Page 79 of The Cottage in the Highlands

“My ears are scorched,” he half joked, giving one of them a playful tug. “I’m fond of my grandmother but she’s like Cruella de Vil on steroids when she gets started.”

I laughed.

“And now I’ve been landed with sorting out my divorced grandparents’ family home. Whoopee! Just great!”

I thought about Merry Wood again as we weaved between the Saturday shoppers. Illuminated Christmas decorations glowed down onto the pavement and at a nearby kiosk, a young man was busy scooping and shovelling hot chestnuts into bags for a group of hungry customers, the warm, cosy scent adding to the festive atmosphere. “But why though? It still doesn’t answer why your grandfather didn’t sell Merry Wood, but led Astrid to think he did. And as for his relationship with Lily…”

“What are you doing this afternoon?” asked Flynn, surprising me.

“This afternoon? Oh, nothing much. I was just going to go home, walk Harley, my rescue pup, and take it easy.”

Flynn towered over me. “I wondered if you might want to grab some lunch somewhere. Then we could go and visit my grandfather.”

I gazed up at him, like a mongoose being hypnotised by a cobra. “What, now?”

Flynn pushed his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Why not? My magazine photoshoot scheduled for 3pm today has been postponed till next week and you’ve never struck me as the sort of woman who turns down a challenge.”

It was the way he hung on the word challenge that sent my heart into a gallop. What was happening here? Bloody hell! I was standing here, blushing like a schoolgirl! I locked eyes with him. “I do like a challenge.”

A slow smile spread across Flynn’s handsome face. “Well then, lunch first, then we tackle the country’s most revered street artist about his private life.”

So, an easy afternoon ahead then.

We chose an American style place a little further down Byres Road, which served warm pancakes with a variety of delicious toppings.

Its interior was all dark wood and ghost-grey, with huge black and white prints of the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hollywood sign adorning its walls.

Our cosy booth overlooked the sedate gardens of the Glasgow Royal Botanics, where a choir of children, all decked out in Santa hats, were belting out Christmas favourites for charity.

After some deliberation over the varied menu, I opted for pancakes with strawberries and blueberries, while Flynn couldn’t resist the bacon and maple syrup stack.

The waitress set a pot of coffee in the middle of the table and disappeared.

“So, tell me about your family,” I said, pouring a stream of hot, black coffee into our mugs. At the back of my mind, Astrid Talbot’s remark about him playing with fire and “another reporter” still lurked there.

Flynn let out a groan. “Do I have to?”

That made me laugh. “No, of course you don’t have to.”

He stirred his coffee and cradled the mug in his hands. “I suppose we’re all so guarded in my family because of my grandfather.” He set the mug down in front of him. “We’ve been carrying this secret about who he is for so long that we’ve forgotten how to open up and trust people.”

His face darkened again. “I can remember both my parents warning me not to tell anyone about my grandfather’s big secret. Not easy when you’re a loud-mouthed teenager, desperate to tell anyone who would listen that your grandfather is the guy who’s been painting the Eiffel Tower on the side of bus stops at three in the morning.”

“That must have been difficult, keeping that quiet.”

“Oh, it was. I was desperate to up my street cred and impress young women, but couldn’t.”

“I’m sure you didn’t have to do anything to impress women…” Oh shit, Leonie. It was too late. The words shot out across the table before I could do anything. “What I meant to say,” I started, my tongue falling over itself and getting into a tangle, “is that I find it hard to believe you weren’t popular with women anyway.”

Christ! Everything that was tripping out of my mouth was worse than what came before. I reached for my glass of water and buried my face in it. Pity I couldn’t have shoved my head into the whole bloody glass and cooled it down.

He gave me a small smile. “I was warned about journalists in particular.”

I grinned back at him, setting down my glass of water. “Oh dear. And yet here we are.”

The waitress reappeared and delivered our lunch to us, which we tucked into with gusto.

What was it about this man that sent me into a tongue-twisted spiral of emotion? I was usually a pretty together sort of person, but whenever Flynn looked at me a certain way from under his spikey lashes or spoke to me in that deep rumble of his, I was becoming a blithering wreck.