‘My pleasure.’ Phoenix raised her head as he got to his feet, and he bent stiffly to stroke her head. ‘Maybe you can persuade Phoenix to let you film her...’
Maybe. Caro picked up the camera, but as Drew walked out of the room, it wasn’t Phoenix that she started to film. It was him.
Cheese on toast apparently took a little longer than two minutes to half-melt the cheese under the grill, and when Drew called her out of her workshop, the cutlery laid out on the breakfast bar was an unequivocal hint that she wouldn’t be eating at her desk. But it was actually worth it. The bread was crispy and there was ham underneath a golden layer of toasted cheese. And there was coffee as well, even if the way Drew made it didn’t take much of the edge off her tiredness.
‘She’s not having cheese for lunch?’ Phoenix had scampered through from the workshop with her at the sound of Drew’s voice, and was currently demolishing the contents of a feeding bowl on the floor.
‘No, cheese is a treat. She has a properly balanced formula, four times a day.’
‘Right.’ Caro eyed the fruit bowl that Drew had placed next to them. Apparently, he was aiming for a properly balanced formula for her as well. She’d be willing to bet that if given the chance he’d be an eat-your-vegetables freak.
Although the results of vegetable freakery bore thinking about. With the obvious exclusion of his leg, he looked outrageously outdoorsy, well rested and healthy. His strength might well be the kind to impress a girl indoors too.
‘Have some more.’ Drew was still on his first slice of ham and cheese, presumably chewing each mouthful the prescribed number of times. Caro hadn’t been able to stop herself from wolfing her two slices down and wishing that there was more. Drew tipped his second slice onto her plate.
‘No...um...that’s okay. Aren’t you hungry?’
‘I had breakfast.’ Somehow he managed to avoid making that sound like an accusation.
‘In that case...’ She picked up the slice. ‘This is really good. I’m a bit tired, and I get hungry when I’m tired.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. Your body’s looking for a quick uptick in energy. High-calorie foods will fool it into thinking it has that for a while.’
Okay. He was beginning to sound like her mother. Caro could ignore that for the time being, since he didn’t look anything like anyone’s mother. She wondered whether pheromones were fooling her body into thinking she wasn’t tired as well.
‘I get an idea and I run with it. That’s the way it works.’
He nodded, picking up an orange from the fruit bowl. ‘Want some?’
Peel me an orange. Not quite so obviously seductive as Peel me a grape, but it still allowed her to appreciate the delicate precision of his strong hands.
‘Yes. Thanks.’
He deftly stripped the peel from the orange segments, putting more than half on her plate. Was there anything that Drew Trevelyan did that didn’t bear a closer look?
‘You broke your femur. Along with your patella?’ She could see through all the things he didn’t say, just as clearly as he seemed to see through her.
Drew stared at her, suddenly tense. ‘What?’
‘I caught you on film. I was going to try filming Phoenix’s movements while you made lunch.’ Suddenly this felt like an intrusion rather than a reply to his fixation with her diet and how much she slept. Maybe she should have asked first.
‘And you got that just from my gait? That software’s pretty good, then.’
‘It doesn’t catch everything. But, yeah, it’s pretty good at picking up deviations from the norm.’ She shouldn’t have done this. ‘Sorry. Sometimes I forget that everything isn’t an exercise in logistics.’
‘Yeah. This is a lot more personal.’ He shot her a warning look.
‘Like wanting to know when I last slept?’
For a moment she thought he was going to take offence. Then suddenly he laughed. It was a nice laugh that emphasised a with instead of an at, and Caro couldn’t help smiling.
‘Touché. It’s just like that. And I am impressed with the logistics, I think they could be very useful.’ He reached for the jug of coffee and refreshed both of their mugs. ‘I was in a car accident.’
‘Lucas told me. He didn’t say that you had trouble walking, I would have come down to the veterinary centre for this meeting.’
Drew shook his head. ‘Then I would have missed the delights of your workshop.’
It sounded like a compliment, and Caro decided to take it as one. ‘Thanks. I like it too. A bit too much sometimes...’