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He’d intended to leave her as soon as
he’d gotten her safely to her room, but he also wanted to say goodbye at least.
    “I’ll make you a tea,” he yelled, and then immediately
remembered that Americans usually drank coffee.
    “Great!” she yelled back. Tea it was. He filled the kettle
with cool water, turned it on and looked around. Her suitcase was sitting flat
near the door, unlatched, but he wasn’t about to snoop. There were a few
touristy things, brochures and such, on the coffee table, as well as a stuffed
penguin. And a drawing pad, flipped open to a half-completed drawing of a fairy
penguin. She hadn’t been totally uninspired, apparently. She’d captured it
beautifully, as good as any drawing in a bird book. He whistled.
    The kettle clicked off and he rifled through the cabinets
above to come back with two plain cream-colored teacups. “Black or with milk,
sugar or no sugar?” he asked. There was no answer. She was probably still in
the loo. He plunked a bag in one of the cups, poured boiling water over it and
walked toward the bedroom. He didn’t want to shout again.
    “Black or—” He rounded the separator to find her lying on
the bed, facedown, her head turned to one side. She was sleeping peacefully,
her back rising and falling in regular intervals. “Zoe?” he whispered softly.
But he knew sleep was what she needed. When she didn’t stir, he watched her for
a while, pretending to himself he just wanted to make sure she was okay and
wasn’t ogling her nicely rounded backside.
    He wasn’t going to undress her for bed. He might wake her,
and he didn’t know her nearly well enough for that, as amusing as it was to
imagine. Besides, as drunk as she was, her clothes weren’t going to wake her.
But he was at least going to take her shoes and socks off.
    Her sneakers came off easily. She twitched when he peeled
her white ankle socks off her feet, but she didn’t wake.
    On the bottoms of her feet were scars. He looked closer.
They looked as if they were from burns, little rough circles as if someone had
put out cigarettes on the bottoms of her feet. He clenched his teeth. Who would
do such a thing? He remembered her gun-toting crazy ex, and wished the man
would walk in right now. He’d never know what hit him. But presumably the man
was fifteen thousand kilometers away.
    “No. Don’t,” Zoe whimpered and rolled over.
    He moved around the bed to her side, but she was still
asleep. “Hush, Zoe. You’re safe here. Just sleep.”
    He watched her until her breath regained its regular
peacefulness. There was no point in standing guard over her, even though that
was precisely what he wanted to do. She’d probably sleep all night long, so she
wouldn’t be up to drink any tea. There was really no reason for him to stay,
but he wanted to know what her story was. At last he got up and returned to the
kitchen. He took a sip of tea—no sense in letting it go to waste entirely—and
then poured the rest down the sink. He rinsed the cup out, dried it with a
towel he found in one of the kitchen drawers and put the cups away.
    He took out a business card and wrote the words “call me in
the morning” with his home phone number on the back, and left it writing-side
up on the little desk. There was no guarantee she’d see it, but it was worth a
try. Then, as quietly as possible, he left her hotel room and headed for
Indigo.

Chapter Two
     
    Zoe stared at the card. Nick Carrady. Nick Carrady
Football Camps. Fitness and Skills development, run by a former AFL
professional. So she didn’t imagine him. Somehow he’d rescued her from
maudlin boredom in front of a slot machine and gotten her back to her hotel.
She vaguely remembered something about him planning to make tea for her and her
lying down, and not much after that. She was sure her imagination had added a
few wistful details; he couldn’t be that good-looking, that tall, that
well-built. Lots of people looked better after a few drinks.
    My god,