Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
CALLIE
It’s been too long since I’ve been on the back of a horse, and it’s been literally never since I’ve done this in the snow.
We don’t get weather like this where I grew up.
My winters were low fifties and rainy at worst, and that wasn’t too consistent.
Most of my Christmases in Geyserville were sunny.
I’m not going to lie, this is terrifying. Luna was worried about me getting in a car wreck on Scotland’s icy roads. What happens if Piggie’s hooves slide?
Gavin’s not concerned. He seems to think his horses are smart enough to avoid the ice. But they’re still animals. People slip on ice all the time, and we know what to look for.
In all fairness, I chose to come. And I do know how to ride.
“It’s on the other side of this field,” he says, pointing toward the stone house in the distance. Then his gaze slides over my form, making me straighten up. “You faring alright?”
“Perfect.” Oh nice. My voice is too high.
“Now, just a wee hint about this pal of mine before we arrive.”
“Don’t tell me. His eyes are permanently crossed and he is greatly offended if you don’t maintain eye contact at all times?”
Gavin gives me a flat look.
“Not that? Then I bet he’s missing both his right arm and his right leg.”
“All limbs in place.”
“What is it then?” I ask.
“Douglas is a bit of a flirt.”
“I’m honored you felt it was safe to bring me to his house.”
“Watch out you don’t trip and fall into his arms.”
“Maybe my ego needs the boost,” I mutter.
Gavin looks at me sharply, but I pull Piggie ahead before he can say anything else. Given how much he was yanking my chain with Patty, it’s probably safe to assume he’s doing the same thing now.
Douglas is standing on his porch when we ride up to the house. He frowns at us beneath a tartan bonnet and round spectacles. The end of his round nose is red from the cold, and he isn’t layered enough for this weather, so I hurry to dismount.
Gavin takes both horses’ reins and ties them to the railing. “Hiya, Douglas. Braw day innit?”
“Wee bit blustery.”
“This is my friend, Callie Winter. She’s visiting from the States.”
“Hello.” I reach to shake his hand.
He looks down at it before giving me a grumpy nod and turning toward the house. “In here.”
The rebuff leaves me stunned for a moment, staring at Douglas’s retreating back.
Gavin follows Douglas inside before glancing back at me. “You coming?”
“Flirt?” I whisper-yell.
He grins widely.
The man was goading me again. Fooling me. Trying to set me up for failure? No, that seems unlike him. Pulling my leg would be a more apt description. It seems more reasonable to say he was setting me up for a joke. The man is a kidder. I bet he thrives on April first.
If they do April Fools’ Day here. They do, right?
“Yer letting the heat out,” Douglas shouts.
I scurry inside and close the door behind me. It’s dim, the fire in the living room and two small windows providing most of the light. A lamp is lit behind a deep green patterned sofa and matching chair, and the rug on the floor is a similar tartan to Douglas’s bonnet.
It’s smaller than Gavin’s house and fits the word cozy a little better, too. Picture frames line the stone mantel and a dusty trophy sits off to the side, grimy with neglect.
“Grab a seat. I’ll just be a minute,” Gavin says.
He’s leaving me here with the grump?
He must sense my panic, because he leans in. “You two will get on fine. Same temperament, the pair of you.”
“We can start a Scrooge convention,” I mutter.
“You said it.”
The awkward level in the room rises as he takes a step away. “Gavin, I can help you,” I whisper. “I’m a good assistant.”
“You don’t want to. Trust me.” He nods toward the door between the living room and the kitchen like that should explain what he means. Shockingly, it doesn’t…until he opens the door and disappears down a set of stairs using a flashlight to guide him.
I busy myself looking at the photographs on the mantel. Douglas and his wife are featured in quite a few of them, with what I’m guessing is his son. “Your family is lovely.”
Douglas grumbles, situating himself in the green chair and lifting his feet onto the stool.
“Is this your wife? She’s beautiful.”
“Sasha. Aye. She’s been gone twenty years.” He frowns, looking at the fire. I’m beginning to think his face is permanently set in that expression. He reminds me of the old man in the movie Up, if the cartoon face was longer, more oval and less square. Same bulbous nose, same frown.
