“Gone to the local pub,” Martin replied. “They’ll be here for the meeting in the morning. You’ll see everyone then. We didn’t want to overwhelm you all at once.”
“Stop treating me like I’m delicate,” she snapped.
“Okay, then. We wanted to talk to you before the meeting,” Jake said.
“Well, talk,” she said. “But give me wine first.”
“Sit down,” Martin said. “I got some wine from the cellar—” He waved a hand toward a sideboard where an impressive array of wine bottles stood. “—and dinner will be in half an hour. Why don’t we wait until after we’ve eaten to discuss...things?”
Kane stifled his impatience. He wanted to find out more about these men who had come after Kaitlin. But he supposed he’d have to wait. He wasn’t good at that, but he was learning.
A couple of the bottles had been opened and Rose brought them to the table, then got glasses from a cupboard. Clearly, she felt at home here. “Sit,” she said.
Kane sat in the nearest chair, situated at one end of the big table. He watched, with a mixture of amusement and resignation as Kaitlin sidled around the room, grabbing a bottle of wine and a glass as she passed, then took the seat furthest from him. She poured herself a drink as the others took seats around the table. All except Rose, who was helping with the cooking. Seemed weird.
She tossed him a look. “Hey, I’m very domesticated.”
Jake poured the other bottle into glasses and shoved them around the table while Rose opened two more bottles. “You’re a load of lushes,” she said, grabbing a glass for herself and taking a seat next to Dave. Kane had Christa on one side and an empty seat on the other. Mr. Popular.
Janelle cast him an amused glance and then came and sat beside him.
He relaxed back and sipped his wine. It was good, deep dark red, rich, with a hint of vanilla and blackberries. He smiled at the thought.
He hadn’t tasted wine until he was twenty-one—that had been his very first trip to London and the wine had tasted like shit.
His mind drifted back over those early years. Life had been hard growing up and had in no way prepared him for the outside world. Certainly, they hadn’t had luxuries like wine. But once he’d gotten over the shock and the awe, he’d embraced the new experiences and thrown himself into his new life. He’d been a merchant on the trading routes to Asia, trained as a doctor,driven cattle across America, traveled with the tribesmen in Afghanistan. Tasted wine in almost every country of the world.
He looked up and realized everyone around the table was watching him. Had they been sharing his thoughts? A look into his past.
“Well, I was,” Janelle said. “Of course, our parents told me what it was like in Africa. But leaving was different for them. They had each other and the protection of Alasdair Rayleigh. They were cushioned from the harshness of life. It must have been fascinating to go out alone like that, not knowing anything. To survive.”
He looked across and found Kaitlin watching him. Had she been in his mind? But she glanced away without giving him any idea.
“It was.” Whatever happened, he’d had a good life. He’d seen things and changes other people could only imagine. And he’d done a lot of good in the world. Maybe not enough to offset the bad. But who had?
“Christa,” Jake said, and everyone laughed.
Okay, not quite everyone. There were a few here who couldn’t read minds—Christa, Dave, Martin, Ethan. How did that feel to be so isolated from the people around you? To know they could read you, but you were permanently deaf. He couldn’t imagine it.
“Christa what?” she asked.
“Nothing bad,” Jake replied. “We were just saying how nice you were.”
“Ugh.”
Chapter 8
Kaitlin gulped down her wine and poured another glass. She felt like she was in a little bubble cut off from the rest of the world. But if so, then it was a bubble of her own making.
Even knowing that, she couldn’t break it down. Beside her, Sadie was in animated conversation with Josie who was on her other side. Sadie turned to her briefly and squeezed her leg.“Thank you,” she whispered in Kaitlin’s head,“She’s so much better.”
Sadie had been worried about Josie, especially since she hadn’t been able to draw her sister out of herself after herasshole of a husband’s death. But at last, she was coming around.
Even Kane was joining in the conversation. A three-way between him and Jake and his sister, Janelle, on his other side. She seemed to have forgiven her brother for abandoning them all.
“Sometimes you need to forgive.”
She looked across and caught the other woman’s gaze.
