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‘Luke.’ Katya too was being watched, and Olenka unglued herself from the doorway to the stockroom, letting it drift closed behind her.
‘So Peter’s getting a kitten, eh?’ The best thing to do was to ignore Olenka. The man was easy on the eye but his name was immaterial. All she needed to know about him was that he liked his latte with two shots.
‘Yes, he’s wanted one for a long time. He’s old enough to look after it properly.’ Olenka had switched back into Polish. Although Katya was a Londoner, whereas her cousin Olenka had been born and brought up in Poland, they shared a love of the language. It reminded Katya of her father, and Olenka of home.
‘It’ll do him good to have something to look after. What kind of kitten?’
Olenka shrugged. ‘Lucasz says they’re a bit of everything. There are seven kittens and they’re all different, so I’m going to take Piotr to go and choose one.’ She quirked her lips downwards. ‘Next week. Lucasz can’t rush nature and neither can I.’
‘Thought you said his name was Luke.’ Katya slipped back into English to make her point.
‘I like him. It is a compliment.’ Olenka narrowed her eyes. ‘You like him?’
‘He seems nice enough. I don’t really know him.’
Olenka dismissed her with a gesture. ‘It only takes one look to find out if you like a man.’
Katya had thought the same once upon a time. ‘I don’t do first impressions, Ola. My judgement isn’t that good.’
Olenka shook her head. ‘You made one mistake …’
‘One’s enough.’ Katya hadn’t suspected for a moment that everything had been about to blow up in her face so badly when she’d tried to help a patient. You didn’t get to make mistakes like that and still keep your faith in your own judgement.
Olenka groaned in frustration. Just the way Katya would have done before it had all happened, but now she knew differently. ‘You can look. You don’t need to touch.’
That was the trouble really. Katya was beginning to feel that she did need to touch. ‘He’s not that good-looking.’
‘Pftt. Are you blind?’ Olenka gave Katya’s comment exactly the consideration it deserved.
A clatter at the doorway came to her rescue and Katya turned, smiling at the man who was hurrying towards the counter. The first of the eight-thirty coffee rush. No time now to think about Luke’s dark, slightly dishevelled curls or his kind eyes. Or wonder whether those broad shoulders really were enough to keep someone safe. In all likelihood they were. Just not this someone.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_fd879e04-bc41-598b-b087-094eb9f9b520)
PETER WAS SITTING obediently at the corner table of the coffee shop, one of his mother’s special hot chocolate drinks and a computer game in front of him. Katya took her eyes off him long enough to serve two women who couldn’t decide which drink was lowest in calories, and when she flipped her gaze back across the counter, Luke was sitting opposite him.
‘Peter … Peter …’ Peter was rummaging in his backpack and ignored her completely, but Luke looked up. Fair enough. This was a coffee shop and she worked here. There was no reason why she shouldn’t ask Luke herself. ‘Would you like something to drink?’
‘The hot chocolate looks nice.’ He got to his feet.
‘That’s okay. Stay there, I’ll bring it across.’ Katya made his drink carefully, creamy and rich with shaved chocolate sprinkled on top. When she set it in front of him he smiled appreciatively.
‘Thanks. What’s the damage?’
‘It’s on the house.’ Katya allowed herself a smile in his general direction. ‘I hear that the kittens are at home for visitors today.’
‘Yeah. Peter tells me he’s going to photograph them—’ He broke off as Peter passed his new camera across the table, and Luke turned it over in his hands to inspect it carefully. ‘Nice one, Peter. You’ll be able to take some great pictures with that.’
‘Aunt Katya bought it for my birthday,’ Peter piped up before Katya could stop him. ‘She’s not really my aunt, though.’
‘No?’ Luke gave the boy a conspiratorial smile.
‘No. She’s not my mother’s sister, she’s my mother’s cousin.’ Peter was counting on his fingers, the way he always did when he was trying to get a difficult detail exactly right. ‘But I call her Aunt.’
‘Fair enough.’ Luke nodded, clearly fighting to keep his face straight.
‘She’s going to help me look after the kitten.’ Peter was on a roll now, information leaking out of every new sentence. ‘Aunt Katya’s come to stay with us for a while.’
Luke already knew her name and now he knew where she lived and who her family were. It wasn’t Peter’s fault and Katya stopped herself from chiding him for it. She didn’t want to teach the boy to be fearful.