“That sounds hard.”
“Hard is a boy who never comes home,” he counters.
“That sounds hard too.”
Douglas doesn’t seem to have a counter argument for this.
Something about his grumpy attitude makes me want to win him over, but I know it’s impossible in the five minutes I’m going to be here.
I search the photographs for common ground.
Douglas is fishing in quite a few of the shots, or holding up various dead fish.
The trophy at the end is for the 2004 Glenbruar Gala Day Biggest Catch.
Well, the only things I glean are the award is two decades old, and he caught a really big fish to get it.
Maybe now’s a good time to tell him I absolutely loathe seafood. We’ll be instant besties.
“It looks like you’re quite the fisherman,” I say.
Douglas says nothing.
Tough crowd.
I can hear Gavin tinkering around in the basement, probably lighting the boiler, whatever that means. The water heater, maybe? What else would he need to boil if it wasn’t water?
Douglas has written me off, which doesn’t feel great.
I’ve been trained, but even without my schooling, it’s not usually hard for me to draw people into conversation.
I take stock of the room around me. I already know the man is lonely, his son has all but abandoned him, his wife died twenty years ago, and he’s spent his entire adult life in Glenbruar, perhaps longer.
He loves to fish, and he’s a curmudgeon. It’s a fair amount to go on.
And I am too far away to invite any sort of real conversation. Too bad all the townspeople couldn’t be like Patty and Katie, the shortbread queen and friendly store clerk.
Time to jump in with both feet. Despite Douglas’s ever-present frown, I gesture to the sofa lining the wall beside his chair. “Mind if I sit?”
He grunts. I’ll take it as a yes.
The cushion squeaks a little as I sit. I can hear the ticking of the clock on the wall and Douglas’s heavy breathing beside me. “My dad loves to fish too. He took a charter out in Alaska last summer and caught massive salmon and halibut. Some of these weird ones with buggy eyes, too.”
“Rockfish.”
“Yeah, those. Have you been?”
“No.”
I nod slowly. The man knows a lot about fish. “My mom fried the halibut up for him and he was in heaven. He’ll be out here in a week if this snow melts enough to let him through, and he plans to eat his weight in fish and chips.”
Douglas gives a nod. “Aye. Good man.”
“Do you fish much here in the winter?”
“Aye, when my bones let me.”
“They have strong opinions?” I ask him. What is with these Scottish people and their talkative bones?
“Sometimes they don’t bend the way I want them to. The cold makes them stiff and disobedient.”
I nod like I understand what he means. Active listening has been ingrained in me from childhood, but school only reinforced it.
Now it’s time to repeat back a little of what he said to make him understand he’s been heard.
“It’s wise to listen to your bones. It’ll make them last longer.
Then you’ll be walking around with your own original hardware while all your friends have titanium hips and knees and whatnot. ”
He cracks a faint smile, which feels like a massive win. “Angus has a new hip. Got it last summer. Wasn’t able to fish all year.”
“How unfortunate for him.” I won’t say what I’m really thinking, that the hip was probably a new lease on life for the man. “Titanium bones can’t predict the weather.”
Douglas lets out a laugh that is somewhere between a bark and a cough. Victory surges through me. I’ve penetrated the thick fortress walls. Next stop: friendship.
“That’s us sorted,” Gavin says, reappearing from the basement door and closing it. “Boiler is lit and water should be hot shortly.”
Douglas rubs the back of his neck. “Care to stay for a spot of tea?”
Gavin looks at me. “If Callie doesn’t mind?”
“I would love to.”
Douglas pushes himself from his chair and moves slowly into the kitchen. He passes a cane leaning against the wall but doesn’t stop for it.
Gavin drops his bag of tools at the door, then peers through the window at the horses. “We shouldn’t stay too long, so drink fast. The ladies won’t be happy to stand there much longer.”
“Why’d you accept the tea, then?”
He gives me a look that says I should know better than to ask.
I sit back against the sofa, because I do. This man lives alone. Due to the storm, he probably hasn’t had company in a few days. “Where’s his son?”
“In town.”
