For a Rainy Afternoon (3 page)

“I’ve never kissed a ginger before.”

I groaned inwardly. Was it just me or did chat-up lines get more cheesy and stupid the older I got? If goth-gay was thinking that his declaration of interest meant I was immediately going to offer him a kiss, he was mistaken.

“Not going to happen,” I said firmly. I expected him to move away back to his friends at the bar.

He sprawled across our table to reach me, soaking up the beer he’d spilled and crushing Jack’s cigarettes. Jack made a lunge for the packet with a curse of disappointment, I sat back in my chair in surprise at the whole lunging thing, and goth-gay ended up rolling onto the floor. There was no way that shit wasn’t funny, and I couldn’t help the snort of laughter that left me.

“How old are you?” Jack snapped at the poor boy, who hadn’t moved and looked like he’d landed badly.

“Eighteen,” goth-gay said as he pushed himself to stand and winced. He then limped back toward his friends and punched the closest on the arm. Likely enough the other boy was teasing him.

Sighing at the inconvenience of beer trickling onto my jeans, I realized just how tired I was and all I wanted was a shower and bed. “Fuck, were we ever that young?”

I watched Jack straighten his cigarettes and push them into his shirt pocket. He considered the question as carefully as someone with two beers and four whiskey chasers in them could.

“Maybe. But that stupid?” He grinned at me, and I just knew that he was going to make a joke at my expense. It was what we did. “’Course I would never have acted like that. No way would I kiss a ginger.” He backed off enough for me not to be able to smack him, but I couldn’t stop myself from laughing as I stepped forward and leaned into him. We moved on after that, had hot vinegary chips by the taxi stand, and then I was on my way home.

The taxi rounded the top bend of the village and passed the pond in a wide sweep on the potholed road. I imagined Jason inside Maggie’s house and wondered what he was doing in there. Was he an international spy? A vagrant? Or the last suggestion made by Jack, some kind of movie star out to hide from his adoring public? Jason was certainly sexy enough to rock a bad-boy Hollywood style. All I could think as I let myself into my place and switched on the hall lights was that I needed an excuse to go knock on his door tomorrow. It hit me with sudden clarity as I turned out my bedside light and turned on my side to sleep. If Jason had somehow inherited Maggie’s cottage, did that mean he owned the station house as well? To lose the place now, after ten years where each corner of it was part of me, was something that snagged me as sharply as the grief I felt at Maggie’s passing.

I’d find out more tomorrow. There was nothing I could do tonight, and even with the nagging doubts about my position at the station house, I forced myself to drift off to sleep.

T
HE
VILLAGE
was quiet at 6:00 a.m., and the final leg of my run accidentally on purpose took me past Apple Tree Cottage. For the longest time I stood on the green under the oak tree and stretched out my heated muscles. From this angle I could see the cottage and imagine the person behind the door. When I had awakened, the worries I’d pushed to one side were front and center. Maggie had bought the building, which meant it must now be part of her estate? Why hadn’t I ever asked? In the last few years, I had felt less a staff member and more a partner, and I’d had plenty of opportunity to ask her outright.

The only time I’d mentioned the future, she’d laughed it off. As if the future didn’t matter, as if she had a plan that only she was privy to, and I’d never pushed it.

“Hey.”

I stiffened at the call. Jason had been completely exhausted last night, how come he was up this early? I sketched a wave, but he was obviously waiting for me judging by the way he leaned against the gate. There was nothing for it. I needed to acknowledge the hello with words of my own. I crossed the green and finally ended up at the gate, with Jason sitting on a bench on the other side. He had a mug in his hand, coffee probably. He looked good in spite of his eyes that were heavy with a need for sleep. Maybe he hoped the caffeine would work to keep him awake.

Offering him a smile, I leaned on the gate. “Morning, how was the cottage?”

“Dark, cold, and I couldn’t find bedding, so I slept on the chair in the front room.” He ended his explanation with a small huff and a shrug of his broad shoulders. “But my clock is all fucked up.” He added the last morosely and ran his free hand through his dark hair until it stood up on end in unruly dropped curls around his head. “You want orange juice? I’d offer coffee, but first off, I have no coffee, and second, I have no electricity.”