She reserved the right to be cautious herself, though. Katya turned, more quickly perhaps than she should, and bolted back behind the counter. Back to her own space, where she was just an anonymous face, who smiled, brewed coffee and took the customers’ money. She could feel Luke’s eyes on her and she ignored him. Olenka would be finished in the office soon, and Peter would not allow Luke and his mother to stay here a moment longer than necessary. He would be gone soon enough.
Katya followed Luke’s SUV as it bumped down the dirt track that led towards a high, brick-built barn standing commandingly on the brow of a hill, a little way back from the road. It was obviously in the midst of renovations and the SUV came to a halt on a levelled area of gravel with a couple of portable cabins at its edge, painted green in an attempt to blend in with the landscape.
Katya had wondered whether it would be forgivable to stay in the car but dismissed the idea. Olenka was embroiled in a crisis with one of her suppliers and Katya had promised her that she would help Peter choose his kitten. That undertaking could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be accomplished from the car so she followed Luke and Peter past the main door at the front to the back of the barn, where the downward slope of the hill revealed an entrance into another storey beneath the one she’d seen from the road. Inside, the large space had been partitioned and washed down, ready to be decorated.
‘Which one do you think, Katya?’ Luke had made sure that Peter knew how to handle the kittens and then left him to the task of carefully stroking each one of them, taking up a vantage point next to her in the corner of the room.
‘The little one with the black patch over his eye looks like a pirate.’ The tiny creature was the least outgoing of the brood, keeping to the large box that had been lined with cushions and an old rug.
‘Doesn’t he just. Unfortunately he really is blind in that eye.’
‘He was born that way?’
Luke grimaced, shaking his head. ‘Nope. They were abandoned and when someone found them and brought them here, he had an eye infection. We managed to save one eye, but the infection got to the optic nerve in the other and he’s completely blind on that side.’
‘He’ll be difficult to find a home for, then.’ The small creature was hurt and disorientated. Frightened by the world. She had more than an inkling of how that felt.
Luke was looking hard at her, and she avoided his gaze. ‘He has a home.’
‘Good. That’s good.’ Katya didn’t need to ask where. The kitten was already home and he could stay for as long as he wanted. ‘So you’re renovating this place?’ The mellow shades of the old bricks gave it a rustic charm and it seemed a shame to Katya that they’d soon be covered in plaster and paint.
‘Yeah. I brought the kittens down here because it stinks of paint upstairs.’ He opened a door in the partition wall, which revealed a small hallway with a staircase beyond. ‘Peter, you’ll be okay here if we go upstairs for a moment, won’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Clearly the only thing Peter wanted right now was to pet as many kittens at once as possible, and Katya and Luke were both bothersome interruptions to the matter in hand. Katya shrugged, grinning, and followed Luke, latching the door closed behind her to stop any of the kittens from escaping.
The staircase led to the ground-level entrance hall at the front of the building. There was a door to the right and a wide arch to the left, which he ushered her through. ‘What do you think?’
The evening sunlight shimmered across the exposed brickwork and roof beams, giving a feeling of even more space to the already large room. ‘It’s huge! And you’ve left the brickwork.’
‘It’s too good to hide. They’ve been repointed and I had a clear sealant put on there …’ Luke regarded the walls thoughtfully. ‘Turned out more expensive than just covering them up with plasterboard, but I think it’s worth it.’
‘Definitely. It looks fantastic.’ Katya walked to the middle of the space, turning full circle to see everything. ‘What are you going to use this for?’
‘This is the public part of the building. It’s for small exhibitions, lectures, children’s activities.’ He jerked his thumb towards the hallway. ‘The office space is through there, and my veterinary practice is going to be housed downstairs, where Peter is now.’
His enthusiasm for the project was obvious in every line of his face and those long, strong limbs. If it was at all possible, he seemed to stand taller here, his shoulders even squarer, proud of the vast amount of work that had already been done, and ready for the amount needed to complete the project. There had been a time when Katya had been that immersed in her work, and the sudden feeling of loss almost made her choke.
