Chapter 13
July, This Year
Taran wouldn’t look me in the eye, and it was driving me mad. After I’d given her the rundown on how to operate the radios at the LSLS, we’d settled into our prospective seats and she pulled out her phone.
I hated smartphones.
They made ignoring someone far too easy.
When it became clear she was settling into stare at her phone for the long haul, I cleared my throat. “Do you want a coffee?”
She flicked her eyes toward me and back to her phone. “Mmm. Milk, no sugar. Thanks.”
Grumbling inwardly, I left to go make the drinks and grab some snacks.
I’d tried to get out of volunteering tonight because I still had the kids, but no one else could do it.
Thankfully, since my chat with Heather, my daughter’s attitude had completely changed.
There were no complaints from her or Angus as I’d dropped them off to spend the night at their aunt Cammie’s.
In fact, before I ventured out the door, my daughter had told me she was proud of me for volunteering.
My mum would sometimes have them stay at the farm, but Cammie’s place was in town and more accessible for the kids.
They had no great-grandparents to visit because my maternal grandparents lived on the mainland in a retirement community.
When my grandfather was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, they’d sold the B and B they owned out near Greg’s farm, along with four acres of land.
They’d used the money to pay for the stay in the assisted-living retirement home just outside Perth.
It was difficult to get out to see them, but I tried to make the trip a few times a year with the kids.
As for my father’s parents, who knew. My dad wasn’t born on the island, and he’d told us he had no parents, whatever the fuck that meant. Both Kiera’s grandparents had already passed away.
Anyway, Aunt Cammie was a popular relative for my kids to stay with and that’s all that mattered to me. That they were safe and happy while I couldn’t be with them.
Had I known Taran was to be my volunteer partner, I would have been less reluctant.
Now that I had her here where she couldn’t run away, I needed to make the most of it.
The past year, I’d made some inroads with Taran. She’d gone from hating my guts to tolerating my presence, which I felt was quite a big step.
However, Cammie’s revelations, and how it helped my relationship with Heather, had been on my mind ever since. It had me revisiting painful memories and analyzing them from a new perspective.
By the time I got back to Taran with a tray of coffee and snacks, I’d worked myself up to starting an open and honest conversation with her.
“Thanks,” she murmured, lowering her phone to take a coffee. “So … we just sit here for hours waiting for someone to call?”
“No, we sit here hoping no one is in need of us.”
“Right.”
Settling into the chair next to her, I studied her profile since she still refused to look at me.
My gaze caressed the curve of her cheek, the tip of her cute nose that turned up ever so slightly, and the plush fullness of her lower lip.
That lip used to drive me mad and apparently still did.
Taran might not have been my first kiss, but she was my first everything else.
She owned pieces of me I’d never get back, and I was content with that.
Done tiptoeing around her, I blurted, “I’m just going to say this because there’s no easy way to bring up the subject.”
She turned to me now. Her dark eyes were big and angled upward at the corners, making her lashes look dramatic. I loved her eyes. There had been nothing better than staring into Taran Macbeth’s eyes as I moved inside her, seeing her love for me shine out of them.
There was nothing worse than seeing hatred burn from them.
Today, however, there was no hatred. Just wary curiosity.
“I don’t think your mum told you, but the kids and I used to visit her once a month for Sunday dinner.”
Taran frowned, her lips parting on an exhalation of surprise. “No. No, Mum didn’t tell me that.”
“Heather and Angus were really fond of Isla.”
She blinked rapidly, glancing away. “She didn’t tell me.”
“I think she didn’t want any hurt feelings.”
“Aye, that sounds like Mum.” Taran took a sip of coffee, and I noted her fingers trembled ever so slightly.
Fuck.
Before I could apologize, she spoke. “Your kids are funny. Though Heather seems a bit angry with you.”
“We’ve sorted that out. It turns out I’m good at solving other people’s problems but not so good at admitting my own out loud.
” I studied her, searching for even the smallest reaction.
Taran’s expression remained perfectly blank.
“Heather … it turned out she just needed to talk to me. So, we talked and things are good between us. She’s wiser than her years, that one. ”
“Aye?” Taran gave me a polite smile.
