Page 41 of Finding the One (River Rain #7)

Questioning

Dair

“ A ll right, we’re done,” Blake said to Rix, who was sitting next to Dair in the first-class carriage of the train taking them to London.

She didn’t say “please” or “do you mind switching seats again?”

She just said “all right, we’re done” with a girl-who-gets-whatever-she-wants smile on her face, and Rix moved from where he was sitting beside Dair to resume his seat across the aisle beside his wife.

Blake plopped down next to him and grabbed her tote so she could tuck the letters inside that she’d brought with her and just spent forty-five minutes going over with Alex.

“What’re those?” he asked.

“Patron requests.”

“Sorry?”

She set her tote aside and looked at him.

“Patron requests. Apparently, members of the aristocracy patronize various charities. They want money, of course, but they’re also looking for someone to help them raise more of it, as well as awareness.

Unsurprisingly, Mum didn’t patronize any charities, but Christine goes through the mail sent to Treverton.

She gave me those letters, and when she did, she told me Grandfather was a patron to several.

” She looked beyond him and out the window when she finished, “I suspect I’ll be getting more requests.

It’s early days. But Alex works in charity, and I wanted her to help me narrow them down so I can eventually make some decisions. ”

“You’re going to be a patron to charities?”

Even if Dair was still troubled by what he’d learned about Blake the evening before, and he hadn’t had a chance to talk to her about it, he hadn’t meant to sound that disbelieving.

And his tone earned him a sharp, wounded look.

“Is it so unbelievable?” she asked.

He moved swiftly to cover.

“Ye need to be in the UK to do them any good, hen.”

Mercifully, that settled her.

So much so, she twisted, wrapped both her arms around his and leaned into him, tipping her head way back.

This was his Blake, with that impish light in her eyes.

Impish, mingled with love.

As much as he liked that look, Dair adjusted himself restlessly in his seat without losing her hold, because, fuck him, he was questioning it.

“Do I need to make it official?” she asked quietly.

Setting aside his contradictory thoughts, and settling in with this Blake, his Blake, he felt his lips curve up. “Dinnae reckon ye do.”

The impish light switched to a soft, loving one.

Aye.

He was with his Blake.

“I thought we’d head back up to Edinburgh soon,” she suggested. “Get Sorcha out of doggie prison.”

He laughed. “She isn’t in doggie prison. She’s with Auntie Davi now. She loves her Auntie Davi.”

“I bet she loves her daddy better.”

She’d win that bet.

“So, we’ll get my family to Heathrow on Sunday,” Blake planned.

“You can go home for Sorcha. I’ll stay here for a while.

It will save you from the mess I’ll be making while I go through Mum’s stuff at the London house.

Also, I’ve got to go over things with Sarah, the housekeeper there.

I’ll head back to Treverton. Do the going over things with Christine. Pack up and grab a train to Edinburgh.”

“How long do ye think all that will take you?”

She shrugged. “I can aim to be with you on the weekend, but I’ll have to head down again.

Alex is going to come back out, and soon, before she gets too far along in the pregnancy.

We have to make decisions about Mum’s things.

We’re going to auction a lot of it, and I should know who I’m going to be a patron for before we do.

We can auction it off for one or several of the charities I select. ”

“You’re going to give that money away to charity?”

Again, he sounded more skeptical than he intended to, but this time, her eyes narrowed, she let him go and sat back in her seat.

“I hardly need the money, Dair. Norton is loaded, and I am too,” she said haughtily.

“I didnae mean it like that, lass.”

“How did you mean it?”

How did he mean it?

Why was he even surprised by it?

She’d given him no indication she was not who she seemed to be, when, looking back at it, if he hadn’t been so blinded by all he was feeling for Signe, she did. And those close to him saw right through her, whereas those close to him loved the idea of him being with Blake.

He was still surprised by it.

And questioning them.

He couldn’t get into what Rix told him right now and how it was fucking up his head. Alex and Rix were sitting across the aisle from them and Ned was at a table section behind them, working on his laptop. They’d overhear.

“It’s just a lot of work for ye,” he hedged.

“What else am I going to do?” she asked.

“I don’t have a job. I have plenty of time to do just about anything.

Alex doesn’t even have to come out, except I don’t want to accidentally give away something she might want.

