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‘Where are you going?’ he asked, realising he was disappointed she was leaving.
He told himself it was because he needed her there as backup, that he didn’t want to be left alone with Sofia. What if she started crying again?
‘It’s lunch time,’ she said, smiling. ‘I think Sofia is getting hungry.’
Max checked his watch. So it was. He’d forgotten how much he’d loved these blocks as a boy, how many rainy days just like this one he’d spent in this room, building forts and skyscrapers and alien space stations.
He stood up and surveyed the creation they’d made together. Despite its flouncy, OTT design, he was quite proud of himself. And Ruby and Sofia, obviously. This really was a spectacular castle. He’d enjoyed himself, remembered just how much joy could be had from building and creating when the pressure wasn’t on. And he’d enjoyed the good-natured banter and arguments about which door should go where and just how ridiculously high Sleeping Beauty’s tower should be. Instead of feeling burdened and irritated, he felt...
It took him a while to name the sensation. Probably because it had been absent from his life for so long.
He felt relaxed.
‘That’s you relieved of duty for the morning, then,’ Ruby said and held out her hand for Sofia and asked her if she’d like lunch in Italian. Sofia nodded vigorously and began to tell Ruby exactly what she’d consent to eat. The list consisted of mainly chocolate and flavours of ice cream. Ruby just smiled and led her away and Max was left staring at Sofia’s castle.
The smile slowly slid from his face. The tiny rainbow-coloured castle might have turned out well, but he still had no idea how to add the same flair to his design for the institute. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and trudged back to the library. For some reason, he didn’t think turrets and a moat would be a hit with his clients.
* * *
Rather than the pearly mist of the day before, which had draped the whole city in soft, off-white tones, the next morning was bright and loud and colourful. Instead of setting the blocks up in the living room, Max led Ruby and Sofia outside to the dock.
A minute later they were zipping through canals heading for somewhere Max said was a prime spot for what he had in mind. Ruby stared at the ‘equipment’ he’d brought with them that sat in the bottom of the boat. She guessed they must be doing fishing of some kind, because there were a couple of buckets, some nets and a line of dark wire, wrapped round a plastic reel, with a weight and a hook at one end.
She looked down at the toddler in her arms. Didn’t fishing require patience and silence? She wasn’t sure how much of a good idea this was.
She didn’t have the heart to mention that to Max, though. All traces of the frown that had been permanently etched into his forehead since she’d first met him had disappeared, and he looked calmer, more relaxed, as he drove the little boat through narrow and wide canals, manoeuvring it expertly with only a slight twist of the wheel here and there.
They moored alongside a wide path beside a smallish canal. They were deep in the heart of the city, far enough off the beaten track to have left most of the tourists behind. Max hopped out of the boat and held out his hands for the tackle. Ruby passed him Sofia first, and reminded him to hold her hand tightly. She then picked the buckets and nets up and placed them on the edge of the stone path before clambering out herself.
‘What now?’ she asked, slightly breathlessly.
Max stared at the opaque green water. ‘Now we put our line down and see if we can catch any crabs.’
‘Crabs?’ That wasn’t what she’d been expecting at all.
He nodded. ‘Every Venetian child knows how to fish for crabs. At certain times of year, when young ones have shells that are still soft, they are considered a local delicacy.’
‘Are you sure Sofia’s going to—?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said frankly. ‘But why don’t we give it a try?’
There wasn’t much Ruby could say to that, so she stood by and lent a helping hand where she could, holding on to Sofia while Max carefully explained to her what they were going to be doing and started to put some bait on the hook. He didn’t let Sofia touch that bit of the line, but lowered it slowly into the dark water, allowing her to hold on to the plastic reel, but keeping his hands over hers.
They waited for a short while and then he slowly drew the line up again. Nothing. Ruby waited for Sofia to start fidgeting, but she seemed to be fascinated. She clumsily helped Max unreel the line again, frowning in concentration.
