He went out the door, shaking his head while chuckling. “This should be fun,” she heard him say before the door shut behind him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Josh balanced carefully on the planks that were now his hall floor as he made his way to the kitchen for breakfast. It was quiet for a change. Usually the noise was overwhelming. It didn’t sound like a renovation. It sounded like a demolition. Every day the castle looked worse than the day before. There were gaps in the walls, holes in the floors and dust everywhere. But it was the noise more than anything else that was getting to him. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t work. And couldn’t get a minute to himself.
He pushed open the kitchen door and everything got worse. His mum, complete with new hairstyle and clothes, was making coffee for the workmen. There were four of them standing at the counter, each scoffing a freshly baked muffin. His mother was beaming as she fussed over the men. Josh had to blink twice to get his head around it. He hadn’t seen her like that since he was in high school. Back then Josh’s house was the social hub of the neighbourhood, and his mum was the centre.
But it wasn’t the fact she was playing hostess to the men who were destroying his home, and his patience—it was the fact his father was hunched over at the dining room table watching her do it. And if the look on his face said anything, it was that he didn’t like it one bit.
“Coffee, darling?” his mum called to Josh.
“Sure.” He sauntered to the counter.
He heard his dad grunt behind him. A nonverbal comment on Josh taking his mother’s side. His mother pointedly ignored his dad, and the grunt.
“You’ve got to have one of these muffin things.” The foreman waved a muffin at him. “As far as I can tell, they’re a cross between a scone and a fairy cake.”
“You telling me you’ve never had a muffin?” One of the younger guys looked like he’d just heard Santa wasn’t real.
“We don’t do fancy stuff in our house. Unless the missus makes it, or gets it from Morag, we don’t eat it.”
“Muffins aren’t fancy. You can get them in the supermarket.”
The other three men looked at the young apprentice pointedly. His whole head went red. His wide eyes shot to Josh’s mother. “Except your muffins, Mrs. McInnes. These are really fancy.”
His mum took pity on the boy and offered him another. He wasn’t too embarrassed to take one.
She smiled at Josh. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you some breakfast?”
He shook his head. “Had some when I got back from running this morning. Coffee is good enough.”
“Running?” one of the men said. His tone made it clear that Josh may as well have said ballet dancing.
“Yeah.” Josh sipped his coffee.
“Why the hell do you do that, boy?” the foreman asked.
Josh tried not to laugh, but he knew he couldn’t stop his face from twitching. “Keep in shape.”
They all looked at him like he was mad.
“If you want to get fit take up a proper sport—rugby or football. Something men play,” the foreman said. “Only the women run around here, in their wee girly outfits. Please tell me you don’t wear a girly outfit.”
Josh almost choked on his coffee. “No, no girly outfit.”
“To be fair,” one of the other men chimed in, “the women only run because Lake runs and they like following him.”
“That’s true.” They all nodded in agreement.
“And Lake is allowed to run. He’s ex-SAS. He couldn’t be girly even if he tried,” the foreman pointed out—at the same time implying that Josh wasn’t man enough to st
op from being girly.
Josh looked up to see his mother grinning at him with a twinkle in her eye. He grinned back before he went over to join his dad.
“Look at her.” His dad sounded more like a growling lion than a man. “Flirting with all the workmen.”
“She isn’t flirting, she’s being sociable. It’s how she is.”