Skies Over Caledonia: A Small Town Marriage of Convenience Romance (The Highlands Series Book 4)

Chapter 3

Aria blinked rapidly, like she was trying to process her feelings on my proposal without giving away her immediate thoughts. That’s exactly what she was doing. I knew her too well.

She stood, leaning against her desk, her arms crossed over her ample bust. Aria always made me feel like I’d just rolled out of bed, even if I’d taken my time getting ready for the day. She was one of those women who always looked put together and gorgeous. In fact, my big sister had no idea how beautiful she was and all because she was curvier than Mamma or me, and Mamma never let her forget it.

Sometimes, I disliked Chiara Howard. Not a nice thing to say about one’s own mother, but it was true.

Aria had been born without that innate selfishness both of our parents had. Worse, I worried I was selfish to my core too. That it was genetics, and I couldn’t fight nature. Aria knew some of our parents’ faults, but not all of them, and I’d like to keep it that way. She saw the best in people. That was a good thing because I needed her to see the best in me.

I needed someone to believe in me.

“Well?” I knew my eyes were wide with pleading, but I couldn’t help it. She felt like my last hope. For not the first time. Poor Aria. She really got stuck with me.

My sister sighed. Heavily. She smoothed a hand over her hair, her engagement ring winking in the light next to her wedding band. “I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

After years of Aria running Ardnoch Estate as the hospitality manager, Lachlan promoted her to managing director. Lachlan, alongside his very famous brother Brodan, also owned a whisky distillery outside of Ardnoch, which they opened just six months ago. Lachlan wanted to put his energy into making it a success and needed Aria to take the reins at the estate. She pretty much ran the entire show. The promotion brought with it the benefit of hiring a PA, and Aria’s PA had just given notice. I’d suggested I become her new PA so I could get a work visa. A work visa would keep me here for three years, giving me plenty of time to build my business and apply for a business expansion visa. The government might even grant me indefinite leave to remain.

“Of course I have. It’s a great solution.” My heart started to race because I hadn’t expected my sister to object. “If you’re worried about me not being able to do the job, I can. I am very capable. You know I’ve run galleries before. And I’m a quick learner.”

Aria waved a hand. “I’m not worried about you not being able to do the job. You’re more than capable. But working as my PA for the next three years will completely derail your business as an artist.”

“No, I’ll do it simultaneously.”

She huffed. “Which tells me that you completely underestimate what the job of my PA entails. Ally, before my promotion I was drowning here. The club membership grows almost every year and I work very hard. So does my PA.”

Dread roiled in my stomach. “I know that. I can make it work. I’ll work with you Monday through Friday and do my art in the evenings and weekends.”

She shook her head again. “Sometimes I need my PA to do overtime. Why do you think Sandra is leaving? She can’t keep up with the pace.”

I frowned. “You have a life. You make time for North when he’s home. I can have a life too.”

“It’s not about having a personal life on top of this job. You’re talking about having a full-time job on top of this very demanding full-time job, all the while trying to grow a business. You’ll have no personal life because what you’re trying to do is impossible.”

Desperation turned to anger. “Aria, I need this. Didn’t you hear what I told you? Yesterday, Immigration warned me that they wouldn’t let me back into Scotland next time I try to visit.”

She pushed off the desk, expression sympathetic. “We’ll figure something out. But I’m not giving you a job when all it will do is derail your future. You are too talented an artist not to strive for the career you actually want.”

“Can’t we figure something out?” I asked bitterly, hurt mingling with the anger. “Don’t you care that we won’t see each other when Immigration boots me out of the country?”

Aria scowled. “Of course I care.”

“No, you don’t!” Resentment suddenly burst out of me. “You have your life here. You have North. It doesn’t matter if you don’t see me.”

“Allegra—”

“You just up and moved here without even caring that you were leaving me!”

There it was. Those words that had lived in me for years suddenly hung between us in her grand office in this grand old castle that she’d chosen over her little sister.

“Ally, that’s not how it was. Or is.” She took a step forward but I retreated.

Tears burned my eyes as all the feelings I’d kept inside bubbled to the surface. “I know you were desperate to leave, and you felt obligated to stay for me. I get that it’s selfish to wish that you’d stayed … but you didn’t even blink. As soon as Mamma decided she wanted to stick around, you were out of there, like somehow it meant that I didn’t need you anymore.”

Aria sucked in a breath. “That isn’t fair. I didn’t leave you. I just went after what I wanted in life.”

“I know that!” I cried, the tears rolling down my cheeks. “But why did you have to go somewhere I couldn’t follow? Do you know what that feels like? When the only person you’ve ever truly trusted and ever needed in this life goes where you can’t follow?” I sobbed the last word and whirled, fumbling for the door.

My sister called my name, but I kept going, rushing out of the office. I ignored her pained shouts as I shot down the hall. Staff and club members gaped at me as I ran past, but I darted by them, following the familiar halls away from the public spaces and into the staff quarters.

The cool summer air hit me as I burst outside, running toward the Range Rover my sister always let me borrow from the estate fleet when I visited.

As I tore out of there, guilt cut through my hurt.

Everything I’d said to Aria was true. It was how I felt. But that didn’t make it right. Aria had looked after me in a way no one had ever looked after her. So she’d wanted a life for herself. So what? I was going to make her feel guilty for that because that life didn’t include me?

See? Selfish.

Selfish to my core.

Sometimes I really hated myself.

It had been a year since I felt like I needed a check-in with my therapist. Gail always advised that regular check-ins were a good thing, but I’d honestly not needed to process my feelings of late. However, I considered maybe it was time to talk to her. Something this disruptive was obviously going to affect me emotionally. However, I wanted to believe that I could handle life’s little shake-ups better than I used to.

