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Bashir’s face lit up. “Then you know what a wonderful, warm man he is.”
“I... do?” If she was making a list of Mr. Benz’s qualities,wonderfulandwarmwould not be on it. Although he had been thoughtful to take her to church. And out for turkey sausages.
There had also been the kiss. That had definitely been... warm.
But then all that warmth had evaporated, and she hadn’t laid eyes on him except in passing for what felt like ages.
Ugh. Why was he such a mystery?
“Yes,” Bashir said. “One of the things I try to do in my role as a school principal is look after the overall well-being of my students and their families. Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum, so if there are problems at home—food insecurity, family instability, for example—I try to do what I can to help. Matteo has been a tremendous ally in those efforts.”
“Really?” That didn’t sound like her Mr. Benz.
Well, notherMr. Benz. She issued a mental correction: that didn’t sound like the Mr. Benz she knew.
“He’s so well-connected, and he knows so many people. I can’t tell you the number of families of mine he’s quietly helped, either himself or by connecting them with resources.”
“What kind of resources?”
“All kinds. Tutors, jobs for the adults in the household. Donations of sports equipment so the children won’t be excluded.”
Well. That one hit home, didn’t it?
“Once,” Bashir went on, “he even gave over his own apartment to a woman and a child fleeing an abusive situation for a night before I could make more permanent arrangements.”
She thought back suddenly to her first night in town, to when she and Mr. Benz had walked down the hill. They’d stopped to watch the cocoa drinkers and skaters on the village square, and she’d posed an offhand, joking question, asking if people were allowed to be unhappy in Eldovia. He hadn’t answered it until later, when he suddenly had.People are allowed to be unhappy in Eldovia, he’d said while he held the door to the pub open for her.
“...though perhaps another time would be better.”
Gah. She was being terrible. “Bashir. I’m sorry. My fractured attention this evening is absolutely not about the quality of the company. I’m more tired than I realized.”
He smiled. He was such a nice man. “I was suggesting you might like to take a walk, but perhaps it’s time to call it a night.”
He was giving her an out, and she was going to take it. “I think so. Thank you for the company. I enjoyed chatting with you.”Until I got distracted thinking about Mr. Benz being a secret do-gooder. And about Mr. Benz naked.
He really was everywhere, Mr. Benz, even when he wasn’t.
Once again, she forced her attention back to the very nice man in front of her. Imogen had introduced him but had warned Cara that he wasn’t going to be like Johannes. “He’ll want to get to know you. You’ll probably have to go out with him a few times before...” She’d winked.
Cara couldn’t tell if Imogen was merely, from her vantage point behind the bar, an accomplished student of human psychology, or if she was on her way to becoming a professional matchmaker.
Either way, Imogen had been correct about Bashir, who, unlike Johannes, had not given offWe’re gonna hook up tonightvibes. He had been smart and attentive, and, having moved to Eldovia as an adult, he’d made some interesting observations about its culture, some of which were going to prove useful for Cara in her work.
“Perhaps we can do this again,” Bashir suggested as they pushed back their chairs.
“Yes, anytime. I’m staying upstairs, so I’ll be here.” Though shefound that, as with Johannes, she was strangely not in the mood. For hooking up, or for a chaste date of the sort her mother would approve of. For any of it.
She trudged up the stairs to her room. All she wanted to do was take a hot shower and crash. Well, what shereallywanted was to take a hot bath and crash, but the shared bathrooms upstairs had only shower stalls. There would be no baths for Cara until she was on her next work trip. She changed into the shorts and camisole she slept in for the trek down the hall. She was more than happy to be at the Owl and Spruce given that it corrected an optics problem, but itwasa bit of a comedown.
She grabbed her toiletries bag and randomly thought of Mr. Benz saying you hadn’t lived until you’d seen the night sky while immersed in one of Eldovia’s famous hot springs. Like being a secret fairy godfather to children and families in need, lounging aimlessly in a hot spring was not something she would have imagined Mr. Benz doing.
And now she was back to picturing Mr. Benz naked.
It wasn’t as hard to do as the last time she’d tried to. Or tried not to. Whatever. Anyway, surely the kind of hot springs he’d been talking about—the public kind—required bathing suits? Because—“Ahhh!”
Yet again tonight, her thoughts of Mr. Benz were distracting her from her surroundings. She’d been locking her room for her trip to the shower, and she’d turned without checking that the coast was clear and bumped into someone carrying a very large box.
She apologized in the German she’d been learning, and again in English. “I’m terribly sorry, sir.” Or maybe it was a ma’am. The boxobscured the person’s head and torso. She let her gaze slide down the person’s legs. Horror dawned. She knew those pinstriped legs.
