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“Yeah.” Jack scratched his head, leaving a brown cowlick sticking up in the back. “But I need to rename and rebrand. I run boat trips and group kayaking sessions, but these days I spend more time taking people hiking, caving, rock climbing, and abseiling.”
Sterling blinked. “Sounds extreme.”
These adrenaline-driven businesses were a world away from what he’d become accustomed to in Auckland, and hearing the men discuss them like they were perfectly normal threw him for a loop. Yet he was excited by the prospect of taking the work on. Possibilities for ways he could improve Jack’s business processes were already flitting through his mind.
“That’s why I love it.” Jack grinned devilishly. “Nothing beats the high you get from conquering a cliff face.”
“Or jumping off the top of it,” Logan added wryly.
“With a harness attached, of course,” Jack agreed. “Or a parachute.”
The mere thought had Sterling’s skin prickling uncomfortably. But a few days ago, he wouldn’t have thought he’d like surfing or kissing a woman in a cold pond after dark. His perspective was changing, and he wouldn’t rule anything out.
“Do you have a pen and paper?” he asked Logan, who ducked around the bar and fished out an old notepad. “What ideas have you had so far?”
* * *
“How didyour meeting with the boys go?”
Sterling glanced up from the spreadsheet on his laptop when Tione placed his dinner on the table, drew out the chair beside him, and sat. Sterling looked around. The dining room had emptied, except for him and Brooke, who was in a similar position with her laptop and an open textbook on the next table over. He frowned. He’d been so absorbed in work that he’d lost track of everything going on around him. In and of itself, that wasn’t unusual, but having Tione interrupt him was.
“It went well,” he said, turning back to finish the row he was working on before he forgot what he’d been doing. “I have a lot to do now, but I’m quite enjoying it.”
As far as distractions went, having carte blanche to come up with whatever relevant plans or ideas he could think of for Jack’s business was fairly effective.
“Good to hear it.” Tione rolled up the pita bread he’d piled high with fillings and folded one end. “I’m glad you’re taking the time to help. Gotta be honest, I expected you to thumb your big-city nose at them.”
“A few months ago, I might have.” Back before Eli started preaching the gospel of small towns, and before he found out for himself how pleasant they could be.
He felt Tione’s stare. “Surprised you’d admit that.”
“I’m not the kind of guy who bothers to lie just so people like me.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” Tione bit off a massive chunk of the wrap and the filling spilled onto his plate. Chewing, he contemplated something on the horizon. Sterling decided he’d been dismissed and went back to his spreadsheet. He worked in silence while Tione finished his wrap and wiped his chin with a napkin. Then the cook guzzled a glass of water and dragged his chair around to face Sterling.
“If you want Kat to open her heart again, you’ve got your hands full.”
Sterling froze, his fingers on the keyboard, and looked over his shoulder, unable to believe that scowling, tattooed Tione had actually used the phrase “open her heart.” Although come to think of it, Eli had used nearly the exact same expression the last time they’d spoken, in reference to his own heart. Was the universe trying to tell him something?
“Dude, don’t look at me like that,” Tione said. “It was hard enough to say the first time. I’m not going to repeat it, and don’t worry, I won’t sprout a vagina.”
“Are you sure?”
He cracked a crooked grin. “Ninety percent.”
Sterling closed his laptop. Despite the humor of the situation, his heart had started galloping. When had he become so transparent?
“Do you think it can be done?” he asked, accepting that there was no point denying his feelings for her when all and sundry seemed to know the truth. “Do you think she could ever get over her husband?”
Tione cocked his head and studied Sterling, his expression unreadable. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s so much a matter of getting over him as moving on. She’ll never get over losing him, but that doesn’t mean she can’t move on and be happy with someone else.”
“That’s remarkably insightful.”
The man flushed. “I have my moments.”
Sterling nodded, and resisted the urge to ask if Tione thought anyone could measure up to Teddy in Kat’s eyes. He didn’t want the other man to know how pathetically insecure he was about comparing unfavorably to a dead man.
“If you have any thoughts about how I could convince her to give me a chance, I’d love to hear them.”
Tione cringed. “That sounds a little too much like being a double agent to me, but I want her to be happy, and I think you do too, so if anything springs to mind, I’ll let you know.”
“I appreciate that.”
