Chapter 31 Tilda
TILDA
The knock at the door makes me jump.
Flora doesn’t bark, which is unusual for her. I peer through the glass and see a familiar shape and my stomach drops.
“Oh god,” I say, already apologising as I pull the door open. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t know what to do after—”
He looks down at me with an unreadable expression, his eyes dark.
“—the garden was done, and I couldn’t work out what to do and I thought maybe I’d make myself scarce for a bit because I—”
Finn doesn’t say anything. His eyes are on me, and my heart is jumping in my chest. I close my eyes and scrunch up my face because I hate confrontation and—
My eyes pop open as he steps inside and cups my jaw in one big, rough hand and looks down at me. Then he tips my face up and kisses me as if it’s the only reason he’s turned up here on the doorstep.
I’m too stunned to respond but then my brain catches up with my mouth, and I feel his tongue dip against mine and the scratch of his beard against my skin.
A second later he’s pressing me up against the hallway wall, and my hands are reaching inside the soft fabric of the Benruar Distillery polo shirt and clutching at the solid wall of his back.
When he finally pulls back, he looks at me with a half-smile, shaking his head.
“I didn’t come here to tell you off.” His thumb traces my jaw.
I take an unsteady breath. “Then why—”
“Because I was an idiot.” His dark eyes hold mine. “You came to me after the inspection, and I shut you out. It’s what I always do when things go wrong – retreat into my head. But I pushed away the one person who actually matters.”
My throat tightens. “Finn—”
“I’m not good at this. At letting people in. But I don’t want to push you away anymore.” His hand slides up to cup the back of my neck. “So, I came to ask you to stay.”
“For the garden?” My voice comes out smaller than I intended.
“No.” His thumb traces my jaw. “For me. Because I don’t want to do this without you. Any of it.”
I stare up at him, my heart hammering. “You mean—”
“I mean you’ve completely wrecked me, Chaos. And I don’t want to go back to how I was before you crashed into my life.”
“But—” I’m still trying to process this. “The garden’s done. The inspection’s over. What do you even need me for?”
“Everything.” He says it simply. “But there’s more going on than the distillery. It’s a long story.”
I reach out and touch the flat of his stomach, pressing my hand against it before I trail it downwards towards the front of his jeans. He grabs it with a rueful smirk.
“You can come back to that later. Right now, I need your beautiful mind.”
He bends to stroke Flora, who has sat down on the edge of his boot and is staring up at him adoringly.
“Traitor,” I say to her. She wags her tail but doesn’t look away.
“Flora agrees, don’t you, girl?”
“Just because you’ve made my dog fall in love with you doesn’t mean—”
I stop dead. My face goes hot and Finn’s eyes lock on mine, dark and intent.
“Doesn’t mean what?” His voice is low and careful.
“I—” I can’t look at him. “Nothing. I—”
“Tilda.” He steps closer. “What were you going to say?”
I shake my head, unable to form words because I almost said it. And now he’s looking at me like he already knows, and I’m terrified and hopeful and—
His hand finds mine and my breath catches.
“I’m not great with words. I’m better with actions. But I need you to know—” He squeezes my hand. “This isn’t—this—it’s—you matter.”
“I matter,” I repeat, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“More than anything.” He pulls me close, his hand cupping my cheek. “So yes. Stay. Please.” He presses a kiss on the top of my head and then steps back with visible effort. “Now get your keys before I forget we have an island to save.”
“We do?”
“We do.” Finn nods, suddenly businesslike. “Excellent. Wait there, madam,” he says, running a hand down Flora’s back.
“But I’ve put the cottage on the market,” I blurt out, suddenly remembering. The words tumble out. “Someone’s coming to take away the furniture on Thursday.”
“Cancel it.” He says it as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.
“I can’t just—”
Finn shakes his head again, laughing. “Look, we can sort out the practicalities later. Come up to the house and I’ll make dinner and we can talk.”
“Okay.”
I watch as his long legs cover the distance from the door to the waiting Land Rover in a few strides.
Back at Benruar House, the dogs are delighted to be reunited, dancing around the kitchen as if they’ve been apart for weeks, not a matter of hours.
Finn opens a bottle of whisky and fetches two glasses. He tips a measure into each, and the smell of oak and smoke fills the kitchen. He passes one to me. “You don’t have to, but I think we deserve a toast to surviving today.”
I take a sip and my mouth catches fire. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the feeling.
“Come on, let’s take them out for a run and I’ll explain all.”
We walk down the lane towards the distillery buildings in the warm early evening sunlight, Finn holding open the gate to the paddock where the dogs hurtle off in an excited pack towards the long grass where the wildflowers are starting to show.
I sit down on one of the wooden benches and put my chin in my hands, looking at him as he settles down opposite me, a strange expression on his face.
“I never thought I’d be saying this,” he says, cupping the whisky glass in his palm and studying it. “But we need to pull everyone together.”
I raise my brows. “You’re not doing a very good job of convincing me that you’ve not been body swapped.”
He grins. “Fair point.”
“Okay, person who may or may not be Finn,” I say, a smile playing at my lips as I study his handsome face, “explain what you mean. What’s going on?”
His brows gather as he thinks. “We need to get everyone – not just everyone here at the distillery, but the farmers, the fishermen, Dervla and Mhairi and the marine mammal volunteers, the crafters from the workshop, Hattie from the cottage bakery – the whole lot.”
“And what are we going to do with all these people?”
He shakes his head. “Turns out it’s not about making this place pretty enough to tick Jennifer Ross’s inspection boxes. It’s about the island. And if Glen Mhor get their way, we all lose.”
I don’t try and find a joke. I nod, feeling my throat tighten as I see the expression on his face.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to get everyone to the village hall, somehow. We need everyone in a room.”
Flora drops a stick at his feet, and he bends down and tosses it for her without thinking.
“I need you by my side for this,” he says. “Not for the meeting. For all of it.”
There’s a note of something in his voice I haven’t heard before.
I reach out and lace my fingers through his.
“I’m here,” I say quietly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His hand tightens on mine. “Good. Because I’m not letting you go.”