She whisked around, gasping, horrified, realizing belatedly that it was Lennox.
For a split second, he stared straight at her, unabashed. Then he recovered himself.
“Sorry! Sorry!” he said fiercely, putting his hands up and backing away. “The door was open . . .” Nina had left it open after Lesley left, to let the soft summer breeze in through the sitting room.
“You gave me such a fright!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m not that type of landlord . . . Christ, is that the time?”
Nina smiled. “It’s all right. I’m just embarrassed I got caught preening.”
He looked at her again, but rather nervously, as if he shouldn’t.
“So you’re going to the festival?”
“No,” snapped Nina. “This is what I wear when I need to relax.”
Lennox laughed suddenly, as if despite himself. “Actually,” he said, “I think it rather suits you.”
“Don’t talk daft.”
“I’m not. You look nice. As if you’ve taken off your cardigan for once.”
“I don’t wear a cardigan!”
“Your metaphorical cardigan. Your librarian’s cardigan. It’s as if . . .” This was a long speech from Lennox, and he seemed to be flailing a little bit. “It’s as if you pull something around yourself, make yourself look smaller and more insignificant. Than you really are.”
Nina blinked.
“Like you don’t want anyone to notice you.”
“In case they want to leave me on a hillside.”
Lennox looked puzzled. “Sorry?”
“Never mind.”
He immediately turned to go. He got halfway down the path, stopped at the van, then turned around again.
“You can’t drive that death trap up there. Want a ride?”
“You’re going?” said Nina in surprise.
“I am if I want people in this town to buy my wool again,” snorted Lennox. “No bloody choice, have I?”
Nina smiled. “Well then. Maybe this time you’ll start dancing a bit earlier.”
His forehead creased in confusion; he had obviously forgotten the barn dance completely.
“Wouldnae have thought so,” he said, heading toward the house. “See you in twenty minutes.”
“You have two kilts?” said Nina in astonishment, looking at him twenty minutes later. She had attempted to tame her hair, without success, and had ended up simply twisting two strands from the front to the back, in the style of a coronet. She had given up completely on the tartan sash, not having the faintest idea what to do with it. She noticed now that it was the same tartan as Lennox’s kilt, a soft green-gray.
“Have you got two pairs of jeans?” growled Lennox. He had washed his hair, and it fell in soft curls, not hidden as it usually was beneath a flat cap. Likewise, without the waxed jacket on, Nina noticed once again the breadth of the shoulders, his slim but muscular build. He wasn’t over worked out—she couldn’t imagine him ever working out, as if farmers ever needed artificial exercise—nor skinny, just nicely proportioned. The gray-green of the tartan made his eyes seem an even stronger blue.
“Yes, but . . .” Nina decided this line of conversation was pointless.
“Where’s your sash?”
“Um, I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“So you didn’t even try? Bring it here.”
He stood by the Land Rover and gravely, and with care, pinned the sash to her hip and her shoulder. As he straightened it, they were suddenly standing uncomfortably close to each other, and Nina realized she was holding her breath. She immediately gave herself a stiff telling-off and jumped into the front seat, then out again when she saw that Parsley was already in there.
“Does Parsley dance a lot?”
Lennox shrugged. “He likes a party. More than I do, at any rate.”
“Will I sit in the back?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. On boy, on.” The dog immediately moved to the back.
Nina turned and rubbed Parsley’s ears affectionately. “You gorgeous boy, you.”
Parsley licked her hand. Lennox glanced over.
“You’re very soppy about that dog.”
“Because he is so very lovely.” Lovelier than you deserve, she thought, but didn’t say.
“Kate always said he was too nice for me,” said Lennox, reading her thoughts.
They bounced down the rutted track in silence. There were more cars on the road than usual, partly because normally there weren’t any cars on the road at all, and most were heading up the hill toward Coran Mhor, full of jolly and excitable people including, thank goodness, lots of white dresses and girls spilling out of them. Nina looked out of the window, as Lennox seemed typically unwilling to get involved in a conversation. The evening was dreamy and clear, puffs of cloud settling; the sun looked unwilling to move anywhere.
“How’s the train driver?” said Lennox awkwardly, from out of the blue.
Nina looked at him in shock. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, is he coming or what?”
“Um. No. NO, of course not. No. It wasn’t . . . it didn’t . . .”
Lennox cut his eyes toward her. “Not quite what you’d thought?”
There was a long silence in the car.
“He had . . . it turned out he already had a family.” Nina hated having to admit it, to say it out loud. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
Lennox paused and patted the dog, who’d stuck his head in between the two of them in the front.
“Sorry,” he said finally. “I shouldn’t have asked. I did have a bad feeling about him. Something about the way he wouldn’t meet my eyes.”
“Maybe he just thought you were grumpy and scary,” said Nina.
Lennox looked surprised. “I’m not like that at all.”
Nina harrumphed. “Yeah, right, okay.”
“I just work hard, that’s all. People think there’s nothing to keeping a big farm going, but it’s a hell of a job . . .”
He caught the look on Nina’s face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“Well, who doesn’t think farming is an incredibly hard job? But I see Fat Tam out having fun at the pub all the time, and other farmers have a good time. Loads of people have tough jobs, but it doesn’t make them miserable all the time.”