The Unquiet - J. D. Robb [105]
Kit didn’t blush; she just looked interested. “When did this happen?” she asked, gesturing. “I thought they didn’t like each other.”
“Oh, I always knew they liked each other. Ha-ha—maybe I’m psychic!”
“Maybe you are.” She lifted his right hand and peered into his palm. “Oh, look. Your fate line’s like Route 66.”
“Yeah?”
“Coast to coast.”
“Not surprised. I always thought I was the sensitive type.”
“ And see this?” She ran a soft finger—he liked her French manicure—down to the base of his wrist, while his smile turned dreamy. “Here’s where you meet the second great love of your life.”
“Where?”
“Right here.” They looked up at the same time, into each other’s eyes. “And you live,” Kit said seriously, “for freaking ever.”
“What about you?”
“Same thing. My life line practically wraps around my wrist.” She showed him.
“ Amazing. Freaking fantastic.” He looked forward to talking like someone from New Jersey. “Means we’ve got a long, long time, Kit. Okay if I call you Kit?”
They strolled away, arms entwined, leaving Molly and Oliver where they were. They could catch up later—they had even longer.
THE UNFORGIVEN
RUTH RYAN LANGAN
For Tom, whose heart will always be my home.
ONE
“There it is, missus.” Duncan Logan, the burly, white-haired driver of the vintage Rolls, pointed at the stone manor house in the distance. “There’s Ravenswood.”
Brianna Kerr, who had alternated between anger and despair during her flight to Scotland, stopped fiddling with the strap of her purse and strained for her first glimpse of her late husband’s family estate. Though she’d seen pictures of it, they had been taken years ago, when it had been beautifully maintained as one of the premier properties in the Scottish Highlands. She had to swallow back her disappointment. Now, after years of neglect, the hedges along the curving ribbon of road were sadly in need of a trim, the sloping lawns and gardens were overgrown, the statuary was faded and even toppled and broken.
Like me, she thought. Like my life, my dreams. Broken.
When the car came to a halt, the old man hurried around to hold open the passenger door. “You go ahead, missus. I’ll deliver your bags to the gatekeeper’s cottage and lay in some firewood as you requested. That is, if you’re sure that’s where you really plan on staying. As I’ve warned you, ’tis in sad shape indeed. I’m sure you’d be much more comfortable in the village where there are shops and . . .”
“I’m sure. Thank you, Duncan.” Her credit card was already maxed. Besides, the last thing she wanted was laughing, chattering shoppers around her. She craved quiet. Peace. Time alone. To brood. To heal.
Would she ever heal?
As she climbed the wide stone steps, she saw the flutter of curtains at the window moments before the front door was thrown wide.
She forced a smile on her lips. “Mrs. Logan?”
Duncan’s wife filled the doorway with her bulk. As wide as she was tall, with a simple white apron tied around her enormous middle, and her salt-and-pepper hair tied back in a severe bun, she looked more like an actor in a play than the flesh-and-blood housekeeper of an ancient Scottish manor house.
“Gwynn Logan. That I am.” The older woman looked her up and down, as though taking her measure. “And you’d be Mrs. Kerr.”
“Please call me Bree.” Brianna offered a handshake.
There was a moment’s hesitation before the older woman offered her hand. “Well, I’ll try. Though things were more formal when her ladyship was alive. I suppose”—the older woman’s tone was wistful—“with her ladyship gone, nothing’s as it was in the day.”
Nor will it ever be again.
The thought sent a sudden shaft of pain through Bree’s already shattered heart. It was a struggle for her to remain composed.
She was grateful that the housekeeper took that moment to look toward the driver just stepping back into the car.
“Now, where is Duncan going? What about your things?”
“I asked him to put them in the gatekeeper’s cottage.”
“The gatekeeper’s . . .” The