A Home On Bramble Hill. Holly Martin

All I got was a scowl.’

      ‘Yeah I clocked that. It’s your hair, he has a thing about redheads, can’t stand them.’

      Joy felt her mouth pop open. ‘That’s a bit… hairist.’

      Casey smiled again. ‘To be fair, he’s anti all women at the moment.’

      ‘Oh… so he’s gay as well?’

      Casey laughed even louder at this. ‘Oh god, I wish. That would be all my Christmases, birthdays, dreams and wishes come true in one fell swoop. No Finn is straight. He just hates women after his ex-wife cheated on him. He hasn’t been with anyone since. Though not from lack of offers from the entire female population of Bramble Hill and the other local villages. They were queuing up once Pippa left, but he hasn’t shown a flicker of interest. He has been sullen to the point of rude and still they fancy their chances.’

      ‘Maybe his marriage broke up because he was gay.’

      ‘You’re just saying that to cheer me up. No he’s definitely straight. But it’s not just women he has a problem with. He’s rude to everyone; well he has been for the last eighteen months. So don’t take it personally. He says very little, keeps himself to himself, never gets involved with village life. Never gets involved with anyone. You’ll be no different. Well except that you have red hair. He’ll hate you for that.’

      Joy frowned.

      ‘Pippa was a redhead so now he has tarred all redheads with the same brush,’ Casey explained as he finished his beer and opened the wine.

      ‘And how do the villagers take to his rudeness?’

      ‘They love him.’ Casey obviously saw the look of confusion on her face. ‘You know who he is right?’

      She shook her head.

      ‘Finn Mackenzie, the actor?’

      She shrugged, still none the wiser.

      ‘He was in that vampire trilogy years ago – In The Darkness, The Taste of Blood and, my personal favourite, The Spoils of War. God, that bit when he bathes naked in the moonlit lake… I think I ruined my video by pausing it so often in the same place. I should have realised back then that I was gay, when all my friends were drooling over the beautiful Scarlet Rome and all I could see was Finn.’

      He must have seen the blank look on her face.

      ‘You haven’t seen them, really? You must be the only living woman not to. What exactly were you doing twenty years ago?’

      ‘I was nine, so…’ She trailed off as she realised exactly what she was doing twenty years before.

      ‘You might have been a bit young to appreciate the first film, but the second and the third? How could it have passed you by?’

      She shrugged. ‘I guess it did.’

      ‘He was fourteen when he filmed the first one and nineteen by the time the last one came out. Overnight he became this Hollywood sensation, the press followed him around everywhere. He hated it. I don’t think he had any idea what it would be like for him to be suddenly famous. After Spoils was finished he withdrew from public life. He had so many offers to do so many different projects, but he wasn’t interested at all. He hasn’t done anything for the last fifteen years.’

      She smiled at Casey’s enthusiasm for Finn. ‘I guess it’s safe to say, you’re his biggest fan.’

      ‘I am yes, but we’ve been friends since we were both knee high to a grasshopper. It wasn’t the fame thing that attracted me. Hell, you’ve seen him – the man’s a god.’

      ‘I take it you haven’t told him how you feel?’

      ‘Good Lord, no, definitely not. No one knows I’m gay. You’re the first person I’ve told, and I wouldn’t have told you if you hadn’t caught me drooling. I’m normally better at disguising it than that. Well I hope I am.’

      Joy frowned slightly. ‘You’ve been gay for fifteen years and never told anyone?’

      ‘No. Not really. I mean yes, my inappropriate crush on my best friend has lasted fifteen years but I guess I never really accepted I was gay until recently. A year, maybe two.’

      ‘But why haven’t you told your parents? Would they be awful about it?’

      Casey poured two large glasses of wine, broke off a huge chunk of chocolate and shoved it in his mouth. It took him a few moments to answer whilst he chewed on it.

      ‘Honestly, I think they would have been ok with it. I come from a very loving family and all they’ve ever wanted was for me and Zach to be happy. But I think their friends would give them hell over it. They’re… Mum’s incredibly wealthy and there’s always social gatherings – balls, seven course dinners, big charity events that they used to attend with Lord and Lady Chalsworth, the Earl of Menton Hall, and Sir Ronald Chase-Matthews.’ He affected a posh voice as he reeled off his fellow socialites. ‘I’ve always shied away from it myself, which I think disappointed them slightly. Zach is more into the social networking, keeping up with the Joneses malarkey than I am. As the oldest son, they would have loved nothing more than if I attended these functions with some beautiful lady on my arm. If I were to turn up with a beautiful man on my arm instead… Well, I don’t think their friends would be as understanding.’

      Joy broke off a chunk of chocolate and chewed on it, thoughtfully. ‘So you’re never going to tell them?’

      ‘I suppose, if I found someone I loved, truly loved and who loved me too, then perhaps I would be brave enough to say, “this is the man that I’m going to spend the rest of my life with”. But it’s hard to find that man when no one knows I’m actually gay.’

      ‘My brother’s gay,’ Joy said and then laughed at the look on his face. ‘No, don’t worry. I wasn’t trying to set you up with him. I hate that when people do that to me, “oh you’re single, he’s single, why don’t the two of you get together?” No, you’re not his type at all. Alex prefers big men, just as you do it seems. No I just meant maybe he could take you out to some gay bars, give you a chance to meet some men that are in the same boat.’

      ‘He’s… openly gay?’

      She nodded.

      ‘And how did your parents take to that?’

      ‘They didn’t. They were both killed in a car accident when he was seventeen. I’m not sure if he had even figured it out by that point. He came out to me a few years later.’

      ‘Oh god Joy, I’m so sorry, that’s terrible. Your parents being killed obviously, not your brother being gay.’

      She swallowed the lump in her throat that was always there when she spoke about her parents. ‘It’s fine. It’s been twenty years.’

      ‘You were nine?’

      She nodded again.

      ‘That’s what you were doing twenty years ago. I was fawning over my best friend dressed in leather and you were mourning the loss of your parents. I’m sorry. Who raised you after they’d died?’

      ‘Al did. He was three weeks away from been eighteen. He lied about his age, told the authorities he was eighteen and as such was my legal guardian. By the time they checked, he was eighteen.’

      ‘He raised you on his own?’

      She smiled. ‘I know, looking back, I just took it for granted that he was there. He had always been there, always would be there for me. I didn’t think until I was eighteen myself what he should have been doing – that going clubbing, getting drunk, going to parties should have been a way of life for him. He wanted to go to university, train to be in the film industry. He put it all on hold to look after me. He did a superb job too. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my dad, my mum and my friend. Can you imagine, when all his friends were graduating university, or coming back from travelling the world, he was sitting