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“I’m giving you a compliment, Duchess. Try not to piss me off.”
I realized he was dead serious. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve always been a little self-conscious about my…you know…” I motioned halfheartedly toward my backside.
He shook his head, his lips curving in a wry twist. “I never believed that crap about some women not knowing how beautiful they were…until I met you, Duchess. Damned if it isn’t true.”
We were in uncomfortable territory now. “I’m nothing out of the ordinary, Finley. I’ve been fortunate enough to have access to high-end cosmetics, good hair care, and flattering clothes. Not every woman is that lucky.”
I backed up against the fridge and wrapped my arms around my waist. I would rather he tell me he wanted me. That was easy to understand. I didn’t need the pretty words.
“Maybe someday you’ll believe me,” he said soberly. “I won’t press the issue for now. Let’s get this workshop thing over with. I don’t know why it’s such a big deal.”
“You’re the one who was all secretive,” I said, relieved that he was letting the other subject drop. “Besides, I want to see what you do for a living. I’ve never known a man who builds ridiculously expensive motorcycles.”
“You can’t appreciate what you don’t understand.” He gave me a little smile to let me know the patronizing tone was a joke.
I was willing to be taught. More than anything, though, I wanted to know why Finley Craig was so secretive about his work environment.
He led me back through the house to a narrow door that looked as if it went into the hill itself. The previous owner had certainly built a mishmash of rooms and rooftops. If my estimation was correct, the workshop was at least partly underground, with one end of the long rectangular room opening onto the driveway where I had taken Cinnamon for a walk my first night on Skye.
Finley unlatched the door and stepped back to let me enter. For a moment, we stood in pitch-black darkness until he flicked a bank of switches and the room sprang to life beneath multiple florescent fixtures. The flood of illumination was so bright, I had to shield my eyes for a moment until my pupils adjusted.
I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe on some level I wondered if the whole motorcycle thing was a fabrication. After all, I had more than a little experience with men who lied to me.
But no. Finley’s job or vocation or hobby or whatever you wanted to call it was real.
I studied my surroundings with intense interest. My host let me look my fill, not intruding in any way. The concrete floor was slick and smooth, the surface painted gray. It was scrupulously clean. Along the four walls, pegboards and hooks organized a myriad of motorcycle parts: handlebars, fenders, seats…not to mention the usual nuts and bolts. In one quick glance I saw more chrome than the time one of my cousins took me to a NASCAR race in Tennessee.
The room smelled nice, a curious mix of paint and oil and lemon soap. However, it wasn’t the specifics of the workshop’s layout that left me dumbstruck. It was the pictures on the walls. Dozens of them. Large blowups of photographs mounted on foam board.
The places in the pictures looked familiar—maybe images of other spots in the Highlands? Ones I hadn’t seen yet? The trees and waterfalls and mountains were pristine. The photographer had captured the essence of nature as cathedral.
I stepped closer to one picture centered over an aluminum workbench. Studying it intently, I began to realize that the trees weren’t exactly right. I’d read articles about Highland forestation. Nothing in twenty-first-century Scotland looked so lush and dense. I turned around and stared at Finley. “Where is this?” I asked.
He shrugged, his hands in his pockets, his gaze guarded. “North Carolina. Near Asheville.”
Suddenly everything clicked into place. I’d called Finley a man without a country, if only to myself. Apparently it was true. The man was homesick, aching for the mountains where he’d been born and reared. Yet he had voluntarily exiled himself.
No wonder he hadn’t wanted me to see his workshop. These pictures told me more about him in one quick glance than if I had asked him a hundred questions.
I held my tongue, trying to understand the man behind this room. He made no move to curtail my explorations, so I continued, stopping only when I came upon a large three-ring binder. In it Finley had collected photos of his handiwork, alongside the clients who had forked over large sums of cash for the privilege of owning one of Finley’s motorcycles.
The bikes were unlike anything I had ever seen. They were beautiful. Sleek. Fast. Even in photographs, I could see they were fast.
At last, I hopped up on one of the worktables and swung my legs. Finley had followed me around the room. Now he leaned against the opposite table and stared at me. “Well?”
I shrugged. “The obvious question is why motorcycles?”
Finley picked up a small metal exhaust pipe and twirled it between his fingers. “That’s a long story.”
“All of your stories are long,” I teased. It was the truth. Even so, I wanted to understand the man whose bed I was about to share. The more I knew of Finley, the more I wanted to know. “Tell me. Please.”
In his shoulders I noted a degree of tension as if the telling was difficult, even after all this time. “My grandfather Craig died when I was a junior in high school. A massive heart attack. He was playing golf and keeled over. There was nothing they could do for him.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I was devastated. Grandpa Craig was my best friend. To lose him so suddenly was like cutting off a limb. He was a larger than life figure—an entrepreneur, a raconteur…a lover of life. I adored him.”
