Page 12 of Savage Blooms
“Rain’s stopped earlier than expected,” he noted. “If you’re lucky the roads will be safe to drive on by late afternoon.”
“Oh,” Nicola said, and she was surprised to find she was disappointed. Getting stranded here might have been bad luck, but it was hard to feel like it was anything but a boon sitting in the hearth-warm kitchen of a country home, chatting over tea with a gorgeous and interesting stranger.
“Do you want to see them?” Finley asked.
“What?” Nicola replied, eyelashes fluttering.
“The grounds. You aren’t dressed for it, but I could wait down here while you change. Eileen lays in late, and I suspect Adam is still asleep. It seems a shame not to show you around before you leave. We could be back before breakfast.”
On the one hand, it was probably safest to say goodbye to this unknown man and return to her room to wait forher friend – the person she actually trusted in this situation – to wake up. But she also hated the idea of being cooped up, and this unknown man just so happened to have the sort of rough, soft voice she had always been weak for.
“I’d love that,” she said.
The ground was soggy underfoot as Finley and Nicola made their way across the grazing green, and there was a mist hanging in the air, but the worst of the storm had passed. Cozy in her jeans and a sweater and securely laced into her boots, Nicola strode after Finley over the uneven ground. He walked with determined strides, not having to watch his footing.
“How exactly does one keep grounds?” Nicola asked. “Or whatever the technical term for your job is.”
Finley let out a bright laugh. He was more relaxed outdoors, away from the house. There was an easy slouch in his shoulders and a springy life in his wind-tossed curls. It was pleasing to look at, the darkest parts of his hair against the splash of green in his hazel eyes, only a few shades deeper than the marshy rolling hills. She lost herself for a moment in mentally picking the right colors to capture the scene, because Finley deserved to be rendered with boldness and depth.
“I do anything that needs doing,” he said. “Plant flowers and trim hedges, salt the drive in case of ice, uproot anytrees that are dead or dying, tear ivy off the house… I’ve been known to do a bit of masonry, a bit of carpentry, even a bit of cooking when it’s called for.”
“Jack of all trades, huh?”
“Something like that.” Finley pointed ahead to the sliver of rocky coast in the distance, and the deep blue waters beyond. “This strip of grass stretches all the way down to the shore, about a mile away. The woodlands go on for acres and acres, entirely uncultivated. Once upon a time they were used for hunting, or for growing mushrooms and berries for the kitchen, but they’ve gone wild by now.”
Finley kept up the pace, leading Nicola further and further from the house. As Craigmar manor shrank in the distance, they passed a few unbothered sheep nibbling at the wildflowers underfoot. One of them let out an inquisitive bleat, then shuffled aside to reveal the tiny lamb who had been suckling from its mother.
Nicola clasped her hands together, overtaken by the sight, and let out a gasp of delight.
“Oh, a baby!” she exclaimed. “It’s so cute. I’ve never seen a lamb up close.”
“You haven’t?” Finley asked, and a wicked grin passed over his face. “Stay right there.”
Taking big steps in his wellington boots, Finley walked right up to the nearest lamb. The mother let out an indignantbaa, but Finley shushed her like she was a fussy toddler and scratched her behind the ears. Then he tuckedthe lamb’s legs up underneath its belly and carried it over to Nicola, who was practically vibrating with delight.
“Go ahead and give him a cuddle,” Finley said, proffering the lamb. “Just mind his teeth. The little ones bite.”
Nicola held out her hands and Finley deposited the bundle of wriggling warmth into her arms. Nicola cradled it with the care she would show to a human newborn, holding it safely close to her chest. It smelled earthy and damp, like fresh cut grass, with the unmistakable musk of farm animal underneath. Nicola could feel the rapid patter of its heart through its wooly chest, a tiny miracle in itself.
“Oh,” she said reverentially. “Oh my goodness.”
Nicola glanced up at Finley and found he was watching her with a strange expression. It was partly pained and partly reverent, as though he were witnessing something holy. Nicola stood there, scratching the lamb behind the ears, and let him look at her, really look.
Then Finley stepped forward and retrieved the lamb from Nicola, breaking the spell.
“You’re good with animals,” he said, not quite able to meet her eyes. “Shall we keep walking?”
CHAPTER SIX
Adam
Adam awoke to Nicola’s prim triple rap on his bedroom door. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he hauled himself out of bed and staggered over. His mind was still muddy with images from what he thought he had seen the night before. It hovered just out of reach, hazy with sleep, but as Adam grasped for the sense thatsomethingreal had happened last night, everything rushed back with scintillating clarity. Finley’s strong hand gripping the riding crop, Eileen stripped half-naked on the floor, their searing shared kiss.
Adam shoved the memories – or the dreams, whatever they were – away before they could make the half hard-on he had woken with any worse. Stifled by the heavy blankets, he had tossed off his shirt in the night, and his chest was still covered with a thin layer of sweat.
Without thinking twice about dressing, Adam opened the door.
Eileen Kirkfoyle stood before him, his freshly pressed clothes in her arms, her dark hair swirled up on her head and held in place with golden hairpins. She was fully dressed, in wide-legged pants that tied in a bow around her waist, and a dour black blouse buttoned up to her throat, but the sight of her brought images of creamy bare skin painted with a high flush flooding back all the same.