Ruby almost laughed looking at the pair of them. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before, but the family similarity smacked her right between the eyes. The same dark eyes, same cheekbones. They even pursed their lips in the same manner as they stared at the dark twine hanging in the water.
After a minute or so, Max helped Sofia wind the line up again, and this time a tiny green-and-brown mottled crab was hanging from the end. It was hanging on with grim determination, as if it had decided it was his dinner on that hook and he wasn’t giving it up for anybody.
Sofia squealed. Ruby shot forward, meaning to comfort her, but she realised when she saw the little girl’s eyes shining that the noise had been one of delight, not fear. In fact, Sofia was so pleased with her catch that she reached out to grab it as Max tried to gently shake it from the line into a bucket he’d filled with canal water.
Then came another squeal. This one high-pitched and urgent. It seemed Sofia had been a little too enthusiastic, and the crab had thought her a little too tempting, because it had clutched on to her with its free pincer. Ruby quickly darted in and shook it away, but Sofia’s eyes filled with tears and she looked at her hand in horror. ‘Naughty!’ she said vehemently. ‘Bad fish!’
Ruby scooped her up and gave her a hug, then bent to kiss the red patch on her finger. The skin wasn’t broken and she was probably more surprised and offended than in real pain. She pulled back and smiled at the little girl. ‘He just liked you so much he didn’t want to let go,’ she told her.
Sofia’s eyes grew wide. ‘Fish like me?’
Ruby nodded. ‘He’s a crab, not a fish, and, yes, I think he thought you looked very tasty.’
Sofia screwed up her face and chuckled heartily. ‘Silly fish,’ she said leaning over the bucket and peering at her catch. ‘No bite Sofia. Kiss.’ And she puckered up her lips and bent over farther. Ruby caught her quickly before she got any other ideas.
‘Why don’t we see if we can find him a friend?’ And she indicated where Max was waiting with the crabbing line.
Sofia grinned. ‘Want lots and lots friends.’
So that was what they did for the next forty-five minutes—found lots and lots of friends for the little green-and-brown crab. Ruby and Max worked as a team, keeping a firm hold on Sofia when she got over-excited and tried to lean too far over the water, and dealt with crabs and bait when needed. After the first handful of attempts they settled into an easy rhythm, giving them lulls in the action while the bait dangled in the water.
Ruby took an opportunity to look around at the buildings. She wished she had her sketchpad with her—and a free hand—so she could draw them. ‘There are so many wonderful shapes to be seen in this city,’ she said, sighing. ‘What’s that called?’ She showed Max the building on the far side of the canal, where the stonework around a window curved to a point at the top.
‘It’s an inflected arch,’ he said.
‘It makes me think of far-off lands and tales of Arabian nights.’
‘It’s interesting that you say that, because a lot of Venetian architecture has Eastern influences. Merchants travelled to the Byzantine Empire and traded with the Moors and they came back and combined those shapes with the European gothic architecture to create a unique style.’
She pointed to another building. ‘And what about those ones? They’re beautiful. At first it just looks like intricate shapes, but then you can see that the fussier patterns are actually made up of intersecting circles.’
He turned to look at her and didn’t say anything for a few moments. ‘You have a good eye for shapes.’
She shrugged and then bent down to help Sofia shake another crab off her line into the bucket. ‘Thank you. I like to draw sometimes. I suppose it’s just something I’ve picked up.’
Max took the line from his niece for a moment and worked out a few tangles before giving it back to her. ‘Is that what you’ve been doing when I’ve seen you scribbling away in that notebook of yours?’
She nodded. She hadn’t realised he’d noticed. ‘It’s just a hobby. Nothing impressive, really.’
‘You haven’t thought of making a career out of it?’ He gave her a dry smile. ‘Seeing as you’ve tried everything else?’
‘Ha, ha. Very funny. Go for the easy target, why not?’ Everyone else did.