“You know what she said to me? Verbatim: ‘Me and Angus don’t need you to be perfect. We need you to teach us that it’s okay to be imperfect.’”
My ex’s eyebrows rose. “Wow. Powerful words.”
“What is your perspective on our breakup, Taran?”
She reared back like I’d hit her. “Excuse me?”
I winced at my bluntness, but I pushed through the fear that she might get up and walk out. “Seriously. I mean it. I want to hear your side of the story.”
Her glower could have singed a lesser man’s beard off. “What is the point in going over ancient history?”
“Because it’s not history for me,” I confessed gruffly.
Taran’s features slackened, but she didn’t respond.
I persevered. “Fine. Here’s what I know.
I feel like you went to Glasgow and you started to push me away and sabotage our relationship.
Maybe to make it easier for me in the breakup.
I thought it was done for you. That you’d fallen out of love with me.
I never expected you to come back and tell me you still loved me. ”
The words hung heavy between us.
So heavy, disappointment crept in. Taran didn’t want to talk about it.
But then …
She looked at me, and I saw an ember of the hatred she’d had in her eyes our last day together in my flat.
It hit me like a physical burn. “You’re right.
” She nodded. “I’ve had years to think back on that time and why I messed you around my first year at uni.
Because I did mess with your feelings, and I own that.
But you acted so unimpressed and resentful of me being there that that messed with my feelings—”
“I was insecure as fuck,” I admitted, angry as if it was eighteen years ago all over again.
“You left me behind and barely called, didn’t come home, and when I did visit, you wanted to hang with your new friends, and you always left me out of the conversation.
I wasn’t unimpressed, Taran. I was hurt and scared shitless I was losing you. ”
“But you didn’t tell me the last part about being scared to lose me,” she hissed.
“You just berated me for my new friends and my uni life. God, Quinn … I look back and realized that you never talked about how you felt when we were kids. I was left stumbling in the dark, trying to figure you out, and it led me to falling over a goddamn cliff.”
I wanted to argue and rage at her because she knew I loved her.
But Cammie’s words stopped me.
The conversation with Heather.
Because this is why I wanted a real conversation with Taran. To confirm doubts that had started to creep in … that Taran wasn’t the only one to blame for us taking that break in the first place.
“I’m sorry.”
“What does it matter now, other than to bring up painful memories?”
“I should have told you how I felt. But we were both to blame for breaking up.”
“I know I asked for the time apart, and I can admit that maybe I had one hand up with you too because I was afraid of how much you meant to me, but it turns out I had every right to be afraid of that.”
I leaned forward, needing her to hear me.
“If I was conscious of my actions, no way would I ever have slept with Kiera. I don’t remember it.
But Taran, if we’re to make any headway with each other, I need you to know this now …
I don’t regret Heather. I regret how it happened, but I don’t regret my daughter. ”
Taran searched my face for what felt like a hellishly long moment of silence.
Then she finally spoke. “You want my side of the story, Quinn? Here’s my side of the story.
It wasn’t getting Kiera pregnant that broke me.
It wasn’t the existence of Heather that broke me.
” She stood up slowly and I could feel my fucking heart in my throat.
“It never occurred to you for one second to choose me and Heather. To be there for Heather but still be mine too.” Her eyes brightened with unshed tears.
“You just cut me out and married Kiera. So … how much could you have really loved me? That’s why I hate you, Quinn.
Because if you had loved me even half as much as I loved you …
you would never have deleted me so easily from the equation.
“You changed me irreparably. Because of you, I have spent my entire life unable to trust anyone but my mum. And now she’s gone.
I have nothing while you sit here with your beautiful kids and your close friends and your perfect life …
and yet everyone looks at you with sympathy because Taran Macbeth won’t let go of the past. So not only do I have nothing, I am utterly alone on this godforsaken island I can’t leave because I promised Mum I wouldn’t let anything happen to her store.
I’m trapped here with the one person I despise, with people who keep trying to get me to forgive you.
” Taran’s wet eyes blazed with anguish. “That’s my side of the story. ”
Before I could even move or speak, Taran was gone.
And I was nineteen again, my heart shattering into a million fucking pieces.