I choke on my own spit. “What? Douglas made it sound like he lives far away and hasn’t seen him in years.”
“No, he’s local.”
I wait, but Gavin doesn’t say anything more.
What I really want to know is why Douglas called Gavin to fix his boiler if his son lives that close.
Instead, I can tell it’s not the time or the place.
So I lean in a little and say, “Trip and fall into his arms, Gavin? Really?” Which earns me a surprised, genuine laugh.
Gavin’s blue eyes glimmer down at me. “You mean you didn’t?”
“It was difficult to resist, I’ll admit.”
His smile is wide and easy as he pushes himself up from the sofa. “I’m going to see if he needs help carrying the tea.”
When I watch Gavin walk away, I get the strangest impression that we could actually be friends if we let ourselves.
Too bad I’ll only be here a few more weeks.
With how much time we’ve spent together the last few days, I already feel like I’ve been here for weeks.
Once my family arrives, the time is going to fly.
If my family arrives? No. I can’t subject myself to weeks of this with only Gavin for company, nor a Christmas without the people I love most in the world.
A knock sounds on the door, jarring me from my melancholy thoughts.
I look from it to the kitchen, but no one seems to have heard.
The knock sounds again, so I go to answer it.
Surely the men will be out shortly anyway.
I swing the door open to find a man standing on the other side.
His coat is dark and every bit of him is covered by winter wear, except for a bit of red hair peeking out from his beanie.
His eyes are sharp and his chin strong. He can’t be much older than me.
“You aren’t Douglas,” he says.
“No, sorry. He’s inside, if you’ll give me a minute.”
“Ah, the American.” The man nods like he understands. “Callie Winter.”
Goodness, news travels fast around here. I would be extremely weirded out if it wasn’t for the fact that every single person I’ve met so far has known who I was before I’ve known them. Every. Single. One.
Well, except for the hotel concierge. I had to introduce myself to him.
“How is your back?” he asks, a shade of concern falling over his features.
Ah. I see now. “The doctor.”
“Guilty.”
“The only thing you’re guilty of, Rory, is letting all my warm air out,” Douglas says from somewhere behind me. “Are you staying? Because I’ll need another cup.”
I step aside. Rory stomps the snow from his boots a few times before coming into the house and closing the door. “I won’t stay now that I know you have company, but I wanted to pop in since I was passing by.”
“On your way to see this one, no doubt,” Douglas says, looking at Gavin.
“Actually, Rhona called me. But I’m always glad for a visit with the two of you.” He looks at Gavin for a long moment, then to me again. “How are you faring, Callie?”
“I’m well, thank you. Gavin made me ice my back that entire day, and I really haven’t felt much of a twinge since.”
“Good man.”
Gavin sits on the sofa and lifts his tea. He sips at it, eyebrows raised. Something passes between the men, a silent conversation they both seem to understand, though it flies entirely over my head.
“I should be on my way,” Rory says. “Glad to see all is well here.”
“Of course all is well here. Why wouldn’t all be well?” Douglas asks.
No one states the obvious snowstorm. I watch Gavin and Rory exchange another look, clearly full of meaning, before Rory gives me a wide smile. “Are you coming to our ugly jumper party tomorrow?”
“That’s still on?” Gavin says.
“You’re in the group chat, Gav.” Rory lifts one eyebrow slightly.
“I’ll be there,” Douglas says, then sips his tea.
I know a jumper is a sweater, and I’ve been to plenty of ugly Christmas sweater parties before. But all my hideous sweaters are back in California. “I don’t have anything to wear. I’m afraid I didn’t travel prepared.”
Rory nods at Gavin. “He’s got an extra.”
These men are on a knowing the contents of their closets level of friendship?
Gavin’s nodding like it’s true. “You can borrow a jumper if you fancy going.”
Rory heads for the door. “Hope to see you all there.”
“Don’t let the heat out,” Douglas calls.
“Love you, too, mate,” Rory calls back, before slipping outside and shutting the door swiftly.
Douglas doesn’t seem to think anything of this. He sips his tea, then looks at Gavin. “So, you’ve lit the boiler? Because that tap was cold as ice.”