“You don’t mean here, right?” he said against her mouth.
She loved that he sounded uncertain. She smiled against him before biting his bottom lip ever so gently. He crushed her against him, which made her run her tongue over his lips. He made a raw animal sound.
“No,” she told him. “I don’t mean here.”
She stepped away from him, but held on to his hand.
“Come on, Lake—walk me home. I’ll invite you in.”
She looked over her shoulder at him as she led him from the folly.
“And before you ask, I know exactly why I’m inviting you over this time.”
The dark look in his eyes made her swoon. There was no going back from her invitation now.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rainne kept one eye on the road outside her parents’ bus as she answered their questions about the fashion show and the shop.
“Hemp,” her mother said. “That’s the material of the future. Sustainable, recyclable and versatile. You should start a line of hemp underwear.”
“It’s a great material,” Rainne said. Although she wasn’t sure it was cut out for lingerie. Women tended to want a more luxurious fabric.
“Will you do the design?” Joyce was making dinner on the tiny stove at the front of the bus.
The smell of bean stew filled the interior of her childhood home and made her mouth water.
“Uh, no,” Rainne said. “I’d need to get someone to do that.”
“Someone local?” Joyce said.
“Of course.”
The bus was parked in the tourist car park beside the loch. No one was using the space this time of year—not until the Christmas Market was on, anyway, and that didn’t start for another two weeks. Which made her wonder why her parents had arrived so early. She cast a glance towards her father. He was working on an old laptop at the back of the bus. He had a desk in the bedroom area, which was cluttered with textbooks and notes.
“What’s Eric working on?” she said.
“He’s researching sustainable food sources and the government’s attitude towards them. He’s giving a talk at the Enviro Conference in Holland in February.”
Rainne had heard a few of her father’s lectures over the years. They were heavy with science and intellectual reasoning. It was easy to forget that her taciturn father had two doctorates and could be articulate when the need took him.
“What about you?” she asked her mum. “What are you working on right now?”
“The national debt,” her mother said while she stirred the pot. “We need to stop the capitalist attitude that’s ruining this country. Greed is killing people, not just the economy. Which reminds me, your brother has a big event planned for London at the same time as the next budget is being read. He could use some help with that.”
It took Rainne a moment to follow her mother’s point.
“But I’ll be here, busy with the shop,” she said.
She saw her mother frown before Rainne spotted a figure walking towards the bus. Her heart fluttered.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I invited someone for dinner.”
Joyce was less than pleased.
“Lake?” she said tightly.
“No. Remember, he said he was busy. This is Alastair. A...friend of mine.”