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It was a storm one night that forced us to start talking again. One that swept in late evening, battered the cabin and the nearby forest, shrieks of noise sounding like one thing, when they were actually another.
He’d just come in from having secured the corrugated roof on the wood shed, when I made it downstairs to see why the power had gone out.
“Let me check the fuse box,” he said, after having had to shove the door shut, then lock it tight because of the wind.
“Power’s out,” he shouted from the cupboard under the stairs.
“Thought so.”
I grabbed matches and candles.
Logan was dead to the world but I wouldn’t sleep until the storm had quietened down a bit. The constant thrashing of wind against the roof was enough to wake the dead.
I opened a bottle of red wine while he set the coffee machine going. We both felt like it’d be a long night, and while I needed medicine to get through it, clearly, he was of a more practical mindset.
The winds could get up to 80mph around those parts and it was scary at times. There were no power lines near us, but even a newish roof wouldn’t withstand mother nature if she was fixing to batter us silly.
I sat in one of the rocking chairs sipping wine, watching the odd bit of trash, tree or a bucket roll around the fields outside. Gusts hit the house and seemed to want to crack open the windows, but the place stayed intact.
Eric remained where he was in the kitchen sipping his coffee in the shadows. Yet the air crackled with that tension between us. Perhaps I’d hurt him, I wasn’t sure. If I knew what I’d done, then maybe I could put it right.
I was about to tell myself I had nothing to apologise for, I hadn’t done anything wrong; this was my own home and the mess we were in wasn’t my fault, or his particularly—we ought to be grown-ups about being thrown together, though sworn enemies we still were.
“Caelan wants us to live in Scotland full-time,” I blurted out of nowhere.
“What?” he gasped, and my words brought him over to join me.
“I know. I can’t abide it!” Pointing at the stormy world outside, which was proof enough, I added, “I don’t know what it is with him.”
“When did he say this?”
I cursed under my breath, shaking my head. “Just before he left. He wants us to talk about it when he gets back.”
“But… didn’t he just do up that place in Notting Hill?”
I tipped my head back and snorted. “Yep.”
“What’s the dude’s problem?”
“I have no idea.”
A pause while we both considered.
“What doyouwant?” he asked.
I didn’t have to think very hard. “My work. My friends. My lovely big mansion. London, basically. London.” I shot him a look, only a brief one, to gesture I couldn’t live up here full-time.
“You don’t have to convince me.” He held his hands up, one side of his mouth raised in a smirk. “I’m London through and through, too.”
“I can handle the odd trip here. I adore Morag and Harold. I adore the place to an extent, but a full-time existence here? This remote lifestyle?” I shook my head, lips pressed together. “Maybe I could run the castle or something as a business while he farms or hunts or runs his little bootcamps or whatever. But my work is important stuff. The preservation work, particularly. It’s my skillset. It’s where I’m needed.”
Eric clapped his hands together, and hunched over, staring at the floor. “He’s not settled, then?”
“Nope.”
“You’re gonna hate me for saying this but despite what you may think of me, why am I not surprised? Why are you not surprised?” I had to concede, I wasn’t surprised either. “He’s just… not happy unless he’s trekking about.”
“Aren’t you the same?”
