AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My mother was absolutely going to question our relationship. There was no two ways about it. I’d never mentioned Grace until the discussion about my plus one came up, and while I was an adult man who was able to have secrets, Mum was not going to let it go.
I was so close to getting a bloody headache.
I had my doubts about this entire situation. I wasn’t sure we could pull it off. We knew so little about each other that it had to be obvious we weren’t really in a relationship if you paid enough attention.
We’d only just managed to get the story of how we met straightened out, for fuck’s sake.
I was never going to hear the end of this.
In hindsight, it really was all my fault. I was the one who’d invited Grace to come along, and I should have known we’d end up in some weird situation like this. Someone in my family was bound to assume we were more than friends, but I hadn’t expected it to be my grandmother in the very first seconds of Grace being here.
Not that I thought it would be hard to convince my mother, of course. She’d go along with it if only just to get through the next few days without too much drama from my grandparents. I fully expected her to raise her concerns about Grace not being someone my grandfather would accept, but Mum wouldn’t do that in front of her.
Thank God.
We didn’t need to go over that conversation again.
“You look like you’re regretting all your life choices right now,” Grace said, bumping me with her elbow.
I peered over at her, a wry smile curving my lips. “Is it that obvious?”
She laughed, tucking her red hair behind her ears. “Little bit. You do look rather grumpy.”
My smile turned a little less wry and a little more amused. “Really? I look grumpy?”
“Well, not grumpy, per se.” She smacked her lips together. “Contemplative.”
“So grumpy.”
“Yes. I was trying to be nice.”
I chuckled, nudging her back. “It’s been a while since I introduced someone to my parents,” I said slowly, eyeing her. “They’re usually already familiar with people I’m seeing.”
“Oh.” Understanding swept across her features, and Grace raised her eyebrows. “Now it makes sense. And I suppose I kind of came out of nowhere, didn’t I?”
“Just a little bit.” I rubbed my hand over my mouth and sighed as the cottage Mum and Dad were staying in came into view on the other side of the hill. “That’s the cottage.”
Grace turned her attention from me to the small, stone building and drew in a breath. “Holy crap. It’s beautiful here.”
“It’s just a cottage.”
Her cheeks flushed a light pink, and she wrapped her arms around her waist, stopping on the gravel path at the top of the hill we’d just slowly walked up. “I know, but everything here seems to be beautiful. Is there anything at all wrong with this place?”
I stuffed my hands in my pockets, falling still alongside her. “Um… there are rats in the barn,” I said, thinking carefully. “Deer sometimes break into the shed.”
Slowly, Grace twisted her head around to look at me. “Deer break into the shed?”
“Yep. I was about…” I blew out a breath. “I don’t know, sixteen? I used to spend all my summers here, and when I reached twelve, Grandpa would put me to work on the estate with various groundskeepers and gardeners. Said I needed to know how it worked if it was going to be mine one day.”
Her lips twitched into a tiny smile.
“I remember this one day I was set to work with the groundskeepers—I think the head guy at the time was called Conch.”
“Conch? Like the shell?”
“It was a nickname.”
“I would like to think so.”
