Fintan got up and picked up a small knife. Leaning over the heavy oak table, he carved thick wedges of all the cheeses. He settled back down and gave everyone a challenging look.
Oddly, Joel went first, ignoring the oatcakes and simply scooping up a large piece of the blue cheese and popping it in his mouth. Everyone watched him closely—Flora making the most of the opportunity to look at his lips—as he blinked, quickly, as if slightly surprised by something, then brought his hand down from his mouth.
“Well,” he said.
“What are the first symptoms?” said Colton. “I mean, do you just start puking or what?”
Deliberately Fintan took a piece of the soft cheese and spread it on a slice of bread. Flora grinned and dolloped chutney on a piece of the rye before adding a chunk of cheese on top. God, she had forgotten how good it was. She didn’t want to appear greedy, but they’d had no dinner, and it was all she could do not to grab the entire lot and stuff it in her mouth. Washing it down with twenty-five-year-old Laphroaig, she realized, was also an absolutely perfect combination.
Joel couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman eat with such genuine pleasure. He found his mind wandering briefly to whether she had other appetites she couldn’t control. Then he put the image out of his mind and focused on his client.
“Okay, okay, what is this?” said Colton. “Last one to eat the deadly cheese is a coward? I should warn you, my nutritionist told me I’m probably lactose intolerant.”
“What are the symptoms?” asked Flora curiously.
“Mood swings, tiredness . . .”
“Maybe you’re just a grumpy bastard,” said Fintan, and there was a slight pause—nobody, but nobody ever made fun of Colton Rogers, mostly because he spent a ridiculous amount of time with people whose lives depended on him paying their salary. Then Colton laughed and made to cuff him.
“Uh-uh,” said Fintan, feinting out of the way. “Try it.”
Colton’s face was comical to watch. If Flora, as a massive cheese fanatic, had adored Fintan’s creation, it was nothing to how a man raised on American cheese and finally tasting something so full and bursting with flavor and richness and full-bodied depth and nuttiness was going to react.
“Good God in heaven,” he said eventually. “Jesus. Joel, you tasted this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you ever had anything like it?”
“I have spent some time in France.”
“I have spent some time in France,” mimicked Colton. “You pussy. I bet you didn’t get anything as good as this there.”
“No,” said Joel, sounding surprised at himself. “I don’t think I did.”
Colton cut himself another thick wedge, then another. Suddenly Flora realized that Innes had put the fruitcake in the basket, and she immediately instructed the Americans on how to take a bite of the cake, a mouthful of the hard cheese, and a sip of the smoky, peaty whisky, washing them all down together.
For a time there was no sound except for some slightly orgasmic noises that could easily be misinterpreted.
“My God,” said Colton eventually. “I mean, my God. I mean.”
“Taste the butter,” said Flora evilly.
“You’re trying to kill me.”
“Not before you’ve had some butter. Try the salty stuff on the rye. Nothing else.”
Colton tasted a corner and waved his hands about.
“Christ. Right, now you’ve ruined me for butter.”
Fintan smirked.
“You haven’t touched the blue.”
Colton looked at it regretfully.
“Oh Christ, man, I don’t think even I can go that far. I’m just a Texas boy, you know! Mozzarella on pizza and Monterey Jack on everything else. That’s all I know.”
“You have to try it,” said Fintan. “You want to be accepted . . .”
“You want me to eat cheese that actually has veins in it? Blue varicose veins?”
“Buk buk baaaaaaaak.”
Colton smiled.
“Can’t do it, my friend. There’s a line.”
In answer, Fintan jumped up and cut a slice off. He came round the table and started advancing. Flora was absolutely startled. Colton blinked several times. It was apparent that nobody had treated him like this for a long time. Possibly ever. How strange it must be, thought Flora, to be so rich that everyone tiptoed round you. Was it nice? Was it strange? Did anybody ever know?
But the two of them had taken off onto the beach, Colton laughing, holding his hands up over his face, an expression in Fintan’s eyes Flora had never seen before. The sullen, guarded look was gone, as he pretended to wrestle Colton to the ground to make him try the cheese. In the end, he rugby-tackled him down onto the sand. Flora’s hand flew to her mouth.
How could she have been so blind? So caught up with her own life, her own dramas and feelings? Fintan had been a quiet teenager, but there had never really been any debate in the house, had there? He would go into farming like all the other lads, make a good living, keep the circle of the seasons turning, go to Inverness a couple of times a year, bet on some horses, maybe. Watch the shinty. Find a good, strong local lass. That was just what boys on Mure did, and she hadn’t questioned it any more than her ancestors had.
She watched as a giggling Colton sat in the sand, finally acquiescing to try a bit of the cheese, then screwing up his face in mock horror.
“You never knew,” said Joel quietly, gazing steadfastly at his whisky glass. She was so shocked she barely heard him, but when she realized he’d spoken, she was struck by something: she’d never heard him speak gently before. To anyone.
“Half my friends are gay,” she stuttered.
“And it never even crossed your mind?”
“Things have been . . . complicated with my family,” said Flora. Joel raised an eyebrow.
Colton and Fintan came back up from the beach, still giggling slightly.
“This is,” said Colton, arriving back at the wooden table, “possibly the strangest business dinner I’ve ever had.”
“We haven’t really discussed any business,” said Flora, looking at Fintan’s flushed face.
“What are you talking about? It’s obvious,” said Colton. “This was a pitch, right?”
“What?” said Flora.
“Local suppliers,” said Colton patiently, as if she was an idiot. “You guys are going to do it? Reopen the pink house? Hire as many folks as you want. I’m in. It’s a good plan. I like it. Can you get moving before the council meeting?”
“What?” said Flora.
Fintan put out his hand to stop her.
“Sure,” he said.
“I suppose I’d better have an opening party,” said Colton, looking around. “Ugh. I hate parties. But I can knock off meeting everyone at once too. Great.”
Fintan glanced at his watch and his face fell.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “I’ve got milking.”
Colton blinked.
“But it’s early,” he complained, glancing at the light horizon. He looked at his watch. “Oh yeah,” he added. “Huh. Will you look at that. Normally I’m bored by now.”
Fintan smiled awkwardly.
“Right, shall we go, sis?”
“But . . .,” said Flora, feeling slightly fuddled in the head. What was happening?