‘Would you like to see the office space?’ His voice was suddenly tender, as if he could see the crushing sadness that had just dumped itself on her shoulders. ‘It’s not finished yet, but …’
‘Yes.’ Katya gave him a bright, brittle smile. Maybe, one day, she’d find something she could put her heart into, where there was no danger of her messing up. Until then, she’d keep making coffee and smiling.
Luke wasn’t quite sure what he’d said or done to set the ghosts swirling in her eyes. Perhaps it would have been better to stay with Peter, but the temptation to show her the project that was so close to his heart had overwhelmed him, and now that he’d brought her up here, he couldn’t take her back downstairs again without at least showing her around quickly.
She didn’t seem in that much of a hurry, though. If anything, she lingered over the half-finished office space, inspecting the kitchen and tiny shower room and pacing the full length and breadth of the main area.
‘It’s a huge space.’
‘Yeah. I’m going to have demountable partitions made so it can be split up into thirds later on, if necessary. For now, I prefer open-plan.’ He was watching her carefully, trying to see the place through her eyes. The value that she put on it had suddenly become un-realistically important.
‘Yes. The views are beautiful, too.’ She was leaning on one of the windowsills, looking out at the rolling green countryside. ‘It’ll be better still once you get those prefabs down.’
For the first time Luke saw the two, low, prefabricated units that had been home sweet home for the last two years through someone else’s eyes. ‘They’ll be staying for a while.’
‘But surely once you get your new offices and surgery …?’
He shifted uncomfortably. ‘That’s where I live.’
She reddened slightly. ‘Oh! I thought …’ Suspicion flickered in her eyes and hardened suddenly. ‘I thought that the coffee shop was on your way to work.’
‘It is. My surgery’s still down in the village. I pick up my coffee on the way there from here.’ He shrugged. ‘In a few weeks’ time I’ll be giving up the lease on my practice premises and moving it over here. It’s all part of a five-year plan.’
‘I see.’ She thought for a moment then nodded, obviously finding his answer acceptable. ‘So when do you get somewhere permanent to live?’
‘That’s not at the top of my list of priorities right now. I bought this land two years ago, and I’ve ploughed every penny I have into getting this place set up. I’ve got planning permission for a house down by the road there, but it’ll have to wait.’ He indicated the spot where the house would eventually stand, shaded by trees and currently overrun with brambles. ‘In the meantime, I have no shortage of fresh blackberries.’
‘Pretty long-term project.’ She was craning to see the spot he had indicated, and then her gaze swept back to the temporary buildings. ‘Doesn’t it get cold in there in the winter?’
Cold, unwelcoming, utilitarian. He didn’t spend a lot of time there anyway, and up until this moment he had neither wanted nor needed anything else. The word ‘home’ had seemed overrated. ‘Depends how many pairs of socks I wear.’
She smiled. Really smiled. A smile like that could make anywhere a home. ‘This is an amazing place, Luke. It’ll be worth it when it’s finished.’
He wanted to hug her. No—that was hardly substantial or long-lasting enough. He wanted to hold her. But the last time he’d come too close to her, he’d seen fear in her eyes and she had shrunk back from him. If that happened again, it would shatter everything that Luke had ever believed about himself. A man that a woman feared was no kind of man at all. He turned quickly, cannoning into a workbench, and put his hand out to steady himself.
The blade sliced into his thumb like a hot knife through butter. In the moment before he felt any pain he jerked his hand away from the workman’s knife, which had been left out on the bench, and saw blood plume over his fingers.
‘Dammit.’ Some blood drops had skittered across to a gap in the plastic covering the newly laid flooring and were beginning to soak into the untreated wood. Luke held his injured hand over an empty paint can and bent to repair the damage.
He felt her hands on his, something wrapped around the gash and pressure at the base of his thumb. ‘Don’t worry about that.’
‘It’ll stain the wood.’ Luke hissed out a curse as the plastic slipped under his feet and more blood spilled onto the floor.
‘And you’re just making it worse.’ Her voice was calm but brooked no argument. ‘What’s done is done. Come here and we’ll sort that out later.’ She pulled him away, her green eyes flashing dangerously when he made to resist.
‘Hey, that’s my fabric sample …’ Somehow she’d managed to locate the only clean piece of fabric in the whole place and wrap it around his hand, in the space of time it had taken Luke to half assess the damage to the flooring.