‘Seriously, if you love it so much, why don’t you do something with it?’
She tipped her head to one side. ‘You mean, like you did?’
‘I suppose so.’
She looked down at the water below them, at the way the light bounced off the surface, moving constantly. ‘I don’t think I’d be able to do what you do. It’s very structured and disciplined. When I draw, I just go with the flow. I see something that interests me and I capture it. I’m not sure you can make a career out of that.’
‘You have plenty of discipline,’ he said. ‘Look at the way you are with Sofia. And sometimes you need that creative spark to liven all that structure up.’ He let out a long sigh and stared at the buildings across the water.
‘More fish! More fish!’ Sofia shouted, jumping up and down so hard she almost toppled into the canal. Ruby kept a firm hand on her as she shook the most recent catch into the bucket to join his friends. Sofia did it so vigorously that Ruby was sure the poor thing must have a concussion.
When Sofia was happily dangling the line in the canal again, Ruby looked at Max. ‘What’s up?’ she asked. ‘Was it something I said?’
He sighed again and crouched down to look at where Sofia was pointing at some silvery fish swimming near the surface of the water. ‘No. It’s something I said.’
She waited for him to stand again.
‘It’s a commission for the Institute of Fine Art,’ he told her. ‘I’ve worked for months on a preliminary design that I’m really proud of, but the board say they’re not sure about it.’
Ruby shook her head. She couldn’t believe that. The designs she’d glimpsed were amazing. They were totally Max, of course. No frills. No fuss. Nothing ostentatious. But there was an elegance to the simplicity. A pared-back beauty. ‘Why on earth not?’
He shrugged. ‘I think the actual phrase they used is that they want more “wow factor”.’
A screech from around knee level interrupted their conversation. Ruby hadn’t noticed it while she’d been talking to Max, but the bucket was now almost full and the crabs were scrambling over each other in an attempt to climb out.
Max knelt down next to his niece. ‘It’s time to put them back now,’ he said matter of factly and tipped the bucket over to let a stream of crustaceans, legs flailing, fall back into the salty lagoon water.
‘No!’ The exclamation was loud and impassioned and followed immediately by a stream of hot tears. ‘Want friend! Want friend!’
Ruby grabbed for the bucket and righted it. Only three crabs remained in the bottom.
Sofia stopped shouting and sniffed. ‘Want take fish home.’
Ruby crouched down beside her, put an arm round her shoulders and joined her in looking into the bucket. She might be wrong, but she thought one of the three crabs left might be the little one they’d caught first. ‘We can’t take them back to Grandma’s, sweetie. They belong here in the water. It’s their home. We just picked them out to say hello for a little bit.’
Sofia let out a juddering sigh.
‘Why don’t we put the last ones back one by one and say a nice goodbye to them?’
Sofia frowned. ‘Come back ʼmorrow say hello?’
Ruby smiled. ‘If you want.’
The little girl nodded. Ruby looked inside the bucket and then up at Max. ‘How do we...?’
Quick as anything his hand plunged into the bucket and he pulled out a crab. ‘There’s a trick to it. If you hold them at the back of the shell like this, they can’t reach to pinch you.’
He held the crab up for Sofia to see. She puckered up her lips. ‘Kiss fish?’ she asked.
Ruby’s heart just about melted.
‘Not too close,’ she said softly, imagining what Fina would say if her precious granddaughter came home with pincer holes in her lips. ‘Just blow a kiss.’
Sofia blinked then puffed heartily on the crab, who was so shocked it stopped waving its legs around angrily and went still. A deep rumble started in Max’s chest then worked its way up out of his mouth in the most infectious of chuckles. Ruby looked up at him, eyes laughing.
‘That’s a first,’ he said, smiling, and then he gently plopped the crab back into the canal.
They followed the same routine with the next crab, too, but when they came to the last one, Ruby asked, ‘Can I pick it up?’
