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The return trip to Aunt Mary’s was fifty shades of uncomfortable. Noah’s stoic silence bordered on dead man driving—and again, at the approximate speed that Tilly’s eighty-seven-year-old nana drove. Tilly, for once, couldn’t think of a conversational icebreaker to save her life. Mainly because her brain kept gnawing over Betsy Taylor’s words.

If she’s anything like her aunt she can give as good as she gets.

She white-knuckled the towel edge and stared out the windshield at Oban’s lights that were just coming on. Noah drove past the beautiful mural painted on the side of a concrete block building—Stewart Island Motors according to the sign. Was she anything like Mary? Because she really didn’t know her great-aunt, other than in that fuzzy sort of distant-relative way garnered from bits and pieces she’d heard over the years from her parents. Seeing in Betsy’s eyes just how much she’d loved Mary made guilt trickle icily through Tilly’s veins.

Outsider. Interloper. She didn’t belong there.

Her gaze skipped over the darkened grocery store and the pretty gift shop-gallery. She glanced in the side mirror at the lit-up windows of Due South and the people highlighted inside the pub, which overlooked Halfmoon Bay. A couple walking hand in hand along the foreshore stepped off the sidewalk and crossed the road. Maybe a romantic dinner for two? Perhaps the man had an engagement ring in the pocket of his leather jacket with a plan to ask the bar staff to slip it into a glass of bubbles for the woman of his dreams.

And…her writer’s brain was off and running.

She barely noticed when Noah puttered up the slight hill to the B&B, then performed a smooth three-point turn to park outside the darkened house. Tilly made the return trip from Tillytown, as her mum was fond of calling her daydreaming, with a start. 

“Oh,” she said. “We’re here.” 

Noah left the engine running and dug into the center console where he’d dropped the orca key chain. “I’ll wait and make sure you can get in okay.” He dangled the key chain, the green glow from the dashboard catching sparks off the single silver key. “Here.”

She held out her hand and he let the key chain fall into her palm.

“You might want to get an extra one cut tomorrow. Just in case.”

“Thanks.” She closed her fingers over the keys and unclipped her seat belt. “And thanks for your help.”

“All part of the job.”

Her gaze flicked up to his profile as the seat belt whizzed back into place. Strong jaw, mouth firm but not entirely relaxed, with just a hint of a smile captured in the sensual curve of his lips. Obviously she’d been drinking the Tillytown Kool-Aid laced with rampant female hormones. There was nothing sensual and sexy about the way he continued to examine the dashboard, as if he’d already forgotten she was in his car.

Pretty much naked under her towel and his fleece.

Speaking of which. “Um, I’ll drop your sweatshirt off to you tomorrow, shall I?”

“No rush,” he said. “Just leave it on the front porch if you walk by.”

“Not worried someone will steal it?” She cracked open the door and slithered out. She turned back in time to catch a smile ghosting his lips—a real smile.

“Nothing that exciting happens on Stewart Island,” he said. “Usually, anyway.” He nodded in dismissal. “Have a good night.”

“You, too.” She slammed the door and hurried up to Southern Seas’ front entrance.

Unlocking the door, she shoved it open, then lifted a hand in a cheery it’s all good wave before disappearing inside. Noah beeped the horn once and the vehicle rumbled away from the curb. She shut the front door and leaned against it, willing her racing pulse to return to normal. Once she was certain she could stand without her knees inexplicably shaking, she hurried down the hallway, switching on lights. 

First things first, put on some damn clothes. She rummaged through her suitcase and settled for jeans and a light woolen sweater. The temperature had dropped since she’d first stepped outside. Brushing her hair—which to her dismay now looked as if kākā had been building a nest in it—she wandered into the kitchen. Her dinner was still strewn over the floor, and thanks to being locked out, the window had remained open and the little buggers had come back to finish the job. 

Her stomach growled as she edged around the worst of the mess and picked up the remaining chunk of sourdough bread.

“Five-second rule?” she muttered, then dropped it again. Ugh. Not a chance.

She crossed to the open windows and hauled them shut. Tomorrow was soon enough to sort out the mess. Right then she needed some fuel, and she was willing to hand over the dress she’d paid a small fortune for and impulsively packed in her suitcase in exchange for Thai or Malaysian takeout delivered to her door.

Somehow she didn’t think the odds were in her favor of Asian cuisine being sold on Stewart Island, let alone delivery. Which left gnawing on bird-pecked bread or walking down to Due South for dinner since she remembered the grocery store was closed.

A night out on the town it was. When in Rome, and all that.

She slipped on some boots, ones with the lowest heels she owned because she wasn’t clueless enough to wear stilettos in the wilds of the Deep South. Then, with a glance at Noah’s sweater, she picked it up. Might as well drop it off sooner rather than later, because she hadn’t decided whether or not she wanted to make a special trip there tomorrow.

It would be an excuse to see him, though she didn’t know yet if she wanted to see him. Okay, that was a lie. She did want to see him. Everything about the man poked her curiosity button. On a professional level only.

Not.

That much she could be honest with herself about.

This time, she made sure she had the spare key in her pocket before she left Aunt Mary’s house. Windows fastened, back door locked, front door locked behind her. Old habits died hard.

Even in the middle of nowhere you couldn’t take the city out of the city girl.

