Forever the Highlands (Highlands #6)

Prologue

FYFE

Eleven years ago

Ardnoch, Scotland

I t wasn’t unusual for me to wake up and find my mum passed out on the kitchen floor. Well … it didn’t happen all the time because she was hardly ever home, but when she was, it usually ended up with her passed out.

I took her in for a second. Face down, limbs sprawled, taking up all the space in our tiny kitchen. Her nose was pressed against the peeling linoleum and loud snores escaped her mouth as it opened and closed in sleep.

Years ago, Mum had been pretty. I’d seen photos. But for as long as I could remember, her skin was dry, wrinkled before her time, and a dull gray. Her hair had also thinned. Brown like mine, but greasy and limply draped across her sharp cheekbone. That’s what more than your fair share of alcohol did. And drugs. Whatever she could get her hands on.

Her slight frame took up so much space in the kitchen because it was a tiny room and she was tall. Her thin top had risen, flashing her bra. Her skirt or jeans or whatever she’d been wearing was gone. She was in nothing but a pair of ratty knickers, and she only had on one of a pair of cheap heels.

Sometimes I felt so fucking weary and old, right down to my bones.

I lifted my glasses off my nose to rub the sleep out of my eyes. When I pushed the frames back into place, I glanced at the clock. If Mum didn’t give me any trouble, I could get her sorted before I had to leave for school. I couldn’t miss school. Not for her, not for anyone. I’d realized a long time ago that I was going to use my brains and education to get me the fuck out of Ardnoch. To get me away from … this.

It was hard to call which way this would go. Sometimes Mum fought like a tiger when you tried to rouse her. In rare moments, she was quiet and pitiful.

Hoping for the latter, I moved into the room and got my arms underneath her. This year I’d started to shoot up in height, so with her slight weight, it was easy enough to haul her into my arms.

My heart started to race when she grumbled under her breath, but she merely reached for me in her sleep and slung her arms around my neck to hold on. I carried her to the bed she rarely slept in.

As I was pulling the covers over her, she spoke. “Thank you.”

I looked up and found her red-rimmed eyes on me. I got everything from my mum. Hair and eye color, height, and though no one would believe it, my intelligence. Mum had gotten into St. Andrews University and was studying to be an engineer when she fell pregnant. She told me bitterly (and often) that it happened on a drunken night out with some random bloke whose name she couldn’t even remember. Her mum had insisted she come home and have me, and that was the worst thing that ever happened to my mother.

My grandmother died when I was three and Mum inherited her house.

She’d been leaving me alone in it ever since, working several jobs at a time in between partying, and she paid some of the bills when she remembered to.

The soft expression on her face told me she was in a self-pitying mood. “It’s all right,” I muttered, pulling back.

She grabbed my wrist, stopping me. “You’re a good boy.”

Then why can’t you stand to be around me?

“Get some sleep.” I yanked my wrist from her weak grasp and walked toward the door.

She whimpered, “I’m sorry I’m such a shit mum.”

I halted, head bowed. My chest burned as a swelling sensation moved into my throat, a familiar choking feeling.

“I stay away so I won’t hurt you,” she admitted on a quiet sob.

I glanced back at her.

Her eyes begged for forgiveness for all the times she’d left me with no food in the house. For the times I’d had to rely on Deirdra, my elderly neighbor, who fed and took care of me whenever she could. For all the times Mum had beaten me black and blue while she was drunk or high and ragin’ at a life she could have changed, if she’d only tried hard enough.

The truth was, I knew that’s why she stayed away. Because some part of her didn’t want to hurt me. “I know.” I gave her a small nod, unable to give her anything more, and walked into the bathroom across the hall to get washed.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror above the sink. The bathroom was clean because I cleaned it. Our small, terraced home had become the place my friends crashed and hung out since there was no adult supervision. For so long I’d lived in filth as a kid, but as I got older, I learned to keep the house clean. People didn’t need to know how bad my situation was, and a clean house helped pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.

And ultimately, I could take care of myself. I knew how to cook, how to tidy, how to do my own laundry, and now that I was making some money online from game testing and reviewing and play-to-earn games, I could afford to pay the bills Mum forgot about. Deirdra let me use her bank details so I could get paid. She took the money I earned out in cash for me.

“You’re a good boy.”

Then why didn’t Mum want me? I thought for the millionth time as I stared at my unremarkable face.

Why wasn’t I enough?

“Fuck,” I muttered, squeezing my eyes closed.

I needed to get my shit together.

It was stupid to let those thoughts in.

Better to do what I did daily and act like most people’s opinions didn’t matter. It seemed to work for me. Girls seemed to like my “couldn’t give a shit” attitude. I’d lost my virginity a year ago and my best pal, Lewis, who was definitely better looking than me, was still a virgin. He’d made the mistake of falling in love at sixteen. Callie, his girlfriend, was a nice lassie, but love held you back. Love had you building sex into something it wasn’t so you were still a virgin when you were dating the hottest girl in Sutherland. Not giving a shit had you losing your virginity on your fifteenth birthday to an eighteen-year-old stunner from Inverness.

