As I came back to Wunderbar with the groceries, Ryan was waiting on the steps, his face worried.

“How’s Andy?” He stood up and came towards me, taking the bag from my hands.

“He’s doing okay now. I spoke to the registrar at the hospital, and explained who I was and what had happened. He’s conscious, sitting up and talking now.”

“So what was it?”

I shook my head. “It’s hard to say at this point. His symptoms could be manifesting for a bunch of different reasons. They’ll keep him in for a couple of days, and do a series of tests. Once that’s done, we’ll all know more.”

“He was lucky you were there.” Ryan shouldered the bag, and waited as I opened the door. “If it had happened somewhere else, or when he was driving, things could have been a lot worse.”

“Try telling that to Bea. When she found out Andy had been to see me, and hadn’t told her, I thought she was going to take a swing at me.”

“Uh-oh. I can see how she was upset about it, though. Come on, let’s get this stuff unpacked.”

Mounting the steps, I thought back to Bea’s accusing glare at me, and her desperation when she saw Andy hurt. “Yeah. She was upset, and that’s understandable; I’ve seen it plenty of times before. But if she thought I wasn’t on her side before, this isn’t going to change her mind.”

In the kitchen, Ryan dumped the bag of groceries on the counter, and began to put them away. I pulled up a chair, and sat watching him. He looked back at me for a moment, canned beans in one hand, and then, carefully, unselfconsciously, put the beans on the counter, and came and wrapped me in his arms. I hugged him back, pressing the flannel of his shirt against my cheek.

“Look, you did the right thing; you don’t need me to tell you that. However Bea feels about you not telling her, you were there to help when you were really needed. All you can do is have faith that she’ll come to understand that sooner or later.”

“I know.” I smiled wryly. “It’ll need to be sooner if I’m going to get that oven fixed, though. She’s the only one who can do it, and if I turn up at their garage right now, I just might get a car dropped on me.”

“Are you sorry you had to go back to being a doctor? I know you felt like you’d left that part of your life behind.”

“No. It was fine.” I shrugged again. “I never disliked being a doctor; I liked being able to help people, I really did. It was the expectations of my family that I couldn’t take in the end.”

“Really? It sounded like they were always proud of you.” Ryan extricated himself from my arms, pulled up another chair, and sat facing me, extending a hand to take mine. “I can see why, too.”

I squeezed his hand back. “Thanks. Yeah, they were proud of me, but…” I paused. “They were proud in the way you’d be proud of a collection of stamps; like something that was all properly arranged and worked out carefully in advance. I was a doctor because it was the ‘right’ thing to do. I got engaged to a doctor because we were the ‘right’ couple. That’s what I couldn’t take.”

“Yeah, all that money and guaranteed employment.” Ryan made a mock grimace. “Sounds terrible.”

“Ryan, money’s not much good if you’re never around to spend it.” My face was serious. “If you’re working 16-hour shifts, and all weekend, having a nice apartment doesn’t mean much. I got to know my bed really well, and the coffee-pot. The rest of the apartment? Not so much. Kirk and I would run out of bathroom tissue for a week, and no-one would notice, because we never even went to the damn bathroom in the place.”

“Sheesh. I can see what you mean.”

“Our relationship was like that, too; mostly absent. Kirk was a decent person. This isn’t some tale of woe where I ran away because my fiancé did me wrong. It would have been easier if it had been. I’m the bad guy in this story.”

“Cat, listen to me.” He came close to me again, and I felt his lips brush my cheek. “You are no kind of bad guy. If you weren’t happy with what you were doing, then you weren’t wrong to leave. It would have been worse for everyone if you’d stayed there, pretending you were happy.” His voice was low and soft, in my ear. “And although it might be selfish, I can’t pretend that I’m not very glad you did come here.”

I smiled, despite myself. “I am, too.”

“Are you happy here in Cable Bay? Now, I mean.” Ryan’s eyes were questioning.

“Now?” Now you’re here, Ryan Sanders, waking up next to me, and holding me when I fall asleep, everything fits just right. But you won’t be here for long, will you? “Yeah, I am. At least for the moment.”

“Good. I—good.” His face changed for a moment, and I thought he seemed almost a little sad. Before I could say anything, he smiled. “You have to take your happiness where you find it, I guess.”

I squeezed his hand again. “You sure do. Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

“Sure thing, boss. Where to?”

I stood up. “Don’t call me boss again, or I’ll fire you. We’re going up on the ridge above town. It’s about time you saw a bit of the countryside, basement boy.”

His face clouded. “Basement boy?”

* * *

The trail above Cable Bay lead through temperate pine forest, winding up the mountain ridge for about half an hour, before breaking through into low grasses and scrub on the top of the ridge. Although it was a little cold, we were both warm from the climb. Part-way up the trail, Ryan had offered his hand to help me over a boulder, and I’d taken it. When I’d climbed over, he didn’t let go, and we carried on hand-in-hand up the trail.

The crisp afternoon air was sharp in my lungs, and I relaxed into the warm sensation of Ryan’s hand in mine, and the steady rhythm of our progress up the trail. As we made our way higher, we talked about the surrounding countryside; I described my arrival in town nearly six months ago, and Ryan told me about the geology of the area, showing me rock and earth formations, and explaining what they meant for the time, millions of years ago, when the land was pushed up from the sea.

“So, wait a minute,” Ryan said as we neared the end of the forest cover, “you went camping up here, on your own, the first week you were in New Zealand?”

“Yep.” I nodded. “I’d come to the end of the earth, and I wanted to get away from everything. So I thought I’d buy a tent, and a gas stove, and just come up here for a few nights. Can’t get more ‘away’ than that, can you?”

