I shifted on my feet. The shadows of the house felt heavy behind me. “I don’t normally use this door.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I’m not used to visitors.”
“No kidding.” He was angry now, his brow creased, mouth suddenly a hard, flat line.
“Do you want to come in?” I said, but the silence had been so long that it shouted forced politeness.
“Only if you want me to.”
Heat rose in my face. “Of course.”
He examined me for a long moment then stepped inside. I heaved the door shut and clanked the heavy locks back into place.
“Wow,” he breathed, gaping at the grand staircase then up to the vaulted ceiling and the filth-encrusted chandelier. “This is really something.”
“Coffee?” I hurried to the kitchen but Brody followed slowly, staring around at the shrouded furniture, the paintings stacked against the walls, the yawning fireplaces, the leaves that had drifted around mountains of moldering books and tarnished silverware. The brightness of the kitchen made him blink. I sensed him examining the clutter as I turned the kettle on and hunted out the coffee.
“I gotta tell you that this is nothing like I imagined.”
“Reality rarely is,” I said. When I finally had the coffee ready, he took the mug with an irritatingly sympathetic expression.
“I’m making you uncomfortable.”
“No, you’re not,” I lied.
He sighed and pulled out one of the plastic chairs from around the table. “Did I misread this?”
I shifted on my feet, staring into my mug. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
I set my drink aside untasted and made myself sit opposite him. “I don’t get visitors.”
“You said,” he said, casting an eye around my tiny, chaotic living space.
“You don’t understand.” I heard the words like they were coming from someone else. “No one comes here. This place… It’s not…”
He leaned forward in his chair. “Go on. Tell me.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “No one but me has set foot in this house for years. Not since…”
He tilted his head to one side. “Since your dad died?”
I glared at the table, angry with myself for reacting.
“That’s a long time not to have anyone in your house.”
“It’s not my house.”
A pause. “Your dad didn’t like you having people over, huh?”
“No.”
“Especially not…guy people?”
The bottom fell out of my stomach. A red fog was boiling just under my skin. If he’d have tried to comfort me, reason with me, draw me into talking, I’d would have kicked him out, slammed the door and resolved never to think of him again. But he didn’t. He just sat there calmly, his expression mild, his blue eyes warm.
“What about your mom?” he asked eventually.
“She left when I was five.”
“And where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t maybe wanna try to find her?”
“She never wanted to find me.”
He sipped his coffee. “It was just you and your old man then, huh?”
“Until I went off to boarding school.”
“What happened to him? Jon wasn’t clear.”
“He drank himself to death.” I finished my coffee and put the mug aside with an air of finality.
“But you don’t want to sell?” He asked it carefully. It was a natural-enough question. It always was.
“Is that something Ogdell wants an answer to?”
He didn’t react. “No. I’m just interested.”
“Again. Why?”
He paused a moment, face very still. Then he sighed and shifted, leaning in to look into my face. “What happened to you, Alec?”
I fought back images of Dad’s drink-reddened face, ordering me out of the house. Of David, lying in a drug-induced coma in a hospital bed, all tubes and sallow skin. The property developer goons who had hammered on my door day and night. I breathed until I could control my voice. “I’m fine. I just don’t want to sell.”
“Okay,” Brody said, with a half-smile, putting his hand on my arm. “Okay. I’m sorry I upset you.”
“You didn’t,” I replied then, after a moment, with more feeling, “You didn’t, Brody. I upset myself.”
“Yeah, you did,” he said, tone light again. “So you wanna come see this car or what?”
I glanced out of the window at the gathering dusk. “It’s too late to start any work today. Clem’ll have all the paperwork ready for you to pick up on your way back out.”
“Oh. Sure.” He sounded hurt again. He glanced at my bedroom door then back at me, raising an eyebrow. “But I do believe you and I have some unfinished business?"
I dropped my gaze, rubbing my neck. “You can’t sleep here, Brody. There’s no room.”
Half his mouth turned up in that devil’s grin. “Who said anything about sleeping?”
My blood stirred. I remembered his skilled hands and the summery smell of his skin. My chest tightened, but the thought of having him, having anyone, under this roof was a more efficient buzzkill than a bucket of cold water. “I…I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” he said, easily enough. “I get it. Not here. That’s fine. I can live with that.” He leaned in so close I could feel his breath on my face. “So how about Jon’s hunting lodge? Jacuzzi bath? King-size bed? Would that put you more at ease?”
“What are you talking about?”
His smile broadened. “The other reason I’m here. Jon wants to invite you to a weekend at his new place. He’s bought a lodge just on the border of the national park. It’s only about an hour and a half from here. They just finished doing it up last week.”
I stared at him. “Jon Ogdell has bought a place in the Cairngorms?”
“Only on the edge. I think Jon likes the idea of the countryside, but anything this wild, well…” Brody cast a glance out of the window at the slate-strewn mountainside and white threads of rushing burns. “Let’s just say he likes his comforts.”
“Why here?”
Brody laughed. “You’re worrying too much, Alec. Jon’s always doing this. His current thing is aspiring to be the landed laird—like you, I guess, but more like the storybooks. Either way, he’s having a party and you’re invited.”
“Why?”
“Because he likes you. And because I like you.”
“You do?” I asked before I’d thought it through.
“Sure,” he said with a smile so charming it couldn’t possibly be real. “Tendency to imagine the worst aside, you’re intriguing. Not hard on the eyes either, as I’m sure you know.”
I searched for words but couldn’t find any.
“Your friend Meg’ll be there.”
“She will?”
“Naturally. She’s Jon’s lawyer now. She’d like to see you, right?”
“She would…”