What can I say? She liked my confidence.

And I’m a fast learner.

Since then, there had been three more girls. Until Carianne. I didn’t love Carianne. She didn’t love me. But she was pretty and she liked sex, so it was convenient for us both. But honestly, she was kind of irritating me lately. She wasn’t academic, which was fine, but she was constantly on my back when I wanted to study. Calling me a geek had turned from an endearment into an insult. And I’d been insulted enough over the years to last a lifetime.

Time to end things with Carianne.

It had been a crap day.

Carianne did not want to be dumped. She made a scene and I hated scenes because, again, it’s all I’d had my whole life with Mum, so I told her she could tell everyone she dumped me. That sorted her out.

But I’d gotten a B in my history class, again, and it was pissing me off. My history teacher, Mr. Martin, had taken a dislike to me and was always lowballing me with grades. This time I’d had enough and had a word with my favorite history teacher, Ms. Heron, and asked her to look at all my papers for the year. She’d been shocked by the request and I knew it probably put her in an uncomfortable position, but ballsy Ms. Heron said she’d look over them and get back to me. She knew how important it was for my grades to be top-notch. I needed to get into university.

Lewis was going to come over to study, but I was in a crap mood, so I told him to hang out with Callie instead. He tried his best not to be a bad friend by not forgetting about me, but I knew he enjoyed any chance he could to hang out with his girlfriend. I let him off the hook and trudged home, hoping Mum would be gone when I got there.

When I stepped in the door, I stumbled to a stop.

The living room had been ransacked. Cushions torn off our old sofa, the drawers in the sideboard pulled out, contents everywhere.

“Mum?” I called out, dropping my heavy backpack.

Nothing.

A feeling came over me.

A knowing.

“Fuck!” I bit out, rushing toward my bedroom.

Sure enough, it was completely upended.

And the drawer where I kept a stash of my money in a sock was on the bed, the socks all unraveled.

The money was gone.

Heart racing, I pulled up the rug by my bed and pressed down on the floorboard. It popped up and I sagged in relief when I found the majority of my earnings still secure. I’d planted the sock money as a red herring because I knew one day she’d look for it.

Getting up, I stalked into her bedroom and halted again.

Her closet was open and every item in it was gone. As was the suitcase she’d kept in there. She’d never taken all her things before.

And I knew. Deep in my bones.

This time, she was gone for good.

I stumbled back and lowered myself to her unmade bed. My chest ached. A dull, throbbing pain near my sternum.

But there was relief too.

And that made me feel as bad as the pain.

I tossed my glasses onto the bed and buried my head in my hands, shoulders shaking as I cried quietly in the silence of her empty bedroom.

Tears were the last thing I ever let that woman take from me.

The knock at the door had me wiping my face and eyes and reaching for my glasses. It was possible it was Deirdra and that she’d heard Mum make the commotion when she tore up the place. Hurrying through the mess to the front door that led straight into the living room, I yanked it open.

And then froze.

Lewis’s wee sister, Eilidh, stood on the other side.

She was two years younger than us at fourteen, but with her height and confidence, she could pass for our age.

“What are you doing here?”

Eilidh shrugged with dramatic exaggeration. Since she’d started taking acting classes down in Glasgow during the summer (she’d even been on a Scottish TV show), Eilidh’s natural drama had gone up a level or two. “I haven’t been able to find my copy of It Happened One Summer since we went camping before school started.” She pushed past me before I could stop her. “And I wondered if—” She stopped talking abruptly as she gaped at the mess.

My pulse jumped. The last person I wanted to find out about this was Eilidh. Despite her having flirted with me since she was eleven years old, I’d found Lewis’s sister cute rather than annoying. Even when I agreed to let her sleep in my tent on the aforementioned camping trip and she’d prattled on and on about silly stuff until I eventually fell asleep.

But Eilidh was all about the drama, and I did not need that kind of reaction to this situation.

She whirled on me, her long dark curls whipping with the movement. Her blue eyes were striking against her olive skin and right now they were huge. “Fyfe, did you get robbed? Should we call the police?” She waved her hands frantically at the mess.

Fuck.

I slammed the front door shut. I honestly didn’t know whether to be more annoyed with her terrible excuse to come round to my house and flirt with me, or the fact that I now had to explain the truth to someone when I’d had no intention of sharing the news about my mother’s abandonment with anyone.

“I didn’t get robbed and you’re not telling anyone about this.”

Eilidh gaped. “What am I not telling them?”

Narrowing my eyes, I wagged a finger at her. “If I tell you, I mean it, Eilidh—it stays between us. I’ll never forgive you if you tell.”

To my surprise, her expression softened with sympathy. Her tone was sincere as she replied, “I promise, Fyfe. I won’t tell anyone. What’s going on?”

At first, I was so surprised by her maturity and measured reaction that it took me a second to respond. Then I couldn’t meet her eyes. “Mum left. Permanently. But first she tossed the place, looking for my money.”

