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As they moved away, he murmured, “She’s a sweet lady.”
“She has cancer,” Kat replied, blinking back the tears that threatened every time she thought of it. “Terminal. She’s staying here to enjoy the last few months of her life until she needs to move somewhere with round-the-clock care.”
Next, she stopped beside Tina, who’d finally emerged from her room and was piecing together a puzzle on the floor, legs crossed, a frown of concentration marring her brow. She glanced up to greet them, brushing aside a lock of ginger hair as it floated across her face.
“Hey, there.”
“Hey.” Kat sat next to her and sifted through the puzzle pieces, helping organize them according to color, which she knew was Tina’s preferred method. “Did you finish another masterpiece?” Sterling stood behind her, apparently reluctant to dirty his suit by kneeling or sitting. “Tina is a fabulous artist. She paints landscapes. Usually in oil paints, but she’s done some great watercolors, too. I’ve got one in the foyer, of the waterfall up one of the trails at the back of the garden.”
“There you go, stroking my ego,” Tina said with a laugh. Then she turned to Sterling, cupped her hand over her mouth as though confiding a secret and whispered, “I’m a terror when I’m working, but they tolerate me here because I pay them to.”
“That’s so not the truth,” Kat objected, swatting her arm playfully. “We tolerate you because of the mural you painted in Brooke’s room.”
Though it was a joke, both of their expressions softened as they thought of Brooke. Kat knew Sterling must be wondering what she was up to, but he didn’t ask. Perhaps he wasn’t comfortable prying.
She stood and brushed her palms together, businesslike. “Tina comes here when she needs to boost her creativity,” she told him. “She gets blocked sometimes but staying at Sanctuary helps.”
“Because no one is knocking on the door every two minutes and there’s inspiration everywhere I look.”
“Sterling is a new guest,” Kat said, which wasn’t technically an untruth. If she told all and sundry that he wanted to buy her out, they’d cast him out before she could say boo.
Tina cocked her head, sizing up his shiny black shoes and silk tie. “Let me guess,” she said. “You’re a corporate highflier, but you’ve burnt yourself out and need a break.”
“Something like that,” he murmured, expression inscrutable.
Damn, but Kat wished she could read him. She didn’t know whether anything she said or did was having an effect on him.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place.” Suddenly, Tina’s eyes glazed over, and she dropped a puzzle piece, shot to her feet and rushed off, nearly tripping over the box on her way out.
“Her muse has visited,” Kat said, by way of explanation. “Come over here and meet Arthur.”
* * *
“I know what you’re doing,”Sterling said as he and Kat walked away from an elderly man who was staying in the lodge while he recuperated from his third knee surgery and wrote the spy thriller novel he’d dreamed of for years. “You’re trying to emotionally manipulate me, and you’re not being very subtle about it.”
He might not have noticed if she’d stopped after the first two people, but this cinched it. She’d started her crusade to convince him of the healing powers of Sanctuary in earnest.
Kat stopped walking and crossed her arms over her chest, lifting her t-shirt enough to reveal a sliver of skin at her hips. “Subtlety is overrated.”
Sterling couldn’t look away from that strip of bare skin. Then he noticed a pucker of paler skin at her left hip. Something in his expression must have given him away because she dropped her arms and tugged the t-shirt down. Had that been a scar? If so, it looked like a particularly painful one.
“Mr. Knight,” she said coolly.
Oh, yes. What had she said?
“I tend to agree. Subtlety is overrated. But I need to set you straight about something before you drag me to meet Exemplar D. I sympathize with these people—I truly do—but I’m not like them. I don’t need you to save me. And just think how much more you could do for them if you accepted my offer. With more money, you could improve the facilities to cater to a wider range of people and set up shop in a nice modern building.”
“You don’t understand,” she growled, then muttered something under her breath in Te Reo. “The whole point is that the lodge isn’t perfect. It’s a work in progress, just like we are. He waka eke noa. Everyone here is in the same boat. They need something that only Sanctuary can give them. Peace and quiet, a place to heal. Or maybe they need to learn a new skill. Did you know we have DIY classes that run every weekend? My guests and I are fixing up Sanctuary ourselves. It’s a journey we’re on together. It means something to us.”
“You’re right,” Sterling said, and for a moment, she stopped, caught unawares. A smile started to cross her face, but then he added, “I don’t understand.” Her smile vanished. “You could give them a place to heal, or to have some peace, in a fully equipped facility two minutes down the road. Your whole shtick is about this being a ‘sanctuary’, right? Nowhere has anyone said that ‘sanctuary’ needs to be run-down or in a state of disrepair.”
Her expression shuttered, and he experienced a twinge of guilt, but tamped it down. In order to persuade her to sell, she needed to see the truth. Perhaps she had a personal connection to the lodge or the property, but that wasn’t a reasonable basis for making business decisions. If she was thinking with her head rather than her heart, she’d know that.
“Spoken like someone without a sentimental bone in their body,” she shot at him, eyes narrowed as though daring him to contradict her.
He shrugged. “You caught me. I confess, I’ve never loved a place like you obviously love this one, but you can’t let that color your decision-making.”
Her lips pursed and she pressed her palms together in front of her torso, interlacing her fingers. “I’m sorry for you. Everyone should have a home of their heart.” Then, as if the conversation had never occurred, she spun and started toward the exit to the garden. “Haere mai. Come along.”
Like a dog being called to heel, he followed, hypnotized by the swaying of her rounded hips. One thing he could say for Katarina Hopa: she had a way with people.