Max nodded. He put the bucket down on the cobbles and took hold of Sofia while Ruby took off her watch and stuffed it in her jeans pocket. She inhaled, then dipped her hand into the cold water and aimed her forefinger and thumb for the parts of the shell the way she’d seen Max do it. It wriggled away a couple of times, but then she gripped more firmly and lifted the crab out of the water.
‘I did it!’ she exclaimed. ‘For a moment there I didn’t think I was— Ow!’
A searing pain shot through her finger, making her eyes water. She blinked the moisture away, slightly breathless, to find an angry little crab attached to her hand. She was sure it was scowling at her.
‘Ow, ow, ow...’ she yelped and started shaking her hand backwards and forwards. Anything to make it let go!
Eventually the force of the swinging must have got the crab, either that or it lost its grip on her wet hands, because it shot off, landed on the paving stones a couple of feet away then scuttled to the edge and flung itself into the canal.
‘Ow,’ Ruby said again, just to make her point, even though her attacker probably neither heard nor cared.
She looked down as her finger started to throb. That had definitely not been the original crab with the delicate little pincers that hadn’t punctured Sofia’s finger. This one had been mean and angry, and blood was now seeping from a hole in her skin.
‘Here, let me look,’ Max said and swiftly caught up her hand.
Ruby would have expected his examination to be practical and thorough, and it was, but she hadn’t expected it to be so gentle. She looked at him, head bowed over her hand as he ran his fingers over the area surrounding her war wound, and for some reason the sight of his dark lashes against his cheek made her feel a little breathless.
Sofia hugged her left leg. ‘No cry, Ruby. Fish no want let go.’
Despite the thudding of her pulse in her index finger, Ruby couldn’t help but smile. She looked up to find Max doing the same, but his face was very close. She blinked and sucked in a breath.
‘Kiss better!’ Sofia commanded.
Ruby would have been okay if she hadn’t realised he was holding his breath, too, that he seemed to be stuck looking at her the same way she was looking at him.
‘Go on, Uncle Max! Kiss better.’
Slowly Max raised her hand, not taking his eyes off her until the moment he bent his head and softly pressed his lips to where Ruby’s finger was throbbing. The sensation spread out from that finger, through the rest of her body, until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Max seemed to be similarly affected, because even though he’d lowered her hand again he still held it between his warm fingers.
Sofia tugged Ruby’s trouser leg, seeking a response she hadn’t yet got. ‘Him no want let go.’
Ruby swallowed. ‘I know, sweetheart.’ And as she spoke the words she slid her hand out of Max’s and looked away to where the crab had plopped into the water.
‘I think it’ll be fine,’ he mumbled, then busied himself collecting up the fishing equipment and putting it back in the boat.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u44d6f22c-62d1-5fe1-a7f7-6e203a18167f)
MAX SPENT THE REST of the afternoon in the library with the door shut. He tinkered with his plans for the institute until his eyes were gritty and his brain was spinning. It didn’t help that every time he wasn’t 100 per cent immersed in what he was doing he kept having strange flashbacks.
He kept seeing Ruby’s slightly swollen and bleeding finger. Inevitably that led to memories of looking up into her eyes. He hadn’t noticed their colour before. Warm hazel. Not green. Not brown. But a unique pairing of the two that was slightly hypnotic. He hadn’t been able to look away, hadn’t been able to let go. And then he’d gone and kissed her finger. What had all that been about?
Okay, he knew exactly what that had been about. He might not have been in the mood to date since his father’s death, finding himself drawn to his own company, filling his hours with work, but he was no stranger to desire.
He stopped tweaking a design for a staircase he had up on his computer screen and deleted all the last fifteen changes he’d made. It had been better before. Now it was more boring, if that was even possible. He’d seen a hundred different staircases like it in a hundred different buildings.
He pushed back from the desk, stood up, began to pace.
He needed something different. Something unique.
