"Hiya, Dad," Danny said. "This is Kajsa Larsson. Kajsa, my Dad, Owen Carter."
Kajsa outstretched her left hand. Carter Snr gave her an uncertain look but shook it. She was ambidextrous, which really helped in such situations. He muttered something that must have been a 'pleasure to meet you' or something of the sort, and grew silent. Kajsa thought that, perhaps, it was best if she took control over the situation.
"Shall I make us tea?" Kajsa asked in a light tone and glanced at Danny. "Could you grab my bag as well, please, when you're bringing the shopping in?"
Danny nodded.
"Could you show me to the kitchen, sir?" she addressed the older man. "Oh I see where it is." She placed her Matt & Nat handbag on a marginally pretentious console table by the wall and walked in. "Have you had supper already? Perhaps, I could turn on the oven already. I think Danny bought some frozen pies."
Walking and asking questions tended to force people to follow the one talking, and Owen Carter wasn't an exception from the rule. The kitchen was predictably posh, full of dark wooden surfaces and copper knobs.
"Heaven above, this machine has more controls than an aircraft," Kajsa exclaimed at the view of a Neff oven built into a faux stone wall. "I can't judge obviously. If anything, you'd know better," she added with a small laugh. "Danny mentioned you'd served in the RAF."
She headed to the sink to wash her hands, leaving Carter Snr lingering just one step into the kitchen. The front door banged, Danny must have gone to the car. Kajsa was starting to wonder if she'd chosen the right approach to Owen Carter, when he suddenly announced in a low voice, "It's the same one they use in Great British Bake Off on telly, you know."
Kajsa suppressed a self-satisfied smirk and looked at the man. He showed much more of his emotions than his son. She could clearly see the veteran's uneasiness.
"Well, let's hope the instructions on the box will be easy to follow," she said. "And now for the kettle."
Kajsa faced an aquamarine Kenwood - the same one she had in her kitchen.
"There's the– what's it called– the water gizmo," Carter Snr said and pointed at the water cooler tucked in the corner.
It looked like something from a sci-fi film.
"Surely, this is unnecessary," Kajsa said. "I heard that tap water was perfectly safe, especially in the country."
"It is!" Carter Snr confirmed, looking almost enthused - as much as his military poise allowed. "It's all rubbish, it is. They test it, you know."
"Well then, since we're in agreement..." Kajsa gave the man an impish side glance and turned on the tap. "Horses for courses and such, but I think we'll be just fine with tap water."
Danny showed up in the door frame with the shopping bags.
"Where are you putting us up, Dad?" he asked.
"The other guest room," his Father answered. "In the extension."
Kajsa was pretending to study the controls of the oven, letting Danny deal with the sleeping arrangements - and the possible awkwardness of discussing them.
"Is it the one upstairs? With that large window?" Danny asked, deftly and methodically putting the shopping away. "Why didn't you take it?"
"Navraj wanted me to, but what do I need all that space for?"
The kettle clicked, and Kajsa stepped to the floor-to-ceiling cabinetry. Once she opened it, she couldn't help but giggle.
"Let me guess, your brother's husband is very tall as well," she said and looked at the Carters over her shoulder. "I'm hardly short, but I can't reach anything."
Both men lurched towards her, but the father stopped in his tracks while the son came up to Kajsa and reached in, his arm brushing at her shoulder.
"I've been having the tea bags," Carter Snr grumbled. "But they are proper–" He didn't continue, but his opinion on his younger son's choice of brew was obviously written on his face.
"I've got you Tetley," Danny said.
Carter Snr emitted a quiet sigh of relief. While Danny was taking cups out of the cabinet, Kajsa caught a glimpse of a black lacquer box, probably containing some luxury tea bags.
"Could I possibly peek into your brother's collection?" Kajsa asked. "I'm not much of a tea drinker, I confess. And it's too late for coffee even for me. Maybe there's some herbal concoction there."
The black box indeed contained tea bags - or 'sachets' as it was stated on the square paper wraps - and Kajsa shuffled through them, mindful not to disturb their impeccable rows. Danny was putting a baking tray with two quiches and two lines of sausage rolls into the oven.
"What do you think will be less... dangerous: 'Morning Dew' or 'Passion Blush?'" Kajsa asked, studying the labels. "Both sound like names of detergent scents."
She heard two quiet chuckles behind her.
"Don't take the pink one," Carter Snr warned her. "It's like fruit squash, but they'd forgotten to put sugar in."
Kajsa assumed such a description meant hibiscus and probably rose hips. She wasn't fond of either.
"That sounds disgusting," she said firmly and was awarded with another pair of chortles. "Oh, I found a camomile one! My Granny used to make me camomile tea. Given, this one is titled 'Serenity Wave,' but at least it's not going to be a complete shock to my taste buds.'"
She victoriously shook a yellow square, the colour of which the marketing team of the tea company would surely call 'tuscan sun.'