Tilly strode down the garden path, checked herself once she reached the sidewalk, and slowed to an easy stroll—something she wasn’t used to. In Auckland she had one speed: running late for a meeting, get out of my way fast. Here, she should at least attempt to stop and smell the roses. Or, in this case, sniff the briny smell of the sea wafting up the hill toward her and the sound of nocturnal birds, whose names she had no idea of, making weird birdy sounds from the dense bush encroaching on her aunt’s property.

Above the silhouetted trees, the stars were stark and uncompromising reminders that she was a long, long way away from the city lights. Give her a few days and she’d write poetry about how green and lush and unspoiled Stewart Island was. Actually, that was more up her dad’s alley. He wrote description so poignant people said only a hardened critic wouldn’t weep tears of sheer joy over his prose.

She sucked in a deep breath of sea air, hoping it’d dislodge the hard, tearful lump pushing her heart into her throat. Her dad would’ve done the stars justice. Tilly, on the other hand, was more likely to write about an alien species falling out of that beautiful night sky and wreaking havoc on society.

Speaking of aliens…

She drew alongside Noah’s house and spotted his living room lights on. The man was alien to most males she came in contact with. It wasn’t that he was so obviously an introvert—she’d learned to spot them at parties, hiding in the corner of the room, checking their watches to see when they could leave without being rude—but that she couldn’t help think Noah wore a mask to hide his alienness from the world. And she was dying to discover what secrets hid behind that mask.

That insatiable curiosity overrode any concern she had about bugging him twice in one day. Switching to adorably cute neighbor from a 1960s sitcom mode, even though she wasn’t much of an actress, she marched up to his front door and knocked.

Fifteen long seconds later the door opened. Gone was the straitlaced, strictly by the rulebook cop. In his place was a big, romance cover model of a man. Noah wore jeans and a long-sleeved Henley that molded to his chest—a romance-cover-model-worthy chest, she’d bet—that hadn’t been obvious under his uniform. The New Zealand Police should adopt blue jeans and tight-fitting Henley as a uniform, because she could tell you right now: Any woman caught committing a crime would surrender at one glance of a cop looking like Noah.

She must’ve been gaping at him like an idiot, complete with mouth hanging open and drool possibly hanging from a string at the side. His gaze widened and then narrowed, with what’s happened now? frown lines settling on his handsome face.

Oh. Apparently stopping in unannounced wasn’t her best idea of Stewart Island, Day 1.

Tilly snapped her mouth shut before one of the rumored mosquitoes the size of sparrows flew into it.  

“Hiya, neighbor,” she said. “Thought I’d return this.” She held up his fleece. “Since I’m on my way to hunt down something to eat in town.”

He didn’t say anything immediately, so in the way extroverts like her often reacted, she filled in the silence before it could get awkward. “Guess it’s safe for me to be walking alone at night?”

A muscle close to his mouth indented. “Worried about kākā gangs? You should be okay.”

“That gang ruined my dinner and I’m starving. Does Due South deliver?”

“Not unless the chefs, Shaye and Del, have taken a liking to you, and you happen to be elderly and infirm. Don’t think you qualify there, sorry.”

An almost compliment if ever she heard one. “Why, Noah. Are you hitting on me?”

The indented muscle transformed into a smile, one which would have knocked her fuzzy socks off if she’d been wearing any. A smiling Noah threw her completely off her game. Before he could respond she blurted out, “Or are you fishing for an invitation to join me for dinner?”

His eyes widened again and the smile froze in place. Like a horrified rictus, caused by the idea of spending more time with the crazy woman two doors up.

She hadn’t intended to ask him out, and now that she had, she wanted to take it back and vanish into the night like a puff of the smoke curling out of his chimney. One day her big mouth would get her into some serious trouble.

“You’re asking me to dinner?”

His tone sounded as if she’d made an indecent proposal, including but not limited to loud sexual shenanigans on his doorstep in full view of the street. She bristled a little, because surely, if you looked like Noah Daniels, she couldn’t be the first woman to ask him out for a meal. Or to have sex right there and then on whatever horizontal surface was available.

She wiped the image from her mind with a delicate clearing of her throat. “I’m asking if you could eat. If so, I’m buying you a steak dinner at Due South. Unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case I’ll spring for a tofu dinner.”

She eyed the bulge of his biceps stretching the Henley’s sleeves. The man did not live on tofu alone. Carnivorous was one adjective that popped into her mind. Noah somehow managed to still fill up most of the available space between her and the doorframe with sheer charisma. Larger than life. Built like a rugby prop. A hard nut to crack. All apt descriptions, and all causing a little shiver to race down her spine. As that impenetrable stare seemed to peel back the layers of her request to expose her true motivation, he once again became Noah the humorless cop.

“Or not.” She held out his fleece. “Your choice.”

He took it from her and their fingers brushed. There was no lightning bolt, no touching-an-electric-fence start. No instantaneous chemical reaction that would cause his breath to catch and his pupils to dilate in sudden fervent desire. She really had to quit reading romance novels in her spare time. The only instance she’d got a jolt from a man touching her hand was after she’d been scuffing her fluffy socks over long-pile carpet.

He tossed the fleece over one broad shoulder and cocked an eyebrow. “What’s your stance on tofu?”

Trick question? “Cover it in a nice spicy chili and lime sauce, plate it, then toss it in the garbage. I’d rather eat a moist, white kitchen sponge.”

“Let’s hope it won’t come to that.” He pushed away from the doorframe and backed up a step. “I’ll get my keys.”