Surprises on the Scottish Isle (Coorie Castle Crafts #1)

Chapter 13

Cal wasn’t wearing a shirt. That was the first thing Tara noticed when she knocked on the door of his cottage later that day. It was the only thing she noticed for several agonising heartbeats, until she managed to pull herself together and stamp on the unexpected and unwelcome spike of desire that stole her breath and made her mute.

It was the fine russet hairs trailing down his stomach and heading south into his jeans that did it. She knew how soft those hairs were, and she knew exactly where they led.

Tara swallowed, forcing down her lust in the same way she forced down her multivitamin tablet every morning.

‘Tara.’ His voice was little more than an exhaled breath, a whisper of the wind across the loch. He cleared his throat. ‘Hi, won’t you come in? I was just getting changed.’

Her gaze was drawn to his chest again, then upwards to his face. Was that amusement she could see in his eyes?

Annoyed at being wrong-footed (if a man had stared at her chest the way she’d just stared at Cal’s torso, she would have been tempted to deck him), she said, ‘I won’t stay. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve taken the photos, but I’m not sure they’ll be of any use.’

‘Why not?’

Tara stabbed at her phone’s screen, her movements jerky. She turned it to face him, scrolling through the many images, before coming to a halt.

‘I don’t understand. Why can’t you use them?’

‘Your— Bonnie’s mother has dressed it for sale. It’s like a show house, apart from Bonnie’s room. It’s been totally de-personalised. Do you have any photos of what it looked like before? I mean, Bonnie is going to want her doll’s house to be how she remembers it, not as it is now.’

The puzzlement on Cal’s face disappeared as his expression hardened. ‘This is exactly how Bonnie will remember it.’

Oh, dear… ‘Ah. Well, in that case, I’ll do a quick calculation and get back to you.’

‘I bet her mother doesn’t know her bedroom is in such a state. Yvaine won’t be happy.’

Judging by the pristine condition of the rest of the house, Tara didn’t think Yvaine would be happy either. The poor kid. Where were the photos, the keepsakes, the paintings on the fridge held in place by silly magnets? Where were the wellies by the door, the shelves full of books and board games, the pink glitter bubble bath that smelt of strawberries? Where was the soul ?

Cal turned away from the door and retreated into the cottage, leaving Tara staring after him and wondering whether she should follow him inside or leave.

Curiosity is going to be the death of me , she thought, as she stepped over the threshold against her better judgement. But wanting to see where he lived, wanting to see more of him , outweighed the voice in her head warning her of the risks of playing with fire. Cal had burned her once. He could so easily burn her again if she was stupid enough to let him get too close.

The porch was crammed with boots, coats, tweed caps and walking sticks, and led into a small hallway with a twisty staircase directly in front and doors to either side. Her head snapped back and forth as she wondered which room he was in, realising he was upstairs when his feet appeared on the stairs, followed by the rest of him as he trotted down them tugging a T-shirt over his head.

With his chest now covered, Tara noticed that his feet were bare.

A memory of tickling those very same feet until he was breathless with laughter as she’d leant all her body weight on his legs to stop him squirming, flashed into her head and she felt like crying.

He looked surprised to see her, as though he’d forgotten she was there. ‘Fancy a wee dram?’ he asked.

‘I haven’t had my tea yet.’ Whisky on an empty stomach was never a good idea.

‘Salmon steaks, then?’

‘Pardon?’

‘I was about to cook myself a salmon steak. There’s one going spare, if you fancy it.’

Tara was taken aback. Was Cal seriously offering to cook for her? ‘Why are you trying to be nice to me?’ she demanded. ‘Do you feel guilty about stringing me along and then dumping me? I thought we had something, Cal.’

‘I need that drink,’ he muttered and stalked off.

Tara followed him into the lounge. She wanted answers and she was damned well going to get them – they were long overdue.

He poured amber liquid into a couple of crystal tumblers and handed one to her. The whisky was smooth and mellow, with a heat that failed to thaw the ice in her chest. She couldn’t believe she was confronting him. But she’d asked the question and there was no walking it back.

‘I didn’t string you along.’

‘What else do you call it?’

‘Love. I loved you.’

She noticed the past tense. ‘You couldn’t have loved me that much. You married Yvaine less than a year after you broke up with me.’ Her tone was scathing and bitter.

‘She was pregnant.’

Tara needed a second to process what he’d just said, so she sipped her whisky, stalling for time, her thoughts a jumbled mess. Eventually she asked, ‘Are you telling me you only married her because she was pregnant?’

His sigh came from deep within. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘Did you love her?’

Cal took a mouthful of his drink. ‘I cared for her, but I didn’t love her.’

‘Oh, Cal… Why did you marry her?’

‘I wanted to be a good father. I wanted to be there for my child.’

‘You didn’t have to marry Yvaine to be a good dad.’

‘You don’t understand.’ His tone implied that she couldn’t understand because she didn’t have kids, and she flinched. She didn’t have kids because she hadn’t wanted any with Dougie .