I didn’t want coffee, but I did want to spend a bit of time with Jason because I had questions for him. Like who he was, and how he had a key to Maggie’s place, and what did he know about the station house?

“Come down to mine,” I offered without hesitation. “I have electricity.”

I have electricity?
Why did my brain focus on that?

“And coffee?” Jason asked with hope in his voice.

“A machine.”

He visibly brightened at the words and stood up. “I’ll be down in ten minutes,” he said. He smiled at me and the upbeat start to the day I had been enjoying was suddenly even shinier. I didn’t bother explaining how to find me again; Burton Hartshorn was little more than twenty houses in a small cluster around the old station and pond, and he’d find me quickly. As I half jogged down the hill, I tried to work out if I had time for a shower and realized with sudden clarity that a shower wasn’t really the priority. Getting the coffee machine turned on and up and running was step one. A shower, no shave, and pulling on clean jeans and a fresh pale green T-shirt was step two.

Taking the time to psych myself up in the mirror was something I had to do. My stubble was blond, my eyes a little bloodshot from the late night and the beer, but at least when my hair was wet it lay flat. I was okay, presentable, and I glanced at the tattoos on my arms, wondering if Jason had noticed them and whether he was the kind of guy who admired them or sniffed at them as a scar on skin.

Whoa…. I reined myself in. My gaydar was crappy to say the least, and a smile that reached beautiful eyes probably meant nothing that I was hoping it did.

He wants a coffee. Just a coffee. And I am a sad lonely guy sliding into my thirties with nothing but the chance of losing my home on the horizon.

The knock on the door heralded his arrival, and I took the small narrow stairs three at a time, landing as gracefully as I could in the small hall that separated my home from the business. Pausing for a second, I centered myself and practiced a smile before opening the main door and letting him in. He was carrying a box and he’d clearly run gel through his hair as the curls were tamed. The tinge of disappointment was very real; I liked the randomness of the bed curls he’d had before.

“Okay?” He spoke, and I realized the question probably had a lot to do with me standing in the doorway staring.

“Sorry, come in. The machine we have isn’t all that fancy, but the coffee is okay. Well, it’s okay for me, but I’m guessing you would want it stronger being an American and all.” I was babbling and deliberately stopped talking as soon as I realized. Jason was bemused, but he placed the box on the table and pushed it over to me.

“Any caffeine is fine, and this is for you. I think.”

“Was it outside?” Parcels were dropped at the back door on a frequent basis for one reason or another. Mostly catalog delivery returns or charity sacks for the monthly run I do to Oxfam.

“From the house.” He pointed at a label where my name was scrawled in black pen across the card.
For Robbie MacIntyre from Maggie Simmons
. “I assume you’re the Robbie MacIntyre on here, and we probably have to talk.”

He took the proffered mug from me and inhaled the scent of the coffee before sipping cautiously and wincing at the heat of it on his lips. I couldn’t bring myself to comment, because my chest was suddenly tight. This was it. He was somehow responsible for Maggie’s estate and this was my notice to evict. I couldn’t help feeling dramatic; this place was my life and I loved it here. Energy left my body rapidly, and I slumped in the nearest chair, not even caring that my mug of tea was out of reach at the other end of the large solid table.

“Okay. I’m listening.”

“Open the box first.”

“You tell me what you want to say first.”

“No, that’s not how she wanted it done.” Jason frowned and gestured at the box. “You need to open it.”

T
HE
TAPE
was loose enough for me to push a finger underneath it and to pull it until it split away from the unmarked box. Cautiously I lifted back the lid and peered inside. Books. Maybe ten or fifteen books. A couple of hardbacks and a whole pile of dog-eared paperbacks. I lifted out the top one.
A Crime at Allstairs
, by Monroe Kitchener.

“Maggie’s favorite author,” I whispered as I thumbed the pages. There were penciled words in the margin and a couple of the pages had been turned down at the corners in a fashion Maggie normally frowned on. The box had the air of age and when I lifted out a couple more I realized that they were mostly Monroe Kitchener books. Old copies of books that I had read and reread—murders and crime in the middle of the English countryside dating back to the midthirties and forties. Under the paperbacks there was a large folder bulging with paper, then a couple of hardbacks and some notebooks. “And these are for me?”