Suddenly, Eilidh’s arms were around me, her cheek pressed to my chest as she squeezed me tight. I stiffened in her embrace, my anger rushing forth. Fury at my mum, and at Eilidh for being here when I wanted to be alone. My first thought was that she was using this moment to get close to me, which pissed me off.

Then she whispered, “I won’t tell. I promise.”

My tears from earlier burned in my eyes and I buried my head in Eilidh’s hair, wrapping my arms around her so tight. She smelled fruity and fresh. Clean. Warm. Like the home she was brought up in. I shook. Mum had barely been around for most of my life, so I didn’t know why being left alone was hitting me so hard.

But I felt like there was this crack in my chest and if I didn’t stop it, it would only grow until I fell completely apart.

Eilidh held on tighter, as if her arms could stop the trembling.

“I hate her,” I confessed harshly.

She didn’t offer platitudes. “I hate her too.”

Somehow that made me feel better.

I didn’t know how long we stood there, but I finally remembered I was holding my best friend’s wee sister like she was a life jacket. In a way, she was. All the Adairs were. Lewis and I had different friends at primary school and it wasn’t until we were thrown together in a class at high school that we realized we had so much in common.

From that moment on, he’d adopted me into his family. I’d had many a dinner at his house and hung out there all the time. Eilidh was part of that. Her silly crush on me annoyed Lewis, but as much as she was still only my best friend’s wee sister, Eilidh made me feel seen.

And today she’d surprised me.

I released her and she reluctantly let go.

With her standing so close, I searched her face, needing reassurance she wasn’t going to tell anyone about this. As I did, I realized for the first time that Eilidh Adair was a teenage stunner.

Before … I recognized she was pretty in a vague, distant way. But it was the first time it hit me she was more than pretty.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she promised again. Quiet. No drama. “This isn’t mine to tell, Fyfe.”

Grateful, I nodded. “Thanks.”

“Right.” She swung around and gestured to the room. “Let’s get this place sorted.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“But I’m going to.” Eilidh pulled her phone out of her back pocket, hit the screen a few times, and then pop music blared from it. She grinned. “Need some tunes to help us along.”

I rolled my eyes, my lips twitching, but I let her have that.

Then we set about tidying up my house.

We broke for a snack and a drink and we chatted in my kitchen about an audition she had in Glasgow in a few weeks. She’d been accepted into a prestigious summer drama school down there and had gotten some real acting work out of it already. Her parents weren’t happy about the audition, because the agreement was that she could only take on acting jobs during the summer. But Eilidh could charm most people into doing anything, so I wasn’t surprised she’d talked them into letting her go.

We were finishing up fixing my room when I noticed the time. “Come on, I need to get you home.”

“I can ride back myself.”

“But you won’t.”

We rode our bikes out of Ardnoch to a wee tiny place on the outskirts called Caelmore. It was where Lewis and Eilidh’s architect dad had designed homes for himself and his brothers and sister. Their five homes sat spread in a row overlooking the North Sea. I didn’t know of many siblings who’d want to stay that close to each other in adulthood, and I thought it was pretty cool that Lewis and Eilidh got to grow up surrounded by aunts and uncles and younger cousins.

We stopped at the top of the long, narrow country road that led into their small family estate. Eilidh hopped off her bike, and I had to straddle mine to keep my balance as she threw herself at me.

When she pulled back, she kept her hands planted on my shoulders and stared unabashedly into my eyes. With all the maturity of a wise forty-year-old, she said, “You have to know that your mum’s actions aren’t about you.”

Renewed anger flushed through me. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

“I’m not. Your mum is a deeply selfish person, Fyfe. That’s not on you. You’re amazing.”

Her soft eyes made me wary. I gently nudged her away. “Eils.”

She released me with a sigh and a sad smile. “I know you think this is some stupid wee girl crush, and it’s never bothered me that you think that. But it bothers me today. Because I need you to know that you’re amazing and that’s why I like you more than anyone else. You’re brave and smart. You stand up for people.” I assumed she referred to the time I chased off those boys who were bullying her when she was about eleven. Her hero worship of me had started after that. “And next to me, you’re, like, the most ambitious person I know. One day you’ll get out of here and you’ll do amazing things because you’re destined to.”

I smiled indulgently. “Eils.”

“I mean it. You’re a special person.”

I inwardly ached because … I could see she really did mean it. “Eilidh.”

She shrugged, giving me a cheeky grin. “I know I’m just Lewis’s wee sister and my opinion doesn’t mean much. But I wanted you to know that. Oh, and I won’t tell anyone. Not Lewis. Not anyone. Promise.” She pushed up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek before I could stop her. Then she hopped back onto her bike and rode toward her family home.

That night as I lay in bed for the first time truly alone, I held on to Eilidh’s words. They kept the question of why my mum couldn’t stand to stay around me at bay, when usually it would have tortured me into insomnia.

Instead, I wrapped myself in the phrase “You’re a special person” like it was sleep medication, hearing Eilidh Adair say those words over and over until I finally drifted off.