Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ELLIE
“—and the breakfasts, honestly. Proper thick-cut bacon, and the way they did the scrambled eggs, God, I’m still thinking about it.”
“Ellie.” Ainsley sets down her chicken burger. “Enough about the food and hotel. Tell us about you and Douglas.”
Blair leans forwards. “Yes, I’m dying to know, did you two actually”—she waggles her eyebrows—“you know?”
My cheeks go hot. I glance around the Lighthouse Café. The nearest table is occupied by an older couple who are tucking into their toasties and minding their own business.
I lower my voice. “Yes. We did ‘you know’.”
Blair claps a hand over her mouth, her blue eyes huge.
“Eight times,” I add.
The squeals that burst out of them are enough to make the older couple look over. I lower my gaze but can’t stop a grin from spreading across my face.
“Eight?” Ainsley says.
“Over two nights and two mornings. That’s . . . it’s not that many.” It is that many. It really is.
Blair reaches across the table and takes my hand. “Ellie, this is excellent news.”
I let out a breathless little laugh. Three weeks ago I’d made peace with wanting Douglas from a distance and nothing more. Now, well, it’s hard to believe how much things have changed.
In between bites of a coronation chicken sandwich, I fill my friends in on the rest of the weekend away.
How lovely Bannock was. How good it felt waking up beside Douglas and seeing him so relaxed.
How we went for walks in the woods and by the loch, held hands like it was no big deal, and talked and laughed without ever running out of things to say.
How when Douglas told me he wanted to make this work, I thought my heart might actually burst.
I tell them about Sunday night too: Leah turning up while Douglas was away, the confrontation when he got home, and the words she and I exchanged.
I tell them how she tried to frame herself as the wronged wife, and how I stood in Douglas’s living room and told her plainly that she doesn’t want him—she just doesn’t want anyone else to have him.
I omit the part where, after Leah left, Douglas and I kissed, and I felt the evidence of just how much he wanted me beneath my palm. There’s sharing, and then there’s oversharing.
“She’s got some nerve,” Blair says, shaking her head and spearing some lettuce with her fork. “But I’m proud of you both, for standing your ground and having each other’s backs. You make a good team.”
I like that. We do make a good team.
Ainsley dabs at her mouth with a paper napkin. “So, speaking of Leah.” Something in her tone has me straightening in my seat. “She came into the salon this morning, bold as anything. She’d booked herself in for a blow-dry, and during the appointment she made a few comments.”
My stomach drops. “What kind of comments?”
Ainsley’s lips thin. “It was all very calculated. She expressed concern for her husband. Said you’d ‘led him astray’.”
I’m too thrown to say anything. I’m not used to this.
I’m not the sort of person people gossip about—well, not unless I get myself stranded on some rocks in a hire boat.
But never about this sort of thing. I’m the woman behind the library desk who recommends books and remembers which author each pensioner likes.
Standing my ground with Leah in Douglas’s house was one thing.
That was private, contained. But this? Her spreading tales around town, trying to turn me into some sort of villain? That’s something else entirely.
Blair shakes her head. “What an asshole.”
“I shut it down,” Ainsley says. “I told her I wasn’t interested in gossip and that you were my friend. She didn’t say much after that. She just paid and left.” Ainsley gives my arm a quick squeeze. “I’m telling you because I thought you should know, not because I think it’s a crisis.”
“Thanks,” I say. I’m grateful Ainsley put a stop to it, but a knot of unease tightens in my stomach. Leah isn’t backing off, and she’s not just going after Douglas directly. She’s working the town.
Ainsley gives me a sympathetic smile. “Of course. And if I hear a whiff of it from anyone else, I’ll step in just as fast.”
Blair nods. “She’s not going to get anywhere, not with people who actually know you. Leah can insinuate all she likes. Ardmara isn’t full of idiots.”
“Aye,” Ainsley says. “Anyone with eyes can see what’s what.”
Some of my anxiety eases. Leah might be trying to stir things up, but I’m not on my own. My friends have my back, as does Douglas.
