Page 8 of All Summer Long

‘It’s Robinson, please.’

Alice frowned slightly, unsure she was happy to be on first name terms when her body had just acted in such an irresponsible fashion to his.Robinson Duff.Did something about his name ring a familiar bell? He must have sensed it in her, because he sighed a little and looked less comfortable than a moment ago.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alice said. ‘It’s just your name. I feel as if I’ve heard it before somewhere.’

He picked up his mug and drank slowly then lowered his eyelids, staring into his coffee.

‘I doubt that.’

He dismissed her words with a careless shrug.

Alice frowned, unconvinced, her head on one side as she looked at him.

‘No … I’m pretty sure I have,’ she said, sensing his annoyance and not understanding where it came from.

He sighed audibly.

‘Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t. It’s a pretty common name. Does it really matter?’ His carefully controlled look aimed for bland, but his eyes told a different story. They told her to back off. Alice received the message loud and clear and held her tongue, even though she wanted to point out that, actually, Robinson Duff wasn’t a very common name at all.

‘I used to be a singer, back home,’ he said, his tone flat, his eyes back on his coffee. ‘Next subject.’

Alice wished he’d look up. It was hard to read his expression without the luxury of seeing his eyes, but the quiet melancholy in his voice spoke of a heavy heart.

‘Must be it,’ she said, privately planning to look him up later. She’d heard of him, she was certain.

‘Whereishome, Robinson?’

He didn’t reply for a few long beats.

‘Here, now,’ he said, finally glancing back up.

He said it in a way that closed that line of enquiry down too, told her very clearly that he’d rather talk about something else. Alice didn’t push it; recent events in her own life had taught her that some things are difficult to say. If Robinson needed to keep his secrets, she was okay with that. She just hoped he wasn’t planning to keep them for ever in her house, because some time soon she was going to want it back again. It was clear from his testy attitude that although they were going to be neighbours, they weren’t going to be friends. Alice found she was fine with that, because something about Robinson Duff made her profoundly uncomfortable. He was too much of a man; all broad shoulders and vitality and charisma. Her body approved, but her head and her heart didn’t, which put him right at the top of her ‘best avoided’ list. Wiping her palms down her jeans, she donned her professional landlady hat. She could be that, at least. She could be his landlady.

‘Want me to give you a guided tour of the house? There’s a few eccentricities to the place you should know about.’

His expression cleared back to neutral, as if he too found their professional relationship easier to navigate.

‘That might be a good idea, darlin’. I managed to find a bath and a bed without getting myself into too much trouble, but it sure is quite the house.’

Robinson’s accent was pure cowboy, as Dallas as Bobby Ewing and the way he saiddarlin’sent a second unexpected and unwelcome prickle of awareness down Alice’s spine. She wanted to ask him not to say it again but knew that to do so would make her sound gauche and mildly militant.

‘It’s yours, I take it?’

She looked at him hard. What had they been talking about?

‘The house,’ he prompted. ‘You own it?’

Back in the room. ‘Yes. Yes, the manor’s mine.’

Robinson looked at her for a few silent seconds before he spoke again.

‘And will your family be joining you in the Airstream soon?’

He loaded the question with just the right balance of sarcasm and innocence, but he didn’t fool Alice.

Right. So that was how they were going to play it. She knew she’d read his fleeting expression of annoyance properly yesterday when she’d asked if his family would be coming to stay, and he was firing an answering shot across her bows.

It was her turn to play her cards close to her chest. Robinson’s eyes were full of questions, and she chose not to answer any of them.

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