‘Would you like a packed lunch tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘Is that part of the service?’
‘When we have mountain walkers staying with us—yes. We charge for the ingredients but not for the preparation. If you have a flask, we’ll fill it with coffee or tea. What would you like in your bread? Jamón serrano…cold chicken…sheep’s cheese and lettuce…chorizo?’
‘Jamón serrano would be excellent. I’d like to leave about nine, if that’s convenient? What time is breakfast?’
Cally stood up. ‘Most people have it between eight and nine. But you can have it as soon as I get back from the baker’s at half-past seven, if you like.’
‘Let’s say quarter to eight.’
‘Okay…goodnight.’
As she moved towards the doorway, he stepped ahead of her and swept the curtain aside.
‘Thank you.’ She had to pass very close to him to go through the opening. As she did so, she found herself wondering what she would do if he put his hand on her waist and turned her to face him.
But he only said, ‘Buenas noches.’
As the curtain fell into place behind her, Nicolás wondered what she would have done if he had obeyed his impulse to kiss her goodnight.
All the time they had been talking, he had been conscious that under her modest dressing gown and long filmy nightgown she had been naked. For some reason, although there was nothing overtly sexy about her, in her presence he was always aware of how soft she would feel under his hands. While he had been stroking the cat, a part of his mind had been thinking about stroking Cally.
Looking over the wall, he saw that the cat had its nose close to the edge of a Roman tile and was quivering with frustration because it couldn’t reach whatever was lurking under the tile.
I know the feeling, amigo, thought Nicolás. Leaving the cat to its fruitless vigil, he left the terrace and, switching on the landing light, selected a couple of books he had noticed earlier to distract him from thinking about Douglas Haig’s tempting daughter.
When, next morning, Cally went downstairs, the first thing she did was to fill the kettle with font water that had also been filtered to remove some of the cal that quickly furred up the kettle. Her mother was always complaining about the hardness of the local water and the damage it did to her skin.
A little later she was walking back from the village bakery when to her surprise Nicolás came out of a sidestreet leading towards the vineyards. He was wearing a yellow singlet and black shorts and had obviously been for a run. He wasn’t out of breath but his skin was glistening with sweat and his black hair was damp, showing a tendency to curl at the nape of his neck.
‘How far have you run?’ she asked, as he fell into step beside her.
‘About five or six kilometres. The lanes through the vineyards are perfect…hardly any traffic.’
‘I know. I use them for walking. Do you run every day?’
‘Most days.’ He used his forearm to wipe some trickles from his forehead.
He was not, she noticed, as hairy as many Spaniards. Some women liked hairy men but her preference was for a smooth chest and only a light dusting of hairs on a man’s arms and legs. Enough to be unmistakably masculine but not reminiscent of a gorilla.
She caught herself thinking that Nicolás had exactly the right amount of body hair, at least as far as she could see. The thought was followed by another: what the hell am I doing appraising his body like this?
She was not the only one. A couple of young village women, on their way to the bakery, eyed him with interest as they exchanged good mornings with Cally. Knowing how their minds worked, she guessed that they would be wondering if he was one of the casa rural’s visitors, or someone she had in tow.
At the house, he pushed open the door for her, but did not follow her in. ‘I need to do some cool-down exercises. I won’t be long.’
Carrying the bread to the kitchen, Cally wondered if the woman across the street who kept a close eye on the comings and goings from their house was getting an eyeful of the tall stranger stretching various areas of his muscular anatomy. He must be in great physical shape to be able to run that distance and get back looking as if he could do it again if necessary. Occasionally she met holiday-makers jogging among the vineyards and looking fit to collapse.
The next time she saw him he had showered and changed into clean clothes. He had brought down a flask to be filled.
‘The notice on the back of the bedroom door says you have laundry facilities? What does that mean?’ he asked.
‘If you leave whatever you want washed in the big plastic bag that you’ll find in the wardrobe, it’ll be collected when your room is done and ready to wear by tonight.’
‘That’s better than five-star hotels. They often take twenty-four hours to turn around personal laundry.’
‘We aim to please,’ said Cally, smiling. ‘Would you like a cooked breakfast? I can do you a French omelette, or bacon with a fried egg and mushrooms, or a piece of grilled haddock with tomatoes.’
‘Is an omelette with tomatoes and mushrooms possible?’
‘Certainly. But I won’t cook it till you’ve finished your selection from the breakfast buffet. You’ll find it round the corner. I take it you’d like coffee to drink?’
‘Yes, but descafeinado rather than the real stuff, please.’
He didn’t drink much. He didn’t kick-start his day with strong shots of caffeine like many of the people she knew in London. What were his vices? she wondered. Most people had some.
When she brought him a cup of coffee, he had already drunk a tumbler of orange juice from the jug on the buffet and was eating a bowl of muesli.
‘Is it today you’re doing the Barranc de L’Infern?’ she asked.
‘Tomorrow. Will the people I met last night still be here this evening?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll start your omelette.’
When she brought it to him, he said, ‘Don’t go away. Stay and talk to me. Apart from surfing the Web, how else do you amuse yourself?’
‘There’s no shortage of things to do. There are cinemas not far away, and art exhibitions and reading groups. Also, once you get on the autopista, it’s not much more than an hour to Alicante and Valencia, both of them very lively cities.’
‘I know. I’ve been to them. Do you go there often?’
‘Fairly often.’
This was true. When flying to and from Spain, as she did several times a year, she used both cities’ airports. She liked Valencia’s airport best. It was quieter, used mainly by Spanish business people rather than the package holiday tourists who poured into Alicante, the gateway to such popular resorts as Benidorm and Torrevieja.
‘You haven’t explained how you found us,’ she reminded him.
‘On the Web. I was looking for sites about the rock-climbs in this area and found a site belonging to two professional climbers. There was a link to another site with a list of all the casas rurales. Yours seemed the most convenient for the things I wanted to do. Do you get many enquiries via your webpage?’
‘Not at first, but now more and more people are using the Web for looking for and booking holidays. I picked up an email from a prospective visitor this morning. He wanted to know if we do vegetarian meals.’ Remembering that Nicolás’s reservation had been made by telephone, she said, ‘You had someone telephone us rather than booking by email. Why was that?’
He