by Willa Blair
“He’s fairly new in town,” Alice replied from the counter while sorting through the first-aid kit’s contents. “Quiet, and keeps to himself when not at his office. Ah, here we go.” She returned with a tube of ointment and a bandage. “Antibacterial,” she explained as she dabbed some greasy-looking ointment on the gauze, then gestured for Caitlin to hold out her hand. “Maybe two years ago he opened his practice. Pets mostly, and a few farm animals. He trains service dogs. Rescue dogs. Something like that.”
Scratch duly covered, Caitlin thanked her, then continued, “I promised him a coffee for coming to my rescue today.”
“Good luck making that happen. So far he hasn’t been the social sort. All work and no play…” Alice got up and returned to the counter to put away her supplies, then asked, “Where are you staying?”
“At Hampton Dales. I’m appraising the estate’s contents.”
“Oh, well, that must be interesting. I haven’t been in town long, myself, but I’ve already heard the place is haunted or unlucky in some way. Everyone is vague. You know how rumors spread.”
Caitlin nodded, intrigued. “In bits and bobs, aye. So that’s all you know?”
Alice shrugged as the bell over the door jangled. The news about Caitlin’s incident had obviously spread. Several people stopped by to express their regret for her trouble and ask about her welfare. The attention embarrassed her, but Alice helped her with names and filled her in about each person after they left. Caitlin resolved not to share any of her own secrets with the chatty baker. No telling what she’d pass along.
Full of comfort food and ears ringing from Alice’s tales, Caitlin bid her new friend goodbye. She’d recovered enough to visit a nearby shop Alice recommended. It was a treasure-trove. A wonderland for kids of all ages. When she spotted a section of vintage board games, she knew she’d come to the right place. Ian and Lara’s twins loved word games. She found Scrabble in several languages and bought one in English and one in German. The twins would have fun with all those long, compound German nouns. Satisfied, she headed back to the estate, this time without being accosted.
****
After returning the car keys to Farrell and telling him about her adventure in the village, Caitlin decided the best way to put the mugging out of her mind was to lose herself in her work. She entered the estate’s beautiful, walnut raised-paneled library and looked around, bemused. How could Ridley not see what she saw in this house? She ran a cotton-gloved hand over the smooth wood and traced the wainscoting with one finger. Either it had been well taken care of or lovingly restored. Shelves to the barrel-vaulted ceiling were filled with books. Old leather-bound tomes, encyclopedias, medical books, everything to satisfy a curious mind, including paperback romance, mystery, and science fiction novels, and children’s books. Had Ridley lived here as a child and read those? Somehow their presence added a more human scale to the otherwise important space.
She turned full circle, overwhelmed by the sheer challenge of this room. One more thing for her To-Do list. She must find a librarian who could evaluate all these books. Or she could simply include the library as a whole in her catalog and assign it some fantastic value. Certainly many of these books were costly, though many were clearly not valuable, except perhaps to a collector.
Another Waterford chandelier sparkled in the center of the ceiling’s vault. There would be a record of its purchase somewhere. At least there weren’t any paintings to evaluate in here—the bookcases took up nearly every bit of wall space. Sconces took the rest.
She continued her inspection, crawling under the library table to determine its pedigree, overturning chairs and finally approaching a massive globe in its protective stand. It didn’t take an expert to see the globe’s continents and seas were made of semi-precious stone. Old borders and capitals were picked out in precious gems and identified in flowing, hand-inked script. The entire piece was breathtaking, possibly priceless, and belonged in a museum. Judging by some of the country names and borders, it had to be over a hundred years old. Gently she turned the globe, eager to see more of it. If she could determine its provenance, she could go online and find out more about it. Were there any more like it in the world? She’d never seen a globe so beautifully made.
And Holt Ridley wanted to discard it and everything else in this estate. She shook her head. What would it take to get through to him? To make him see what he had here? Was he so much a product of this century that he could not appreciate beautiful things from the past?
