Page 42 of Starry Nights over Dragonfly Lake

Beth sagged back against her chair, her anger completely evaporating. ‘Well, now I feel bad because I gave you such a hard time last night,’ she told him.

He fixed her with a look. ‘Perhaps I deserved it,’ he said.

But she didn’t agree. She knew what a huge relief to the family it would be knowing that the lodges would still be able to be built and that their future plans for the security of Maple Tree Lodge would still be in place despite Walter’s accident.

‘Here,’ said Beth, sliding the plate across the table towards him. ‘Take it. Take all the cake you can find.’

‘A peace offering?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows. ‘From my beloved girlfriend? It must be love.’

She quickly checked around them but thankfully her ex-boyfriend was nowhere to be seen. ‘I don’t know why I’m looking,’ she said. ‘Jeremy finally left this morning and good riddance.’

Noah took a bite out of the cake and nodded his approval. ‘That’s delicious,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to share it with me?’

She shook her head, still feeling awful about the hard time she had given him when he had actually given up his whole winter to help out the family.

He licked his fingers before fixing her with an intense look. ‘I honestly don’t understand what you were doing with an idiot like Jeremy in the first place,’ he said.

‘We met at work,’ she told him. ‘And he discovered a black hole, you know. That’s a big deal.’

‘So? That still doesn’t excuse how he treated you,’ he carried on. ‘And how much you changed whenever you were around him.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ she told him, shaking her head. ‘He didn’t like the way I dressed, that’s true enough, but I still carried on wearing whatever I like.’

Although as she said it, she knew that it was a lie. She had altered her clothes whenever they went out anywhere to stop him commenting about it.

‘I’m not talking about fashion,’ he replied. ‘I’m talking about the way you acted in front of him. At dinner, he constantly interrupted you. He looked down at you, belittled you and you appeared to put up with it right until the time you realised he was sleeping with someone else.’

‘Gee, thanks for the reminder,’ she muttered.

But was it true? What Noah was telling her? She knew deep down that it was.

‘Well, I was probably droning on,’ she told him, thinking back to Jeremy’s criticism of her. ‘Not everyone wants to hear whatever boring thing I have to say.’

‘You’re the least boring person I’ve ever met,’ he replied.

She blushed a little at his words and then wondered whether he meant it as a compliment.

‘I know how it looks,’ she told him with a sigh. ‘But Jeremy’s an emeritus professor. And I’ve only got a PhD.’

‘Onlya PhD?’ Noah’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Wow, he did a job on you, that’s for sure. Only a complete lowlife would make someone as intelligent as you feel like a dunce.’

She hesitated to reply but for once, Noah was in a chatty mood.

‘You’re not the same person when you’re with him,’ he carried on. ‘It’s like you get a personality transplant and suddenly the chatty person full of life and facts surrenders all her decisions and lets him decide everything, even what she should say. It’s like you’re reining yourselfin the whole time.’

Beth played with her coffee mug, avoiding Noah’s stare. He was right, of course. Deep down perhaps she had always known it.

‘Men are normally intimidated by my intelligence so I’ve always dumbed it down a bit whenever I’ve gone out on dates,’ she told him.

‘Why change yourself?’ he asked.

‘Because it makes them feel better, but yeah,’ she said, blowing out a sigh. ‘I hear you that it’s not a good thing. I suppose I just thought that I was lucky to have someone like Jeremy interested in, well, someone like me.’ She glanced down at the dress she was wearing, a 1960s mini in black and white checks. ‘I like pretty clothes. Always have done. But they’re not the expected look for a person like me.’

‘What is the expected look?’ he asked.

‘Probably more professional, given my field of study. But I’ve worn vintage clothes for as long as I can remember. Couldn’t afford anything other than charity shops growing up and I was always attracted to the sparkly, pretty stuff.’ Her smile faded. ‘Maybe that’s what I thought Jeremy was. The ultimate designer label for me to wear. Expect he wasn’t really my style. We had a shared interest in astronomy but that was it. I was flattered that he even noticed me.’

‘You’re beautiful and bright,’ said Noah. ‘He’d have been even more of an idiot if he hadn’t noticed you.’