Page 31 of Bonetide

“Yes. The boatshed.” I nod at it though his eyes stay fixed on mine. “I’m setting it up as a studio. For my art.”

“Sounds like a good idea as any.”

Another long beat, the tension between us not dissipating, and yet I am somewhat determined to make it go away, make him finally seem normal.

“Want to help me drag a bench around?” I ask, before I can think about it.

A small, easy smile. “Aye. I can drag a bench.”

“Good.”

I drop the rest of the laundry in the basket without folding it, leave the basket in the mudroom, and walk down the slope to the shed. He follows a careful step or two behind, which is somehow both respectful, as if he’s giving me space, and unnerving because he’s become just this powerful, strange, overwhelming presence at my back. I have to fight the urge to keep turning around and make sure he’s not about to pounce on me or something.

As if you’d mind, I chide myself. Probably need a good pouncing.

I ignore my brain and stop in front of the shed. The wrought-iron latch sticks, and the door needs a shoulder to open. I have to back up and let him try when I can’t shift it. He puts his shoulder to the wood. The door creaks open like the cottage when I first arrived.

Don’t let him in, Effie had written. But she didn’t mean the shed, and maybe she didn’t even mean him.

“You’ll need to put some oil on those hinges,” he suggests, stepping aside to let me enter first.

Inside, the air is cool with the iron-rich smell of seaweed. There are two windows, small and high, one north-facing toward the loch, the other facing west to the bay. The light through it is the soft even light I’d been hoping for. There’s a workbench, a low stone shelf along the back wall, a stack of empty wooden fish-crates Effie must have collected over the years, a long-handled push-broom in the corner, two coils of rope on a peg, and a flat slab of slate the size of a small table propped against the wall.

“You’ll want the bench under that window,” he says, pointing to the west one that faces the bay—and the castle. “The light will hold there till almost six in summer. Less in winter.”

He’s right. I originally thought I’d have it under the north window to get that even light, but perhaps at this latitude you have to be a little greedy.

“And the slate.” He goes to the slab. “Set it on the crates, it’ll do as a second surface. You can press flowers under it without the weight of a real press.”

I watch him for a beat. He’s gone to the slate and lifts it as if it weighs nothing at all and continues to look around, already calculating the rest of my space.

“You seem to know what’s best for me,” I comment. My way of pointing out that he’s in my shed and future art studio commanding it like he owns the place.

“I do,” he declares, his nostrils flaring slightly. I should be annoyed at his confidence and pushiness but somehow, I’m not. It’s like I knew he would say that.

Then, as if remembering he has manners in one of his pockets, he nods at the workbench. “Would you like me to move that?”

I tell him I do, because even though he’s bossy, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

I drag the workbench over to the west window with his help. The bench is heavy oak, worn to a shine in places, and when we set it down under the window, his hand is closer to mine than it has been since he arrived.

“Do you want the heater in the corner or under the bench?” he asks, voice lower now that he’s closer to me.

“Under, but to the side. Less risk of knocking it over and starting a fire.”

“Sensible.”

“Sometimes I am,” I joke wryly, managing to stop myself from going down a self-deprecating spiral as I’m prone to do.

He sets it up while I open the wooden supply box I brought down from the kitchen, with my pencils and pens and the small jar of brushes I’ve been hauling around from place to place. He comes over once the heater’s settled.

“This your kit?”

“In all its glory.”

He picks up one of the brushes. An old sable, bristles thin and pointed, the wood worn smooth where my thumb sits. He turns it in his fingers. He has the kind of hands that move carefully—long fingers, broad palms, knuckles that look like he’s broken them and they’ve healed. They’re good fucking hands. Skilled hands.

He holds the brush out to me.