What’s meant for you won’t pass you by.
What to think...? Fate seemed to have thrown Theo across her path again, but what did it mean? Perhaps Lotte was right: she ought to be scorning the stars; after all, they hadn’t shone too kindly on her so far. Maybe it was time to sweep away the stardust along with all her fanciful notions of a grand destiny. Stardust was like any other dust—blinding if it got into your eyes. This time, she’d keep her head, wouldn’t give her heart away until she knew exactly who she was giving it to. Theo Molenaar might be her one in a million, but she had no intention of falling for him on the strength of odds alone.
He looked up, a trace of amusement in his eyes. ‘You sure have a thing for house plants.’
He was standing exactly where she’d left him, in the centre of the red Persian rug which covered most of the cabin floor. He was still holding his jacket. Subtle! He was putting put the ball in her court. Staying in, going out: it was to be her decision. If only she knew what to do. She folded her arms and looked around, seeing what he was seeing: a tall variegated fig bursting out of one corner; an assortment of ferns dotted about; a peace lily sharing a low table with a baby yucca; a glossy cheese plant on the floor in another corner; and her latest acquisition—a collection of miniature succulents lined up on a narrow shelf over the sofa.
She met his gaze, gave a little shrug. ‘They’re a sort of legacy.’
‘A legacy?’
‘The barge belonged to my grandparents.’ The full beam of his attention was messing with her pulse, making it hard to concentrate. She spied her indoor watering can on a shelf, picked it up and started trickling water around the base of a frothy maidenhair fern. ‘My grandparents had a lot of plants. Some of these are the descendants...’ she moved on to a delicate asparagus fern ‘...and I’ve added a fair few of my own since I moved in, so now I’ve got Kew Gardens!’ She moistened her lips, braving his gaze again. ‘Is it a bit much?’
He smiled. ‘Not at all. You must have very green fingers!’ He leaned over the sofa, surveying the row of succulents. ‘I’ve never owned a plant. I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
‘Aloe vera’s a good one to start with.’ She shook the last drops out of the watering can. ‘It’s great to keep in the kitchen in case you burn yourself. You just snap off a bit of leaf and squeeze the juice onto the burn. It’s magic!’
His eyes caught hers. ‘Cool!’
She felt her lips parting slightly and quickly clamped them shut. She held up the watering can. ‘I need a refill.’
In the galley, she turned on the tap. So much for keeping her head. The salon felt far too small with Theo in it, charging the air with his smile, and that gaze which made her forget how to breathe. She needed to wrestle back control, put herself firmly in the driving seat. She turned off the tap and leaned backwards by degrees so she could peek at him through the doorway. He was flicking through a book on house plants, jacket over his arm, a little frown on his face. There was something endearing about the way he was taking an interest, something about him which made her want to...
His eyes snapped up.
She swallowed a little gasp. ‘How about some coffee?’
He grinned. ‘I’d love some.’
That settled the going-out-staying-in conundrum!
When she went back through with the coffee, he was sitting at one end of the sofa with his legs stretched out over the rug, the plant book on his knee. He looked at home and for some reason that warmed her, made her want to be close to him, to find out about him.
She handed him a cup then settled herself at the other end of the sofa. She sipped her coffee, savouring its dark richness. ‘So, if I promise never to write about it, will you tell me why you and Madelon are both so involved with the refuge?’
The planes of his face seemed to sharpen suddenly. A trick of the light, perhaps...
He sipped his coffee slowly, then met her eye. ‘We’re involved because we’ve been there.’ A tiny quiver touched the corners of his mouth. ‘We’ve got the tee shirt.’
It’s the last thing she was expecting, and it took a moment for the words to sink in. ‘You mean...?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘My father was a drunk and a brute. He liked to beat my mother when the mood took him.’
Telling her about his father had cost him something. She could see it in his eyes, in the firm, grim set of his mouth. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s not for you to be sorry. It’s in the past.’ He took another sip from his cup, swallowing slowly. ‘When I moved to Amsterdam and heard about the charity, I had to get involved, and then Madelon came on board too. I became a trustee because I wanted to help. Women and children in that situation need support; they need an escape route. Being trapped...being so powerless...is...’ His gaze shifted to the floor. He seemed to lose himself in his thoughts for a moment and then he looked up. ‘How about you? You said you volunteered?’
He was deflecting. It was understandable, she supposed, given that they hardly knew each other, but there was clearly more to his story than he was telling her. What had he and Madelon been through? What had they seen and heard? Unimaginable. She felt a sudden urge to put her arms around him, but instead she wrapped
