Kiss Me Under the Mistletoe. Fiona Harper

of smiles. ‘Divorced?’

      He nodded.

      ‘Me too,’ she said quietly. ‘Well, almost. That conversation gave me déjà vu. I bet I could fill in the blanks if I thought hard about it.’

      Against his will, he gave half a smile back. ‘You’ve got kids?’

      ‘A boy,’ she said, her voice suddenly lower and huskier. When she caught him glancing up towards the house, eyebrows raised, she added, ‘he’s staying with his father while I move in down here.’ She turned away quickly and stood perfectly still, staring at the woods on the hillside for a few long seconds.

      She turned back to him, a smile stretching her face. ‘What do you know about the history of the boathouse?’

      He played along. The same smile had been part of his wardrobe in the last two years. Thankfully, he was resorting to it less and less often. ‘As far as I know, it was built long before the house. Some people say it’s sixteenth century. And, of course, it featured prominently in the film A Summer Affair, but you know that already.’

      The defiant stare vanished altogether and she now just looked a little sheepish as she stared at the glossy seaweed washed up on the rocks nearby. ‘Busted,’ she said, looking at him from beneath her long fringe. ‘It was a favourite when I was younger and when I saw the details of the house, I knew I had to view it.’ She turned to look back at the two-storey brick and wood structure. ‘I didn’t realise this place was real. I suppose I thought it was just fibreglass and papier maché, or whatever they build those sets out of …’

      ‘It’s real enough. Take a look. But I ought to …’ Ben looked at the rope in his hand. ‘… get going.’

      She nodded. ‘I’m going to explore.’

      Ben stood for a few moments and watched her climb the steps up to a door on the upper level. It hadn’t been used for years. Laura hadn’t been steady enough on her feet to make the journey down the hill for quite some time before she died.

      He climbed into the dinghy because it felt like a safe distance but carried on watching. The wooden floor could be beetle-infested, rotten. He’d just stay here a few moments to make sure the new owner didn’t go through it.

      His hand hovered above the outboard motor. Any moment now, he’d be on his way. He readied his shoulder muscles and brushed his fingertips against the rubber pull on the end of the cord. He gripped the loosened rope lightly in his other hand.

      The boathouse was on two levels. The bottom storey, level with the jetty, had large arched, panelled doors and had been used for storing small boats. The upper level was a single room with a balcony that stretched the width of the building. He was waiting for her to walk out onto it, spread her hands wide on the railing and lean forward to inhale the glorious salty, slightly seaweedy air. Her glossy, dark hair would swing forward and the wind would muss it gently.

      A minute passed and she didn’t appear. He began to feel twitchy.

      With a sigh, he climbed out of the boat and planted his boots on the solid concrete of the jetty. ‘Are you okay back there?’

      No response. Just as he was readying his lungs to call again, she appeared back on the jetty and shrugged. ‘No key,’ she yelled back, looking unduly crestfallen.

      All his alarm bells rang, told him to get the hell back in the boat and keep his nose out of it. Whitehaven wasn’t his responsibility any more. Only, the message obviously hadn’t travelled the length of his arm to his fingertips, because he suddenly found himself retying the boat and walking back up the jetty to the steep steps that climbed up to the boathouse door.

      As he reached the bottom step, she turned and looked down at him, one hand on the metal railing, one hand bracing herself against the wall. Her thick hair swung forwards as she leaned towards him.

      ‘The door’s locked. Any ideas?’

      With his fingernails, already dark-rimmed from the rich compost of the glasshouse plants, he scraped at a slightly protruding brick in the wall near the base of the stairs. At first, he thought he’d remembered it wrong, but after a couple of seconds the block of stone moved and came away in his hand. In the recess left behind, he could see the dull black glint of metal. Laura had told him about the secret nook, just in case.

      He supposed he could have just told the woman about it, yelled the vital information from the safety of the dinghy. He needn’t get involved. Even now his lips remained closed and his mouth silent as he climbed the mossy stairs and pressed the key into the soft flesh of her palm.

      There. Job done.

      For a couple of seconds, they stayed like that. Then he pulled his hand away and rubbed it on the back of his jeans.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said, then shook her long fringe so it covered her eyes a little more.

      She slid the key into the lock and turned it. He’d half-expected to door to fall off its hinges, but it swung in a graceful arc, opening wide and welcoming them in. Well, welcoming her in. But his curiosity got the better of him and he couldn’t resist getting a glimpse.

      ‘Wow.’

      He’d expected shelves and oars and tins of varnish. Decades-old grime clung to the windows, and the filmy-grey light revealed a very different scene. A cane sofa and chairs huddled round a small Victorian fireplace, decorated with white and blue tiles, and a small desk and chair occupied a corner in front of one of the arched windows.

      She walked over to the desk and touched it reverently, leaving four little smudges in the thick dust, then pulled her fingers back and gently blew the dirt off them with a sigh.

      ‘Did she come here often, do you know? Ms Hastings?’ she asked, still staring at the desk.

      Why exactly he was still here, keeping guard like some sentry, he wasn’t sure. He should just go. He’d kept his promise to Laura. He wasn’t required. And yet … he couldn’t seem to make his feet move.

      She turned to look at him and he shrugged. ‘Not when I knew her. She was too frail to manage the path down, but she talked of it fondly.’

      She blinked and continued to stare at him, expressionless. He wasn’t normally the sort who had the urge to babble on, but most women he knew didn’t leave huge gaping gaps in the conversation. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and kicked at the dust on the bare floorboards with the toe of his boot. Everything was too still.

      ‘Not really your sort of place, is it?’ he muttered, taking in the shabby furniture, the broken leg on the desk chair, held together with string. The place was nowhere near elegant enough to match her. This woman was used to the finer things in life. Finer than a dilapidated old boathouse like this, anyway.

      Her chin rose just a notch. ‘What makes you think you know anything about what sort of woman I am?’

      Just like that, the sadness that seemed to cloak her hardened into a shell. Now the room wasn’t still any more. Every molecule in the air danced and shimmered. She strode over to the large arched door in the centre of the opposite wall, unbolted it, threw the two door panels open and stepped out onto the wide balcony.

      He was dismissed.

      He took a step towards her and opened his mouth. Probably not a great idea, since during his last attempt at small talk he’d planted a great muddy boot in it, but he couldn’t leave things like this—taut with tension, unresolved. Messy.

      Her hands were spread wide as she rested them on the low wall and looked out over the river, just as he’d imagined. The hair hung halfway down her back, shining, untouchable. The wind didn’t dare tease even a strand out of place. He saw her back rise and fall as she let out a sigh.

      ‘I thought I’d asked you to get off my property.’ There was no anger in her tone now, just deep weariness.

      He turned and walked out of the boathouse and down the stairs to the jetty with even steps. She didn’t