Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CALLIE
I’ve been dying for this moment for the last few days, and it couldn’t possibly come at a worse time. My phone buzzes in my back pocket, but I ignore it so I don’t break the spell in the room. It’s probably Bekah checking in and asking if I’ve figured out the internet situation.
I might have panic-texted her with too many caps and emojis in the last hour while my computer periodically lost connection.
Now there’s less than three hours until the application for the internship is due, I haven’t even started on the essay portion, and Gavin is dangling the juicy treat of his mysterious past in front of me like forbidden fruit.
I can bust out an essay fairly quickly. English classes have always been a strength of mine. Another twenty minutes can’t really hurt at this point.
Especially now that I have a solid internet connection to work with.
Yep, just call me Eve. I’m fully in now, and I need to know everything.
“I’ve got a few minutes,” I say lightly.
Gavin rubs his eyes. “You need to finish your application.”
I sit at the desk and put my phone face down. “It’ll take a minute for my brain to wake up.”
He doesn’t look like he believes me. I hold my breath, waiting. It’s crazy how I didn’t want anything to do with this guy last week, and now I kind of want to spend every minute with him.
Unhealthy? No comment.
Gavin sits on the edge of the worn brown sofa, and I try not to show how relieved I am. “It’s a rather convoluted story. I don’t want to bore you with the details—”
“Bore me with them,” I say. “I love details.”
His brow furrows, but he continues. “You know I dated Blair in high school. We were together since we were fourteen, off and on. After we graduated highers, she broke up with me and went off to uni.”
“You stayed here?”
“My grandad was sick, so I put it off for a bit and stayed around. I didn’t want to miss the last few months I’d have with him.”
“Hamish?”
“Aye. He pulled through, but we didn’t think he would at the time. It wasn’t good.”
“How terrible.”
Gavin nods. “It was rough, and I felt I was needed at home. Blair returned less than a year later, eighteen and pregnant and abandoned by the guy she was seeing. It wasn’t my kid, but we were both vulnerable and got back together.”
Pregnant. Eighteen. They were so young. My heart is racing, but I do my best to keep my face neutral. “You must have loved her a lot.”
His smile is soft, hitting me in the chest. “We became close through the last few months of her pregnancy. When Liv was born, I fell in love with that bairn. I think I stayed with Blair as long as I did partly because of her daughter, but it was no secret I cared deeply for both of them. When Blair left me and took Liv to Edinburgh without any warning at all, it broke me.”
I’m fairly skilled at managing my reactions, but this still gets me. “There were no signs?”
“I didn’t see it coming. She didn’t give me a chance to give Liv her birthday gift, to speak to her, to explain why I was suddenly missing from her life. I had no rights at all because we never married, and I wasn’t Liv’s dad. But in all the ways that counted, I had raised her.”
“How old was she?”
“Three.”
So young. My chest constricts. Just a year older than Oliver.
“That was six years ago. At the time, it was devastating. I took care of Liv, cooked for her, put her to bed while Blair worked. It killed me not knowing how she was being cared for after they left, what kind of men Blair was dating, what sort of life she was giving her daughter. I felt helpless and hopeless and fell into an unreachable depression.”
“Understandable.”
He shrugs. “It consumed me for nearly eight months, until Granny convinced me to see a counselor. My neighbor, Rhona, is my therapist, and helped me work through the trauma Blair had put me through. She taught me how to let go of the things I couldn’t control.
” He pauses, looking at me for so long, I’m wondering if he’s not going to continue.
“You don’t need to tell me anything you’re not comfortable with.”
“It’s not that,” he says, and I feel like he means it.
“Rhona helped me see the things from my own childhood that were getting in the way of my healing. It took a long time, but we worked through some of it, and she challenged me to formulate characters that might represent some of the people in my life and tell stories to say the things I feel I need to say.”
The pieces click into place. “Leo and Johnnie. Liv and…Gavin?”
“Gavin John Mackenzie,” he tells me. “I’m not sure I could have been more transparent had I tried, but no one has seemed to notice. If they have, they haven’t said as much to me.”
“That’s incredible. So you used your therapy to create the books, then sold them to the BBC?”
“Not quite like that. The initial stories were much more therapeutic, but I realized I could use these characters to teach children the lessons I wished people had taught me. Things I think all children need to hear.”
“You are important. You have worth. It’s okay to make mistakes.” I’m not going to admit to him I read a bunch of his books after I found them in one of the bedrooms. The messages are subtly integrated into clever stories, but they’re there.
Gavin sits taller. “You’ve read them.”
“A few,” I say nonchalantly.
All of them. I’ve read every single one.
“Rhona’s cousin is an agent in London. After I wrote the first two books and showed them to her, she knew her cousin would love the books and connected us.