Why did he hate this place so much that he couldn’t wait to be rid of it?
****
Holt found Caitlin in the estate’s library, notepad and pen in hand, a camera on the table beside a pair of white cotton gloves. The thoughtful expression on her face as she wrote made her seem worlds away, and given the way her gaze kept shifting to a globe in a stand near her chair, perhaps she was.
He didn’t want to disturb her work, but he owed her an apology for the way he’d behaved at dinner last night. He crossed his arms, leaned against the doorframe, and then scuffed his shoe on the parquet floor.
Her gaze tracked around the room until it landed on him. “Hiya. I thought I heard something.”
“I didn’t want to startle you.”
She studied him for a moment before she spoke. “Are you checking up on me?”
Holt waved a hand. “No. I came to apologize for last night. I shouldn’t have been such a jerk.”
“A jerk?”
Did they use the word in Scotland? “Yes. My only excuse is jet lag. I took the red-eye to get here yesterday morning.”
“I see.”
Despite her clipped replies, she seemed to be taking this well. She wasn’t frowning at him, at least. Holt decided to try a little charm. “So am I forgiven?”
Caitlin set aside her writing materials and stood. “Mr. Ridley, you—or your solicitor—hired me to do a job. I’m doing it,” she added with a wave of her hand, then crossed her arms. “What you do with your estate once I finish is up to you.”
So not forgiven. “As true as that is, I’d still like us not to be at odds while you’re here. Why don’t we start by using first names? I’m Holt.”
“Do names matter? Either way, I’ll do what I was hired to do.”
Frustrated, Holt cast about for a way to keep his apology from turning into another argument. Appealing to her expertise seemed to be the best way to deflect this uncomfortable conversation. “What are you working on?”
“This globe. I’m making notes, then I’ll take pictures so I can do some further research on it.”
“Why? It looks like any other globe to me.”
“Come closer.” She beckoned then pulled on a glove.
Holt straightened and went where she directed him. “It’s pretty, I’ll give you that.”
“As well you should. But it’s more than pretty.” She gave it a gentle spin and pointed out the features that made it special, from the quality of the stones and the artistry of its construction to the historical place names and boundaries.
He also noted the bandage on her other hand and wondered how she’d hurt it. But she didn’t mention it, and soon he forgot to ask. She clearly knew her subject, and her enthusiasm for it succeeded where her proclamations at dinner last night had not. Holt’s interest was piqued. “Okay, I’ll admit, it’s an attractive and thought-provoking piece.” He could say the same about her. Attractive and thought-provoking. And irritating.
“And if my suspicion is correct, it’s unique enough that it might be the perfect cover image for the catalog of the estate’s furnishings that I’ll put together for the auction.”
Holt nodded. She hadn’t liked his comment last night, but it appeared she’d taken it on board. “Thank you.”
“No need to thank me. I’m just doing what I was hired to do.” She pulled off her glove. “If that’s all…?”
Dismissing him, was she? “Not entirely. I’d like to get a sense of the age and condition
of the estate’s furnishings. Not in detail, just your general impression. What can you tell me so far?”
Caitlin frowned but resumed her seat and gestured him to one on the other side of the table. “Farrell and Mrs. Smith have done an excellent job maintaining the contents of the estate. It has helped, I suppose, that no young children have resided here in a generation.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mrs. Smith, of course. The house is not, as you say, child-proof. I understand from her that your mother was the latest, and she was in high school during her residence.”
Holt’s belly clenched as he pictured his mother living in this house under her aunt’s thumb. Her parents had died in a car crash early in her sophomore year in high school, and with no other relatives, she’d wound up dependent on her widowed aunt’s begrudged charity.
“For a little over two years, yes.” Holt considered telling her how his mother had been forced to work two jobs to support them, but hadn’t he told Caitlin just last night that her responsibilities didn’t include meddling in his personal life?
