Page 89 of Rafferty's Rules
‘Sorry, I missed the start of the vintage.’ Rafferty’s finger rasps against the stubble on his cheek.
‘Which one?’ his brother asks, kind of witheringly. ‘You’ve missed a couple of ’em you’ve been gone so long.’
‘Come on now,’ his mother cajoles, filling the extra glasses Roman had retrieved. ‘We’re all here now, and that’s the main thing.’
Glasses are filled, toasts are made, and everyone is lovely. Yet... there’s something puzzling, something not right about Rafferty’s behaviour. I know I haven’t known him for very long, and so it might sound crazy, but since the elder of his two brothers arrived, he seems almost stiff. Quiet, too. The banter flies around the table at a rate I find hard to keep up with, but for the most part, Rafferty lets it fly over his head. Sure, he smiles in the right places, laughs even. But he’s not taking part even though I know he’s as much a part of this expression of love and loyalty and “piss-taking” as Flynn described it, as any of the people here. Also, I’ve seen him dish out this kind of shizz to Roman without even ruffling a hair.
He’s played with the children and smiled genuinely. He’s happy to be here, that much is obvious, but there’s something weighing on him.
And I am so not buying his murmured reassurances that he’s fine.
I know I’m here for a reason, he said he needed—not wanted—me here, but I really need him to fill in the blanks.
Chapter 26
RAFFERTY
‘Alone at last.’
I slide the door to the cottage closed and let out a breath that I seem to have been holding for a while.Like two years a while.
‘How do you do it? Keep up with the conversation and the side conversations, and the conversations about the side conversations!’ Lissa laughs, throwing her hands up into the air. ‘So many siblings, so many opinions!’
‘Four isn’t so many. It’s the hangers-on that makes things hard to follow.’
‘Hangers on?’ she repeats, full of feigned aggrievance. ‘And here I thought I was wanted. I mean, you invited me, right?’
Invited? I can’t conceive sitting in that kitchen for the first time in two years without her.
‘Yeah, that was unfair. My brother’s other halves are their better halves if you ask me.’ With my back to her, I drop my bag on the bed as I begin to toe off my shoes, willing away the tension in my shoulders. Why the fuck am I still tense?
‘Rafferty, your family is just,wow. I mean, they’re kind of a lot to take, but they’re so lovely. You know that, right?’
I nod. I do know that. I’m the only fuck up among them.
‘They’re okay in small doses.’
‘And they obviously think very highly of you as a person, as well as loving the heck out of you as a member of their tribe.’
Again, this I know. I am loved. I am thought of highly, even if those thoughts are misplaced on some level.
‘And this place? The winery, the vineyards, the fairy-tale house! Oh, my goodness, the house. And this cottage? It’s all so very cool and so very beautiful.’
Straightening, I glance around the last of those listed. This cottage in a new addition to the estate. Mum doesn’t live in the house anymore, though she’s there plenty. After Dad died and Byron moved into the family home, she decided to move into a little house on the estate. The year before Dad died, he’d refitted for the purpose of renting it out to tourists, the first of many, he’d said. Mum likes to think that, on some level, he knew he was going to die and that getting the house ready was just one more way he’d always looked after her. It’s a nice story, but if he knew he was going to have a heart attack, he would’ve done something to prevent it.
This little cottage, and another three like it, are the finishing of that legacy. A new venture into the tourist market, specifically for Amber to run, alongside her patisserie and coffee shop where, no doubt, she intends them to eat.
Like everything else on Riposo, the room has been kitted out to the highest standards and examined to the finest detail. The pale wood furniture compliments the calming blue walls. A large TV is mounted to the far wall, a king-sized bed opposite, covered with stylish linens. There’s a bathroom with a shower big enough for two, and a roll topped bath with all kinds of sweet-scented bottles of complementary inducement next to it. Outside, beyond the entrance through a set of shuttered French doors, there’s a secluded patio with a tiny mosaic-topped table and a loveseat. It’s the perfect retreat. A lover’s idyll. A room made for two.
‘It’s pretty sweet. I reckon Amber must be responsible for the look of the place.’ As well as the running. I pick up one of the many and varied throw pillows from the bed. ‘She must be breeding these things. They were all over the main house.’
‘Maybe she’s nesting,’ Amber replies with the air of someone who’s suggesting she knows more about this kind of stuff than I do.And she’d be right.
‘I’m told the twins are campaigning for a little brother.’
‘They’re so cute.’
‘When they’re not arguing,’ I retort.
