Chapter 12
Clara stepped toward the tall glass windows after retrieving her bags from the claim area at Carlisle Lake District Airport. The small size, so much like the regional airport in Asheville, reduced some of the stress of trying to locate Maxwell Weston among the strangers.
Green hills, as if moss covered the ground all the way to the ridges, rose into the blue-tinted horizon. Clara wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see. Rain. A foggy day, from what little she’d been able to read about northern England during layovers, but not this.
And since she’d had to leave in such a hurry, she didn’t even know what Maxwell Weston looked like. There was no photo of him on the Camden House Bed-and-Breakfast’s website, just Gillie’s, but the view out those windows held almost enough reward to discount the Pilates-hold tension she’d felt in her stomach all the way across the ocean.
This land bloomed with fairy magic. These hills looked much too otherworldly, in all their emerald splendor, to only stay in the real world.
As she stared, the emerging sense of someone watching her began to permeate her imaginings. She pulled her attention from the beautiful countryside and turned toward the waiting area. People dispersed in various directions, meeting their parties or rushing to waiting cars outside, until the number had grown much thinner.
Clara’s attention finally settled on a lone figure in one of the nearest corners of the room, half in shadow. She couldn’t make out his face, but his form didn’t resemble a contemporary of Gillie, who was in her late fifties.
He shifted a step closer, his face turned in a strange way so that the light shone on his right side. His derby pressed low over his forehead, shadowing his eyes. Sandy curls escaped from beneath his hat and covered his ears. He reminded Clara of a superstar who was trying to stay incognito. He dipped his head. “Clara Blackwell?”
His voice rumbled over the distance between them, soft and low. She’d never heard her name pronounced that way—a softer touch to the A’s and a curl to the R.
“Yes?”
He shifted a step closer, keeping his body still turned slightly to the left. Clara’s grip tightened on her suitcase. She had enough clothes in there to at least knock the man backwards a few feet.
“I’m Max Weston.” He offered his hand. “Mother sent me here to collect you.”
His mother?
“You’re Gillie’s son?”
He raised his face then, his brows disappearing beneath his hat, and the first thing she noticed was his eyes. Warm and golden-brown, like tea with just the right amount of milk. Followed quickly by an unnatural discoloration of his skin down the left side of his face. The left corner of his mouth stretched down ever so slightly in an abnormal tilt. Either that, or he was as uncertain of her as she was of him.
Her gaze flipped back to his and he shifted to the left again, showcasing the right side of his face in profile.
This was crazy. Going with this man she didn’t know to a place she’d never been to research a woman she couldn’t remember was crazy.
She gripped her suitcase tighter and nearly whimpered. But losing the bookshop was even crazier.
“I can arrange for a taxi if you’d rather.” The warmth in his voice had cooled to a growl.
“Of course not.” Clara stepped forward, hand outstretched to stall his retreat. “It’s just that…well…I wasn’t expecting you to be—”
He raised a brow, almost as if daring her to finish her sentence.
“Young.”
At this, his other brow joined the first beneath his hat and his jaw slacked.
“I mean, my mother has been the one corresponding with your mother and since she always referred to Gillie and Maxwell Weston, I just assumed you were…not her son.”
He snapped his lips closed into a fine line that puckered at the left corner where the skin took an unusual and reddish turn. Clara flipped her gaze from his lips and found him staring at her.
“I’m ready.” She smiled to cover her embarrassment. “If you are?”
He reached for her bag and, with the slightest hesitancy, she released it to him.
“This way.” He turned and took long strides toward the doors.
Thankful she wore flats, Clara rushed to keep up with his pace. He stood at least four inches taller than she and, despite the leanness of his silhouette, there was a strength in his stride. Of course, he may have been trying to put as much distance between the two of them as possible.
Oh, what had her mother and Robbie gotten Clara into?
The cool December air hit her cheeks as soon as she stepped from the protection of the airport. The horizon boasted a line of flowing mountains, so much like those back home, and yet, even at a distance something seemed different about them. Not as blue. More of a hazy brownish-blue, perhaps. Green hills spread up to meet them, as well as some sheep-dotted pastures. She chuckled. Sheep pastures? Right beside the airport?
Someone cleared his throat.
Max stood by an adorable red-and-white Fiat, staring at her with raised brow.
She stumbled to catch up to him. “Sorry,” she murmured as she slid her carry-on into the trunk beside the suitcase he’d placed there. “It’s all so beautiful here. And those mountains remind me of the ones back home.”
He followed her gaze to the horizon, the tension in his lips relaxing ever so slightly. “You’ve never traveled to England?”
“Only in books.” She offered a grin which he didn’t reciprocate, but at least the frown around his eyes lessened.
He studied her a moment, as if he wasn’t quite certain about her, and then rounded to the passenger side of the car without a word. She froze. She’d never driven on the wrong side of the road before, and especially not in front of a complete stranger. How could he expect her to even try? Didn’t she need a