As she filled him in on what she’d gleaned so far, ticking off points on her fingertips, Holt understood how she’d won this job. In her professional element, her intellect and expertise were undeniable. He’d been attracted to her beauty at first, but her smarts made her even more intriguing. And that was a problem. Helen Conroe had taught him not to get too close to someone in a professional relationship, not to trust their motives. He needed to remember that. When she wound down, he excused himself and left her to her work.
Chapter Four
Caitlin finished her preliminary survey of the library the next afternoon and decided to reward herself by having a walk on the nearby beach. As she crossed the back lawn, she heard a car come up the front-drive and wondered if that was Holt.
She hadn’t spoken to him since he left her in the library the day before. He'd even skipped dinner, which worried her a bit. Had she made such a terrible impression that he was avoiding her? She’d passed the office door several times since he’d arrived and seen him hunched over his laptop, intent on his reading, fingers flying over the keyboard as he answered emails or wrote memos or whatever he did to keep his company running smoothly. Even three thousand miles away from his business and his life in California, he couldn’t leave them behind. One of the pitfalls of being the boss she knew well. The only difference was that she was her company. She had no one else to cause problems, and no one else to rely on. If she had to work twenty hours a day to finish a job, she did.
She continued down to the beach, where Holt surprised her, coming across the lawn behind her and calling her name.
“I saw you through the back windows,” he said, stopping as soon as he reached the sand to remove his shoes and socks and roll up his pants. “Ah, warm sand, cool air. Can’t beat the combination.”
Caitlin had intended to wander the beach alone, but decided she would do her best to enjoy Holt’s company, too. “And cold water?” She gestured toward the dark green water lapping at the shoreline. He seemed more relaxed, less stand-offish than he had the past two days. Perhaps getting away from the house was good for him.
“Probably colder than you’re used to.”
Caitlin kicked off her shoes and tugged off her socks, then rolled up her pants legs. “I think a highland loch would be colder than the ocean this time of year.”
Holt shook his head. “I don’t know…”
She heard his rising intonation as a challenge and decided to accept it. Walking into the water until it was ankle-deep, she fought to keep her expression serene. “It is cold, but nowhere near as cold as it would be in the Highlands.”
Holt snorted and moved toward her. She heard the breath he sucked in as soon as his toes touched the water, but he kept going, reaching her and passing until the surge hit just below his knees. “The tide’s coming in. The deeper you go, the colder it gets.”
Caitlin joined him. Holt was a few inches taller, so the water hit her legs just above the knee. “Nay. I swim in colder lochs in the summer.” As soon as she finished speaking, a wave rounding the point rushed the shore and knocked her off her feet.
Caitlin came up spluttering, wet and chilled through, her teeth chattering. It took a moment for her to realize Holt’s arms were around her. He’d gotten wet saving her, but he was marginally warmer than she, so she clung to him. He pushed her hair out of her face as she held onto him, and she caught her breath at his expression—pensive and dark. Then he scooped her up and carried her back to shore where he put her down.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be once we get back inside.” In her haste to collect her shoes and run back to the house, she stepped on something and fell flat-out on the sand. She pushed up onto her knees and Holt helped her the rest of the way up.
“I never said you had to fall at my feet,” he teased.
Caitlin took a breath, trying to come up with a suitably snarky response. Before she could speak, Holt crouched next to her.
“You’re bleeding. Give me your foot. No, the other one.”
The red staining the sand, where she’d been standing, surprised her. “I didn’t feel anything.”
“Probably because your foot’s so cold.” Holt brushed sand from her injured foot and inspected the bottom. “The cut’s under the heel. The edges look clean, so maybe you stepped on a broken piece of glass.” He studied the sand around them, then let go of her foot and stood. “Stay put for a second. I don’t want you to get cut again.”
“Um…what about you?”
“I’m tough.” Holt gave her a grin, then went back to business. “I’m going to put on my shoes, grab yours, then carry you back to the house. Mrs. Smith must keep a first-aid kit somewhere.”
