Chapter 23 Tilda #2
Finn fills the frame, broad and dark against the bright mid-day light. For a second my stomach drops, and I brace myself for the inevitable, preparing my speech.
I know what he’s going to say. Last night was a mistake. We got carried away. It can’t happen again.
But he pushes the door closed behind him with a deliberate click and crosses the stone flags in three long strides.
“Okay?” he asks, his voice low.
I nod, not trusting myself.
He bends, his mouth almost on mine, and I can smell the peat smoke and barley on him, feel the heat radiating from his body.
“Good,” he murmurs and then he kisses me so hard the pot nearly falls from my hand.
His beard scrapes my cheek while one hand tangles in my hair, the other grabbing my hip and pulling me flush against him.
I clutch the wooden bench with one hand, and the terracotta flowerpot with the other, trying to stay upright as my knees go weak.
“You can put that down,” he says against my mouth, taking the pot from my fingers and setting it on the bench behind me.
He lifts me as if I weigh nothing and sets me on the wooden staging, stepping between my legs to bridge the height difference.
“Better,” he says, his hands sliding up my thighs.
I reach up, feeling the warmth of his body in the layer between the thick plaid shirt and his grey T-shirt, splaying my fingers across his broad back. My legs wrap around his hips instinctively, pulling him closer.
“Just thought I’d check on how things were going,” he murmurs, his mouth trailing along my jaw to the sensitive spot beneath my ear.
“Good,” I manage, breathless.
“Good,” he repeats. His tongue traces my lower lip, and I open for him, deepening the kiss until I’m dizzy with it.
His hand slides inside my T-shirt, rough palm against my bare skin. I arch into his touch, a small sound escaping me.
“Shouldn’t you be working?” I gasp, glancing toward the greenhouse door in sudden panic.
“I should.” He shifts his hips, pressing against me, and I feel the hard length of him through both our clothes. The pressure against the seam of my overalls makes me gasp.
“Me too,” I manage, even as my hands slide up over the solid warmth of his back.
His muscles tense under my touch.
“We really should get back to work,” he says, but his hands are sliding higher, thumbs grazing the underside of my breasts.
“Absolutely,” I agree, even as I reach down and curl my fingers around the thick ridge straining against his jeans.
“Tilda.” His eyes roll back, and he lets out a low groan, his hips jerking forward involuntarily. “Christ.”
“What?” I ask innocently, stroking him through the denim. I can feel him pulse under my palm, hot and hard.
“You’re—” He breaks off, jaw clenched, fighting for control. “I have work. Malcolm’s waiting.”
“So go,” I say, squeezing gently. His control wavers, his breathing ragged.
“You’re killing me, Chaos.” But he doesn’t move away. Instead, his mouth finds mine again, deeper this time, hungrier. His hand slides up further, thumb circling my nipple through the lace of my bra.
I make a sound that’s half moan, half whimper, my hand working him harder through his jeans. He’s so big I can barely wrap my fingers around him.
“Tilda.” My name is a warning. “If you keep doing that—”
“What?” I challenge, looking up at him through my lashes.
His eyes are black with desire. One hand reaches for the clip on my overalls, and he releases the catch so it falls loose.
My hand is still working, and Finn’s breath is coming faster as he tugs at the other clip.
He’s going to lose his fabled control, push my overalls down and take me right here on the potting bench.
Then Malcolm’s whistle drifts in through the half-open window and we both freeze.
Finn swears under his breath and takes a reluctant step back, but his hands linger on my hips before he releases me.
“Later,” he says, his voice rough with promise. “I will have you later.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” My voice is steadier than I feel.
“Please do.” He adjusts himself with a grimace, then pushes a hand through his hair, trying to look presentable.
I hop down from the bench, my legs still unsteady and that’s when I notice the pot of rosemary I’d been working on, and the idea hits me.
“Gin,” I blurt out.
Finn raises his eyebrows, clearly still focused elsewhere. “Sorry?”
I grab a sprig of the rosemary, crushing it between my fingers. The sharp, resinous scent fills the air. “Gin. Why don’t you make Benruar Gin?”
He blinks, visibly trying to shift mental gears, and I remember that not everyone’s brain works the way mine does.
The words tumble out in a rush – the herbs, the gorse, the point of difference, giving Jennifer something she wouldn’t expect.
“Look at this,” I say, reaching across to the herbs I’ve been potting. “Thyme, lemon balm, the coconut of the gorse flowers. Heather—”
“We’re a whisky distillery,” Finn says, his brow furrowing.
“Exactly.” I point at him with my two index fingers, and the words come tumbling out.
“That’s what Jennifer expects. She’s turning up here in two weeks to compare us – unfavourably – to Glen Mhor.
We know your whisky is better, but she doesn’t give a shit about that.
But…” I say, snapping a bit of rosemary in half and sniffing it again to illustrate my point, “if we give her something new, something that’s alive and growing, she’d have to take notice. ”
Finn raises a brow which I take as encouragement.
“We could turn the kitchen garden into a gin garden. Visitors could walk through, smell the herbs, pick the leaves, then taste them in the glass. How long does it take to make gin?” I stop in the middle of my sentence and look at him hopefully. “It’s not twenty-five years or something, is it?”
