I hadn’t even realized I had finished it, though I did realize that his long, lean fingers lingered on my hand when he took the mug from me. I shook my head.
“I could take you on a tour of the place if you’d like,” he offered.
“What kind of surveillance?” I asked, what he had said finally connecting with my brain.
“Security cameras throughout the property and a gated entrance—”
I jumped up. “You’re fencing off the property?”
“Only an area around the lodge,” he explained.
“I walk in these woods. I have since I was young. Your lodge borders my property. You’ll be cutting off a good portion of the woods to me.”
Ian stood and placed his hand on my arm. “I am sorry, Pep, but I’m going to have a lot of expensive equipment here and I will be traveling at times. I have to protect my investment.”
I shoved his arm off me. “Don’t call me Pep, no one calls me Pep.” At least not anymore and the memory of my great-aunt Effie’s voice calling out, “my dear Pep,” stung. “I can’t believe you’re going to fence in the lodge. It’s barbaric.”
His eyes turned wide. “I want to stay on good terms with my new neighbor, so why don’t you let me take you out to supper one night and we’ll see what compromises can be made.”
“Are you asking me out on a date?” I asked, not believing his audacity.
“Aye, lass, I am,” he said with a smile.
His disarming smile might work on other women, but not on me. Well, maybe a little, but that was beside the point. And that brogue of his could also do some heavy-duty damage to a woman’s brain, not to mention other parts of her anatomy.
I shook my head, my thoughts getting away from me. “No, I’m not going on any date with you, and we’ll see about that fence.”
“I included the fence with the plans I submitted for changes to the lodge, and I’ve already been granted permission, with some minor changes.”
“You haven’t heard the last from me,” I said, shaking my finger at him.
“I hope not,” he said with that wickedly handsome smile of his.
“First a murder and now security cameras and a fence, what’s next?”
Amy burst into the room. “Beau just invited us to a big Halloween party they’re going to have here, and I accepted.”
“Costumes are mandatory,” Ian said. “You can borrow one from here and I know just the one that will be perfect for you, Pep.”
I shot him an evil look and he didn’t even flinch. I grabbed Amy’s arm. “We’re leaving.” Before I walked out of the room I called out. “Don’t call me Pep.” But I had a feeling it wouldn’t matter.
“For the hundredth time, I’m not going,” I said, refilling my glass with the near empty bottle of Pinot Noir that Amy and I had been enjoying. At least I was trying too, since I was still angry over my encounter with Ian Macgregor a few hours ago.
“We’re going,” Amy said as if she had decided for the both of us. “You’ve got four weeks to settle your differences with Ian.”
“Differences? You call what he intends to do to my woods differences?”
Amy reached over from where we sat near each other on the sofa and rubbed my arm. “I am so sorry, Pepper, I know how you love these woods, but the lodge belongs to Ian now.”
“It’s not fair,” I said, wallowing in self-pity. “Aunt Effie should have never sold that land to Max Macgregor all those years ago.”
“When was that, forty, fifty years ago?”
I nodded. “Somewhere around that time. Willow Lake was just starting to gather steam as a town when Max showed up. How he talked my aunt into selling him that land I’ll never know. But unlike his nephew, Max never prevented Aunt Effie from going anywhere on the property that she wanted to.”
“Times change, Pepper, and Ian has a business to run. From what Beau was telling me he has a lot invested in this place. And as Beau put it, ‘only so many years to take advantage of what he’s got to sell.’”
“What will Ian do with the lodge then?” I asked, already worrying before I needed to.
Amy shrugged. “Beau didn’t say.” She gave my arm another comforting rub. “Make peace with your new neighbor.” She smiled. “With the way he was looking at you, who knows, he may just be the one.”
“He was not looking at me in any particular way,” I insisted. “And he isn’t the one.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “You don’t know that if you don’t take a chance. Even Beau mentioned that he’d never seen Ian look at a woman the way he looked at you.”
“I must be blind when it comes to men.”
“Finally, you admit it. Besides, you have the dead guy in common with Ian and if I know you, which I do better than anyone, you’re not going to quit until you find out what happened in your woods.”