Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BLAIR
I cut across the backyard from the granny flat, my stomach tight with dread.
I’m later today, deliberately so. I’ve tried to time it so there’s no chance of any small talk before Lachlan has to leave for the ferry.
Two mornings in a row I’ve walked to this house feeling like I’m heading into battle instead of work.
This is not what I came to Scotland for.
I didn’t fly four thousand miles just to get steamrolled by some brooding Highlander with a chip on his shoulder.
If Lachlan gives me any more grief this morning, I’m done. Simple as that. I’ll pack up Gerald and my dignity—what’s left of it—and find somewhere else to figure out my life. Edinburgh, maybe. Or back to New York, tail between my legs.
The back door is unlocked, as always. Gus is first to greet me, nails scrabbling across the floorboards, tail wagging like we haven’t seen each other in weeks. Lachlan stands at the counter in his ferry captain uniform, gulping coffee like it’s medicine.
“Morning,” I say, my voice flat and professional. No smile. Just the bare minimum of politeness.
His eyes flick to mine, and for a second something passes across his face—regret, maybe, or uncertainty. But then he’s checking his watch and grabbing his keys from the counter.
“Blair, I?—”
“Da, Da, Da!” Finn bounces into the kitchen in his pyjamas. “Tell Blair about the picture!”
Lachlan hesitates, caught between whatever he was going to say to me and his son’s enthusiasm. The ferry schedule wins. “I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later, aye?” He ruffles Finn’s hair then gives me a brief look—one I can’t quite read—then he’s gone.
“What picture, buddy?” I ask, my voice softening. Last night’s anger belongs to his father, not to him.
“Right there!” Finn points to the cork board where his artwork usually explodes in chaotic, colourful glory. Only right now, in the centre of it all, is a photo of a baby Finn and his mother. She’s looking down at him with such pure, radiant love it makes my chest ache.
“Da put it up last night,” Finn says proudly. “And he said it’s just a first step. We can get a frame to display it properly and put up more pictures too!”
Tension drains from me like air slowly leaking from a balloon. Lachlan heard me. Despite his anger, despite storming out of the granny flat, he actually listened.
“It’s beautiful, Finn. She looks so happy.”
“Da told me a story about her,” Finn continues, settling at the kitchen table. “About how she loved reading books. Just like us!”
I pop a couple of slices of bread in the toaster. “Oh?”
“Yes!” Finn goes on, telling me how she’d cry even at happy endings and stay up way too late to finish stories. And he doesn’t stop, repeating things I can only assume Lachlan told him last night after he argued with me in the granny flat.
With each detail, Leanne becomes more real to me. Not just the beautiful woman in the photographs, but a person with quirks and habits and passions. Someone who would have understood my love of stories, who might have become a friend if circumstances had been different.
“She really does sound amazing,” I tell Finn when he finishes.
“Aye, she was,” he says confidently.
Yesterday I’d accused Lachlan of protecting himself instead of Finn, and maybe I was right. But Lachlan took those hard words and did something with them. He didn’t just put up a photo. He gave Finn back a little piece of his mom.
The kitchen table is a mess of newspaper, paint pots, and Finn’s beach treasures: smooth pebbles, tiny periwinkle shells, even a bit of sea glass glinting in the light. His tongue pokes out in concentration as he carefully daubs glue along the edge of a plain wooden photo frame.
We stopped at the little craft shop in town earlier, and of course he spotted the frame.
I’d hesitated before buying it—yesterday’s fight with Lachlan still too fresh—but Finn’s hopeful grin had undone me.
So we came home with the frame and the promise of an afternoon project.
Technically, Lachlan’s schedule says “colouring in”, but this is close enough, right?
Besides, this week I’ve been treating the schedule as more of a guideline than gospel anyway.
“Here, Blair, you do this one.” Finn nudges a shell toward me. His fingers are already sticky with glue but he couldn’t care less.
I pick it up. It’s just a frame , I remind myself. What goes in it, that’s Lachlan’s decision.
Twenty minutes later, Finn sits back to admire our handiwork. “It’s perfect!” he declares.
And it is beautiful. A little chaotic, sure, but beautiful all the same.
Finn jumps off his seat and walks over to the cork board, reaching for the photo of him and his mum. “Now we just need to?—”
“Whoa, hold on. The frame needs to dry first. If we don’t let the glue set properly, all your beautiful shells will fall off.”
“Oh.” Finn’s shoulders slump. “How long does it need to dry?”
“A few hours at least. Let’s wait until your dad gets home, then you and him can put a photo in. That photo or a different photo...”
I really don’t want to be accused of overstepping again.
“Okay.” Finn is clearly disappointed but he doesn’t argue. Instead he studies the frame critically. “Do you think Da will like it?”
“Your dad is going to love it. You made it with your own hands, and that makes it incredibly special. Now, let’s go do something else while we wait for your masterpiece to dry.”
We’re in the backyard when Gus’s ears prick at the sound of a car in the drive. He barks once, sharp and eager, before tearing off around the side of the house. Finn bolts after him, yelling, “Da!”
