Puzzling urges #3
“I get it, but as we all know, you can’t have your cake and eat it.
It’s either mice in the church or bird droppings in the bell tower.
” Kendrick kept his face neutral, though he was quite entertained by the facial expressions of the two older men whose minds seem to be in overdrive.
He cast a furtive glance at Alex, who seemed to stifle a grin as well.
“Is there a way to keep the crap at bay?” asked Marlin after a while. “Maybe put up nesting boxes so there’s no’ as much to clean up everywhere?”
“That’s a possibility. If you want me too, I’ll talk to a friend of mine who is a bird conservationist and specialises in wildlife-friendly building conversions.”
“I really think we should give this a higher priority,” said Alex, who seemed quite taken with the idea, as Kendrick noted with interest.
“What do you want to give a higher priority?” Colleen asked as she joined them and snuggled up to her partner, a glass of lemonade in one hand and a sandwich in the other.
“Kendrick has proposed a bird of prey reintroduction project,” Alex explained. “And I think it deserves to be put on the municipal agenda. If we tell Collum that Kirkby could become the new owl capital of the Highlands, I’m sure he’ll be all in.”
“No doubt about that,” Colleen agreed with a smile, “but where’s this coming from?”
“It’s Hailey’s fault,” Marlin grumbled.
“What?” Colleen gave her future father-in-law a confused look.
“Hailey made a pass at Kendrick, and he didnae know how to get away except by engaging us in conversation. As we friendly guys wanted to help a pal out, we pretended we’d just been talking about Jack’s mouse problem, and poof, here we are with another pesky project on our hands.
One tha’s going to be costly and feed the beast … the mayor I mean,” Marlin summarised.
Colleen laughed so hard she almost choked on the bread she had been chewing.
“If this now causes a medical emergency too, I’ll strangle Hailey to make it worth the doctor’s time,” Marlin moaned.
Kendrick was impressed with the older man’s perceptiveness and dry sense of humour. Then again ... “So you weren’t talking about the mice at all?” Granted, not the wittiest thing to say but it would lead them back to safe ground.
“We did earlier. When you joined us, we were discussing Shona’s expansion plans, but ...
” Marlin interrupted himself and gave Kendrick a scrutinising look.
“I felt a more innocuous topic was in order. Unfortunately, by being considerate, I have now triggered the next village beautification project.”
Colleen had recovered from her coughing or laughing fit, whatever it had been.
“Gosh, I love Kirkby! I haven’t even been here for a full year, and so many exciting, beautiful, weird things have happened already …
Definitely more than in my previous life combined.
” She beamed at the men around her and added, turning to Alex: “And thanks to you in particular, everything has turned out just marvellously.”
Alex kissed her and placed a hand on her slightly protruding belly.
Kendrick felt a pang in his heart. Was it jealousy, resentment or plain sadness?
Probably all of the above. It was apparent that Colleen had experienced a lot in her months in Kirkby, and he didn’t begrudge her and Alex their happiness.
That’s how he had always pictured it. Two people fell in love, committed to a life together and started a family.
He felt slightly embarrassed by having such old-fashioned ideas.
It was a very traditional notion of family, but the one that spoke to his own personal inclinations.
Not that he could care less what gender the two people were.
He was all for queer families … just not in his own relationship!
And how on earth had he just pivoted back to this minefield he had managed to banish from his thoughts so proficiently before?
“Well, the thing with the birds …” he picked the conversation back up to much laughter, “… specifically nesting boxes for the reintroduction of birds of prey. I can give my pal a ring and make an appointment with him.”
“I’ll talk to Collum on Monday,” Colleen promised. “I’m sure he’ll be all for it and set up a task force right away. I’ll let you know, yeah?” She gave him a friendly smile, as if she hadn’t even noticed his lapse.
Rather unexpectedly, the rest of the evening passed very pleasantly and without any further heated discussions of tricky topics.
Kendrick mainly talked to Cameron Sinclair about his riding career without Artemis and to George Stewart about his two Airedale terriers.
He successfully avoided Hailey and Shona, which was certainly better for both his wellbeing and his local reputation.
Nevertheless, his thoughts kept drifting back to the brief moment during the official part of the event when Shona had made a toast to the foal’s future Olympic medals.
He was sure her challenging look in his direction had been deliberate.
But then her expression had changed all of a sudden and her eyes had been full of empathy and something like recognition.
He wondered what she had seen and why it had resonated with her.
Shona Fraser was about the last person he would share his troubles with, given how highly-strung and silly she seemed.
Yet, all throughout the evening, he found himself glancing furtively in her direction.
She looked so different from Alex and Isla Fraser with their red hair and tall frames.
Shona was much shorter and curvier than her older sister, and her long black hair, storm-grey eyes and sensual mouth made her a lot prettier too.
Plus sexy if you went for the fragile, snow-white type, which he now rather thought he did.
Though he usually preferred more introverted women – which Shona certainly was not.
She was loud, high-energy, opinionated and ... definitely not for him!
Unless she just so happened to be looking for the same thing he did: a fling with no strings attached, and certainly without any emotional attachment.
Gosh, he was starved for sex! He hadn’t slept with a woman since the break-up with Glenna – and not for a long time before that either.
It had been ages! He just hadn’t been what did it for her, he thought bitterly.
But what about him and his needs? When exactly had he last had sex?
He couldn’t remember, and he urgently needed to change this.
He took a last sip of beer. “Good luck with the tournament on Sunday!” he bid farewell to Cameron, waved goodbye to the other guests and quickly made his way home.