The day after Juraj's second visit to "Lavanda" dawned with a soft, pearlescent light over the channel, but Ina's internal world was a tempest. She had slept fitfully, her dreams a chaotic tapestry of dark soil, the scent of forests, and a pair of deep, earth-brown eyes that watched her with an intensity that was both terrifying and thrilling. She woke with the phantom sensation of his touch on her hand, a warm, tingling echo that no amount of cool water splashed on her face could erase.
He was not a customer. He was not a tourist. He was an event.
She moved through her morning routine in the stone cottage with a distracted air. Mačka wove around her ankles, voicing her complaints about the delayed breakfast, but Ina barely heard her. She kept replaying the moments in the shop—the way the light had seemed to cling to him, the resonance of his voice, the sheer, overwhelming presence of the man that made the very air feel charged and significant.
And his confusion. That was the most baffling part. His awkwardness with the money, his strange, archaic way of speaking, his comment about the world having "changed much." It was as if he'd stepped out of a history book, a relic from a time when men spoke to the soil and the soil answered.
Determined to regain some semblance of control, she decided to avoid her shop for the morning. It felt too exposed, too much like a stage where he could enter at any moment and once again halt the rotation of her world. Instead, she would go into Korčula Town for market day. She needed olives, cheese, and a new spool of twine for tying her lavender bundles. It was a normal, mundane errand, and she clung to its boring predictability like a life raft.
The market square was a riot of color and sound, a comforting sort of chaos. Under the bright awnings, vendors called out their wares—glossy purple eggplants, pyramids of sun-ripened peaches, wheels of cheese dusted with ash, and silvery fish laid out on beds of ice. The air was a mélange of brine, fresh basil, and frying dough. Ina moved through the crowd, her basket over her arm, exchanging nods and brief smiles with people she knew. This was her world, familiar and safe.
And then, it wasn't.
She saw him near the fountain at the center of the square. Juraj. He was standing utterly still, a dark, immovable rock in the flowing stream of the crowd. He was staring, not at the people, but at the water splashing from the stone lion's mouth into the basin below, a look of profound and simple pleasure on his face. It was the look of a man who had found an old, forgotten friend.
Her first instinct was to flee, to duck behind the stall selling honey and lavender soaps and retreat the way she had come. But her feet seemed rooted to the spot. And as if sensing the weight of her gaze, he turned.
His eyes found hers across the square, and the noise of the market faded into a distant hum. That same, terrifying, exhilarating silence descended upon her. He didn't smile, not at first. He just looked, his gaze a physical touch, warming her skin even from twenty paces away. Then, a slow, undeniable recognition dawned in his eyes, followed by a pleasure so raw and open it made her breath catch. He began to walk towards her, and the crowd seemed to part for him without him even seeming to notice.
"Ina," he said, her name a grounding stone on his tongue.
"Juraj," she managed, her voice tight. "I… I didn't expect to see you here."
"I was drawn by the water," he said simply, as if that explained everything. His eyes swept over her market basket, then back to her face. "You are provisioning."
It was such an old-fashioned word. "Just… shopping," she corrected softly.
He fell into step beside her as she continued her errands, his presence a dark, warm shadow at her shoulder. He asked questions about everything. Not with the bored curiosity of a tourist, but with the intense focus of a scholar. He wanted to know the variety of the olives, the breed of sheep that produced the cheese, the origin of the clay in the pottery. His questions were so specific, so deeply rooted in the essence of things, that the vendors were initially taken aback, then flattered, launching into detailed explanations which Juraj absorbed with a solemn, respectful attention.
Ina watched him, her shyness slowly being eroded by a growing fascination. He was unlike any man she had ever met. He wasn't trying to impress her, or anyone. He was simply, voraciously, engaging with the world.
As they passed a small café at the edge of the square, its espresso machine let out a sudden, violent hiss of steam. Juraj started so violently it was as if he'd been struck. He spun around, his body tensing for a fight, his eyes wide with alarm, searching for the source of the metallic shriek.
Ina couldn't help it. A laugh bubbled up from her chest, a light, surprised sound she hadn't heard from herself in years. She clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
Juraj turned his alarmed gaze from the machine to her, and the sight of her laughter seemed to disarm him completely. The tension drained from his shoulders, replaced by a look of chagrined bewilderment.
"What… what manner of beast is that?" he asked, his voice low, gesturing cautiously towards the gleaming chrome machine from which the barista was now tapping a puck of spent coffee.