He shakes his head, laughing. “Weeks. We need neutral spirit – which we have – and a small gin still. If we start now, we could be pouring samples by the time she visits.”
I give a little flourish, waving my hands in the air. “Then we’ve got it. Proof Benruar isn’t stuck in the past. The point of difference Georgia keeps banging on about.”
For a beat he stares at me and then he kisses me again, slower this time, his hand cupping the back of my head and tangling in my hair. When he pulls back, his eyes are dark and intense.
“You are a genius.”
I laugh shakily, brushing compost from the front of my dungarees. “Hardly. It makes sense, though.”
He looks at me with an expression I can’t quite read, as if he can’t quite believe I’m real. “Your brain is extraordinary.”
Heat flares in my cheeks. “You’re not the first person who’s said that.
” The memory of Jack’s words – you’re too much, Tilda, too chaotic – makes me feel uncomfortable.
I look around the untidy greenhouse. I’m in the middle of something, so it looks like a bomb has gone off. “I think I probably am chaos.”
“Well, I love it.” He says it simply, matter-of-factly. “I love the way you think.”
The word love hangs between us.
I want to say something clever back, but he tips my head once again with his big hands and kisses me, gentle but certain this time.
That’s when the latch rattles on the wooden door.
I spring away from Finn so fast I nearly knock over three pots. He mutters something under his breath that makes me laugh despite my racing heart.
Malcolm’s head appears round the door, his wise eyes peering up at us from underneath his habitual flat cap.
“There you are,” he says to Finn, then his gaze flicks to me – still flushed, hair escaping its clip – then back to Finn, who is very deliberately studying a bag of compost.
One bushy brow lifts a fraction.
“Just… discussing plants,” I say weakly, holding up the rosemary like evidence.
“Aye,” Malcolm says, his mouth twitching. “I can see that.”
Finn clears his throat. “What were you after, Malcolm?”
“Malt’s ready for turning. But take your time.” He pulls the door closed behind him, and I swear I hear him chuckling as he walks away.
I bury my face in my hands. “Oh god. He knows.”
“Malcolm’s known a lot of things for a lot of years,” Finn says, amused. “And he’s the soul of discretion.”
He leaves, and I sink back onto the potting bench, my heart still racing. What am I doing?
I spend the rest of the afternoon working hard on the kitchen garden, strimming the grass and clearing every bed so it’s ready to go.
I plant in herbs and move shrubs, standing back and screwing up my eyes so I can imagine how it’ll look in a year’s time when it’s grown on and established.
There’s a knot in my stomach when I remember I won’t be here to see it all.
By the time I make it back to the house, Georgia’s covered the kitchen table with papers. The door’s open to let the fresh air in and the spaniels and Flora are sprawled on the floor soaking up the sunlight. She looks up, chirpy as ever.
“How’s it going?”
“She’s a genius.” I feel Finn’s presence like someone’s run an electric current through me and turn to see him standing right behind me in the doorway.
“Okay, this I need to hear.”
“Tell her,” Finn says, sitting down on the armchair by the doorway and stretching his legs out, crossing them at the ankle so his foot touches Flora, who looks up and gives a lazy wag of her tail.
“Gin,” I say, pulling the sprig of rosemary from the front pocket of my dungarees. I set it on the table like it’s Exhibit A in a crime scene and Georgia picks it up, frowning.
“Explain?”
“I was thinking in the greenhouse,” I begin, and Finn clears his throat. I glance over at him and he gazes back, his expression a picture of blank innocence.
“I was thinking,” I begin again, my eyes widening slightly as a warning to him, “about your point of difference thing and I realised we could make gin.”
“Oh my god.” Georgia blinks once, then leans forward, her chin on her hands as she surveys us both. “That’s amazing. It’s fast, it’s marketable. I can already see the reels.”
Finn rolls his eyes. “I had a feeling that was coming.”
“Benruar Gin,” she says thoughtfully. “Grow with us. You could do the whole thing from planting to the finished product. People love a story.”
She starts scribbling furiously, sketching boxes and arrows like a general planning a war campaign. Finn gets up and silently starts making tea and I fetch the tray of chocolate brownies from earlier.
“We need a name, obviously, and branding and visuals. Tilda, you in the garden looking cute in your dungarees, harvesting herbs. Finn, you can wander around in a kilt.”
“I’m not a fucking show pony.”
“People love the whole broody Highlander thing.”
He scowls, making me and Georgia laugh out loud.
“It’ll play like wildfire online.” She beams at him.
Finn mutters something under his breath as he fetches the milk from the fridge. His eyes flick to mine, making my stomach flip as I get a fizz of a flashback to him kissing me in the greenhouse.
Georgia looks between us, her eyes narrowed. “Did you two cook this up together?”
“Nope,” Finn says with a shake of his head. “One hundred per cent Tilda’s brain wave.”
She arches a brow but says nothing as Finn slides a mug across the table to her.
“Okay. This could be amazing. Jennifer thinks she’s turning up here knowing exactly what to expect. All we have to do is keep it under our hats until she arrives, and… boom.”
I cross my fingers under the table and send up a little prayer to the universe. I know it doesn’t matter to me either way, but for some reason… it does. I tell myself it’s because I want the underdog to win, but somewhere inside I know it’s more than that.