She wished she’d realised that before she’d married him. It would have saved them both a lot of heartache. It was safe to say that both she and Cal had made mistakes.

‘I wanted to be there for my son or daughter all day every day, not just every other weekend, or when Yvaine needed a babysitter.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘But that’s exactly what I’ve ended up becoming.’ The look he gave her made her want to weep for him.

The man was hurting. Whether he’d loved Yvaine or not when they’d got married wasn’t the point now. His love for his daughter was.

‘I would like to say I’m sorry that I broke up with you,’ Cal continued, ‘but I’d be lying. Because if we hadn’t split up. I wouldn’t have Bonnie.’ He smiled, a sad little upturn at the sides of his mouth. ‘I am sorry I hurt you, though.’

Tara perched her backside on the arm of a battered leather chair, her legs unsteady. ‘I know you said we were too young, that long-distance relationships never work out, blah-di-blah, but if you loved me as much as you claim to, I don’t understand how you managed to move on so soon.’ It had taken Tara years to move on – if she ever had.

‘I was trying to forget you.’

‘Right there, see, that’s the difference between you and me. I didn’t want to forget you .’

His sigh drifted around the room. ‘We can’t do anything about the past. It’s the future we need to think about now. I don’t want any bad feeling between us, Tara.’

‘There won’t be.’ She straightened, squaring her shoulders. ‘We’re adults, we can put it behind us.’

‘Are you sure? Because when I spoke to you outside the pub—’

‘It was the shock. I never expected to see you again, and when I did it brought everything back.’

His eyes searched her face, and it took an effort not to show how raw that heartbreak still was.

She must have hidden it well because he said, ‘Salmon steak?’

‘Go on then, it’ll save me cooking.’

Seeing him in the kitchen, watching him dress the fish with garlic, lemon juice, chilli flakes and a teaspoon of honey, was bittersweet. She’d often watched him cook. He used to enjoy preparing food, and it seemed he still did.

‘Oi, don’t just stand there,’ he instructed. ‘There’s a salad to prepare, and you can cut a couple of slices of that olive bread.’ He pointed a spatula at a loaf-shaped paper bag next to a bowl of fruit. ‘The salad stuff is in the fridge.’

As she washed, chopped and sliced, it was hard to believe that more than ten years had passed since the last time they’d made a meal together. It seemed like yesterday. And a lifetime ago.

Tara felt surreal, as though this was a dream and she would wake from it with his name on her lips and the ghostly feel of his body curled around hers. In the early days after the split, she’d woken from that same dream night after night, the brief moment of bliss shattered when she remembered he was no longer hers. That he had never truly been hers.

But it seemed he hadn’t been Yvaine’s either, despite what a marriage certificate said. And maybe Yvaine had sensed it. Or maybe Tara was reading too much into it, and she should get a grip.

‘We’ll eat on the deck,’ Cal said, when he saw that the salad was done and the bread was cut.

The deck was a small wood-slatted area to the front of the cottage, the boards silvered by the elements. It housed a table, two chairs with bright cushions, and a lantern containing a stubby candle. After helping Cal carry their meal outside, Tara sat at the table and realised she could see the boathouse quite clearly from there. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, considering she could see Cal’s cottage from her bedroom window, but she nevertheless found it unsettling.

Movement caught her eye. A rope swing, not too high off the ground, swung idly as a breeze caught the branch above.

Cal followed the direction of her gaze. ‘Bonnie loves that swing, but don’t tell her mother. She reckons they’re not safe.’

‘Are they?’

‘It’s probably not as safe as a swing in a play area, but the excitement is in that little bit of danger.’

Tara felt he had described what she was doing right now. Cal was exciting and dangerous. However, the danger wasn’t a scraped knee. It was a broken heart, but only if she let him get close again, if she dropped her guard a second time and let him in.

The salmon was delicious, the salad edible, and the bread reminiscent of her holiday to Corfu the summer before she’d met Cal. But she’d had to force the meal down, too tense to enjoy the food properly, too conscious of the man sitting at right angles to her with his knee almost touching hers.

‘Cheese and biscuits? And a coffee?’ he asked.

‘Just coffee, please.’

He laughed. ‘Thank goodness for that. I’ve just remembered that the only cheese I’ve got is the plastic slices that come in a plastic container, along with slices of plastic ham and those round salty crackers. The crackers are quite nice. Not too keen on the ham or the cheese, though.’

‘Bonnie?’

‘How did you guess? And those salmon steaks could easily have been fish fingers.’

‘I quite like fish fingers.’

‘In a sandwich,’ he said. ‘I remember.’

‘Hey, I was a poor student. I couldn’t afford salmon steaks.’

‘That’s because you preferred to spend your money on wine, not food.’

‘True.’

‘Do you remember that girl who used to work in the student union bar? The one who always won the yard of ale competition?’

