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It struck her that he was looking far too exhilarated for a slave-labourer. ‘You’re enjoying this!’ she said accusingly.
He lowered the shirt from his face, his eyes blue with reflected sky. ‘So are you,’ he accused softly back. ‘Or you were. Does it spoil your fun to find that I don’t mind a bit of good, honest sweat? I wonder what it is you think you’re trying to punish me for?’
‘I had nothing to do with this. It was all your idea,’ she reminded him hotly, all the while conscious of his credit-card holder burning a hole in her jeans pocket. ‘I’m just an innocent bystander.’
His eyes responded with a brief blaze of white heat. ‘Innocent? I don’t think so. You’re not a bystander, either. You’re in this up to your sweet little neck whether you realise it or not.’
His cryptic words made her stiffen, and his hostility vanished as if he had flicked an internal switch.
‘Where are you off to anyway?’ He nodded at the chair, bulging with items that had been stuffed into the built-in pocket on the canvas back.
She was so grateful for the change of subject she answered frankly. ‘Just down to the end of the beach. I want to do some sketches of the rocks.’
‘Let me carry that for you.’ Before she could refuse, he had plucked it out of her hands.
‘I wasn’t asking for company.’
She had couched her refusal too politely. ‘I’m not company,’ he said easily, heading towards the puriri trees that lined the bank. ‘I’m the hired help.’
‘And you already have a job to do,’ she pointed out, hurrying after him to try to snag a chair leg.
‘Ray told me to take a break.’ He twisted his head to wave at the old man up on the porch, who flapped a gnarled hand in response. ‘I think he was trying to figure out how to take a nap without missing anything. He certainly likes to be in charge!’
Nina was distracted from trying to wrest her property from his grasp. ‘He’s used to giving orders. He skippered a fishing boat until he was in his late sixties. He’s not joking when he says he was married to the sea. I don’t think he would’ve retired yet if it wasn’t for his arthritis.’
‘I wasn’t criticising,’ Ryan said, leaping lithely onto the sand and turning to extend a hand to help Nina down the grassy bank. ‘I like the old guy. He’s a battler. I hope I’m as feisty when I’m seventy-five.’
‘He likes you, too.’ Nina ignored his polite gesture and was irritated to hear him chuckle as she ensured her jump onto the sand was just a little farther out than his.
‘And that burns you up, doesn’t it?’ he guessed. ‘I can’t help it if I’m such a nice guy—’
‘Nice?’
‘You think that’s too strong a word?’
No, too weak. Whatever words she was tempted to use to describe Ryan Flint, they weren’t pallid, wishy-washy ones like ‘nice’.
Nina shook the sand off the top of her sneakers and started to march briskly down the beach.
‘Actually, I think he’s just pleased to have a fresh audience for his tall tales,’ Ryan said as he caught up. ‘He certainly seems to have had plenty of adventures on the high seas. I suppose you’ve heard the one about the giant squid?’
Nina groaned. ‘Many times. When I was a kid, it gave me nightmares!’
‘That’s right, you used to spend summer holidays here as a child, didn’t you? Ray said your grandfather once owned the house you’re renting, but that your grandmother sold it after he died when you were—what?—about thirteen?’
Ray must have certainly been extremely forthcoming during their cosy ‘guy thing’ chats over a couple of beers on the porch each evening, Nina thought nervously.
‘Fifteen. Gran was only on a widow’s benefit and she said she’d rather have the money for Karl and me to have a good education.’ Which had made Karl’s later decision to drop out of university a rather bitter pill, although Joan Dowling had never given any sign that she regretted her sacrifice.
‘Were your parents fostering Karl before they died? Is that how he came to live with you and your grandparents?’
