He nodded, as if he’d already come to that conclusion himself. Caro wanted very badly to know what had happened to him but didn’t dare ask.
‘The brakes on my car failed. I was on a coast road, and I managed to avoid plunging off a cliff and ended up in a headlong collision with a tree.’
Caro took a gulp of her coffee. She was too tired to filter her reactions through the fine mesh of what was appropriate, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. ‘It sounds horrible.’
‘Yes, it was.’ His hand shook a little, and he glared at it as if it had betrayed him. ‘I broke my femur, and my patella’s been partially replaced.’
‘It must hurt you still.’
‘Yes, it does. You’re very direct.’ Drew smiled suddenly, as if that wasn’t a problem.
‘Sorry. I don’t mean to pry.’
He shrugged. ‘That’s okay. I sometimes wish that everyone would be a bit less tactful.’
So she didn’t have any tact? If that was true, she’d have already made many more personal enquiries about his body, somewhere along the lines of whether it was actually as beautiful as it seemed.
‘If we’re going to be having business meetings, then it would be easier if you told me what you can and can’t manage. Then I wouldn’t have to guess.’
He seemed to like that approach. Drew reached across to the canvas bag he’d brought with him and took a blister pack from one of the small pockets at the front.
‘I have prescription painkillers, but I’m scaling them down. I only take them when I need them.’
‘Like now?’ The blister pack had two tablets missing.
‘Yeah. I’m still struggling a little with climbing steps.’
‘You might have said. We could have made other arrangements...’ Caro wrapped her thick cardigan around her, as if the warmth might be of some comfort to the guilty feeling of letting Drew come all the way up here.
‘I’m a little tired of being the one that everyone else has to make their arrangements around.’ There was a trace of annoyance in his voice.
‘Okay, so if I promise not to mention sitting down or taking things easy, will you promise to mention if things really are getting too much for you?’
Drew smiled suddenly. ‘That sounds like an excellent work arrangement.’
Did he think that was all it was? Caro suspected that Drew was made for play as well as work, but she’d already experimented with mixing work and pleasure, and the results had been conclusive. Big, bad mistake.
But she was really too tired to think about it. Her back and legs were aching from fatigue and she wanted to sit down on the sofa. Walking across the room seemed like a gargantuan effort, but it would be worth it just to sink into the cushions for a few minutes...
* * *
Someone was calling her name. Caro was wide awake before she even realised she’d been asleep, sitting up before she’d known that she was lying down on the sofa. Maybe he hadn’t noticed that she’d dropped off. Caro hoped she hadn’t given the game away by snoring.
Only... The throw from her workshop was spread over her legs. Her slippers were lined up neatly on the floor. And she was sure that she felt a pillow crease on her cheek. She decided to brazen it out.
‘So...what do you think?’ That was always a good holding question. People were always happy to expound for ages on what they thought and it was a good opportunity to catch up if her mind had wandered.
Drew grinned. ‘I think your ideas are great. I’ve just been reading about them.’ He indicated her design specification, which lay open on the coffee table. He eithe
r read at the speed of lightning, or her eyes had been closed for more than five minutes.
Caro puffed out a breath, bowing to the inevitable. ‘I’ve been asleep, haven’t I?’ She craned around so that she could see the kitchen clock, focussing blearily on it. Three o’clock?
He nodded, getting to his feet. Clearly he’d been resting too, because his movements were more fluid than they had been.
‘I’m so sorry...’
Drew shrugged, as if it was just one of those things. ‘You were very tired. I would have let you sleep longer, but the tide’s on its way out again, and I should be making a move soon.’