“What happened to the first one? Don’t tell me—her bones are buried in a shallow grave under the cottage.”
“No, but I think she would have done that to me if she’d had the tools.” Candles lit, he put the matches back in the drawer and grabbed two glasses from the cupboard. “I intended it to be romantic.”
“It didn’t turn out that way?”
“She saw a spider. Screamed.” He put the glasses down on the table. “Her scream made me jump and I dropped the bottle of expensive white I’d been saving for a special occasion.”
She grinned. “That must have shocked the spider.”
“Never seen anything run so fast. And she was close behind.” He poured wine into the glasses and handed her one. “To us. May we survive everything our families throw at us.”
He sat down next to her and she tapped her glass against his.
“To starlight walks and survival skills. And to you, for rescuing me.”
He took a mouthful of wine and put his glass down. “Not sure what you mean by that, but you’re welcome.”
“If you hadn’t bundled me into the car and brought me here I would either have gone alone and died of frostbite,
or I would have had an embarrassing meltdown in the house in front of your mother. Neither of those outcomes would have been great.” Her phone buzzed and she sighed. “I should have anticipated that.” She grabbed her coat and found her phone. “It’s my sister.”
“Wondering where you are?”
“Something like that.” She replied to the message.
Am fine. With Brodie, working. Don’t wait up for me.
A few seconds later, the reply came back.
Laid by the Laird?
She shut her phone off before Brodie could see it and dropped it back into her pocket, hoping he didn’t notice her blushing.
“Is your sister okay?”
“I think so. We had a big, tell-all, confessional conversation with our mother tonight, so that was a load of fun.”
“Ah.”
“Exactly.” She took another sip of wine. “Ella is probably fine. She’s the sort of person who likes things to be fixed. Likes people to get along.”
“You don’t?”
“I think I’m more—complicated.” She finished her glass of wine. “Sometimes I think I don’t have great insight into my own feelings.”
“And that—er—has nothing to do with the wine?”
“No. Maybe wine would give me more insight.”
“Sounds to me as if you knew what you wanted when we talked on the phone that night.”
“You didn’t talk to me. You talked to inner Samantha.”
The corners of his mouth flickered. “I like inner Samantha a lot. She’s a hell of a woman. Would inner Samantha like to talk about tonight?” He topped up her glass. “No pressure. But I’m happy to listen if you need a nonjudgmental ear. We don’t have to tell outer Samantha.”
“How did you know there’s an outer Samantha?”
“I’ve met her. She’s a hell of a woman, too. A little scary though.”