Dad’s already been through Mum’s things.

There was nothing he’d want, they’ve been over for decades, but he checked anyway, and he didn’t find anything.

He’s good. But Alex is different. However, by the time she comes out, I want it organized for her so she doesn’t have to sift through a lot of stuff.

And, Dair, Mum had a lot of stuff. But Alex has a job that matters.

She can’t be spending weeks sorting through Chanel she’s not interested in in the slightest.”

“So you’ll head up to Edinburgh but have to go back down to Treverton to finish seeing to that?”

“Will that be a problem?”

It wouldn’t.

They’d known each other their whole lives, but what they had now started fast, and it continued even faster. It had barely been a month before they became an us.

A break, or several, would be good.

Time to take a breath. Time to assess. Time to see if it was just history, dramatic events and great fucking instead of what it seemed to be, the rest of their lives.

Maybe Blake was right.

Maybe how easy this had been should freak him.

Maybe they both needed time apart to understand what it really meant to them that they were together.

“No problem, lass,” he said. “If that official bit ye were mentioning earlier means you’re going to be in the UK a lot more, then I’ll take ye an hour-and-a-half plane ride away a good deal easier than that ride being seven and requiring getting through Immigration.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, watching him carefully, “the official bit meant I was going to be in the UK more now.”

However, how she said that made him think that wasn’t what it meant.

But she tugged her tote to her and busied herself rummaging in it, and Dair took her hint.

He looked out the window at the English countryside rushing past.

They had Marlo tonight.

She was going to be confronted with more of her mother when they hit Helena’s London residence.

He had a match to call tomorrow.

Whatever had gone on before, she was close to her family now, and they were leaving, so she had to deal with that.

And he had to go home, get his dog, and she had to deal with more of the flotsam and jetsam left in the wake of Helena’s passing.

They could have a break from each other, and he could talk to her about what Rix said when she got back to Edinburgh.

On his decision, he reached to take her hand, and he didn’t like it when she hesitated before her fingers curled around his.

But they curled around his.

So all was good.

For now.

Blake was in the bathroom, fussing with her hair, when yet another text came in from his father.

Dair read it. I have to speak to you. Urgently.

He knew his mum was home, figuring out her own shite.

Davi had his dog and a date the next night with the man she was having her situationship with who Dair hadn’t yet met, but he could tell with the way Davi was talking, she liked him better than most.

And if anything happened to either of them, he’d get a call before his father would.

He glanced at Blake through the bathroom door.

She’d had her hair down the last time he looked at her, now it was half up and half down.

They had to leave in fifteen minutes. Ned had ordered a car to come and get them.

But apparently, whatever she was doing was going to take a while.

And Dair needed to stop fucking around with this issue with his father.

He moved the door to the bathroom.

“Babe?” he called.

She turned to him and pointed to her head. “How does this look?”

“Gorgeous.”

“Better or worse than all down?”

He grinned. “Baby, dinnae ask me that. The answer will always be ‘all down’ because I’m thinking of my fist in it or it all over my lap when you’re sucking me off.”

She made a face at him, but he didn’t miss the fire in her eyes.

Then she bossed, “There are two outfits on the bed. Pick a meet-your-dad’s-girlfriend-who-means-a-great-deal-to-him one and put the other one back in the wardrobe, please.”

At least she tacked a please on that.

“On it,” he told her. “I’ll do that and then I have to make a call.”

“Right,” she said to the mirror, so preoccupied with her hair, she didn’t ask him what call he had to make.

He registered that thought but set it aside and moved to the bed.

And he heard her say from the loo, “And don’t pick the sexy one you want to fuck me in.”

That made him chuckle.

He didn’t even really look at the two outfits. They were both gorgeous. Both classy. And she’d look fantastic in either of them.

But he picked the ivory satin set with the sleeveless top that had a very high neck with a twist at the side that created some gathers across her chest, and it turned in at a bottom that was high so it’d expose some skin at her middle.

This had matching trousers with deep pleats and a thin rope belt that cinched a paper bag-looking waistband.

Right, so he picked that because it would cling to her, it was sexier, and the gold heels she had on the floor under where she’d set it out were fuck-me shoes.

But it was still stylish and more her than the conservative dress laid out beside it.