‘You ring Jake and ask if the girls can stay for lunch,’ she told Susie.
‘You don’t want to?’
‘Dr Cameron and I have what’s becoming a very cool relationship,’ she retorted. ‘So don’t get any ideas.’
‘Me?’ Susie asked, starting forward on her crutches with an ease that Kirsty found extraordinary. ‘When have I ever? Oh, by the way, Robert called. He said to say he was sorry he missed you this morning. He’s going out of town for the weekend but he might find time to ring you on Monday. Now,
‘Susie…’ Kirsty said warningly, and that delicious chuckle sounded out again.
‘I know. I’m sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted. But I’m enjoying myself and, oh, Kirsty, it feels so good.’
The twins and the Boyces were permitted to stay.
‘Jake sounded really reluctant,’ Susie reported after phoning. ‘He kept saying he didn’t want the twins to be any trouble, but how can they be when Margie and Ben are here? Margie is lovely and she says she’d much rather babysit here than back in the village.’
It was hard to figure out who was babysitting who, Kirsty thought as the afternoon wore on. After lunch, by common consensus, they returned to the vegetable patch to superintend Spike’s growth spurt. Angus and Ben perched on a garden bench in the sun and discussed the merits of different varieties of pumpkin. Susie lay on her mattress, alternatively dozing and supervising Alice and Penelope making mud pies. Margie sat herself down on a rocker on the porch, knitting and listening to her favourite radio show. We look like the Brady Bunch, Kirsty thought suddenly. All contentment and calm.
Who knew what was seething underneath?
She grinned at herself, and her twin saw the grin and demanded an explanation.
‘Domesticity plus,’ she said, and Susie gave a sleepy smile.
‘Jake should be here. It’s sad that he spends so little time with his girls. You should help him more while you’re here, Kirsty, so he can be free.’
‘I’m doing my best,’ she said stiffly.
The doorbell rang. Or, as Kirsty had now learned, the bell on the intercom connected to the gate rang.
‘We’re not home,’ Susie said with a yawn. ‘This is perfect. We don’t need anyone else.’
They didn’t. But it might be Jake. He did have a right to be here. And maybe…maybe he could stay for a while, Kirsty thought. Then she gave herself a harsh mental slap for the thought. But she did get up to go and open the gate.
Professional relationship, she told herself firmly as she walked out to the castle entrance.
But before she got there she realised she’d made a mistake, It wouldn’t be Jake. He had a key and his own remote controller for the gates.
But she was already at the entrance. She might as well see who…
It wasn’t an insurance salesman. She opened the door and it was a man who looked like Rory.
‘Rory,’ she said-blankly-unable to believe her eyes. But, of course, she had to be mistaken. Susie’s husband had been dead for six months. And when she looked closer this man was different. He had a slighter build, different hair colour, different features…
Different but the same.
‘I’m Kenneth Douglas,’ he told her, and all was explained. Rory’s brother was Kenneth. Kirsty had never seen him. Susie had met him once, just before Rory had been killed, and she’d reported that he was a creep.
But he was here. He was Rory’s brother.
‘Hi,’ she said, holding out her hand in greeting. ‘I’m Susie’s sister, Kirsty.’
‘Susie?’ he said blankly.
‘Rory’s wife, Susie.’
His face froze. ‘Rory’s wife is here?’
‘Yes.’
‘She has no right.’
‘Angus seems to think she’s very welcome,’ Kirsty told him, struggling to keep her smile in place. She hesitated, not wanting this man to interrupt their lovely afternoon but knowing that he was Angus’s nephew, knowing that he was Rory’s brother. She had no grounds for denying him entrance. ‘We’re all in the vegetable garden,’ she told him. ‘Do you want me to take you through?’
‘Who’s in the vegetable garden?’
‘Your uncle-’
‘Angus isn’t here.’ It was an appalled hiss. ‘He’s in a nursing home. He was moving there yesterday. He’s dying.’
Grief and fear did odd things to people, Kirsty knew. She wasn’t tempted to react to this with anger.
‘I don’t think he is dying,’ she said gently. ‘We’ve persuaded him that oxygen will help, and it’s been wonderful. He’s back gardening.’
‘The doctor said he was going into a nursing home.’
‘Now we’re here, he doesn’t have to leave. He can stay for as long as he wants.’
‘We?’ the man said, and there was no doubting that his overriding emotion was anger. ‘Who’s we?’
‘My sister and I.’
‘Your sister has no right,’ he hissed again. ‘Who the hell does she think she is? I thought she was too badly injured to travel. I thought she was done with.’
She wanted to slam the door in his face at that, but it was too late. He was through.
‘Look, Mr Douglas-’
‘I want to see her,’ he said, and he was striding toward the vegetable garden so fast she practically had to run to keep up. ‘If she’s messing with the old man’s treatment-if she thinks there’s anything here for her… Rory’s dead and I’m the only one who has any say in how the old man is treated. Me.’
‘I’m sorry, but…’ He’d reached the side gate and he hauled it open while she struggled to think how to deflect him. There was no way. He’d hauled open the gate and was staring through at the scene of domesticity in front of him.
Angus and Ben discussing pumpkins.
Alice and Penelope turning their skills from mud pies to mud sausages-arguing over whose was the longest.
Margie knitting.
And Susie, rising on one elbow to see who it was. Susie, recognising Kenneth’s face and trying, falteringly, to smile a welcome. Susie pushing herself into a sitting position. Hampered by her weakness and her advanced pregnancy.
‘Kenneth,’ she whispered.
Kirsty glanced again at Rory’s brother and got a shock.
Every vestige of colour had drained from his face. If she hadn’t reached forward fast and supported him, he would have fallen. He slumped, and she had to assist him to sit on the low stone wall by the gate.
He put his head in his hands and she could see him visibly brace. Stiffen. Look up.
‘You’re pregnant,’ he said in a voice of loathing, of fury and of pure shock. ‘You’re pregnant with Rory’s child.’
CHAPTER SIX
FOR a moment no one spoke. The twins stared open-mouthed. Mrs Boyce’s knitting needles stilled and Angus sat back on his heels and gazed at his nephew like he was seeing a ghost.
‘Kenneth.’ There was lingering affection in his voice, Kirsty thought. Once he’d loved this man. As a boy?
‘You’re supposed to be dead,’ Kenneth snarled and any hint of affection, any trace of warmth in the sun-filled
