Page 72 of A Secret Scottish Escape

“I’m not lurking,” he replied in his indignant Australian twang. He was standing to my right, but took a couple of steps backwards.

I opened my front door to see a white envelope lying face down on my mat.

Mask gestured to the envelope. “I dropped by to deliver that.”

“What is it?”

“Well, unless you possess X-ray vision, you won’t know until you open it.”

I threw him a dark look and bent down to pick it up. I turned the envelope over in my hands. ‘Layla’ was written on it, in bold, dark pen.

I started to tear it open, when Mask made my heart jump into my throat. “What are you doing?” he snapped.

I glowered over at him. “I’m opening it. I thought that was what you were supposed to do with a sealed envelope.”

A grunt emerged from under his hood. “Very droll, Ms Devlin, but I’d rather you read it after I’ve gone.”

This was ridiculous!

First he gives me a verbal tongue lashing the other night for simply being neighbourly, and then he writes me some sort of note, delivers it personally – and then asks me not to open it while in his presence?

I lowered the envelope to my side. “Can I ask why you’d prefer me not to open it in front of you?”

There was a brief flash of hot brown eyes. “It refers to my behaviour the other evening.”

I watched as the emerging sun sidled out from behind the trees across the lane. “Is this a letter of apology?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Then what is it?”

Mask thrust his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “It’s a note.”

“Yes. I had gathered that much. About what?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” he growled. “All right. It’s to say sorry for my behaviour.”

He jutted out his chin a little, but the rest of his face was concealed by shadow. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you in the way that I did. I know you were only concerned for my welfare.”

“Thank you,” I faltered. “I appreciate that.”

I raised the envelope again.

“I would still rather you open my note after I’ve left,” he insisted.

I nodded. “OK. So … would you like to come in for a coffee, now that you’re here?”

Mask remained to my right, his feet firmly planted on the gravel. I could see him weighing up his options. “All right. Thank you,” he muttered, after a pause.

I started down the hall and propped his note against a ceramic vase which Faith had bought me as a housewarming gift.

As I pottered about in the kitchen, spooning coffee into two mugs, Mask loitered in my sitting room. His hood remained stubbornly up, concealing his face.

I set the mugs of steaming hot coffee on the table between us and watched him sink into my armchair opposite.

I so wanted him to remove his hood and wondered whether I should suggest it, when his long fingers tapered around his mug and he took a grateful sip. “Good coffee,” he rumbled.

I sat back against my cushions on the sofa, trying not to give the impression that I was imagining him outside the confines of his hoodie.