I didn’t know where I was going, but it was no surprise I ended up in the village, parking the Range Rover outside the Gloaming. My heart did a little jump when I recognized the Defender I’d parked next to.

Jared was here.

I wiped at my cheeks, checking my reflection in the rearview mirror. Thankfully, I hardly ever wore makeup unless I was going out to dinner or an event, so there was no messed-up mascara to fix. Quiet panic rode my shoulders as I hopped out of the vehicle and strolled into the pub. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had to figure out a way to stay in Scotland. I suppose I could ask around the village, see if anyone else was hiring.

Maybe Jared needed a new farmhand.

I snorted at the thought because, even though I wasn’t opposed to getting my hands dirty, I’d probably be useless. The only thing I’d ever been truly good at was making art.

The pub was fairly quiet at this time of day and the sight of Jared on a stool at the bar, with his head in his hands, caused a spark of concern to cut through my self-involved despair.

What was Jared doing here at this time? I knew from Sarah that farm life was hard work. I’d only ever seen Jared here in the late evenings.

The bartender, an older woman I didn’t know, greeted me as I approached the bar. “Afternoon. What can I get you?”

“Uh, whatever NA beer you have.” I slid onto the stool next to Jared as he reluctantly lifted his head from his hands.

The Gloaming was one of my favorite places. I just loved the cozy atmosphere. But a pub was a strange place to call a favorite when you didn’t drink. When I was fifteen, something happened that sent me on a downward spiral of partying, drugs, and alcohol. By the time I was seventeen, I got caught up with the wrong guy and while I was high, I got myself into a nasty situation. If it weren’t for Sloane Ironside, a friend who, as luck would have it, also moved to Ardnoch and married a Scot, I might not be here. Or I might be living with even worse emotional scars than I had now. Sloane got me out of that situation, and Aria and my parents got me into rehab and therapy.

I’ve never referred to myself as sober because my stint with drugs and alcohol was short-lived and I didn’t feel I’d earned the right to say I’d been sober for eight years. Instead, I just told people I was teetotal. Plus, it was nobody’s goddamn business.

Shrugging off memories, I met Jared’s gaze and frowned at the bleariness in his eyes.

He was Drunk with a capital D. I’d never seen him drunk. Not even at Christmas.

“Hey, you, what’s going on?” I asked quietly.

He fumbled for his beer and shakily raised the pint glass to me. “Shrinking.”

I gathered he meant drinking.

Oh boy. “Jared … what’s going on?” I repeated.

The man frowned as if confused by my question and it was ridiculous that he was kind of adorable. How a man that sexy could be adorable, I wasn’t sure, but right then, he was both. “Ale.” He tapped his pint. “I am having.”

My lips twitched, my argument with Aria fading into the background. “I can see that. But why are you having ale at one o’clock in the afternoon? What about the farm?”

Jared’s handsome features slackened with anguish, and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest. “The farm. The farm.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and then just leaned his forehead into his palm. “That bashstard will take it.”

“What bashtard?” I teased, trying to lighten his mood.

Those green eyes met mine and hardened. “I’m failin’.”

Realizing something was seriously wrong, I shimmied my stool closer to his as the bartender set my drink down. I thanked her absentmindedly as I leaned in close to Jared. He reeked of alcohol. Had he been here since the pub opened? “Jared, what’s going on?”

“The farm,” he whispered, pain in the words. “I’m goin’ tae lose it. Everythin’ Granddad worked for. Gone.”

“What?”

“Too many disashters. Losht money. Cannae seem to get back on track. Gonnae need to shell it.”

“Sell it?”

He nodded grimly.

“Why can’t you ask Sarah for the money?” His cousin was wealthy. I knew that from Aria.

Jared shook his head, glaring at me through narrowed eyes. “No gonna dae that.” His accent had thickened with his drunkenness. “Ma dad did that. Abandoned everybody and ashed everybody to bail him oot. No gonna dae that. Ma problem to sholve.”

Suddenly his phone rang, drawing my attention to it on the bar counter. Jared ignored it, so I leaned over to squint at the screen. Someone named Georgie was calling.

“Not going to get that?”

He grunted and took another pull of his ale.

When the phone stopped ringing, I pulled it toward me and saw there were thirteen missed calls from Georgie. The name was familiar, and I suddenly remembered he worked on the farm with Jared.

I picked up his phone before he could protest and tapped on Georgie’s name.

“What are you doin’?” Jared grumbled but didn’t make an effort to stop me.

“Jar, where the fuck are you?” a man’s voice bit out angrily down the phone.

“Um, this isn’t Jared. This is Allegra Howard. I’m at the Gloaming and Jared is here. He’s … he can’t drive home in his current condition. Can you come get him?”

I heard him let out a beleaguered breath. “Aye. I’ll be there soon.”

I made small talk with a sleepy Jared for fifteen minutes or so until a man who couldn’t be much older than him strode into the pub, dressed much the same in a long T-shirt, jeans, and work boots. He thanked me for calling and helped a belligerent Jared out of the pub.

Just before they left, Jared looked back over his shoulder at me. He looked so lost. So young. As if all the years had melted away and he was just a kid again.

I knew the feeling.

A sense of kinship filled me as I gave him a sad little wave.

Then, as he disappeared out the door, the idea hit like a lightning bolt.

I gasped, anticipation and hope filling me.

It could work.

It could really work.

I’d just need Jared McCulloch to agree to it.