Well, he was certainly able to obey simple commands, she thought with grim amusement as he stood like a statue while she bustled around him with a dustpan and brush, pushing Zorro firmly away and sweeping up the glass and soil, mopping up the remains of the water with an old towel.
‘I didn’t know where you were,’ he murmured as if it explained the mayhem, and perhaps it did. His mind had obviously fixed on Nina as the one constant in a dismayingly unfamiliar world. He must have woken in the dark and reached out for the reassurance of her presence, only to find that it wasn’t there. She guessed from the husk of resentment in his voice that he didn’t like being reliant on a stranger.
‘I was only out in the living room,’ Nina said as she put a fresh glass of water into his hand. ‘Do you know where you are?’
‘With you,’ he said, giving her a look that was simultaneously sly and triumphant.
‘No, I mean this place?’
He rubbed his head. ‘That doctor with the needle—he told me about a bird—no, an island—a little island near Auckland. But the bird was important, too….’ He trailed off, and Nina supplied the detail that had eluded him.
‘Shearwater Island.’ At least he still vaguely remembered Dave amongst the jumble of half-finished thoughts.
‘Shearwater Island,’ he repeated in a dutiful monotone that gave her no confidence that it would stick in his mind.
He raised the glass to his dry lips and drank greedily, the strong column of his throat rippling, drawing Nina’s fascinated gaze down to the hollow just above his collarbone where she could see the steady beat of his pulse.
Karl’s faded, V-necked Auckland University sweatshirt was loose on Ryan’s spare frame, sliding off one shoulder, and the soft, tan corduroy trousers were baggy in the legs and a few inches too short, but instead of making him look comical, the sloppy clothes seemed only to accentuate his air of natural arrogance. He was a man who was comfortable in his own skin, whatever he wore over it.
At first, however, he had baulked at putting on someone else’s clothes.
‘Whose are they?’ he had demanded, glaring at them in suspicion when she had produced the shirt and pants from the chest of drawers in the corner of the room.
Granted, they were a bit shabby and no match for the designer labels on his own clothes, which had raised her eyebrows when she had inspected the washing instructions prior to throwing them into her machine, but there was no need for him to look as if he thought they might be crawling with vermin.
‘They’re perfectly clean,’ she told him, shaking them out to prove it. ‘And the man they belong to won’t mind your borrowing them.’
‘Who is he? Your boyfriend?’ His emphasis made it sound like a sneer. ‘You expect me to wear your lover’s cast-offs?’
Nina tossed the clothes onto the bedspread and put her hands on her hips, annoyed that he seemed to take it for granted that she didn’t have a husband. Although, she supposed, he could have noticed her lack of a wedding ring….
‘He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my foster-brother. And I’m only offering them to you because Dr Freeman said you needed to keep warm—’
‘Your brother?’ he interrupted in tones of harsh incredulity. His olive skin darkened, the flush of colour in his cheeks a startling contrast to their previous pallor.
The angry disbelief in his expression made Nina flush in turn. Now she was really getting annoyed. Did he think she was lying in order to hide the fact she had a lover? Was that why he flashed her that searing look of shocked fury? She never would have guessed him for a prude. No, it was more likely that he had mixed her up in his confused mind with somebody else.
She sighed. It would be best to keep her explanations simple and to the point.
‘My foster-brother, Karl. He and I were brought up by my maternal grandparents. He works for a surfboard manufacturer in North Auckland now, but every so often he comes over to spend the weekend. And these are not cast-offs. He simply forgot to take them with him the last time he stayed. I happen to have bought that sweatshirt for him when he was at university—unfortunately, he majored in surfing rather than graduating with a degree!’
The feeble joke hadn’t raised a smile, but Ryan’s hostility had vanished as quickly as it appeared, and he had grudgingly accepted the proffered clothes.
Now, having drained the glass, he held it out to her, and as she took it, their fingertips brushed. ‘My God, you’re freezing!’ she exclaimed in dismay, putting the glass down and cupping his chilled hands with hers. ‘Look, why don’t you get back into bed and I’ll get you a hot-water bottle.’
She fetched him two, one for his cold feet and one to clutch to his chest, but they didn’t seem to be of any immediate benefit. He lay hunched and shivering under the covers as she piled on more blankets from the other spare room until she was afraid he would be smothered under the weight.
Zorro had padded back to his uneven square of sheepskin and, after a ritual few turns, settled down with a snuffling sigh of contentment. Nina envied him his easy slide into canine oblivion. She had replaced the fused bulb in the bedside light, but when she bent to switch it off, Ryan jerked his head urgently off the pillow.
‘No, leave the light on!’
‘Oh, okay…’ she acquiesced with an understanding smile. She turned back towards the door and he stiffened again.
‘What are you doing—don’t go!’ He half rose on one elbow, pushing back the heap of blankets.
‘I won’t be far away—’
‘Nina, no!’ He was getting out of bed again, and when she hastily pushed him back, he captured her wrist in his cold fingers. ‘Stay here with me!’
His pale eyes burned with such a desperate intensity that she quickly sought to ease his mind. ‘All right, all right—calm down. I’ll stay…I promise.’
He seemed to find her solemn vow anything but reassuring. ‘You promise?’ he echoed with an ironic twist to his mouth that hinted at a deeply cynical mistrust of human nature.
She wished she knew what was going through his head. ‘Yes.’ She looked around the sparsely furnished room. ‘Just let me get something to sit on—’
‘There’s plenty of room here….’ He used his free hand to pull back the bedclothes as he scooted back in the bed, tugging her forward until her knees hit the edge of the mattress.
Nina stared wide-eyed at the inviting stretch of sheet, aware that she wasn’t as shocked as she should be at the idea of sharing a bed with him. She had donned some socks, but she could still feel the chill striking up from the floorboards. Suddenly, she was hit by a wave of exhaustion. She had been up since seven the previous morning and the short nap in the chair only seemed to have increased the heavy lethargy dragging at her limbs. She half-heartedly tried to tuck the blankets back over his shivering body. ‘Oh, I don’t think so….’
Another coaxing tug on her wrist was accompanied by a persuasive whisper of pain. ‘Please, I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I can’t bear to be alone right now.’
The ache in his voice resonated in her empty heart, and without allowing herself to think any more about the wisdom of what she was doing, Nina sank onto the bed, sliding her strangely weighted legs down under the covers and resting her weary head on the cool pillow.
She lay on her side facing the room, as close to the edge of the bed as possible, but the dip in the soft mattress caused by the weight of the body behind her inevitably caused her to tip back towards the middle of the bed.
‘Thank you…’ he sighed, his warm breath tickling the back of her ear. His arm