‘Gosh, yes. I’d forgotten about her. She must have spent a fortune on booze to get as good as that.’

‘I saw her last year. She was visiting Skye with her wife and three kids. I didn’t recognise her, but she recognised me.’

Tara wasn’t surprised. Cal hadn’t changed much. He was still a handsome guy.

Over coffee, they reminisced about the people they used to know, and Tara realised they were both being careful not to touch on anything that might bring their relationship to the fore. The conversation flowed easily, and a second cup of coffee was called for as the sun dipped below the mountains on the other side of the loch, the sky’s palette painted in dove grey, with mauve ribbons of high cloud highlighting streaks of apricot and pink.

Tara tried not to think about how romantic this would be if the man she was experiencing this beauty with had been anyone other than Cal.

‘I never tire of this,’ he murmured, lifting his head to the sky. The sunset was reflected in his eyes, wonder on his face.

‘It’s stunningly beautiful,’ she admitted, and she was suddenly glad to be sharing this breathtaking moment with someone.

The waters of the loch grew still and dark as the light faded from the sky, only the flame from the candle in the lantern keeping the night at bay. The air held its breath. Not a leaf stirred, not a wave lapped. The silence was so deep, she thought she could hear Cal’s heart beating.

A fox’s harsh bark broke it.

Tara said, ‘I saw you on the loch the other day.’ Her voice was low.

Cal turned to look at her, his eyes as dark and unfathomable as the water. ‘You were up early.’

‘Yes.’

‘I was fishing.’

‘I guessed as much. Did you catch anything?’

‘Three, but I put them back.’

The ease of earlier was no longer there. This conversation was stilted and tense.

It was time to leave. Tara had enjoyed the evening – far too much, if she was honest. Best to go now, before it was ruined.

‘Would you like to go out on the loch sometime?’ His question took her by surprise. ‘I could take you,’ he added.

‘Maybe.’ She imagined the view from the other side, looking back at the boathouse and the castle. She imagined being alone with Cal in that boat, the muscles of his chest and arms rippling as he rowed. ‘I’d like that.’ She got to her feet. ‘Thanks for a lovely evening.’

Cal also stood. ‘You’re welcome. Take care, Tara.’

For a moment, she thought he was about to kiss her, but then he shoved his hands into his pockets.

‘Bye, Cal.’

She stepped off the deck and onto the path leading to the loch. It was just about light enough to enable her to pick her way along the shoreline to the boathouse. Only once did she look back. She couldn’t see him, but the light from the candle flickered in the distance.

Was he still on the deck?

When she reached the boathouse, she turned to look again, but Cal’s cottage was now in darkness.

It was a long time before Tara went to bed, and even longer before she fell asleep.

There was a lighter area in the sky above the village, the streetlights casting a glow into the heavens, but it was faint and not enough to drown out the myriad of stars overhead.

After Tara left, Cal blew out the candle and tracked her progress across the white sand to the boathouse. Only when he was satisfied she was home safe did he relax and sit back in his chair to enjoy the night and reflect.

He’d been shocked when he’d answered the door to find her standing there, as beautiful and as bewitching as ever, and had felt a jolt of longing so acute it had shaken him to his core. It had taken him a moment to understand that she wasn’t here to see him , but to query whether he wanted her to go ahead with commissioning the doll’s house for Bonnie, in light of the photos she’d taken earlier.

Until Tara had brought it to his attention, Cal hadn’t considered how other people might view Yvaine’s home. She’d always been intensely houseproud, wanting everything just so, and she used to study glossy magazines and follow various influencers online to try to emulate what she saw on their social media posts. On reflection, their home near Inverness had been just as sterile, but he hadn’t noticed at the time.

He smirked as he thought of the photos Tara had shown him of Bonnie’s bedroom. He would bet any amount of money that his daughter had waited until Yvaine was about to usher her out of the door for school to pretend she’d forgotten something so she could dash upstairs to trash her room. He wondered whether Bonnie had managed to tidy up the mess before her mother saw it, or whether she’d had a telling off. He hoped it was the former, both for his daughter’s sake and because he derived childish satisfaction from someone getting one up on his ex-wife. He supposed he should be more mature, but he was finding it increasingly difficult to act like an adult since seeing Tara had catapulted him back a decade.

Chatting for hours about their uni days this evening hadn’t helped, but he’d enjoyed it so much that for a while he’d felt like a student again, when he’d been young and in love.

Cal let his breath out in a huff. Thirty-three wasn’t old, but he felt the weight of every one of those years. They pressed down on him, reminding him that he was a father, and he had responsibilities which went beyond himself and his own wants and desires. And that was why he should never have invited Tara to share his evening meal. He couldn’t afford to let her slip into his heart again, not when she no longer thought of him that way.

Again? Ha! She’d never left it. And that was why he should keep his distance, and not suggest taking her out on the loch in his skiff. He wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking, but whatever it was, he hadn’t been using his head – he had been using his heart.

And that was a very dangerous thing to do.