16. Now
16
NOW
Jack studied the map on his GPS and calculated their walking speed based on the amount of fussing Brooke was doing with her backpack, alternating between slipping her hands under the straps and cushioning her lower back.
As much as he’d been dreaming of the campsite in town with a shower, his knee throbbed and he was shaky with hunger.
They weren’t going to make it into Portree before the sun set.
Up on the next high vista, he pressed his heel into the ground to check for the boggy squish he’d grown accustomed to, but the ground was solid. A small burn trickled by to refill water. “Let’s stop here.”
“Oh, thank god,” Brooke said, her pack hitting the ground before she finished speaking.
Jack dropped his own pack, but before he could rummage for a freeze-dried pouch, the view caught his eye. The deep cobalt sea in the foreground contrasted with the dusty blue of the Isle of Raasay in the distance. The lighting was the perfect golden glow that airbrushed away all the imperfections of real life. His finger twitched to capture it.
Jack pulled out his tripod and Nikon from his pouch, his stomach protesting the idea of anything coming before supper. But the lighting was soft and hazy and the whole shot looked sleepy and serene. He had to capture it before the sun sank any lower.
As he snapped the tripod out and framed the shot, Jack’s stomach growled again. His camera felt heavier than it was, his arms weak.
He heard the click and whoosh of Brooke’s camp stove while he paced back and forth along the cliff edge, trying to find the exact right spot. He took a few pictures and checked them on the display. It was almost time. When the sun dropped a bit lower, the clouds would go cotton candy pink and he’d be ready.
Jack pulled out his phone while he waited, flipped it toward him, and hit Record. “Hi, Auntie,” he said. “We found the perfect campsite tonight. Look at this.” He turned the phone around to scan the water below the dramatic cliff, Raasay muted in the background. He panned to the side, to where Brooke was setting up her tent—right next to where he’d dropped his pack. His breath caught at how much closer she’d moved since the first night and he forgot to keep moving the camera.
Brooke looked up and waved with an indulgent smile. “Hi, Mhairi.”
Jack turned the phone back to his face. “My stomach’s eating itself, but I’ve got to get this shot. I think it’s the one.” Not the one that got him into the galleries, that made people notice him, that made it all worth it. But the one Mhairi would love best.
He waved goodbye and put the phone away as the sun dipped below the horizon. He stepped behind the tripod and snapped. The image popped up on the display and adrenaline coursed through him.
The saturated blues and light pinks complemented each other perfectly, and the shadows in the distance created texture and depth. It reminded him of Mhairi: soft and nuanced and welcoming.
“Here you go,” Brooke said at his shoulder, and he turned to find her holding out a bag of freeze-dried food, steam rippling into the air. “Hope you still like curry.”
He wasn’t sure which stood up faster, his stomach or his heart. For the woman who’d blasted him with ice three days ago, making him dinner was a clear olive branch. Even better that it was hot and smelled spicy and heady.
He took the bag from her. “Thank you.”
This trip had been nothing like he’d hoped. He’d gotten enough good shots he wouldn’t have to rehike the first segments, but the lighting had been terrible the first day, the scenery shrouded in mist after that—not that he’d had any spare attention for taking photos with his whole being consumed by regret. But this gesture from Brooke, the way she’d softened to him today, and the beauty around them tonight, felt like a sign from the universe to keep going.
Brooke waved at the camera equipment while he shoveled food into his mouth. “Photography turned out to be the thing, huh?”
In a family where he was so often overlooked, where his dreams had been minimized, even by himself, she’d always seen right to the heart of him. It made him glow on the inside like the last sunbeams hanging on the red-orange clouds.
“It did,” he said around a bite.
She turned the full force of her gaze back on him and where he’d shrunk in the face of it that first day, he seemed to grow because of it now. “I’m proud of you.”
Jack’s heart expanded uncomfortably in his chest. He hadn’t realized how much he longed to hear those words, for some confirmation that he wasn’t selfish in leaving the family business, that his dreams mattered.
“Sorry, that’s probably a really weird thing for me to say,” Brooke said, her head tipping down as she picked at invisible lint on her leggings.
“Not at all. It means a lot.” It meant everything . Logan had been furious with him for so long, at the boundary he’d created, but The Heart of the Highlands had been an alluring safety net and he’d had to cut free from it to really move forward with what he wanted. No more hedging, no more hiding.
“But there’s not much to be proud of. Honestly, I’m not getting loads of traction. Galleries either want some very specific type of high-contrast black-and-white photo I can’t seem to perfect, or a big platform. People manage to start these vlogs and have a million viewers and I don’t know how to do that. I’m not personable that way.”
“You’re just so serious in those videos.”
A warm grin spread across his face. “You watched my YouTube channel?” He’d assumed Brooke had walked away and never looked back. The fact that she’d checked up on him went straight to his head. His mind flitted over all the videos he’d taken on hikes and excursions, documenting the landscapes and the folklore and probably too many birds. He wanted to know every thought she’d had about them.
She rolled her eyes but her cheeks turned a delicious shade of pink. “Tell me you haven’t internet stalked me.”
He held up three fingers for scout’s honor but she narrowed her eyes.
He laughed, giving in. Of course he’d searched for her. “But I couldn’t find anything.”
“That’s because I’m a ghost.” The teasing words didn’t disguise the edge of something in her voice he couldn’t quite place. “My point is, what if you make videos like the ones you’re doing for Mhairi?”
“You need to be serious to be taken seriously.” He repeated the comment his dad had made a thousand times.
“I’m sorry, have you met the internet?” she asked. “I get wanting to hide behind the most professional version of yourself, I really do, but you have to be authentic . Like you are with Mhairi.”
Brooke’s belief in him was so unwarranted, but he wanted to be worthy of it. Wanted to be worthy of her again.
Jack finished his meal and crumpled up the bag, stuffing it into his rubbish sack. From his pack, he grabbed the half-crushed Pink Panther wafers. “Want some?”
Brooke hesitated and her eyes met his before she gave him a soft smile and took a stack of pink wafers from the bag. “I haven’t had these in forever,” she said before stuffing one into her mouth and settling on the boulder next to him. She crossed one of her long legs over the other, her hiking boot bumping into his, then shifting away. He wished she’d sat next to him so he could slide in closer, feel the muscle of her leg through the thin fabric of her leggings.
“As good as I remember,” she said.
She was as stunning as she’d ever been, sparkling and perfect.
“Agreed.”
Brooke turned to look at him, probably from the seriousness of his tone, the way he hadn’t quite meant to reference their past, but it was hard when he’d never really let it go.
Instead of pulling away like he feared, her eyes shuttering, she flashed him a genuine smile and stuffed another wafer into her mouth, crumbs collecting at the corner and a groan falling from her lips. “These always remind me of you.”
His heart warmed imagining her thinking of him in the time they were apart, but he wanted to be more than a collection of memories. He’d started this trip wanting to support her, wanting her forgiveness. But it’d morphed into wanting her attention, the easy companionship they’d once shared. And if he let himself get carried away…more than that, too.
He’d always wanted more with Brooke.