“They’re not so sure there’s any difference back home.”
“No,” I said carefully, looking at my drink instead of him. “I heard that.”
“Seriously,” he said again, shifting closer still. “You feel safe up there?”
“There are no vampires in the Cairngorms,” I said, trying not to sound too desultory. “And no haemophiles either.”
“Caves, mountains, crumbling castles? I would have thought it would be perfect Dracula territory.”
“You’ve read too much Stoker. They live in purpose-built communes, down south. There are none registered this far north.”
“What about the unregistered ones?”
I shook my head. “Tabloid scaremongering.” He raised an eyebrow. I couldn’t help but smile. “Seriously, Brody. You come from a country where kids take guns to school and you’re scared of things that go bump in the night?”
He looked wounded. “It’s just freaky, okay? At least guns we understand.”
I drank more whisky. “Well, I’ve never seen one. Hard to be freaked out by something you’ve never seen.”
“Boogie-monsters aside,” he went on, smiling again, “you don’t get lonely?”
“Now you sound like Meg again.”
“You mention her a lot,” he said after a pause.
I tried to see if there was anything going on his face, but I was tired, a little drunk and far too sated to engage in any effort figuring out subtext. “We’re friends.”
“Good friends?”
“Old friends.”
“Uh-huh.” I couldn’t tell if something had shifted in the air. He was, if anything, even more beautiful lounging against the headboard with his blue eyes heavy, his hair tousled, his surfer’s body—straight out of a swimwear catalogue—toned and tan against the white sheets. But his quiet now had a different quality.
“Why do you want to know?”
He laughed, laying a warm hand on my thigh. “Jesus, Alec, relax. It was just a question.”
“I should go.” I hadn’t meant to say it. But then it was out there, hanging between us like black smoke, and I realized it was true.
“Sure,” he said, easily enough. “It’s late. I should get some sleep before my breakfast meeting. And I’m certain that if you stay I won’t get much sleeping done.”
I managed a half-smile and started searching amongst the discarded clothing for my jeans. I dressed, trying not to hurry, but Brody seemed unaffected. He rinsed the glasses, said goodnight, went into the bathroom and shut the door. I heard the shower start. I stood holding my shoes, trying to untangle what exactly had happened.
* * * *
“You’re overthinking it,” Meg said. She hadn’t stopped grinning since I’d dragged myself out of the spare bed the next morning for what breakfast my abused stomach could handle. “It was just sex. Good sex, by the look of you.”
“Hey,” I scowled, stirring the coffee, “let’s not.”
“Oh come on,” she said, setting down a bowl of sliced fruit and yogurt in front of me. “It’s just what you needed. Admit it.” I grumbled something under my breath and picked up the spoon. “Are you going to see him again?”
“No,” I said quickly. Then added, “I don’t know.”
“Do you want to see him again?”
“I don’t know.”
She dropped her spoon into her bowl with an exasperated gesture. “Honestly, Alec. You are useless.”
“I just… Forget it.”
“What? You just what?”
I pushed the berries and nuts around in the yogurt. “He’s not. We’re not… I don’t know.”
She sighed. “You’re worse than a woman.” I glared at her. She grinned then looked at the clock. “I’ve got to go to work. You gonna be okay getting back?”
“Yeah. I got enough sleep, I think.”
“Perhaps you should have got less and stayed a little longer.” I leveled another bleary look at her. She beamed and kissed me on the cheek. “It was good to see you, Alec.”
“Thanks for having me.” I managed a more genuine smile.
“Let’s not leave it so long next time, okay?”
I nodded, not trusting myself not to lie. She patted my shoulder and left. I finished the fruit and left too, a tangible weight leaving my shoulders as I drove out of the city.
I passed the drive deep in thought about the events of the previous days and looked forward to the relative peace of my normal routine.
Clem had a lot to say when I finally dragged myself into the workshop so late that afternoon that it was starting to get dark. The fact that we barely had enough work for one person, let alone two, was not something he ever let bother him. I felt better for the long, hot shower I’d taken at Meg’s and for being back in my overalls in the chilly, drizzly mountain air.
I could still feel the heat of Brody’s hands and hear the sound of his laugh. It had been good, I decided. Invigorating, like a day at the seaside. But I couldn’t deny that I felt more like myself with the peaks glowering over me, the smell of heather dripping with the cold rain in my lungs and the crumbling hulk of Glenroe squatting like a broken boulder on the bluff above the workshop.
I tried not to analyze that too closely.
The rain continued, grew colder and turned to hail. More holes became evident in the hall’s roof. I was forced to do temporary patch-jobs with tarpaulin when it became too cold and slippery to be out on the slates for long. The days grew shorter. Our last two restorations were sent back to their owners and nothing else had come in. I began to mentally prepare myself for another long, cold winter.
I was unpacking bottom-shelf wine and tins of beans into the larder and trying not to think about another winter subsisting on little else, when I stopped, listening. The noise came again. I moved into the dining room, straining my ears until it came a third time. There was someone knocking on the front door—the one I never used.
A frisson of disquiet ran up my spine. I approached the door after discarding the half-formed notion of retrieving one of my father’s shotguns. Through the whorled glass I could just make out a figure on the step. The bolt clanked and the key screeched. I heaved but the door didn’t budge. I wrestled with the lock a moment more, heard a louder clunk then dragged the door open. It scraped an arc in the dust and dead leaves on the tiles, the hinges screaming like banshees.
Brody stood on the step, looking utterly surreal, sunny and well-dressed against the backdrop of drizzle and wind-swept mountainside.
“Alec,” he said, smiling brightly, “I was beginning to wonder if I’d got the wrong castle.”
“What are you doing here?”
My tone caused his smile to slip. “Jon sent me.”
I blinked. “Why?”
He frowned. “I’ve brought his Jaguar. He said he’d arranged it with you.”
“Well, yeah,” I said, craning my neck to scan the empty, weed-riddled drive. “Did Clement not take it in at the workshop?”
Brody frowned harder. “Sure he did. But he said you were up here, so I thought I’d take the chance to come and, well… Did I do something wrong?”