“How bad is it?” Caitlin did her best to ignore her reaction to Holt’s unexpected grin—there was no reason why it should make her insides melt. She was too cold for that nonsense. Instead she turned her foot from side to side, but she could only see bloody sand, not the cut.
“I don’t think it needs stitches.” Holt brushed sand from his feet with his socks, then slipped on his shoes. “But you’ll need to let it heal before you run your next marathon.”
“No problem then. I don’t have one scheduled until…oh, never.”
He handed her shoes to her. “Okay, up you go.” He had her up in his arms before she had time to object that she could probably wrap the injury in her socks and walk on the toes of that foot.
Secure in his arms, Caitlin decided she’d keep her mouth shut. Being snuggled against his body, warmed by his heat, was worth a small cut on her foot. She couldn’t believe standoffish Holt taking care of her like this. “Do ye often rescue damsels in distress?”
He snorted and shrugged off her question. But he held her close and gazed at her, his pupils dilated and expression heated in a way she couldn’t mistake. Her back warmed beneath his hand as he carried her toward the house.
Then he looked away. “I don’t often get the opportunity. Women nowadays want to rescue themselves.”
Another reason to be glad she hadn’t insisted on walking.
“I’d think you’d have lasses throwing themselves at your feet, a big strong, handsome lad like you.” Flustered, Caitlin couldn’t believe she’d just said that, but Holt was giving her that look again, so maybe making a fool of herself had been worth it. “I’m sorry I was so clumsy,” she added, hoping to restore some semblance of her dignity. Yet that look in his eye told her he wanted her.
“You weren’t clumsy. You were unlucky.”
So he was ignoring her description of him. Maybe he thought she was making fun of him. But she’d meant every word. Especially now that she was this close to him, with the muscles of his arms burning into her back and the backs of her thighs, his hand curled around her leg, holding her against his chest. She lifted her hand, wrapped it around his neck and tunneled her fingers into his hair, telling herself she only meant to warm them.
When he leaned his head back into her hand, Caitlin traced his cheek with her other hand. “Thank you.”
“Not necessary. You’d have done the same for me.”
“Well, except for the carrying you to the house part, I suppose.”
Holt laughed at that, his chest vibrating against her ribs, eyes sparkling with mirth and teeth flashing white behind his full lips. “You’re a resourceful woman. You’d have thought of something.” He stepped up onto the back porch. “Can you get the door?”
Caitlin managed to twist the knob and pulled it open, surprised. This was a very different Holt Ridley than the one she’d dealt with the last two days.
Holt used his shoulder to push it open far enough that he could carry her inside. He hooked a chair away from the kitchen table with his foot then set her on it.
While he turned to close the back door, Caitlin shivered, missing his body heat, and watched him move around the kitchen.
“Any idea where Mrs. Smith would keep emergency supplies?” Holt started pulling open drawers. It had to be the cleanest kitchen she’d ever seen. The countertops were clear except for a simple white canister set. The cabinets looked old but well-kept. The window over the sink sparkled.
On its sill, a small, framed picture of a young man in uniform was the only personal item Caitlin saw.
“Wait, here’s a first-aid kit. Got it.” He grabbed a dishtowel, wet it, sat next to her, and put her lower leg across his thighs.
If cleaning the sand from her foot didn’t hurt so much, Caitlin would have sighed at the feel of his muscle beneath her calf. Instead she winced.
“Sorry.” Holt found a tube on antiseptic ointment in the kit and smeared some on her cut, then tore open a gauze square and stuck it on top. “It stopped bleeding. That should keep it from getting infected,” he said, reaching for a tape dispenser.
“Don’t bother with that,” Caitlin told him. “I need to get cleaned up and put on some dry clothes, then I’ll bandage it again.”
“I’ll help you.”
In the shower? She bit her lip to keep from blurting out the thought. They’d met only two days ago and spent most of that time arguing. She knew better than to encourage him or herself.
