me into the room. He raised his eyebrows at me, almost in question, as he continued his phone call. In return, I made a circle with my thumb and forefinger, signalling that I thought the new addition to the room was absolutely perfect. He gave a rare, beautiful smile and the green eyes crinkled at the edges before he turned away and took the phone call out of my hearing.
It was over forty minutes later when Michael hurried back into the dining room and found me kneeling on the floor, surrounded by piles of books.
‘I’m really sorry about that.’ He looked around, his brow creasing. ‘Maybe I should disappear more often. You seem to be even more speedy when I’m not here.’
I sat back on my heels. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
‘Worth a try.’
‘Are you finished or do you need to get on with some work stuff? It’s OK. I can get these organised myself and we’ll just schedule another appointment when it’s more convenient to do the bits we need to do together. I think we’re making good progress, so it would be fine to do that.’
‘No, I’m done for today.’ He flopped down onto the floor beside me. ‘In more ways than one.’
I looked down at him sprawled on the carpet, his head to one side. He looked more than capable of going to sleep right there with very little encouragement. Perhaps a little break would be a good thing. In truth, I was actually a little worried about him. Just because we hadn’t exactly started out the best of friends didn’t mean that I was completely oblivious to his current state.
‘Long morning?’ I enquired.
He rolled his head onto his bicep so that he was looking at me. ‘Long afternoon, evening, night and morning.’
I frowned. ‘You worked all through the night?’
‘Last-minute crisis. And then they wanted a meeting about it at 9 a.m. I’ve had a four-hour round trip this morning.’
‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
He gave a gentle laugh as, with some effort, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. ‘I thought about it. And then I thought how well me ringing you and saying, “Hi Kate. Do you think we could we postpone our appointment today? I’m a little tired,” would go down.’
‘You make me sound horribly unreasonable.’ I’d learned years ago not to care too much about what people thought of me. So why did it bother me what Michael O’Farrell thought now?
He gave me a look. ‘I messed about with your schedule once before and it didn’t go well.’
I sat straighter. ‘That was completely different and you know it. For one thing, you’ve apologised this time.’
‘I’m sure I apologised that first night too. Eventually.’
‘No. You didn’t.’
He shook his head. ‘I must have. In a roundabout way. Maybe you missed it.’
I gave a prod to move him off a book his legs were lounging over. ‘I didn’t miss anything, thank you very much. You didn’t apologise at all. In any form, roundabout or otherwise.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ I confirmed.
Michael raised his eyebrows in thought. ‘Right. Then I guess you were absolutely right to call me what you did.’
‘You’ve only just realised that?’
He let out a laugh that for a moment disguised the weariness of his face. ‘I guess I walked into that one.’
I smiled and continued working. Feeling Michael’s eyes on me, I spoke without turning my head.
‘Feel free to help.’
He knew by my tone I was joking. Mostly. I was acutely aware of the deadline on this job and although it had all been progressing fairly well in the last couple of weeks, I’d been caught out in the past by someone suddenly producing a hidden mountain of items from their loft/garage/Great Aunt Maude, with the casual declaration that they had ‘just a few more things’. I was desperately hoping that wasn’t going to be the case here and, when I’d enquired as to whether there was anything lurking elsewhere, Michael had confirmed that everything I’d seen was everything he owned. I didn’t think he’d be purposely hiding anything but, as he had the occasional tendency to seem distracted, I wasn’t ruling it out one hundred percent.
‘Right. Yes. Of course. So, what exactly are we doing here?’
Having explained how I was categorising his books by subject for non-fiction and by genre for fiction, I asked him to go through them, putting aside any that he no longer wanted. Those could then be donated to a library or charity shop, or if he preferred, he could sell them online. Michael had immediately opted for the charity shop, mentioning that he always took his stuff to one in particular.
‘What?’ he asked.
I looked up, confused. ‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You didn’t have to.’
I sat back on my heels again. ‘What are you on about?’
‘When I said I always take my stuff to a particular charity shop you pulled a face.’
‘I most certainly did not.’
‘I hate to disagree – ’
‘I doubt that,’ I mumbled.
He shook his head. ‘Don’t you approve of charity shops?’
‘Of course I do!’
‘So what’s with the face?’
I blew out a sigh. ‘I did not pull a face – ’
‘Yeah. You did.’
I fixed him with a look. ‘If I did, then it was merely an expression of surprise.’
‘Surprise that I would donate anything? Thanks. I know I’m not exactly your favourite person but that’s a bit harsh, even from you.’
‘Of course that’s not what I meant. It’s just that…’
‘Go on.’
I really needed to look into courses that would teach me how not to show everything I was thinking. Although, oddly, Michael O’Farrell was the first person to have ever picked me up on this.
Glancing over, I saw that he was waiting for an answer, his intense green gaze unreadable. Unlike me, apparently.
‘Fine. I was just a little surprised that you donated anything.’
He opened his mouth to speak but I got there before him.
‘Not because I don’t think you would, but it’s just…well, it doesn’t look like anything has left this house in quite some time, barring
