Ernest padded in from wherever he’d been foraging and turned three times before settling on his doggy bed. The fire crackled softly, now she’d got the hang of it, and her new second-hand lounge chairs were gorgeous: red-and-white checked, with pale green and baby blue and soft yellow floral cushions—a riot of spring colour. Busy, her dad would have called it, and frowned, thinking of her mother, claiming it gave him a headache. Saskia would have exchanged it for something less lovely. Less her.
She’d added touches of riot everywhere the past few weeks, fancying up the relatively blank canvas until it looked to her like the very image of happiness.
Thanks—very much—to Nate. He’d not only given her the opportunity to get out from under the weight of her debt, he’d pulled her from the even more debilitating hit she’d taken to her self-esteem after Stu. And those who’d come before.
She picked up the slightly rumpled pages of yellow legal paper covered in her swirly writing and Nate’s sexy scrawl—rumpled because she’d rolled over on them when reaching out for him to find not him but this gift.
She couldn’t for the life of her fathom what had changed his mind about answering her interview questions, but he had. He’d written about his interactions with women—the respect, the intrigue, the unashamed temptation. But she could feel his desire to be better. Do better. To become the man he hoped to be. And giving her this he’d given her himself.
No wonder he was always rubbing his temples in frustration, she thought, with all he had in his head. No wonder he worked himself to distraction. No wonder he’d come looking for her.
And Saskia couldn’t have loved him more for it.
It had been coming, brimming, easing, falling, pressing in on her from every angle. Her love for this man who had no clue that he gave so much and took so little for himself. This man who knew his strengths but couldn’t see his worth.
How could she know him and not love him? And she’d be so good for him. Take care of him. Relax him. Show him contentment. Make him happy. Love him all his days and nights. If only he’d let her.
Never having been there before, she had no idea what came next. So she sat in the middle of it, feeling it, living it, revelling in it, till her backside turned numb from sitting in the same spot too long.
Ernest leapt from his doggy bed and took off. A moment later a knock sounded.
By the time she reached the door Saskia’s heart was thumping through her chest at the thought that it might be Nate. What would she say about what he’d given her? Would he even know what it meant to her? Could it be why he’d done it?
“Earn your keep, Fido, and learn how to open the door!” Lissy called from the other side. Then added, “Men suck!” as she spilled through the door, arms laden with grocery bags—hence the non-use of her key. She gave Ernest a perfunctory cuddle with one foot as she trudged in.
Not all of them, Saskia thought, the bliss riding high again.
“More than usual?” Saskia asked, padding into the kitchen to make another hot chocolate.
“Bamford dumped me.”
Wow. Lissy, of the glorious mane of blonde hair with its now hot pink tips, the big blue eyes and curves for the ages, was a bombshell. Crazy, for sure, but men didn’t seem to care. As if they couldn’t use their brains while their tongues lolled out of their mouths.
“Did he say why?”
Lissy waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder. “Something about compatibility. A lack of seriousness. Blah-blah-blah.”
As Lissy upended her bag of groceries on the kitchen table Ernest thought he’d died and gone to heaven—caramel popcorn, butterscotch ice cream, boxes of Oreos.
“You disagree?” Saskia said, plopping a mound or two of chocolate powder into a mug.
Lissy deflated into a chair. “I’m not sure, to tell the truth. Bam was fun. A crazy kind of challenge. But when I see you and Nate together—the chemistry, the way you complement and challenge and fit—there’s this aura, like the glow of possibility, that gleams around you. I want that.”
Stunned into silence because it really wasn’t all in her head, Saskia flinched when the door was knocked upon again. She glanced in its direction, wanting to press Lissy for more about the glowing and the aura.
The knock sounded at the door again.
“If that’s Bam, I’m not here,” said Lissy as she plonked herself at the kitchen table.
“Why would he think you were?”
Her eyes narrowed a moment. “I told him this was where I’d be if he realised he’d just made the biggest mistake of his life and decided to send flowers or diamonds.”