Hiking up to Jamie’s favourite spot with Ben was supposed to have taken his mind off Anjuli. An opportunity to discuss selling his house to Ben, buying Castle Manor and to talk about Mac’s state of mind. She was still bitter about Craig, but she had finally accepted the bastard was gone—and good riddance, as far as he and Ben were concerned. In time Mac would get over him and find somebody else, somebody worthy of her. If only he could do the same.
“Let’s go.”
Ben clamped his hand on Rob’s shoulder. “Get down there and inspect the house like you wanted. Anjuli is home and I, for one, could use a cold drink.”
Rob wiped his forehead. High pressure over the Iberian Peninsula had crept over the English Channel and into the British Isles, and the lower half of Scotland was baking in Mediterranean temperatures. Ben’s hair glistened with sweat and Rob’s was plastered to his skull. It was early evening but the sun still blazed and his skin felt like the casing around a furnace. Or maybe it was anger that was burning his skin, inflamed by the thought of Anjuli in Damien’s arms, kissing him back, wrapping her arms around his thighs as they made love.
When Ben had told him about the fire he’d almost flown back to Scotland. Almost. Anjuli was fine, Ben had assured him. A little the worse for wear, but she was being released from hospital after only a few days. Rob had looked at flights anyway and waited for her phone call. If Anjuli cared about him at all, if she understood that his love for her was as solid as the earth under his feet, she would ask him to come back. She would tell him she missed him. Needed him.
Loved him.
Rob stared at the fire-damaged manor. Black, flame-shaped stains ran from the front bay windows to the master bedroom upstairs. His heart skipped a few beats as he thought of Anjuli trapped, burning to death in her bedroom. How frightened she must have been to wake up on top of an inferno.
“It’s no’ as bad as it looks,” Ben said. “The fire brigade were quick off the mark.”
Ben didn’t buy Anjuli’s sudden admission of negligence, but the rest of the police force did and had dropped the investigation. Negligence on her part would be an issue of contention for her insurance company payout, but according to Ben she hadn’t seemed very worried about it when he’d questioned her. Strange, in light of her financial problems. Yet she insisted she’d forgotten she had lit a fire, left it unattended. At two o’clock in the morning. In the middle of a heat wave.
Ben nodded his chin towards the house. “Let’s go down and take a look.”
“I’ve seen enough.”
Ben socked him lightly on the shoulder. “Either shit or get off the toilet, little bro’. I can’t take your foul moods and broodiness anymore. That’s my remit, remember? Damien’s just a friend according to Mac.”
“A friend she had dinner with the night of the fire.”
“He left straight after like Anjuli said he did. It wasn’t a slumber party. I checked it out.”
“I’m no’ going down there, no’ when I can’t promise to leave Golden Boy with his balls. Then you’d have to arrest me.”
Ben studied Rob’s profile, then sighed. “She asked for you at the hospital, wanting to know if you still love her.”
“She said that?”
“She didn’t need to.”
Rob stared at Castle Manor. “And what did you say?”
“I didn’t, and I figure you could answer her yourself. Rushing home from America a week early seems indication enough in my book. Why haven’t you told her you’re back?”
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Rob said, striding away. “I wanted to see if she was all right, and she is. She’s perfectly fine without me.”
Chapter Twenty
Anjuli had never seen the Heaverlock Arms as tightly packed before, all because of the latest local issue to heat heads and loosen tongues: whether or not Heaverlock’s Common Riding Festival should be permanently joined to Halton’s, ending five hundred years of rivalry between the two villages. A hot issue, which required pints and drams, glasses of wine and sherries.
Anjuli kept her hands on the pint of lager she was pulling and her eyes on the door. According to Mrs. P., Rob was back from America and she needed to see him, touch him, kiss him so badly she was aching. She wanted to breathe in his musky scent and see his smile. Busy at the bar most nights, she listened for his voice, and yet for days she had put off phoning him.
The fire had given her a wakeup call that reverberated louder than any smack against dream castles or echoing doors. But how could she bare her soul to an automated messaging service? Thinking of her voicemail message asking him to come round and discuss Castle Manor, tongue-tied and repetitive, she emitted a small shriek. Viking didn’t even bat an eyelid, testament to the fact he’d grown used to her spontaneous squawks. Damien, on the other hand, looked concerned.