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‘I thought it was because of his regal bearing,’ she said, as Prince ‘wuffed’ into a pile of rotting seaweed, his three legs scrabbling madly as he skated on the slimy mass.
Drake laughed. ‘You wouldn’t believe it now but he can actually look almost respectable when that coat has just been groomed. The problem is, it only lasts five minutes—until he can find the nearest pile of dirt.’
‘That’s because he doesn’t want to be respectable, he wants to have fun.’
‘Don’t we all?’ said Drake with a silky nuance, sliding his hand down his bare chest in a way that reminded her of that day in the car. Her temperature shot up and she failed to look where she was going.
‘Careful!’ Drake caught her elbow as her sneakered foot skidded into a rock pool.
‘Oh!’ Kate lifted her dripping foot and then looked into a pool. ‘Oh, look—hermit crabs.’ Her sundress fluttered around her knees as she crouched down for a closer look at the tiny creatures, humping their houses on their backs. ‘They remind me of you,’ she teased, testing one with her finger and watching him retreat back into the depths of the spiral shell.
‘Clever, adaptive survivalists?’
‘Hard-shelled and soft-centred.’
‘You think I’m soft-centred?’ He sounded as if he didn’t know whether to be amused or appalled, his hand remaining on her elbow as he tugged her back to her feet to resume their walking.
‘You must be, or you wouldn’t need such a hard shell,’ she teased. ‘Well, semi-soft, anyway,’ she amended to hide the shock as she realised the stunning truth of her words. As cynical and tough as he made himself out to be, at his core Drake felt himself vulnerable; that was why he erected so many defences.
‘Actually, at the moment, I’d class myself as semi-hard,’ he said, pointedly looking at the sway of her breasts against the low-cut dress.
‘Drake!’ She looked furtively around the beach, resisting the urge to place her hands across her chest like a Victorian maiden.
‘Oh, look, cat’s eyes!’ He diverted her from her confusion, stooping to pick one of the convex shells up from a shallow pool, holding it for her to see the iridescent trapdoor at the bottom pulling into place, before gently putting it back in the water. ‘It reminds me of you,’ he mimicked her teasing tone.
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Great, I’m like a sea-snail.’
‘Beautiful and functional, what more can you ask?’
‘I’m not beautiful,’ she denied. ‘Not like my mother.’
‘No, thank God—she’s like a perfect line drawing, sharp and flat, whereas you’re like a watercolour—delicate and subtle, yet vibrant with colour and life, with deeper shades of meaning than appear at first glance.’
‘You are quick with your similes this afternoon,’ she said, trying to prick the dangerous bubble of joy that threatened her determinedly casual façade. ‘Does that mean you’re still working? I hope you brought your notebook with you.’ She tilted her head back to see and laughed, because—sure enough—there was a tell-tale rectangle outlined in the back pocket of his shorts.
His fingers intertwined with hers, giving them a faint punishing squeeze.
‘You don’t like being compared to your mother, do you?’
‘We’re all a product of our parents; I suppose we can’t avoid it,’ said Kate, her voice softening as she thought of their baby. Was this the moment to broach the subject?
‘But, as Shakespeare said, “comparisons are odorous”—’
‘I thought they were odious.’ Kate was pleased to have caught him out, still smarting from her drubbing at Scrabble.
‘That was John Donne, not Shakespeare,’ he topped her for smugness. ‘He actually said: “She, and comparisons are odious”, which sums up your mother even better!’
‘For someone who’s dyslexic, you sure read a lot,’ she complained, unoffended. She remembered an interview where he’d said that, when working way out in the boonies, reading had been one of the few forms of safe entertainment, the only other options for a bunch of misfit males thrown together for the duration of a dirty job being drinking, gambling and fighting. He’d seen a few men die from their choice of amusement.
He grinned. ‘I cheat. I have a book of quotations lying on my desk. Some of my heroes have fought some very erudite villains,’ he informed her.
Kate laughed and he continued, after a slight pause, to say offhandedly: ‘I never had any help with my dyslexia as a kid—we moved around too much, and after the drug-taking started my mother never bothered whether I was at school. But when I was older I found out for myself how to get around the barriers, and I read whatever and wherever I could.’
‘Is your dyslexia inherited from your mother or your father?’ she asked without thinking.
There was only a brief falter in his stride. ‘I have no idea.’
‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to pry,’ she said, feeling the mental shutters start to come down.
