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Jack, Agnes’ nephew, who was a few years older than Drew, had hit it off with his son straight away. They’d stood side by side, watching the women laugh together and talk a mile a minute, then looked at each other and said, “PlayStation.” Since then, they’d been holed up in Drew’s room, working their way through his stack of games.
Darcy, meanwhile, had taken one look at Isobel’s daughter, Sophie, and pretty much adopted her. The four-year-old looked at Darcy as though she were her fairy godmother. And Darcy, for her part, had dressed Sophie like a doll before teaching her how to dance.
“You might need to extend the house if you’re going to host any more Sinclair sisters’ get-togethers,” Keir, Mairi’s man, said to him once the men had retreated to the kitchen to drink beer and enjoy some silence. “You could knock out the living room wall and add a good few feet. Maybe a conservatory.”
Unlike the husbands of Agnes’ other two sisters, Keir was chatty. He also thought Duncan and Callum were hilarious. Probably because the two men had sat on the living room sofa staring at the women with a mixture of bewilderment and fear for the past few hours.
“I don’t know how long Agnes is staying in Invertary, so this might be the first and last get-together that happens here,” Logan said as he put a bowl of nuts on the table. He saw little point in hiding the fact that their relationship was still on shaky ground. Agnes had no doubt shared this information in one of her many phone calls with her sisters.
“She’s got a job now,” Callum pointed out, reaching for the nuts.
A taciturn Scot, the London boss of Benson Security rarely smiled, except with his wife and kids. He wasn’t easy to get to know, but Logan had a lot of respect for the man. Not only had he survived a bomb in Afghanistan that had taken both his legs, but his introduction to the Sinclairs had involved a dead body and men with machine guns. And he’d still married one of them.
“Aye,” Duncan said. “They settle some when they’ve got something to occupy them. A bored Sinclair woman is a dangerous thing.” He would know. The artist had hired Donna as his housekeeper, even though she’d been ill-suited to the job. Now that she was studying to become an illustrator, she seemed much more content.
“What’s the new job then?” Keir asked as he raided the fridge. A mechanic by trade, he’d sold his business and now traveled the world, helping Mairi sort out her business. “Last I heard, she was working in the hotel.”
To be fair, he’d only arrived from Canada the day before, so he had an excuse for being out-of-date.
“No, that’s done with,” Logan said. “She lasted almost a month with Dougal, which is a damn sight longer than I would have.”
“Never thought it was a good fit,” Callum said.
Logan stared at the man. “You were the one who set it up.”
He shrugged. “Agnes needed a job, and Isobel wanted her to stay in the UK. If I’d gotten her a job in London, there was a good chance she’d have been promoted to some far-off place. So, I talked to Dougal and shoved her here.”
The three men stared at him.
“Does Isobel know that?” Logan asked. “Because Agnes sure as hell doesn’t.”
&nbs
p; “She didn’t need to know,” Callum said. “She’s pregnant. If she wants something, she gets it.”
“Let’s keep this between the four of us,” Keir said.
They raised their beer bottles to toast their agreement, sharing an identical worried look as they did so. If this got out, they’d all be dead.
“So, she’s not working at the hotel?” Keir said as he put a load of different cheeses and crackers, that Logan hadn’t even realized they had, on the table. Either Agnes had been shopping for something she could cook, or his mother had been stocking up for him again.
When Agnes had moved in, Logan had told his mother he wanted her key back, but Agnes had stopped him. She’d grabbed his arm and whispered, “She brings food, don’t be an idiot.” So his mother still had her key.
“Originally, she wanted to start up a hub for small businesses and tried to get funding to get it off the ground. But when the council heard her other ideas, they decided to create a position for her and to run the hub under the council banner. So, now she’s in charge of Invertary’s industry schemes. She’s supposed to find new ways to attract business to town and, as part of that, she’ll oversee the business center.”
“Did they rip her off?” Callum asked. “Would she have made more money if she’d kept ownership of the business center?”
That’s what he’d wondered too. “She says no. The salary for the job is good, and she gets to stick her nose into lots of different areas. She won’t be bored.”
“Told you,” Duncan said before taking a sip of his drink. “You need to keep a Sinclair woman from getting bored, or it all goes to hell.”
“Aye, it’s good for her.” In all honesty, Logan wished she’d kept the business and run it herself. It was a whole lot harder to walk away from your own business than to quit your job and head out of town.
“You’re worried she’s still going to run,” Callum said astutely.
“She never wanted to stay in Scotland.” He took a sip of his beer as he leaned against the counter, trying to give the impression he was much more relaxed than he felt. Agnes was like water—every time he tried to grab her and hold on tight, she slipped through his fingers.
“People change,” Duncan said. “I never thought I’d want to marry again.” He waggled his ring finger to prove his point.
