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‘You do that,’ he said, annoyed at the pulse of regret he felt when she stiffened at his surly statement. ‘If you need food, Mrs Mendoza leaves stuff in the freezer that you can nuke,’ he added, to soften the blow while also making it crystal-clear that no more impromptu cooking lessons would be forthcoming. ‘I’ll shout once this is ready and you can eat in one of the guest rooms,’ he finished.
‘All right.’
She walked away, and the strange pang in his chest increased. But then she turned back.
‘Thanks for teaching me how to make your mother’s Jambalaya.’
‘Not a problem,’ he murmured.
Even though he knew it was a problem—she was a problem—which he had a bad feeling he now had even less of a clue how to fix.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CASSIE STEPPED OUT through the back door of the housekeeper’s annexe wearing the raincoat she’d borrowed from Mrs Mendoza’s dwindling supply of clean clothing.
Sun shone off the dew clinging to the ferns and rhododendrons lining the path and burned away the last of the morning mist. After a whole day yesterday spent hiding out in her room, in between sneaked trips to the kitchen to heat up food whenever the coast was clear—which had been most of the time, because Luke seemed to be avoiding her with the same dedication with which she was avoiding him—she was going stir crazy.
She zipped up the raincoat, settled the borrowed backpack on her shoulders and set out along the path which, according to the map, led to a trail that circumnavigated the island.
Worrying about her inability to contact her office—or anyone, for that matter—and how long it might be before she got back to San Francisco, not to mention the job of avoiding her reluctant host and any more too revealing heart-to-hearts at all costs, wasn’t helping with her sleep deprivation. Or her stress levels.
She needed to get out of the house. Perhaps she was not the outdoors type, but the only way to take her mind off Luke and the things she’d learned about him two days ago was to fill her time with something else. And a hike was pretty much her only option.
From what she could remember when they’d flown into the bay three nights ago, the island was more than big enough to contain both of them without there being much chance of her bumping into him. She’d managed to find a small guidebook to Oregon’s bird life. She would tour the area, scope out the terrain, and see if she could spot some of the birds indigenous to the Pacific Northwest. Because staying holed up in his house all day yesterday had given her far too much time to mull over the conversation they’d had about his childhood.
‘After she died I was on my own. But that was the way I wanted
it.’
Did he really believe that? She frowned. And why did she care whether he did or not? She’d had no business probing, or offering him advice about a relationship with the father he’d never known, when her relationship with her own father could best be described as barely functional. She couldn’t even sort out her own daddy issues, so what made her think she could sort out his?
One thing she did know, though: keeping busy had always kept her sane—especially when she was dealing with a problem outside her control, such as the loneliness she’d fallen into when her father had pushed Ashling and Angela Doyle out of her life without any warning, or the fact that she’d got stranded on a taciturn billionaire’s private island and started to delude herself into believing they had something in common, when they clearly did not.
Avoidance had always been her great go-to strategy. So, having stuffed the backpack with the bird book, some energy bars, a bottle of water, a map and a pair of binoculars, she was all set to make the best of things. Plus, physical exhaustion might help with her sleep issues.
Wisps of moisture still clung to the headland as the path meandered past the dock and into the forest. She breathed in, the air so crisp it hurt her lungs. A bracing walk and some bird-spotting would do her the world of good. Not that she knew the first thing about bird-spotting, but how hard could it be?
* * *
Two hours later Cassie wheezed to the top of another steep incline on the cliff path. She bent over to catch her breath, stunned again by the startling natural beauty of Sunrise Island... And by how chronically unfit she was. Who knew two spin classes a year weren’t enough to prepare you for a ten-mile hike?
After drawing in several deep breaths of the clean air, she stood to admire another staggering view.
The outcropping of volcanic rock she stood on formed a natural archway, revealing a hidden cove eighty feet below her. The black sand beach, scattered with driftwood from the recent storm, curved around the headland, edged by the vivid green of the towering redwoods and pines on one side and a sheer rock face on the other. Her breathing slowed and her heart swelled. The scent of salt water carried on the breeze and tempered the heat of the midday sunshine.
She pulled the map out of her pack and located her position.
Pirates’ Cove.
An apt name, given who owned it.
A jolt of awareness took her tired body unawares.
Not thinking about him, remember...?
She pushed the unhelpful thought to one side as she spotted a bird offshore, its large wingspan holding it aloft on the sea air. She scrambled to dig the bird book and the binoculars out of the backpack, then focussed the binoculars on the magnificent creature.
Was that an eagle or a hawk?
