Chapter 9 Tierney
While Quinn assured me things were going along at a good pace, the B and B still looked like a shell of its former self.
He promised me this was the point where it didn’t feel like much was happening because it was all “first fit” site services—updating the electrical, the heating, the plumbing.
And since I’d chosen the best eco version of everything, Quinn was constantly conferring with the experts on how to install it.
Despite that temperateness, Scotland was more humid than outsiders realized.
I only knew from my summer visits to my grandparents’ house.
July’s clear skies did not fit the mood of the village.
No, in fact, a downpour of constant rain would have been more appropriate for a village in mourning that month.
Isla passed away at the end of June, the night of the pipe band performance in the Lantern.
While I hadn’t known Isla, I hurt for my new friends who did.
And, of course, it reminded me of my own loss.
Two years. It had been two years since I’d lost my parents, but that seemed impossible.
Needing distraction, I found myself growing impatient with the progress on the building, even though we were on schedule.
The B and B’s social media pages were starting to attract attention, and I was fielding regular DMs asking when guests could book to stay.
That was exciting! I had a friend from college whom I was paying to build my website and thus I was waiting for the booking section to be added to the homepage.
I’d thought people wouldn’t want to book until the finished article, but there were some eager folks out there.
After another message came in inquiring for specific dates, I decided it was time to take bookings. We could at least open the calendar for next spring because I knew the renovations would be finished by then.
I’d shot Gen, my techy friend, a text to get the booking system up and running. When stepping out of my apartment building on Main Street, an incoming call flashed on my screen. Things had been quiet on the Perri front too, so it was a surprise to see her name.
I turned my back on the bustle of the harbor. “Perri?” I answered expectantly.
Her reply was a soft laugh. “It’s been two weeks. You’d think it was years. How are you?”
“I’m fine. I’m sorry for the antsy reply. How are you?”
“I understand. And I haven’t called or been in touch because I wanted to make absolutely sure before getting your hopes up … but there’s been a breakthrough.”
Everything but Perri’s voice faded into the background. “Tell me.”
“Henry Copeland. He’s agreed to talk again. He was scared for a while after your parents, but … I guess his conscience won out.”
Tears of relief stung my eyes. “Really?”
Triumph hardened Perri’s tone. “We’ve got the bastard, Tierney.
Henry handed over all the documentation he has.
The last piece of the puzzle is the helicopter and we’re pushing the crash investigators to release their report so we can see who cleared it as nonsuspicious.
If we can connect the dots back to the CEO and find a paper trail to a bribe, the police will have no choice but to step in.
But even without that piece, we have enough to publish in the next few weeks.
We need to dot our i’s and cross our t’s first. Make sure everything is in order legally.
Of course, we also legally need to give the Silver Group a heads-up and let that play out before we print.
And I’ll need you to go on record that you donated your shares because you’d discovered the CEO of Silver Hotel and Resorts covered up manslaughter and had your parents and a reporter killed when they began to investigate it. ”
“I’ll give you whatever you need.” The sob broke out of me before I could stop it. It was coming to an end. This nightmare was finally coming to an end. “W-we’ve r-really got him?”
“Yes. We’ve really got him.”
A hand suddenly clamped down on my shoulder and I whirled in fright. Through the blur of my tears, I found Ramsay towering over me, scowling. “Silver, you all right?” he demanded gruffly.
Akiva nudged her face against my leg, her intelligent eyes almost questioning.
Reminded I was in the middle of Main Street, sobbing, I swiped frantically at my tears, sucking back the shaky cries that still needed an outlet. “Perri, I have to go. But thank you. We’ll talk soon.”
“Talk soon, Tierney.”
“Thanks.” I hung up and wiped my face before I lowered to Akiva to hide in her fur.
I hugged her and the sweet dog leaned into me like she could sense my emotions.
“Hey, beautiful girl.” Pulling back, I sniffled and then laughed when she tried to take her usual swipe at my face with her pink tongue.
