“I can’t sell it. It’s not mine.” He stooped to get a grip on an extra-large carton, and rose slowly to his feet, grunting with effort. He staggered across the room and dropped it onto the stack, with a thud that raised small puffs of dust from the boxes beneath it.
“Whew!” He blew out his breath, grinning at her. “God help the antiquarians when they pick that one up.”
“What do you mean, it’s not yours?”
“What I said,” he replied matter-of-factly. “It isn’t mine. The house and land belong to the church; Dad lived here for near fifty years, but he didn’t own it. It belongs to the Parish Council. The new minister doesn’t want it—he’s got money of his own, and a wife who likes mod cons—so the Council’s putting it to let. Fiona and her Ernie are taking it, heaven help them.”
“Just the two of them?”
“It’s cheap. For good reason,” he added wryly. “She wants lots of kids, though—be room for an army of them here, I can tell you.” Designed in Victorian times for ministers with numerous families, the manse had twelve rooms—not counting one unmodernized and highly inconvenient bath.
“The wedding’s in February, so that’s why I’ve got to finish the clearing up over Christmas, to give time for the cleaners and painters to come in. Shame to make you work on your holiday, though. Maybe we’ll drive down to Fort William Monday?”
Brianna picked up another book, but didn’t put it in the box right away.
“So your home’s gone for good,” she said, slowly. “It doesn’t seem right—though I’m glad Fiona will have it.”
Roger shrugged.
“Not as though I meant to settle in Inverness,” he said. “And it’s not as though it were an ancestral seat or anything.” He waved at the cracked linoleum, the grubby enamel paint, and the ancient glass-bowl light fixture overhead. “Can’t put it on the National Trust and charge people two quid each to tour the place.”
She smiled at that, and returned to her sorting. She seemed pensive, though, a small frown visible between her thick red brows. Finally she put the last book in the box, stretched and sighed.
“The Reverend had nearly as many books as my parents,” she said. “Between Mama’s medical books and Daddy’s historical stuff, they left enough to supply a whole library. It’ll probably take six months to sort it all out, when I get ho—when I go back.” She bit her lip lightly, and turned to pick up a roll of packing tape, picking at it with a fingernail. “I told the real estate agent she could list the house for sale by summer.”
“That’s what’s been bothering you?” he said slowly, realization dawning as he watched her face. “Thinking about taking apart the house you grew up in—having your home gone for good?”
One shoulder lifted slightly, her eyes still fixed on the recalcitrant tape.
“If you can stand it, I guess I can. Besides,” she went on, “it’s not that bad. Mama took care of almost everything—she found a tenant and had the house leased for a year, so I could have time to decide what to do, without worrying about it just sitting there vacant. But it’s silly to keep it; it’s way too big for me to live in alone.”
“You might get married.” He blurted it out without thinking.
“Guess I might,” she said. She glanced at him sidelong, and the corner of her mouth twitched in what might have been amusement. “Someday. But what if my husband didn’t want to live in Boston?”
It occurred to him quite suddenly that her concern over his losing the manse might—just possibly—have been that she envisioned herself living in it.
“D’you want kids?” he asked abruptly. He hadn’t thought to ask before, but hoped like hell she did.
She looked momentarily startled, but then laughed.
“Only children usually want big families, don’t they?”
“Couldn’t say,” he said. “But I do.” He leaned across the boxes and kissed her suddenly.
“Me too,” she said. Her eyes went slanted when she smiled. She didn’t look away, but a faint blush made her look like a spring-ripe apricot.
He wanted kids, all right; just at the moment, he wanted to do what led to kids a lot more.
“But maybe we should finish clearing up, first?”
“What?” The sense of her words penetrated only vaguely. “Oh. Yeah. Right, guess we should.”
He bent his head and kissed her again, slowly this time. She had the most wonderful mouth; wide and full-lipped, almost too big for her face—but not quite.
He had her round the waist, his other hand tangled in silky hair. The nape of her neck was smooth and warm under his hand; he gripped it and she shivered slightly, mouth opening in a small sign of submission that made him want to lean her backward over his arm, carry her down to the hearth rug, and…
A brisk rapping made him jerk his head up, startled out of the embrace.
“Who’s that?” Brianna exclaimed, hand to her heart.
The study was lined on one side by floor-to-ceiling windows—the Reverend had been a painter—and a square, whiskered face was pressed against one of these, nose nearly flattened with interest.
“That,” said Roger through his teeth, “is the postman, MacBeth. What the hell is the old bugger doing out there?”
As though hearing this inquiry, Mr. MacBeth stepped back a pace, drew a letter out of his bag and brandished it jovially at the occupants of the study.
“A letter,” he mouthed elaborately, looking at Brianna. He cut his eyes toward Roger and beetled his brows in a knowing leer.
By the time Roger reached the front door, Mr. MacBeth was standing on the porch, holding the letter.
“Why did you not put it in the letter slot, for God’s sake?” Roger demanded. “Give it here, then.”
Mr. MacBeth held the letter out of reach and assumed an air of injured dignity, somewhat impaired by his attempts to see Brianna over Roger’s shoulder.
“Thought it might be important, didn’t I? From the States, i’nt it? And it’s for the young lady, not you, lad.” Screwing up his face into a massive and indelicate wink, he oiled past Roger, arm extended toward Brianna.
“Ma’am,” he said, simpering through his whiskers. “With the compliments of Her Majesty’s Mail.”
“Thank you.” Brianna was still rosily flushed, but she’d smoothed her hair, and smiled at MacBeth with every evidence of self-possession. She took the letter and glanced at it, but made no move to open it. The envelope was handwritten, Roger saw, with red postal-forwarding marks, but the distance was too far to make out the return address.
“Visiting, are ye, ma’am?” MacBeth asked heartily. “Just the two of ye here, all on your ownie-o?” He was giving Brianna a rolling eye, looking her up and down with frank interest.
“Oh, no,” Brianna said, straight-faced. She folded the letter in half and stuffed it into the back pocket of her jeans. “Uncle Angus is staying with us; he’s asleep upstairs.”
Roger bit the inside of his cheek. Uncle Angus was a moth-eaten stuffed Scottie, a remnant of his own youth, unearthed during the cleaning of the house. Brianna, charmed with him, had dusted off his plaid bonnet and placed him on her own bed in the guest room.