‘You okay?’ He tilted her a worried look.
‘Absolutely. It feels so amazingly good after hours of breathing recirculated air.’
‘You picked the right time to come. May’s a pretty month, although it’s a toss-up between that and October, when the color can’t be beat.’ His lazy smile returned. ‘We’d better get cracking. My truck’s over there. It’s not fancy, so don’t expect too much.’
Lyndsey kept to herself that her expectations about this whole trip weren’t high in the first place. ‘As long as it’s roadworthy, it’ll be fine.’ She took a wild guess that the beat-up pick-up truck he stopped next to might’ve been black in the dim, distant past, but now boasted a variegated color scheme of gray interspersed with rust.
‘It’s sturdier than it looks.’ One corner of his mouth twitched. ‘A bit like me.’
She didn’t comment on either statement.
‘Give me those, unless you can’t be parted from them.’ He gestured to her bags. ‘I’ll wedge them behind our seats.’
He left her no choice. Lyndsey winced as he squeezed in her roller bag, no doubt leaving marks on the bag’s pristine dark blue leather.
‘Off we go.’ After a few loud protests, the engine fired into life and the truck lurched out of the car park.
She never usually took naps because they messed with her sleep schedule, but her eyes soon drooped.
* * *
‘We’re here. This is Paradise Valley.’
Lyndsey jerked awake, momentarily confused. She peered out of the window as the truck slowed down. ‘Really?’ The narrow dead-end road with its scattering of disparate houses wasn’t what she’d expected.She’d seen pictures of Becca’s house, but not in context, and assumed it was in a wealthy enclave of similar properties. The name ‘Paradise Valley’ was the only thing with pretensions here.
‘Yeah.’ Griff sounded amused. He steered the truck up a long tarmacked drive and stopped. ‘Welcome to Grey House, your home sweet home for however long you’re stayin’. Hop out and see it close up.’
It was easier to follow his suggestion than answer his veiled question. She’d love to know how long she was staying, too.
* * *
Griff pretended to admire the well-proportioned red brick house in front of them rather than Lyndsey. He caught a drift of her subtle perfume, nothing in-your-face or lingering, but distinctive enough to throw him off-kilter.
‘Becca told us this property was in the same family for generations until Deke bought it a few years ago,’ she explained.
‘Well, the land it stands on was, but the original building was a simple log cabin. From what I’ve dug up of the history, Thomas Scott Grey, his wife Kathleen and several other family members made their way here from Kentucky back in the mid-1800s, after deciding this area was perfect to settle in and farm tobacco. They bought around fifty acres of land, named it Paradise Valley and built half a dozen cabins for them all to live in. This particular house was built by a descendant of the Greys around the turn of the twentieth century.Are you an architecture nut at all?’
‘Not really, although I know what I like when I see it, and this certainly is a lovely house.’
‘The white columns, wide porch, low-pitch gabled roof and evenly spaced multi-paned windows are all signatures of Greek Revival style,’ he explained, and pointed them out to her. ‘We like our classics here. You’ll even find a full-size replica of the Parthenon in downtown Nashville.’
‘Grey House has been here a while . . . from an American point of view.’ Griff cracked a smile. ‘I guess it still counts as a new house to y’all?’
‘Sort of.’ A hint of mischief lit up Lyndsey’s rather serious face. ‘It’s okay, I won’t brag that parts of my family’s cottage in Cornwall date from about 1550, the village church from the mid-1200s and the local pub has been in business about two hundred years.’
‘Bragging’s un-British, isn’t it? You’re only stating facts.’ For a fleeting second their eyes met and he expected a smart quip in response, but she only shrugged her stiff, slender shoulders. Griff cleared his throat and tried his best to stay on track. ‘Ruth Mae and her brother, Scotty, were the last of the Grey family to live in this house. Neither of them ever married or had any family of their own. He passed away a few years ago, and by then there was no money left and the building was very run-down. Miss Grey was forced to sell it to Deke, and he’s done a whole lot of work on it since then. He’s even turned the abandoned tobacco barn behind the house into a music studio. If you have the chance to get out and about here, you’ll see plenty of similar barns still standing. Ones built specifically for tobacco usually have gabled roofs and some form of ventilation used to dry the crop, like hinges attached to some of the cladding boards, so they can be opened.’ He became aware of her bemused look. ‘Sorry. I’m droning on. It’s a bit of a hobby of mine to track down old barns. I take pictures of them and try to dig up their histories.’
‘Don’t apologize. It sounds interesting.’
‘History fascinates me. It’s where we’re from, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is.’ He picked up on a hint of sadness in her brisk tones. Griff could’ve kicked himself for forgetting Deke’s explanation about his sister-in-law’s mixed heritage. Changing the subject seemed wise.
Griff turned away and pointed to a dilapidated wood cabin at the end of the road, its neglected garden choked with weeds and waist-high grass. ‘That’s where Ruth Mae Grey lives now. Deke told me once that should’ve been included in the sale, but he let the old lady hang onto it because he felt sorry for her. Did Becca mention Ruth Mae to you?’
‘No. Should she have? I mean, she didn’t mention you either.’ A heated flush bloomed in her sculpted cheeks. ‘Becca and I . . .’
‘It’s all right. You don’t have to explain.’ Difficult family relationships he totally got; he hadn’t spoken to his own brother in years. ‘Miss Grey is bitter and resentful, which is understandable, I guess, but it’s a shame. There are only five houses in total here, so you’d think we could all get along and help each other out.’
