“What did you do that for? I haven’t seen him all day.”
“And I haven’t seen you all week, so suck it up, young man, and cut those spuds for me. Besides, I want to talk to you about something before your dad comes in.”
“Okaaay.” I drew a pile of potatoes towards me and set about cutting them into rough cubes. “Why do I not like the sound of that?”
“Because you still carry that big-city way of seeing the negative in everything.” Laura slid a mug of tea across the table. “But you might be right in this case, so get those spuds done while I talk, eh?”
Fair enough.
Laura took her place at the table and folded her hands around her own teacup. “Your dad and I have been talking about your grandfather’s house.”
“Haven Cottage?” I pictured the old fisherman’s cottage where my paternal grandfather had lived out his last years. “I thought you were going to rent it out? Cash in on the sea views and all that?”
“We did. In fact, we even started renovating it last summer, but you know how those things go around here.”
Easily distractedwould be written on the tombstone of every member of my Porthkennack family, so I could well imagine what had happened to the cottage project. And I had a horrible feeling that I knew where this was going. Laura and my dad had made no secret of the fact that it had been my insistence at getting Kim involved that had finally seen the barn enterprise to fruition. “Ma, Kim doesn’t have time to design and build new furniture for the cottage. He’s too busy with the expansion.”
“Oh, I know that, honey. We were actually rather hoping that you and Kim would buy Haven Cottage from us.”
“Buy it?”
“Yes, to live in . . . together. You can’t traipse between your lonely flat and his caravan forever.”
“No?”
“No, Jasper, you can’t. I know you’re happier than you’ve ever been, and no one is enjoying that more than your father and I, but life is for living . . . for moving forward. You two need a home of your own.”
She had a point, but I wasn’t in the business of conceding so easily. “What makes you think we have the money to buy a beachfront property?”
“Common sense, dear. You still have the money from your flat in London, don’t you?”
I did, but that was hardly the point. Kim had just sunk all his capital into expanding the workshop, and I knew there was no way that he’d agree to living in a house that I’d paid for alone. “Thanks, Ma, but no thanks.”
“I had a feeling you might say that. Would it help if I told you the price we’re asking? Don’t forget that the place was wrack and ruin when we bought it, so anything we get for it is pure profit—”
“Ma.”
But it was no good. She named her price anyway, and the figure was low enough to thoroughly distract me from my father and brother’s rowdy entrance. Huh. Perhaps I was more Manning than I cared to admit after all.
Kim noticed my preoccupation during dinner. He elbowed me a few times when people spoke to me and I failed to answer. Only the buzz of my phone saved me from explaining myself there and then.
I stepped outside. “Hello?”
A throaty chuckle set my nerves alight.
“Red?”
“It’s me. How’s it going, handsome?”
I smiled up at the inky night sky. Red was tearing up America with her band, and we didn’t hear from her often, but her sporadic phone calls always put a smile on both of our faces. “All good in this hood, luv. Want me to get Kim?”
“Not today, Jas. It’s you I wanted to speak to.”
“It is?” That was unusual. Red and I had an odd relationship—a dry flirtation that was laced with a fierce protection of Kim on both sides—and our conversations were mostly short-lived, a stopgap until Kim came to the phone. Which begged the question of why she’d called me in the first place. “What’s up?”
“I’m getting married.”
“Oh.” That stopped me in my tracks. Kim’s relationship with Red was long over, but there was still a part of me that believed, perhaps even hoped, that they’d one-day revisit the heady passion they’d once shared. I’d dreamed about it—about watching them together, touching, kissing, fucking—and woken up wishing that we’d made more of the brief time that we’d all been in the same place. Was that wrong? Kim didn’t think so, and neither did I.