Page 16 of Seduction Under the Southern Stars

She glances at my left hand, and then her gaze returns to my face. “Are you married?”

“No.”

“Living with someone?”

I shake my head.

“There’s nobody special in your life?”

There have been girls, through the years. Nowhere near one in every port, but a few who’ve helped me pass the time. I lived with Sophia in Germany for six months. But when I said I was moving on, she made it quite clear that she wanted to stay in her home country, and although I was sad to leave her behind, we parted on good terms.

The truth is that although I do have some friends, I’m a loner, and have been since leaving New Zealand. Whether that has something to do with what happened at Greenfield is anyone’s guess. I just find handling other people’s emotions and opinions too hard and prefer to keep to myself.

“No, nobody special. What about you?” I ask, even though Joel has already confirmed she’s single.

“No,” she says.

“Why not? I thought you would’ve been snapped up by now.”

“I could say the same of you.”

“I’m not interested in settling down yet.”

“Me neither. But then I’m not approaching thirty at a rate of knots.” She gives me a mischievous grin.

“Touché,” I say wryly. I guess there’s no reason she should be looking to settle down at her age. “So… what have you been up to?”

“Nothing as exciting as you. I’ve been studying, mostly. School, then an honors degree at Vic. Now I’m doing a Masters.”

“What in?”

“Archaeological Practice, specializing in Osteology.”

I lift an eyebrow.

“Bones, Linc. Not boners.”

That makes me laugh, and she smiles in response.

“It was tough to choose a topic,” she says. “I’m interested in so many different subjects. But I like skeletons. They fascinate me.”

“I bet you’re fun to have at parties.”

“I’m great at Halloween. I tell all the kids about excarnation and scare them witless.” She stares at me then. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I forgot you’d just been to your dad’s funeral.”

“It’s okay. They didn’t lay him out and let the wolves strip his bones. More’s the pity.”

“Oh God, don’t make me laugh. It’s not funny.”

“Yeah, but if you don’t laugh…” I give a big sigh.

A frown flickers on her brow. “I’m kinda surprised you came back to New Zealand.”

“I’m killing two birds with one plane flight. I was invited to speak at the ANZAS conference.” The Australian and New Zealand Archaeology Society is the biggest in the southern hemisphere.

“The one being held on a cruise?” she asks, eyes wide.

“Yeah. It starts in Brisbane, calls at Sydney, then Auckland, and all the way around to the west coast of New Zealand before heading back to Australia. They want me to speak on the first of Feb and said if I didn’t want to come for the whole cruise, I could join them in Christchurch the day before. And then I found out about Dad, so I thought I’d go to the funeral while I was here.”

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