‘You’re using that colour in here?’ She raised one eyebrow. Whatever hesitation she might have displayed in the past was gone now. She was direct, calm and unmistakably in charge. Capital letters, In Charge.
‘No. When I got it back here, I thought something a little lighter would be better.’
‘Good. You’ll not be needing it, then.’ She rolled her eyes as Luke tried to move her fingers to inspect his thumb. ‘Stop that and come here.’
She hustled him down the stairs and thrust him into a battered armchair that the workmen used during their coffee breaks. ‘Peter.’ Peter was immersed in trying to disentangle a set of claws from his pullover and Katya’s voice increased in intensity if not volume. ‘Peter, will you take my keys and go and get the red bag from the back of my car, please?’
Luke took his chance. When she wore her vulnerability like armour, he could do nothing else but treat her gently. But now it was as if her true self had emerged, fearless and capable. He was the one who was at a disadvantage now, and he could afford to flex his muscles a little with her.
‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. I need to see if I can get those bloodspots off the flooring before it stains.’
She dismissed him with a flip of her eyelashes and Luke grinned. ‘It’s already stained. You might be able to get it off with vinegar. If that doesn’t work, try a little bleach.’
‘I’d better go and see …’ He broke off as she wiggled the thumb of her free hand at him.
‘See this?’
‘Yep. I cut my hand, not cracked my skull.’
‘It’s an opposable thumb.’ She grinned at him. ‘You of all people should know how tricky things get without it.’
‘It’s a myth that we’re the only species with opposable thumbs, lots of animals have them. Gibbons, great apes. Some possums have two digits that oppose the other three. Giant pandas …’
‘So many for you to keep up with. Be a shame if you lost your grip.’ She lifted the corner of the fabric. ‘Seems to have stopped bleeding. Any loss of feeling in your thumb?’
‘No.’ Luke mimicked the movements of her thumb, circling and bending his own, and she nodded.
‘Okay. I’ll clean it and tape it up, but you need to get it looked at by a doctor if you experience any loss of sensation or movement or the wound becomes infected.’
‘Right.’ An idea was beginning to occur to Luke, and when she unzipped the red nylon bag that Peter had brought to her side, it began to gain form and substance. ‘Done this before?’
‘Once or twice.’ She began to clean the wound with alcohol wipes selected from the well-stocked first-aid kit.
‘I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing. I don’t want to trust my valuable opposable thumbs to just anyone.’
‘I think you’ll be okay.’ No explanation. Nothing to reassure him, but then he was getting used to Katya giving the absolute minimum of information and leaving him wondering. Luke didn’t need it, though, her attitude and obvious expertise were quite enough.
‘It looks horrible.’ Peter had been watching carefully.
‘It does now. But the miracle of the human body is that it can heal. It’ll be just fine in a few days. When we get home, I’ll show you exactly what to do if anyone you know cuts themselves like this.’ She took a moment to check that Peter was happy with her answer and gave a little satisfied nod. ‘Now, have you chosen which kitten you’d like to take home with us?’
‘That one.’ Peter pointed to an all-black kitten, the boldest of the crew, and the one that Luke had expected him to take to. ‘Or that one.’ A little white one, with blue eyes and undoubtedly the prettiest. ‘Or perhaps …’
Katya laughed. ‘Well, I guess you’ve got a bit more thinking to do.’ She paused for a moment to concentrate on taping Luke’s wound and then glanced across at Peter’s rucksack. ‘Perhaps one of them has chosen you.’
Peter caught his breath and ran over to his rucksack, where the tiny kitten with the black patch over its eye had managed to work the zip open and was trying to crawl inside. Carefully he disentangled its claws, and let it attach itself to his chest instead. ‘It’s licking my hand!’
‘Can you let that one go?’ She turned to Luke, seeming to know that the weakest of the litter, the one that he had needed to nurse back to health, was the one that he most wanted to find a good home for. ‘Olenka will make sure he’s looked after properly.’
‘I know.’ He nodded over towards Peter and his new best friend. ‘All he needs now is someone to care for him, and it seems he’s found that.’
Luke’s gaze found Katya’s and she gave him a nod and a shy smile. Now that she was out of the loose-fitting top and apron that she wore at the coffee shop, he could see how slim she was. Almost painfully so. He wouldn’t have credited her with the strength to propel him downstairs the way she had just now.