“Silver.”
Sighing, I reluctantly stood to face Ramsay. Akiva settled at my side, pressing her warm, furry body into my legs. Resting my palm on her head in gratitude, I faced her owner whose gaze darted between me and his dog.
“Well? Why are you crying in the middle of the street?” he demanded, as if my tears had put him in an awkward position.
“None of your damn business.”
Ramsay scowled. “Akiva.”
The dog seemed reluctant to return to him.
“Don’t make her pick sides.”
“She’s my dog. There are no sides but one. Mine.”
“Territorial, aren’t we?”
“When something is mine … aye.” He answered in a tone that almost bordered on teenage girl duh.
“I have to get to the B and B.” I moved past him, stopping to stroke Akiva’s head in goodbye, before hurrying down Main Street.
Problem was, Ramsay had a good eight or nine inches of length on me and easily caught up. Akiva happily followed along. “I’m heading that way too or did you forget I’m one of your contractors?”
“I haven’t seen you around so yeah, actually, I did forget.”
It was true. Not the forgetting part but the not seeing him around part.
Ramsay had successfully avoided me for most of the past six weeks.
We’d seen each other across the church at Isla’s funeral, which I’d attended out of respect and to be a comfort to Cammie and Quinn.
Ramsay stood at the back, unmoving, face blank.
I’d caught glances of him here and there, but I’d also taken myself off to the mainland a lot these past few weeks.
Cammie and I had gone on interior decorating trips that sometimes had us staying overnight.
We spent an entire weekend in Edinburgh, which was nostalgic and a much-needed escape for the two of us.
Ramsay didn’t respond to my cheeky reply. Instead, as we turned the corner past Macbeth’s Pages & Perks, taking the back road that led up the winding hill toward the B and B, he asked again, “Why were you crying?” This time his tone was softer, curiouser. Less demanding.
For some reason, that was even worse. “It’s been an emotional few weeks. I’m kind of on edge, I guess.”
“Because of your parents?”
I shrugged.
“So … everything’s all right?”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
And he knew it too.
A muscle clenched in his jaw but he didn’t push me any further on it.
We stood to the side to let a couple of cars pass and then turned up onto the private road that led to my B and B in her elevated spot.
My phone suddenly rang again and I yanked it out of my back pocket, thinking it might be Perri.
It wasn’t.
It was Hugh. I’d blocked his last number and then he started calling me on another.
Asshole.
With a frustrated growl, I blocked him again.
“Who is Hugh?”
I glowered up at Ramsay. “No one that matters.”
“Is he harassing you?”
“Not everything is ominous, you know,” I teased. And immediately changed the subject. “You didn’t drive over today?”
Akiva sped upward ahead of us.
“Left my vehicle here last night and stayed with Quinn. We worked so late, I missed my safe crossing.”
“Oh. You know, I can always compensate you if you need to book a room somewhere.”
“It’s the height of the season and, anyway, there’s no need. I have Quinn’s place. You’re already paying toward accommodation for much of the crew.”
It was true. Quinn and Ramsay’s crew were men from all over the islands.
Some ferried in and part of the fee I paid them covered the cost of accommodation for those guys during the week.
“Okay.” I knew I shouldn’t, but I could feel the question vomiting up out of me before I could stop it. “How’s Ava?”
There. I sounded casual. Normal.
Even though the older brunette’s appearance had bothered me for days. Weeks, even. If Ramsay was avoiding me, I was avoiding him right back after Ava showed up.
I did not lust after other people’s partners.
At first, I didn’t think Ramsay was going to answer. Then he replied, “I don’t know. She was all right last time I saw her.”
“Oh.” Wow. Was that what he was like in a relationship? Ugh. Poor Ava.
“We’re not together,” he explained as if the words were torn from him. “I don’t do relationships.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I think Ava thinks you’re in a relationship.”