Jason cleared his throat as he pulled out an envelope and placed it on the table. The address on the front was in New York, and it had been opened hastily, given the jagged edge. “So there I am, twenty-seven, tied up in a job I hate and I get this letter. It arrived last weekend, and I thought it was junk mail, only it clearly wasn’t. My dad had a similar letter, but inside his was all this legal information about inheritance and wills. It’s a long story and one I am trying to pick apart, but the upshot of it is that I own Apple Tree Cottage and you own the station house and Maggie’s money is split fifty-fifty. Also that she specifically bequeathed a bureau to me and the books that are yours.”

I heard every word that Jason said, that the station house was mine, that somehow I had become a homeowner and the beneficiary of someone who I was close to but to whom I wasn’t even related. But shock had me silent.

“Are you going to say something?” Jason asked. He sounded concerned and stood to rummage in the box. “Here,” he said softly. “This is your letter.”

I took it from him and slit it open without finesse, desperate to see what was inside. Legalese in the form of a will and whole bunch of terms I wasn’t familiar with. Then, there, under what appeared to be a will, was a handwritten letter, very simple in tone and few in words.

Dearest Robbie,

I’m hoping that this letter finds you well and not too shocked by what has happened. I also hope that sitting opposite you is Jason Young. He’s a relative of mine, an aspiring author and an American over here for the first time. I would like you to take care of him for as long as it takes him to decide what to do with the cottage. Please reread the enclosed books, and you may realize that just like you, I was once someone who dreamed of sharing my art with other people. In fact, there is a lot more I have in common with our American friend than you first may imagine. My love to you.

Maggie

“Oh” was all I could manage. I deflated a little because somehow none of this seemed real. Glancing at the clock confirmed that it was half seven and only ninety minutes had passed in my new day, yet everything had changed to the point where I didn’t recognize my life. I owned the station house, a box of books, and a folder of papers. And somehow my life was inextricably linked to Jason Young, from America.

“I had the same reaction. Like someone was punking me, pranking me…. You know what I mean.”

A snort of a laugh threatened to leave me, and I forced it back. I was actually still in shock. “So you’re Maggie’s grandnephew or something like that?” Being related to Maggie would explain why Jason was getting the cottage. But I wasn’t related to Maggie, and there was still no real explanation as to why I’d been given a huge amount of money in the form of bricks and mortar. None of this made sense. To my knowledge Maggie had never married or had children, although in one of her quieter moments she had admitted to a love that had died young. I wish I had asked her more at the time.

Jason shrugged. “Kind of I guess, if she was Great-Grandmother’s
sister.” He paused and stared up at the ceiling as he counted off
generations on his fingers. “I think that’s right. Anyway my uncle’s digging into all of this, and he’s going to ask some questions. I’ll let you know when I find out anything.” He stood and saluted with his mug before placing it in the butler sink. It clinked as it hit the porcelain, and I spotted him wincing. He evidently didn’t know how robust these old kitchen sinks were. “Thank you for the coffee.”

I didn’t have the control over myself to say anything, so I just waved as he left. I only briefly stared at Jason’s firm arse in the snug-fitting jeans because he was at eye level, and then my attention was back on the box. I placed the folder flat on the table and carefully tapped at it to line up all the pages inside. There was a distinct lump in the middle, and when I pulled the papers out, it was the notebook that caught my attention.

The cover had words on it, but they had dimmed with age and I had to peer closely to see them.
Recipes for the Heart: Mystical Meals and Dangerous Desserts
, by Granny B. I wondered who Granny B was. I know Maggie didn’t marry or have kids, so she wasn’t a granny as such. The pages were loose-leaf and held together with a variety of clips and string. I opened to the first page and realized the writing inside the first page was Maggie’s long, flowery script, with curls and flourishes that I often teased her about. She blamed being a child of the twenties. I just thought she loved the way all the curls appeared on the paper. With my finger I traced the words she wrote.