“Room three’s open. Right next to Marco’s.” Ally glanced between them. “I’ll let Mom know.”
When she’d gone, Sophia sipped her coffee and stared at the books lining the walls. Classics, mostly. Well-read spines. Someone in this household had taste.
“I need to meet Christina,” she said. “Today, if possible. And Violet.”
“I’ll take you to the cottage this afternoon. But Sophia—” Marco’s voice carried a warning. “She’s been through enough. If you go in there with accusations and threats?—”
“I don’t know what I’m going to say to her.” It was the truth. The speech she’d prepared—the one about lawyers and reputation and protecting the family name—felt hollow now. Irrelevant. “But I won’t make promises about being gentle. I need to see for myself what kind of woman she is.”
Marco nodded, accepting that. “Fair enough.”
The fire crackled in the next room. Outside, a bird called from somewhere in the garden. Sophia finished her coffee and stood, smoothing her ruined coat.
“I need to change. And possibly burn these shoes.” She moved toward the door. “Have someone show me to my room. We’ll go to the cottage in an hour.”
She was in the hallway, heading for the stairs, when a voice spoke from the kitchen doorway.
“You must be Marco’s sister.”
She turned. The man filling the doorframe was tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair silvered at the temples and a jaw that hadn’t seen a razor in at least two days. He wore a flannel shirt over a henley, jeans worn soft from actual work, boots that had walked through their share of mountain mud. A chipped ceramic mug in his hand read “World’s Okayest Writer.”
Everything about him read practical and indifferent—the complete opposite of every man in her carefully curated world.
“I am.” She straightened, summoning the armor she’d worn for decades. “And you are?”
“James.” He took a sip of coffee, offering nothing else.
“James what?”
“Roberts.”
The name tugged at her memory—a book review she’d skimmed in the arts section, an award ceremony mentioned in passing. She studied him with fresh interest. The silver at his temples. The calloused hands wrapped around the mug. The way he held himself apart, contained and watchful.
“The author. J.M. Roberts.”
Something flickered in his gray eyes—annoyance, maybe, or resignation. “Sometimes.”
“Your last novel won the?—”
“Don’t.” The word came out flat. “I came here to get away from people who want to talk about my books.”
“I wasn’t—” She stopped, annoyed at her own defensiveness. “I was simply making an observation.”
“Observe quietly, then.”
The dismissal was so complete, so unconcerned with her feelings, that Sophia didn’t know whether to be offended or fascinated. Men didn’t speak to her this way. Men fell over themselves to impress her, to earn her attention, to leverage her family connections.
This one looked at her as if she were a mild inconvenience blocking his path to the coffeepot.
“You’re very rude,” she said.
“And you’re standing in a hallway looking like someone just told you the world doesn’t revolve around you.” He moved past her toward the kitchen. “Welcome to Blueberry Hill.”
He was gone before she could respond, leaving Sophia alone in the hall with her ruined shoes and the unsettling realization that for the first time in years, someone had looked at her and seen nothing worth impressing.
From the study, she heard Marco’s voice, low and urgent, probably on the phone with Colton. From the kitchen came the sounds of Tara giving instructions to someone. And somewhere outside, a truck pulled up the drive, gravel crunching under its tires.
Sophia climbed the stairs to find her room, her mind already racing ahead to the conversation with Christina. To the baby she hadn’t yet seen. To the strange new world her brother had stumbled into.
