Page 49 of Coming in Hot

Clearing my throat seems bossy, but I don’t want to startle her, so instead I try a kind of sighing yawn. Apparently this is the wrong thing, based on the critical look she delivers when she stands and rotates. Her gaze rakes me as if to say,I’ll justbetyou’re tired after the night you had, tramp.

“Have you seen… um, Mr. Franke?” I ask with false brightness.

“He is in the garden. Talking to Sofia.” There’s malicious mirth, maybe even a hint of victory, in her eyes.

Sofia his dead wife? No, it must be a common name here. The gardener?

Stepping toward the counter, I open a hand at the coffee maker. “May I?”

“Certainly. There are breakfast selections on the dining room table. Help yourself.”

It sounded like there was a double meaning in the way she said,Help yourself.As in,You clearly need professional help, you walking disaster area…

She inserts her upper half into the huge oven again, and I flash on the part inHansel and Gretelwhen the children shove the witch into the stove and slam it shut.

I pour a cup of coffee and splash in some almond milk, thengo to the table to peruse the offerings: fresh fruit, squares of thick flatbread studded with vegetables, something that looks like doughnut holes glazed with lemony syrup. I peek toward the kitchen before plucking up a fried dough ball and popping it into my mouth whole, then walking outside.

The angle of light in the garden touches me with a blend of chill shadow and golden warmth as I stroll the path, inspecting the flowers and trees. Behind the cottage I spot Klaus on the other side of a fountain, sitting on a brick semicircle abutting a natural rock cliff, where a statue of Aphrodite is featured.

I quiet my steps in my high heels, reading his posture, worried what I’ll see when he turns. With a pang of sorrow, I acknowledge to myself that I should be relieved if he’s regretful about last night. Because really, has anything changed? Of course not. What happened owed only to proximity—a powder keg of hormones and a spark of heartache detonated and propelled us into each other’s arms.

The obstacles that were there last summer haven’t gone away, I remind myself.

As I draw closer, I notice items at the base of the statue—an orange, a lemon, a few figs, a long gray feather, a cluster of pink bougainvillea.

Ah. So this is what Elena meant by “talking to Sofia”—itishis wife.

What’s he telling her?I apologize for taking another woman to our bed? I miss you? She’ll never replace what we had?

It’s not my finest moment, the surge of competitiveness that rises in me. Twenty feet ago I half hoped Klaus would suggest weforget last night; it’s the sensible thing to do. But seeing the way his hand lies open on the sunlit brick, fingers fanned out as if he’s grasping its warmth… part of me wants him to need me as much as he seems to still needher.

I stop, fingers curling hard on the coffee mug as I chastise myself.Stop it this instant, Nat. You know what you’re doing—this is well-trod ground.

My “Smart Girl Achilles Heel”: angsty men. The only thing saving me in this case is that Klaus hasn’t sniffed out my weakness to exploit it deliberately.

Plenty of them have. In grad school I had a boyfriend named Chris who clocked my susceptibility in this respect and manufactured an entire “tragic childhood” with a monstrous stepfather. Any time it seemed I might slip through his fingers, he doled out fresh details, like someone feeding quarters into a Laundromat dryer. My tender heart had wept for the terrified child he’d been… right up until I discovered he’d neverhada stepfather.

After that, I got more skilled with fact-checking—a talent that’s helped enormously in journalism. Unfortunately, it hasn’t made me less emotionally vulnerable to a sob story.

I’m poised to pivot and walk back to the cottage and give Klaus his space when he turns and catches me staring. Forcing a smile, I head his way, lifting a hand in greeting and settling on the brick ledge. I place my mug between us so he can’t scoot closer… but I’m still disappointed when he doesn’t try.

I peruse the collection of objects around the statue. “I wouldn’t have guessed you’re superstitious,” I tease. “Offerings to the goddess for a successful race season?”

He gives one of her stony sandaled feet a pat. “She’s impartial. Bestowing neither blessing nor censure for any of my mortal deeds.”

And there we have it.The look on his face says it all.

The statue isn’t Aphrodite to him. I know it’s Sofia who gets fruit and flowers, Sofia he turns to in moments of struggle, Sofia who will reign over the garden of Klaus Franke’s heart. Like this sculpted white marble, her presence will endure, silent and cool, unchanging, unquestioned.

I’ve been so focused on the possible danger to my career that I’ve conveniently forgotten theothercritical reason I shouldn’t touch Klaus with a bargepole: He’ll never stop grieving. He’s all but integrated it as part of his identity.

I flick a fingernail against the side of my coffee mug, tapping out a bell-like rhythm, unable to meet his eyes. “So, we should consider last night to have been an ‘oopsie,’ right? A one-off. Back to business now?”

“No.”

I look up, startled. “What?”

“I hoped we might at last be on the right path with each other.” He draws aside the high neck of my blouse. One eyebrow lifts. “Though I see you’ve retired the necklace again.”

---