I gather up the scattered toys—plastic dinosaurs, a ball Gus slobbered half to death—and drop them in the storage boxes by the back door. By the time I step into the kitchen, Finn is already tugging Lachlan through from the hallway, Gus dancing around their legs.
“Here it is!” Finn announces, pointing at the table. “A photo frame for Mum’s picture. Blair helped me make it!”
My stomach tightens. Here we go again.
Lachlan studies the decorated frame, then his eyes flick to me. I can’t read his expression, so I jump in before he can say anything.
“We made a photo frame,” I clarify. “There isn’t a picture in it yet, and it’s up to you what goes in it. But Finn was very keen to decorate it and make it look nice, and... well... I didn’t want to discourage his creativity.”
The silence stretches. Finn looks between us, his enthusiasm dimming as he picks up on the tension.
Lachlan steps closer to the table and runs his fingers along the frame’s shells and sea glass. “You did a brilliant job. It’s beautiful, Finn.”
Finn brightens instantly. “Really?”
“Really.” Lachlan goes over to the cork board, takes down the photo, then carefully slides it into the frame. “There. Perfect.”
Finn beams. Then, hopefully, he asks, “Can I make more? For other pictures?”
“Aye, if you and Blair want to make more frames, go right ahead. It’d be nice to put up a few more photos around here.
Make it less like a show home.” He throws me a look as he says this last bit, quoting my own accusation back at him, but there’s a teasing curve to his mouth. He’s not mad at me. For once.
Lachlan glances toward the window. Outside, late-afternoon light spills across the water like melted gold. “I know from this amazing frame that you’ve already been to the beach today, Finn, but fancy another stroll?”
“Aye!” No hesitation. In Finn’s world, no one in their right mind would say no to more beach time.
Lachlan looks at me. “Blair? Would you like to come? No pressure,” he adds quickly. “Only if you want to.”
My stomach gives a funny little flip. It’s as though last night’s argument never even happened.
“Okay,” I say uncertainly. “That sounds nice.”
Minutes later, the three of us are crunching across the pebbles while Gus hurtles after the stick that Finn keeps throwing for him.
After a few more tosses, Lachlan says, “Finn, take Gus down to the water and play fetch with him there. But stay where we can see you, aye? I want to have a grown-up chat with Blair.”
“Okay, Da!” Finn whoops and charges off, stick in hand, Gus galloping beside him.
Lachlan and I stand there for a while, saying nothing, just watching Finn shriek with laughter while Gus acts like every toss of the stick is the best thing that’s ever happened.
Then Lachlan runs a hand through his hair. “Blair, I... Christ, this is hard.”
I wait. Not going to throw him a lifeline, but not twisting the knife either.
“I owe you an apology,” he says finally. “For last night. For... well, for being a right bastard.”
Despite everything, his blunt honesty almost tugs a smile out of me. “Go on.”
“You were right. About all of it.” The words seem to cost him. “I wasn’t protecting Finn. I was protecting myself. Because talking about Leanne, remembering her properly... it hurts.”
Down by the water, Finn flings the stick and Gus plunges into the shallows after it, splashing so wildly that Finn erupts in delighted laughter.
Lachlan’s jaw works. “It was gallstones. She’d had pain after meals for months but kept brushing it off.
Said it was just stress, or eating too fast with Finn underfoot.
” He shakes his head. “By the time she finally went in, the doctor said the gallbladder had to come out. Laparoscopic, nothing major. Might even be home the same day, he said.”
I can guess how this story ends, but I let him tell it.
“There was a complication during surgery. Rare. One in thousands. Her heart just... stopped.” His gaze fixes on the horizon. “We had our lives mapped out. And then...” His voice cracks.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“Her parents passed away before Finn was born, so there’s no one else to tell him about her. That’s on me. And you’re right, he needs to know who she was. He deserves those stories.”
Gus bounds back up the beach, stick clenched triumphantly in his mouth. Lachlan takes it from him. “You’re playing with Finn, you daft mutt, not me.” He hurls the stick down to the shore, and Gus tears after it, back to Finn.
Lachlan turns back to me. “I know I haven’t been... easy to work with. But Blair, what you’ve done for Finn already... he’s different. Happier. I’d like you to stay on, if you’re willing. And I promise I’ll try to do better.”
I cross my arms, buying myself a second. Don’t want to make it too easy for him. “I’ll be honest. Last night and this morning, I was pretty close to packing it in.”
Something flickers across his face. Fear, maybe.
“But,” I add, “I accept your apology. And I’ll stay.” I glance toward Finn and Gus. “Besides, Finn’s wormed his way into my heart. Gus too, surprisingly. And I suppose you’re not so bad either.”
I give him a cheeky smile, and after a moment, he smiles back. Really smiles, not the stiff version he usually manages.
The sea breeze lifts his hair, and his green eyes catch the golden light reflecting off the water. When he’s not scowling or looking like the weight of the world is on his shoulders, Lachlan Munro is downright breathtaking.