I grew up and got a real job.” The day she’d signed her current work contract she’d gone on a shopping spree to upgrade her wardrobe and was still paying off the resulting credit card bill. She gave him the same once-over. “You’ve gone all Hollywood.”
“Camouflage. It helps to look the part.” He swiveled to survey the clusters of dispirited guests. “Irene would have hated this. So hoity-toity, so stuffy.”
Even though he echoed her earlier comment, she was irked. Was that a judgment on her? “It is a funeral.”
“It should be a celebration of her life. She found something positive in every situation, no matter how dire. She brought people joy.” Finn’s eyes narrowed a moment and then he snapped his fingers. “I know. We’ll have a wake. A good old-fashioned Irish knees up. I know where she kept her good whisky.”
A trio of Irene’s women friends standing nearby—an older woman in a long skirt, a well-dressed businesswoman and a grandmotherly type—turned, their faces brightening.
Finn winked at them. “These gals are up for it.”
“Behave yourself,” Carly protested, biting back a smile. Typical Finn, he managed to fluster, annoy and amuse her all at the same time. “For Irene’s sake.”
“This is for Irene’s sake.” He removed the teapot from her hands and passed it to the woman with the expensive haircut. “Take care of that, please. We’ll be back.”
With one arm around Carly’s waist and the other hand in a firm grip on Rufus’s collar, he steered them out of the living room, across the entrance hall and down the corridor into the kitchen. Deciding it was useless to protest, Carly allowed herself to be led. It was a relief to get out of the gloom.
Finn shooed Rufus into the yard. “Sorry, boy. It’s only for a couple of hours.” Then he put his hands on Carly’s shoulders and gently pushed her into a chair at the long oak table in the middle of the country-style kitchen. “Sit down before you fall down. You look as if you’re about to break into a million pieces.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. She wasn’t, of course, far from it, but she wasn’t going to spill her guts to Finn. They’d been too long apart. She didn’t know him anymore.
“Now let’s see what we’ve got.” He rummaged through the cupboard above the fridge and took down a bottle of Glenmorangie. Grabbing a pair of water glasses he poured triple shots. Handing one to Carly, he raised his glass. “To Irene.”
Carly swirled her glass. She didn’t usually drink hard liquor but the smoky amber liquid beckoned. Still, she hesitated. “The guests...”
“We’ll get them a drink in a minute.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She took a tentative sip. Silky smooth and fiery, the scotch burned her throat and set up a warm glow in her empty stomach. As if by magic, her frayed nerves calmed. She took another swig. And another. Then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and thrust her glass forward.
Finn poured another two fingers of scotch. “Careful, don’t get plastered. This is sipping whisky. Have respect.” He gazed into his glass, a thumb rubbing the rim thoughtfully. “Did my parents come to the funeral?”
“No. I invited them, of course, but they couldn’t make it.” Carly paused, having gathered from Irene that this was a delicate subject. “Have you seen your mom lately?”
He drained his glass and reached for the bottle. “Not in twelve years.”
Carly sipped her scotch, grateful for the numbing haze as questions tumbled around in her head. How could he have stayed estranged from his mother for so long? What had he been doing all these years? Why had he stood her up?
She settled for the more immediate question. “How did you hear about Irene?”
Finn took off his jacket and slung it over the back of a chair. “I Skyped with her last week. She told me about her hiking expedition to Mount Baker.”
Carly passed a hand over her eyes. “I still can’t believe she went by herself.”
“She was very fit, why shouldn’t she?” Finn said. “But I asked her to email me when she got back so I would know she’d gotten home safely. When I didn’t hear from her, and she didn’t respond to my phone calls, I asked Dingo to check on her.”
“Dingo? Is he your Aussie friend from high school?”
“Yeah, the ne’er-do-well who introduced me to rock music.” Finn’s grin flashed and then he sobered. “He told me Irene’s death had been reported in the local news that night. She was found on the trail by another hiker.”
Until this moment Carly had avoided forming a mental image of Irene at the scene of her death. Now she staggered to her feet and across the tiled floor to lean over the sink, her stomach contracting convulsively. It was wrong that her aunt should have died alone, possibly in pain, without anyone to even hold her hand. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Finn was instantly at her side. “I had no idea you were such a lightweight drinker, Maxwell. Do I need to take you to the bathroom and hold your hair?” He spoke lightly but his hand on her back was steady and comforting.
“No.” She swallowed, willing the wave of nausea to subside. Then she splashed cold water over her face. Finn handed her a towel to dry herself. When she’d recovered, she said, “Irene asked me to go on an Alaskan cruise with her this month. If I’d said yes she might still be alive. She and I could be watching humpback whales together right now. If something went wrong I would have been with her.”
Finn took her by the shoulders, forcing her to focus on him. “You couldn’t have known she was going to have a brain aneurysm. Her death wasn’t your fault.”
Maybe not. But she wished she’d made time for her aunt instead of chasing that Wallis Group account. An account she still desperately wanted. Carly dragged her sleeve across her damp eyes. “Did she know anything was wrong with her health? She didn’t say anything to me.”
“Nor to me.” He rubbed Carly’s arm. “Don’t beat yourself up. She had lots of friends. She could have asked someone else to go on the cruise. Or to go hiking with her. Even then there’s no guarantee she would have survived.”
“I know.” Carly filled her glass with water from the tap. Through the window she could see the backyard and the new leaves on the trees. A pile of tomato stakes rested against the fence next to the shed. April was the month Irene started to dig the garden beds for planting vegetables. Carly could picture her getting tools from the garden shed in the corner of the yard. Trundling wheelbarrow loads of compost over to the beds. Instead, the garden was overgrown with weeds and the grass needed cutting.
“Carly?” Finn said. “Are you okay?”
“I haven’t eaten much today.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “The scotch is hitting me hard.”
“I meant, in general.” He paused, his gaze searching. “I got the impression Irene was worried about you. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
Carly closed her eyes at the rough caring in his voice. She’d had a massive crush on him for years when she was a teenager, but though
