‘That won’t be—’
‘You might have an emergency before your family gets back tomorrow afternoon . . . even if it’s only how to work the remote control for the TV.’ She didn’t respond to his feeble joke. Griff dragged out his mobile. ‘Okay?’
‘Of course. I’m sorry. Again.’ Lyndsey’s shoulders drooped.
‘It’s okay. You’re tired, and it’s all a bit overwhelming, I’m sure.’ An understatement, but she wouldn’t appreciate him probing any further. She retrieved her phone from her backpack so they could swap numbers. ‘Don’t bother to come down, I’ll see myself out.’
‘Thanks again for the lift.’
‘You’re welcome. I’m sure I’ll see you around while you’re here.’
‘I’d say that’s quite possible. Goodbye, Mr . . . Griff.’
The unexpected spark of humor flashing in her emerald eyes brought his fascination with her flooding back with a vengeance.
Chapter Three
Lyndsey finished scrubbing a tea-stained blue pottery mug and gave it a good rinse off in boiling water before pulling off a couple of sheets of kitchen roll to dry it thoroughly. She preferred to be more environmentally conscious and use a tea towel, but the dirty germ-ridden object hanging by the sink made her shudder. After one long stare at the green-and-white PG Tips box, she pushed it out of sight and opened her reusable linen bag, stuffed with a selection of herbal tea bags. Her normal morning choice was ginseng matcha, because its energizing herbs and whole leaf green tea gave the perfect kick-start to the day. At least, that was normally the case, but this morning it would face an uphill battle. Despite the soothing camomile tea she drank before falling into bed last night, she’d been wide awake by three. Now it was only eight o’clock, and she was struggling to keep her eyes open. With a resigned sigh she made her drink.
If she stayed here in Becca’s untidy kitchen a moment longer, she might do something unforgiveable, like clean it, so she’d better find somewhere else to drink her tea.
She strolled back through the house and stepped out onto the porch, hoping that a dose of fresh air might lift her lethargy. Lyndsey padded down the cool wooden steps onto the dewy grass, and stopped to sip her tea. The almost musty bitterness was definitely an acquired taste. Idly, she watched two gray squirrels squabbling over something at the base of a large oak tree.
Gardening wasn’t really her thing, but even she could admire the huge azaleas in full flower along the front of the house, their frothy white blossoms resembling a delicate lace veil. The rest of the garden, with its lush dark green grass framed by mature trees, suited her immensely, because she’d never been a fan of fussy, overly manicured gardens. That probably came from her being a fervent disciple of William Morris. She’d adopted, as her own mantra, his famous quote about having nothing in your house (or outside of them, in this case) that you do not know to be beautiful or believe to be useful. A tiny smile played around her lips. Morris was the original selective minimalist, before anyone heard of Marie Kondo.
A buzzing sound interrupted her musings and she jerked her head around, searching for a bee before realizing it was coming from her phone. She yanked her mobile out of her dressing gown pocket and spotted a new text from her sister. Becca didn’t do short and sweet, so the voluble message began with rambling expressions of guilt for not being there to meet Lyndsey the night before. Right at the end came the pertinent part. Everyone had woken up early, so they’d already left Memphis and were now well on the way home.
Lyndsey’s stomach tightened. In an hour or so, her challenge would really begin. She tossed her barely touched tea on the grass. It was time to get her armor on.
* * *
Griff selected a rectangular piece of glass and held it up to the light, shook his head, and set it back down again. The solid white, milky opalescent glass was completely wrong for his latest project, but his mind kept straying from work today.
Earlier, when he was out on the porch drinking his first cup of coffee, his eye caught a flash of white through the trees. He stood up to take a look, thinking it might be a mockingbird in flight, because the white patches on their wings became more visible in the air, along with the outer tail feathers. Olivia, his most recent ex-girlfriend, called his interest in bird-watching another of what she scathingly labeled his ‘old-man hobbies.’ But this morning’s sighting wasn’t a bird of the feathered variety, but the tall, erect shape of his new neighbor in a sensible, white dressing gown. Griff had almost called out to her, but drew back at the last second, reluctant to make her uneasy about being observed.
He’d thought nothing of it when she suddenly disappeared back in the house, until he received a text from Deke a few minutes later. No doubt Lyndsey got a similar message to say her family were on the way home. Within the next half hour, he heard a vehicle and peered out in time to see Deke’s shiny black Mercedes minivan swish by. A few months ago, his friend laughingly bemoaned becoming a suburban, middle-aged man when he bought the large vehicle to accommodate his growing family.
Griff forced his concentration back to his latest commission. The three leaded stained-glass panels were for a new high-end Nashville restaurant, his most lucrative and prestigious job yet. The two rectangular pieces, each about a meter high, would be set either side of a pair of reclaimed oak doors. The third — a half-moon shape — was set to be fixed over the door. They weren’t due until mid-July, but each would take at the very least a dedicated fifty to seventy hours of work. This morning’s task was to finalize the pattern, which so far only existed in his head. It was a meticulous process, which, if it wasn’t done correctly, would result in an expensive mess later. Before he got into this particular art form, he’d always been mathematically minded, so the precision needed at this stage came easily to him.
He opened his laptop and soon lost himself in the design, only straightening up when his hunched shoulders started to ache. Two hours had flown by. The loud growls from his stomach reminded Griff that he’d skipped breakfast, so the question now was whether or not to take a break to grab a bite of lunch before he printed off the patterns. Several sharp taps at the door pushed the decision aside for a moment.
‘It’s me,’ Deke’s deep gravelly voice boomed out. ‘Safe to come in?’
He’d been forced to train his friends not to simply wander into his workshop. Although he was scrupulous about cleaning the space both during and after he was working, he didn’t need them potentially breathing in lead dust or cutting themselves.
‘Yeah, no problem.’ Griff rubbed a tight spot on the back of his neck.
‘Sorry.’ Deke winced, seeing him at his workbench. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.’
‘It’s fine. I’d got to a good stopping point and was thinkin’ about getting lunch. Did you have a good time in Memphis?’
‘I guess, although it’s kinda strange to see everyone twenty years on from graduation. Several of the kids I palled around with back then treated me different.’ He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. ‘I doubt I’ll go back for the next one.’
Griff could see that classmates who’d settled into more regular lives might be either in awe, or resentful of their former classmate’s success. ‘That’s a shame.’
‘That’s life, I guess . . . anyway, I didn’t come over here to complain. Thanks again for picking up Lyndsey. How did it go? Bit scary, isn’t she?’ Deke chuckled.
‘We did okay. She was tired and a bit grumpy, but jet lag does that to us all.’ He couldn’t have his friend picking up on his mad, inexplicable attraction to the enigmatic Englishwoman.
