she tended to go through gobs of the stuff and her preference was for a particularly pricy brand.
She ran her hand over the row of tubes, tracing the rainbow progression of colours. She’d all but forgotten about her erstwhile suitor with everything that had happened with Mick.
Her peaceful existence suddenly seemed to be inundated with men.
The sound of a ball hitting the concrete and the squeak of sneakers drew Jeeves’s attention and he ran to the fence to bark his displeasure at the interruption. Sophy rose to her feet and saw her teenage neighbour shooting hoops in his driveway. She started to wave, then stopped and leaned over the fence.
“Kenji,” she called. “Have you been out here for long? You didn’t see anyone drop off a box at my house, did you?”
Kenji caught the ball in one hand, wiping his forehead with the back of his wrist.
“Yeah,” he said. “There was a dude a while ago. Big box.”
“Did you see who it was? What did he look like?”
“Nah, I didn’t really notice.” Kenji looked entirely incurious and uninterested. “Just saw the back of his head over the hedge, then I made this wicked shot.”
“Did you catch what colour hair he had? Anything like that?” Sophy asked, not holding out much hope. She recognised a severe case of teenage boy when she saw it.
“Blond, maybe? Or black.”
Right.
“You didn’t notice anything at all?” she pressed.
“He was really tall, man. Like, yeah. Tall.”
Sophy sighed.
She didn’t understand unobservant people at all.
“Okay. Thanks.”
A tall man with a hair colour between blond and black.
That ought to narrow it down.
Chapter Nine
Mick’s features blinked in and out of Hades’s face like a form shimmering beneath the surface of water, recognisable one moment, slightly distorted and elusive the next. Sophy sat back on her haunches, letting the narrow precision-size chisel and mallet in her hands rest against the wooden floor. She let go of the chisel and reached to brush the fine dust from the head. The shape was still trapped within the stone block, a creature struggling to emerge from its chrysalis, but the spirit was flickering awake. This one would soar into being like a butterfly, she hoped. She had never carved so quickly or so accurately in all her years of sculpting.
She had come into the workroom first thing this morning, not even waiting for Melissa to haul her derby-drained limbs out of bed, eager to be back on her home ground, in her familiar environment. This was the safe routine of her life, where she was on solid footing. From here, she could go out and observe other people’s drama and heartbreak, their whims and vagaries, and then retreat to the happy, creative serenity of her own domain. It was the prospect of never being able to…to turn off, to recharge, that she thought bothered her the most in the concept of an ongoing, full-time relationship.