Ina's laughter subsided into a warm, lingering smile. "It's an espresso machine, Juraj. For coffee."
"It sounds like a dragon in its death throes," he muttered, eyeing it with deep suspicion.
"Here," she said, her shyness completely forgotten in the face of his genuine, old-world confusion. "Let me show you."
She led him to a small, vacant table. He sat, watching her every move as she went to the counter and ordered two espressos. When the machine hissed again, he flinched, but this time a rueful smile touched his lips as he saw Ina's amused glance. She brought the small cups back to the table, the dark, fragrant liquid swirling within them.
He looked at the tiny cup, then at the thimble-sized amount of liquid within it. "This is… coffee?" he asked, his tone suggesting he'd been expecting something far more substantial.
"It's strong," she said, taking a sip of hers. "Try it."
He picked up the delicate porcelain cup, his large, work-roughened hands making it look like a toy. He sniffed it, his eyes closing for a moment in appreciation of the aroma. Then he drank it in one swift, unceremonious gulp, as if it were a shot of rakija.
A moment passed. His eyes widened. He looked at the empty cup, then at Ina, a new, profound respect dawning on his face. "By the fertile soil," he breathed. "That is a potent draught. It tastes of fire and dark earth."
Ina laughed again, the sound free and easy now. "Most people just say it's bitter."
"They are not tasting it properly," he stated with utter conviction. "They do not taste the story of the bean, the kiss of the fire, the pressure of the steam." He set the cup down with a definitive click. "It is a worthy invention."
The playful banter had begun. His utter seriousness about everything, from olives to espresso, was disarming and endlessly entertaining.
"So, you approve of the modern world's 'dragons'?" she teased.
"I approve of anything that can transform a humble bean into such a concentrated essence of power," he replied, his dark eyes gleaming. "It is alchemy. Not so different from your work, turning sunlight and soil into this." He gestured to the small sachet of lavender she had tied to her basket.
The comment struck a deep chord within her. He saw it. He saw the connection, the sacred cycle she was a part of. It was a understanding she had never found with anyone else.
"You speak of the land as if it's… alive," she ventured, her voice soft.
"It is," he said, his tone losing its playful edge and becoming profound, absolute. "It sleeps, it dreams, it hungers, it gives. The spring is not just a season; it is the earth exhaling after a long holding of breath. The soil is not just dirt; it is the womb of all things. To care for it, as you do… that is the oldest prayer."
Ina felt her breath leave her. She was listening, but she was also feeling. A desire, low and warm and entirely new, was uncoiling deep within her. It was sparked by the way he looked at her—not just at her face, but at her, at the core of her being. He wasn't looking at her as a shy shopkeeper, or a pretty girl from Korčula. He was looking at her as if she were a vital, fascinating, and essential part of the living world he described with such passion. He was looking at her as if she were the most rare and beautiful thing he had ever encountered.
The way his gaze lingered on her mouth when she spoke. The way his eyes traced the line of her throat when she laughed. It wasn't lecherous or crude. It was… appreciative. Consuming. It was the way a man might look at a breathtaking vista, or a master artisan at a perfect piece of wood, with a mixture of reverence and a primal, possessive hunger. It made her feel seen in a way that was both terrifying and powerfully arousing. She felt her skin grow warm, a flush that had nothing to do with the sun spreading from her chest up her neck. She felt a pull, a magnetic draw towards him that was as undeniable as gravity.
"You see the world so differently," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the murmur of the market.
"I see what is there," he replied, his voice equally low, his gaze holding hers. "Most have simply forgotten how to look."
He reached across the small table, his fingers brushing a stray curl that had escaped her bun away from her face. The touch was fleeting, but it sent another one of those warm, electric shocks through her system. This time, it settled deep in her belly, a heavy, sweet ache.
"You," he said, his voice a husky rumble, "have not forgotten."
In that moment, sitting at a café table in the bustling market, with the ghost of espresso on his lips and the scent of the earth clinging to him, Ina Marović knew she was in profound, irrevocable danger. This was not a simple infatuation with a handsome, strange man. This was a fundamental shift in her universe. The shy, orderly life she had built for herself was crumbling, and in its place was something wild, passionate, and terrifyingly beautiful. And the way Juraj looked at her made her want to run towards that wildness, to throw herself into the fertile, dark soil of his world and see what impossible thing she might become.