“Aye, noticed that, did you?” Ramsay scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck as we leveled out onto the driveway of my guesthouse. “That’s why I ended our casual … thing.”
Ah.
“I don’t do serious relationships or any kind of relationships.” He suddenly stopped, looking me directly in the eye as if he was warning me off. “I’m not that man. That’s not who I am.”
The little warmth that crept into my chest at the news he was single iced over. I looked away, staring out at the water, at the spectacular view of the Scottish coastline. “I used to think I knew exactly who and what I was.”
“And now?”
I shrugged. “You know, my maternal grandmother was Scottish.”
“Aye, you told me.”
“I’d visit her every year with my family.
She died about a year after my grandfather passed.
I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to him, but I had time with my grandmother.
I flew to Edinburgh for our last moment together.
” Emotion thickened my throat, and I had to take a minute as I recalled the image of her lying in bed, so small and frail in contrast to the larger-than-life person I’d always known her to be.
“I took her hand and confessed that I didn’t know who I was without her.
” I wiped away my falling tears, looking back out at the water in an attempt to hide them.
“And … uh, she told me that lying in that bed was the first time in her life when she truly knew who she was. That moments and people had carved away at her every second of every day, like she was a lump of clay turning into a sculpture. And it was only now that her time was ending that she was complete. She promised me that one day it would be the same for me and that thinking you knew yourself could be a prison. That I should treat every day as a day I get to know a little more about who I am. It was just a day where the world sculpted another little piece of me.”
I turned back to him and found Ramsay staring at me with a pained expression I didn’t quite understand.
“How can you know everything you are when life hasn’t finished sculpting you yet?”
Ramsay seemed to truly consider my words. Then he cleared his throat, that penetrating wolf gaze piercing me to the soul. “I think while your grandmother was wise … it’s also true that who we are at the core never changes.”
“I think that’s true too. My mom grew up with money, but she was bullied as a kid, and it made her empathetic and kind.
She didn’t judge people for what they had or didn’t have.
She raised me that way. And no matter what life threw at her, that part of her never changed.
” I smiled sadly, thinking about my mom who was the kindest human I’d ever known.
“She made my dad a better person. He was the first to admit it.”
I chuckled remembering my mom’s smug, happy laugh when my dad told me the story of how they met.
“My dad was on a first date with this famous supermodel the night he met my mom. I’ve seen pictures, and this woman was like otherworldly gorgeous.
It was this international business awards thing in London, and Mom was there as an assistant to the events organizer.
My dad watched as this guest accidentally poured red wine all over the host’s white dress before the event started.
He said that the host was practically hysterical and suddenly, this pretty blond appeared out of nowhere, efficiently whisked the host away, and the next time he saw them both, the host was in the blond’s dress and the blond was in the stained white dress. ”
“Your mother.”
I grinned. “Yeah. She swapped dresses. Dad said he watched her for the rest of the night, just doing her job and laughing off any comments about her appearance. He watched her perform little acts of kindness all night—like helping an elderly guest to the restroom. Covering up mistakes waitstaff made. He didn’t speak one word to her, but he knew he needed to know her.
“At the end of the night, he put his date in a cab and returned to the event to find my mom. He asked her out. Mom said she thought he was joking at first. She knew Dad was the heir to the Silver Group empire, and she was a sweaty mess in a stained white dress.” Realizing I might be boring Ramsay with my musings, I clamped my mouth shut and shrugged, feeling weirdly vulnerable.
“Your father sounds like he was a man who recognized what was important.”
Relief cooled the heat in my cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, he saw past all the bullshit. He thought my mom … he thought there was no one else in the world like her. He would have done anything for her.” Like uncover a dark secret, even if it meant ruining his family’s legacy.
“Anyway. Sorry … I, uh, I’m feeling a little nostalgic today.
We should get moving.” I marched toward the house.
This time Ramsay didn’t respond. He followed me into the B and B … and then went his own way.