Soon they were all seated around the island, Kajsa with her cup of 'exclusive organic camomile in a hand-filled and finished, practical, silken tea sachet made of a trademarked biodegradable material based on cornstarch' - while the Carters both had a plate of food in front of them. They had a similar quick and efficient manner of eating. Danny only took a couple of rolls, probably to keep his father company. They had had a substantial meal at his place, but she was under the impression that Danny was a person who could always eat more if the circumstances called for it. He had a lean, naturally strong body, with exceptionally wide shoulders, as much as she could guess without seeing him out of his clothes - and she had been trying not to stare inappropriately! - and he probably burnt a lot of energy. He moved with the lazy ease of someone who was in good shape but didn't go to the gym to gain vanity muscles.
Kajsa was starting to understand where Danny had gotten his 'chattiness' from: both men were silent and didn't seem to see anything wrong with it. More accustomed to amicable and lively conversation over family dinners from her childhood, she suddenly clearly imagined three Carter men having their tea every evening without a single word uttered over the course of a meal. She looked at a large photo frame on the wall. It was one of those mosaic ones, about a dozen pictures arranged in an elegant pattern. The younger Carter son seemed to smile in all of them, just as his partner and their children. Featured in quite a few photos, neither Carter Snr, nor Danny did.
"You have beautiful grandchildren," Kajsa said, assuming that the topic would be favourable. Since Carter Snr had agreed to house-sit, he should have a close relationship with his son's family. "How old are they?"
"Kirpal is five, and Jasdeep is seven," the veteran answered, his voice obviously warmer.
"I have a nephew who is twelve, and two nieces, seven and four years old." Kajsa took a sip of her tisane. "Your grandchildren are lucky to have you. My parents aren't around anymore."
"I'm sorry to hear it," Carter Snr said, and then added, confirming that she'd chosen the right approach to striking a conversation with him, "So, you work with Danny, innit?"
Kajsa congratulated herself with having made the man speak first.
"Yes, I'm an illustrator in the same publishing house," she answered. "So, technically we are in the same building, but our work fields don't intersect at all," she added with a smile.
"She's amazing," Danny said, and Kajsa whipped her head towards him. "Remember the Nordic fairy tale book I gave Jasdeep for Christmas? That's Kajsa's work."
"Oh I remember," Carter Snr said and peered at Kajsa. "I might not know anything about that sort of thing, but it is beautiful. They asked me to read it to them. The names were hard, though."
Kajsa laughed quietly. "I can only imagine. Those illustrations were my first contract with Holyoake Publishing," she reminisced. "John was looking for 'fresh blood,' so to say, and I fit the bill, it seemed."
"Ah, the young Holyoake. How's he doing these days? And Will?" Carter Snr asked.
"They are well," Danny responded and took a large gulp of his tea.
Both seemed to be satisfied with Danny's answer and went back to eating. Kajsa hid behind her cup, watching them in amusement. More and more was beginning to make sense in Danny Carter's behaviour.
***
After discussing the shopping they'd brought, and washing up, which simply consisted of loading two plates, three cups, two teaspoons, and one baking tray into an empty dishwasher, they exchanged somewhat awkward goodnight's. Danny picked up their overnight bags, and he and Kajsa headed into the extension.
"It's new, just made to look like part of the cottage from the outside," Danny explained while walking up a glass-walled staircase leading to the first floor. "There's an ensuite. And on the ground floor, they've got the children's rooms. Ben and Navraj wanted the little'uns to have their own space, which is hard with the size of the average cottages here."
He opened the door into the guest bedroom, letting Kajsa in.
"They do it lots here in Fleckney," he added - and they both stopped on the threshold.
"Have children?" Kajsa asked, peeking at him sideways.
"That too," he answered, the familiar shadow of a smirk hiding in the corners of his lips. "But I meant remodelling period cottages."
"And they know what they're doing," Kajsa said.
She gave an appreciative survey to the pared-back, minimalist decor, all set in natural, subdued shades of white and taupe, the foxed mirrors and the natural vintage linens on an enormous bed of distressed wood matching the reclaimed stone floor and dry-scraped paint, which she'd also seen in the main part of the house.
Kajsa walked in and sat on the edge of the bed. The door softly closed behind Carter. She stretched her hand to her ankle to unbuckle her sandal.
"May I?" Carter asked above her, and she jerked her face up.
By now, she knew this look: his slightly flushed cheekbones, his darkened, as if clouded eyes, and the softened line of his lips. She'd seen it on her sofa, and on a chair in his flat when she'd straddled him - except all the previous times, she'd never gotten a chance to find out what would happen if they had carried on. He had been the one who'd stopped them before - and she hoped he wouldn't this time.
Kajsa pressed her lips, her body tense, some sort of an excited shiver buzzing down the back of her neck - and nodded. He knelt in front of her, and the tips of his fingers brushed at the strap, and then her skin above it, and on the round bone on the inside of her ankle, and then down, in a light caress along her instep.
It was such a bewilderingly sensual and masterly move, going against - and beyond - any of her expectations of Danny Carter would be like between the sheets, that Kajsa's breath caught. The wee buckle on the strap clicked, and his long strong fingers wrapped around Kajsa's Achilles tendon.