Just Not Mine by Rosalind James

beer, don’t eat pizza? What do you do?”
    “Only low-kilojoule pursuits,” she said, pulling out one of the bottles of Monteith’s she’d chilled for him, holding it up with a questioning lift of her brows.
    “Even after all that work today, not to mention the swim, and as slim as you are?” he asked, taking the bottle from her. “Because my mum would say, get that girl a sandwich. I’d think you could have a beer without fear.”
    “ Your mum’s opinion notwithstanding, no, I can’t.” She realized she was snapping, took a breath. “Sorry. I hear that a lot from people who don’t understand, and it can get annoying. I’m an actress, and the camera adds the kilos, even if you don’t have any extra. And if you do … forget about getting parts.” She took a sip of her own chilled water and tried to pretend it was wine. She’d used up her wine ration for the week already, though, so for tonight, it was water.
    “ It’s me who’s sorry,” he said, and it sounded genuine, and she relaxed. “None of my business how much you eat. Or drink. An actress, though, eh. Would I have seen you in anything?”
    “I doubt it.” Somehow, she didn’t think he was a regular Courtney Place watcher. “Charlie thought ginger beer would be acceptable for the two of you,” she told Amelia, pulling out a couple more bottles. “Glasses over the sink,” she told Hugh, and watched him reach to pull them down, appreciating the open-necked dark-blue knit shirt he wore, the way it clung to his shoulders and upper back, and the way it didn’t cling around the waist and hips, because if any man could be said to have a V-shaped torso, that man was Hugh. Whatever the mysterious profession was, she’d decided it was active, because he hadn’t built those layers of muscle in the gym. He’d changed to dressier clothes for tonight, too, dark jeans and that shirt, and she needed to make sure she kept her distance. Asking him to dinner had probably been a bad impulse move, because she’d clearly given him the wrong idea. The only problem was, she very much feared that she had the wrong idea as well.

    “Can I do something?” he asked once he’d poured the drinks. “Or can my five assorted hands do something?”
    “Carry the plates and cutlery out to our new patio for me,” she suggested. “Going to get too cold to stay out there much past dinner, but I need you all to admire it, so we have to at least try it.”
    “Christen it,” he said.
    “Yeh.” She cleared her throat. “Right.” She turned to the stove and turned the fire on under her frying pan. “Less than five minutes.”
    He got the kids set up out on the patio, she saw with a glance as she added a bit of olive oil, waited for it to heat, and then he was back in the kitchen, leaning against the edge of the bench and taking a careful sip of his beer.
    “ Looks good out there,” he said. “Professional, I’d call that. I like your furniture, too.”
    “Yeh, thanks,” she said. “ Suits me, I think.” She’d found the café table and chairs in a shop in Parnell, and had known they were hers. The table was a robin’s egg blue, the four chairs lemon yellow, cherry red, lime green, and grape, and the entire thing made her smile, looked so cheerful and fun set on the distressed brick, exactly as she’d envisioned it. “I want a fountain next, set in a fern garden. I had that shady spot in mind at the back, under the tree. What do you think?”
    “ I think you’ve got it done in your head already, probably got all the steps mapped out, and it’s just a matter of time. Planning to put it in yourself?”
    “Course I am. But you already knew that.”
    “Wait till I’ve got two hands, and I’ll help you do it. You’re clearly multifaceted. I’m going to have to ask how you do that, too, because it seems like a quick prep.” He motioned to where she was setting her dukkah-coated terakihi fillets carefully into the pan, where they immediately began to