Fifteen minutes later, I head back to the library with a takeaway coffee and a slice of lemon drizzle tucked into a paper bag. The knot in my stomach hasn’t gone completely, but it’s loosened. Everything is going to be fine.
After work, I make my way to Mum’s for my usual evening visit. There’s still a little coolness in the air, but Ardmara’s gardens have woken properly now, daffodils giving way to tulips. A blackbird sings somewhere nearby.
I’ve decided not to let Leah and her petty wee games get to me. What Douglas and I have might be new, but it already feels steady. It can survive this test.
My good mood stays with me all the way up Mum’s path and into her hall, but it falters the moment I step into the living room. Something is off. I can just tell.
Mum is in her chair, but her posture is rigid and her hands are folded in her lap. Her lips are pursed.
“Hi, Mum,” I say uncertainly. “Everything okay?”
“No, Ellie, everything is not okay. What’s this I hear about you carrying on with a married man?”
The words hit me like ice-cold water. How? How has she heard? She never leaves the house without me.
“A woman came to see me this afternoon,” she says. “Leah Fraser, Douglas Fraser’s wife.”
For a second I can only stare at her.
“She was very polite,” Mum goes on, “and very upset. She told me she and Douglas are trying to work things out for the sake of the children, and your involvement is making things very difficult for them.”
My legs are suddenly unsteady beneath me, so I sink into the chair opposite Mum. Leah gossiping around town is one thing, but coming to my mother’s house to spread her poison here?
“You told me you were going away on your own.” Mum’s voice is cold. “But you didn’t go on your own. You went with Douglas. You lied to me.”
I swallow. This is not how I wanted her to find out. “I’m sorry, Mum. I just . . . I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.”
Her expression doesn’t soften. “You didn’t tell me because you knew I wouldn’t approve. What on earth were you thinking, Ellie?”
My thoughts are too jumbled to shape into words. I didn’t think I’d be having this conversation with Mum today, and I don’t know where to begin.
“That poor woman,” Mum says. “You should have seen how upset she was. Utterly distraught. And you did that to her.”
The jumble in my head clears, burned away by a sudden surge of anger.
I can picture it perfectly: Leah perched on this very chair, tearfully playing the respectable wife.
And to Mum—whose life has grown smaller over the years, and who still believes, stubbornly yet sincerely, in certain ways of seeing the world—it would all have sounded credible.
It wouldn’t have been hard for Leah to figure out how to pull her strings.
“Mum, please listen,” I try again, forcing my tone to be gentle.
It’s Leah I’m angry with, not Mum. “Douglas and Leah’s marriage has been over for years.
She left when the kids were barely two. She comes and goes when it suits her.
She never stays, never commits. The woman who sat in this room and cried to you was manipulating you. ”
Mum shakes her head. “She’s his wife, Ellie. That’s all I need to know. They have children!”
“The twins know about me and Douglas. They took it well when—”
“That only makes it worse, the children knowing.” She says it with such certainty, such unshakeable moral clarity, that for a moment I doubt myself. Have I done something bad? Then I come to my senses.
“Leah only came back because Douglas told her he wants a divorce,” I say, firmer this time. “She doesn’t want him. She just doesn’t want anyone else to have him. Douglas is a good man. He’s—”
“What would your father have made of all this?” Mum says, and the rest of my words die in my throat. “It would have broken his heart.”
I sit there, winded. The confidence I’ve been building—the glow from the weekend, the support of my friends, the resolve I found when I stood in Douglas’s living room and told Leah the truth—all of it crumbles.
Because arguing with Leah was one thing—Leah is an adversary.
But Mum? Her approval matters to me, and now she’s invoked the one person I can’t explain myself to: my dad.
I stand. “I have to go, Mum,” I say quietly, then I walk out with my back straight and my face composed. I manage to make it home and close the front door behind me before the tears come.
I breathe. Wipe my face with the heel of my hand. Breathe again.
I take out my phone. I could call Douglas. I want to call him—want to hear his voice, want him to tell me it’s going to be all right.
But I can’t. Because I can’t talk about this yet. Can’t put into words what just happened without it sounding like my own mother just called me a homewrecker.
Oh God. That’s exactly what she thinks I am.