She made her way right down to the kitchen. The house echoed around her and noise travelled strangely. She had the impression of people just having left the stairs or the hall ahead of her, or of eyes high overhead on the upper floor, watching her go down.
Humming reached her ears as she approached the kitchen, a deep, soft voice, unexpectedly melodic, which put all thoughts of paintings out of her mind. It sent an unanticipated shiver down her spine and she froze, hand on the doorframe. Nick was taking something out of the oven. Freshly baked bread. The aroma wrapped itself around her, drawing her into the room. There was coffee on the stove too. It smelled divine.
Nick moved through the kitchen effortlessly, still humming to himself, unaware of his audience.
Alex just stared. She couldn’t help herself. She had never seen anyone so perfectly at ease with himself, with what he was doing. Last night he’d been grumpy and distant. This was like an entirely different man.
Then he turned around to put the bread on the cooling rack on the table and saw her. And frowned.
She took a step back from the hostility in that expression.
‘I have the dining room all set up for you for breakfast,’ he told her in a curt tone.
‘The what?’ she managed.
‘The dining room. For breakfast. I thought?—’
Oh no, he was not banishing her from the kitchen and dictating where she went in her own house.
‘Why would I eat on my own in a dining room like that? Did Theo eat up there?’
Nick’s face flushed, what she could see of it beneath the beard anyway. ‘Well, no but Theo was?—’
Alex pointedly grabbed one of the sturdy wooden chairs at the large kitchen table and pulled it out. She sat herself down and glared back at him.
‘Theo was what?’
‘Family,’ he murmured awkwardly and turned away.
Family. He didn’t mean a de Wilde. Not this time. Theo was Nick’s family, that was clearly how he thought of her brother. She suddenly felt very alone. Like Theo hadn’t been hers at all, not anymore.
Before her brother had died, she’d barely been back to Ireland in ten years. Alex had thrown herself into her studies. Undergraduate, Master’s, PhD in quick succession, living in halls and focused only on that. The moment things had taken off in the US she hadn’t visited once. Too busy with her stellar career, her celebrity status. Her brother had teased her about it relentlessly. And she’d called him a tree-hugging hippie.
God, she missed him, like part of her had been ripped away.
And she had abandoned Theo here. She had refused to come back and help him. And now he was dead. The report had never made sense. He was young and fit. He shouldn’t have died, not here, not in the woods. She needed to find out what had happened, now she was here. She owed him that much.
Nick just looked perplexed. Perhaps the pain of it showed on her face. She hastily looked away again and folded her arms in front of her. How on earth was she meant to ask him about Theo just out of the blue?What happened to my brother? Did you find him? How did he die? What kind of accident was it?
‘Sorry, I thought…’ Nick’s voice trailed off. ‘It was what we had planned for guests staying in the house. Theo’s plan for it, I mean. To let out rooms, bed and breakfast in the big house, that kind of thing. I shouldn’t have presumed.’ He plucked a mug down from where they hung in a neat row on the dresser. ‘Coffee? Or can I make you tea?’
‘You don’t need to wait on me, Nick. That’s not your job. And I’m not a guest.’ But she was already sitting down. And she had no idea where anything was. He was standing there with a mug, waiting. ‘All right, fine. Coffee please. But then can we just start again? I’m not lady of the manor or a paying guest. I’m not here to lord it over anyone. As soon as I can get the legal situation sorted out, I’m gone.’
His back was turned to her as he poured the coffee, but she clearly saw his shoulders flinch beneath the material of his black t-shirt.
Oh, he knew. He knew what she had planned and when it went through he wouldn’t have a job or a place to live anymore. Had he been trying to butter her up? Was that what this was all about? A little less of the grumpiness would help with that then. Or was he just hoping she’d give up and go away? If so, he really didn’t know her.
Well, of course he didn’t. They had only just met.
His silence bored into her, making her talk. The man could work for the FBI.
‘You asked if I had a fortune,’ she said, more gently this time. This had to be hard for him too. Theo had tried to make sure it was secure for him and he must have relied on that. Here she was, undoing all of it. ‘I don’t. I have enough to live on, and an income from…my work, sure, but no real capital. All I have is this house. And I don’t want it. There’s a hotel chain interested already. They want to renovate the whole house and landscape the grounds. The plans are amazing, a total transformation, golf course, spa, the works. It would be a huge boon for the community too.’
The kitchen was a big room but it suddenly felt small, as if the walls had closed in around her. Nick had turned around again and was staring at her like she was promising to murder kittens or something.
A chill snaked down her back and she was suddenly sure something else was watching her too, something that made her skin crawl. She twisted around, examining the kitchen again. In the corner a strange little door caught her attention. It was firmly closed, a huge black key jutting out of the ornate keyhole and bolts at the top and bottom. The way to the cellar. She’d never been allowed in there. It was where her grandfather had kept his wine. Above the stone doorframe, which looked to be part of the original building, there was a wreath of dried straw and flowers, old and faded, covered in dust. Long forgotten. Still, it caught her attention.
‘For protection,’ Gran had said. Like Brigid’s crosses and corn dollies, something so old the purpose didn’t make sense anymore. How long had that one been there? she wondered. It looked ancient.