“I guess not. How did it go?”

“Weellll, the first night I spent cowering in my tent, terrified of snakes.” I scuffed my boots on the trail as we rounded a corner.

Ryan’s face was confused. “But—”

“THEN, on the second night,” I continued loudly, “I remembered that the nearest snake is fifteen hundred miles away, on a different continent.”

“Yeah. That’s…yeah.” Ryan took a look at my face, and remained diplomatically silent.

“After that, things got better, until the third night when a thunderstorm broke, and I discovered that my second-hand water-resistant tent wasn’t so resistant.” I looked around with a rueful expression on my face. “Or maybe I just didn’t pitch it properly. Anyway, I got soaked to the skin, and spent a miserable night boiling water to keep warm, and drinking endless cups of coffee. Between stomach ulcers from the coffee, and asphyxia from running a propane stove inside a tent, it’s a miracle I survived.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, that’s a pretty good summary. Anyway, the next morning, I packed up, came back down into town, and threw the tent away. So much for the great outdoors. That afternoon, I was walking down the road to the beach to read my book, and I saw Wunderbar.”

“When it was for sale?” We stopped and looked at the ridge in front of us. The ridge trail weaved between more large boulders, buried deep in the earth. Among them, tufts of grass sprouted, and a few thin trees struggled for a foothold. Now the forest had cleared, we could see the town down below, laid out like a child’s toy.

“That’s right. It was pretty dilapidated, but I could see how long it had been there. The owner wanted out, and—well, I didn’t have any other ideas. So, it just seemed like a shame to let it fall apart, you know?” I laughed, with a little edge of hurt in my tone. “The bar wasn’t going anywhere, and I had nowhere to go. We were a perfect fit for each other.”

.

We worked our way slowly along the ridge, until we came to a rocky outcrop. From this point onward, the path curved and dropped away, back down to the treeline, but from here we could look down at the town.

“See, there’s the park where the farmer’s market is held, and there’s the school. That road out of town down there,” I indicated with my hand,“ leads to Farrah’s vineyard. I should take you there soon; you’d love it.”

“I’d like that.” Ryan put his arms around me from behind, and we listened to the sound of the wind in silence for a moment. “Tell me about the bar. I’d like to know what happened to you before I came along.” He snorted. “And complicated it.”

I leaned my head back on his chest, feeling his heart beat. “Buying Wunderbar was the first unexpected thing I’ve ever done in my whole life. Before I came here, I’d never expected to do anything like running a bar; I had no hospitality experience, and medical school doesn’t exactly teach you much about how to run a business.”

“I guess not. So what did you do?”

I shrugged. “Well, I made a lot of mistakes, and we nearly went broke. But I also did a lot of research, and asked for a lot of people’s help. Bob had his wages delayed to buy stock more than a few times; he never once complained. I get the feeling he works for me mostly to give him something to do. I wouldn’t have been able to make it this far without him.”

“You’re really lucky to have someone like him around. You should be proud of what you’ve achieved here, Cat. This is a wonderful town, and the people here like you. You’ve done something positive in their lives.”

I twisted around in Ryan’s arms to face him, and reached up to kiss him gently on the lips. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of serving beer to people described as ‘doing something positive in people’s lives’. You make me sound like Mother Teresa.”

He smiled. “I guess so. Maybe not in that skirt, though.” He kissed me back, and this time it lasted for quite a while. “I am serious, though. When I talk to people in Cable Bay, I can tell how much it’s meant to them to have you here, and to have the bar running again.”

“I hope so.” I sighed a little, and looked at his face, strong brows and clear jaw, that slight dimple in his chin I’d kissed a few times to catch him by surprise.

“So what about your own happiness?” His arms around my waist tightened, and I snuggled into him, not noticing the wind any more. “I’ve seen you make other people happy, Cat. And you’re pretty darn good at it. Even,” he smiled, “present company included.”

My heart beat slightly faster, and it wasn’t just the climb. “That’s really sweet, Ryan, but—”

But what we have can’t last, can it? Just the thought made my throat tighten, and I said nothing.

He closed his eyes for a moment. “Tell me what you’d do if you didn’t have the bar. Is…going anywhere else something you’d do?”

I held on to him. “Honestly? I have no idea what I’d do. You know that being here and running the bar has been the first time I’ve ever felt like I was doing something for myself, because I chose to do it?” The words came out easily, but I still remembered my father’s self-assured voice. “Now, Catherine, you know this isn’t a serious long-term prospect, don’t you? When you’re over it, come back, and you can get on with what you ought to be doing.”

Ought. Sometimes I Goddamned hated the word ‘ought’. “Being here, I haven’t been living up to anyone’s expectations, I haven’t been fitting in; I’ve just been choosing my own path. I didn’t realize that was what I was missing until I found it. So I don’t know what I’d do without the bar, I really don’t.”

Ryan’s face was a study in anguish. “Cat, I—”

“I know.” I put a finger to his lips. “I understand, okay? I’m not trying to torture you, or make things hard for you. But whatever happens, I want you to know why it was important to me. Because,” I took a deep breath, “because you’re important to me, too.”

“Cat, I’ve never met anyone like you. I wish—” He took a ragged breath, and I could feel it in his chest. “I wish we’d met under different circumstances. In a different place, maybe.”

I’d go somewhere different with you, if you asked me. Would you do that? I couldn’t tell. “I do too, Ryan.”

On the descent from the hills, Ryan led the whole way, and I couldn’t see his face.