The rest is kind of history. It’s amazing how quickly everything took off, really.
I know I’m blessed, that this is a once-in-a-lifetime situation. ”
“It’s amazing, Gavin. Think of all the kids you’re helping. The lonely ones who need those reminders.” The ones whose parents forget about Christmas, I want to say. But we aren’t that close yet.
Not that we’ll ever be. I’m only here for two more weeks. For the first time, that thought makes me heavy and sad.
“You’ve overcome a lot. It’s amazing how you’ve used all that hardship to create something so good.”
“I’m not a saint, Callie. I have my faults.”
“Of course you do. You didn’t want to kiss me the first night you met me, remember?”
Gavin laughs, the deep, throaty sound filling the office. “A daft mistake.”
My chest gets fluttery, so I laugh to dispel the shakiness in my hands. He’s only joking. He must be.
“My depression near swallowed me whole, Callie. It wasn’t good. I’m constantly afraid of falling back into that dark place.”
“Which is why you’re so sunny and bright?” I guess.
“Maybe? It’s certainly why I’m careful not to be too negative.”
“Well, I don’t think anyone can blame you. Three years of practically being that little girl’s dad and then she’s ripped out of your life? That would mess up most people.”
He gives me a soft smile, his eyes raking over my face. We’re sitting on opposite sides of the small room, but I feel like he’s right beside me. Like if I reach out, I’ll be able to touch him.
“Blair came back after Leo and Johnnie made it to the telly. My parents had almost lost the house and asked me if I could buy it to keep it from the bank, so I had moved back here alone. Blair brought Liv to see me. She was six.”
“Was it good to see her?”
“I thought so, but it was clear fairly quickly Blair wasn’t interested in me as much as my newfound success.
Liv was sweet, but she didn’t remember me.
It broke my heart. I told Blair I wanted to be part of Liv’s life, but I couldn’t be with her again.
When she realized she wouldn’t get anything out of me, she left.
I haven’t seen Liv since. When Blair comes back to town to see her parents, she doesn’t bring Liv. ”
“Is she punishing you?”
“Feels like it, but I don’t know. I’ve had to move on and put it behind me. I can’t control them. I have no power where Liv is concerned.”
“I can see why Katie and Nat wanted to kick her out last night.”
“Katie can be protective. She fancies herself my older sister.”
Well, I like the sound of that kind of relationship. “Next time we see Blair, we should make her extremely jealous.”
Gavin laughs. “I lost the desire to be vindictive years ago, but I don’t mind keeping her away. She’s relentless, and I can be weak.”
“That’s not a word I would associate with you.”
He shakes his head softly, but his eyes don’t leave mine. “You didn’t see me at my lowest, lass.”
“Your measurement for strength might be broken. It’s not how low life brings you, but how you respond to it. How many times have you picked yourself up and kept trying? How many hard days do you stick on that cheery smile even when things have felt heavy?”
“Not all of them. I let the darkness swallow me whole for almost a year. It was unrelenting. Granny near moved in, she was that worried about what would happen if I was left on my own.”
There’s something about the way Gavin says this that strikes a chord within me, humming through the room like a deep cello. He’s saying these things and watching me so closely, like he expects me to react—to cringe, maybe? To run for the snowy hills?
I rise, crossing the small room to sit on the brown sofa beside him.
He needs to be able to see the individual flecks in my eyes when I tell him this.
It’s important Gavin senses my honesty. “You won’t scare me away, you know.
I’m familiar with the chokehold depression can have on a person.
I’ve watched my best friend struggle with it on and off over the years.
It doesn’t diminish your worth. Depression wasn’t who you were—or are, for that matter.
It’s something you deal with. Just like I deal with an intolerance to fish. ”
Gavin laughs. “Quite the same thing.”
I shrug. “Mine smells worse, but they’re both things we have no control over. I can’t help how strongly I despise seafood. I didn’t choose this. It was thrust upon me.”
He nods slowly, his gaze raking over my face. “You’re a tolerant person, aren’t you, Callie Winter?”
“Is that a nice way of saying that I put up with a lot? It’s not tolerance to love someone who suffers. That’s just love.”
Gavin’s entire body grows still.
Lest he misunderstand me and kicks me out for fear I’ll become a stalker and try to maul him again, I continue.
“Bekah, my best friend, is a lot like you, you know. She’s a ball of sunshine when she’s not down in a funk.
I take her as she is every day, and our relationship isn’t transactional.
She doesn’t have to do anything to earn my friendship.
When she’s struggling, I’m there for her however I can be, and I give her space when she needs it. ”
“She’s lucky to have you.”
“Sounds like Glenbruar is lucky to have you,” I counter.
He nods. “I have a handful of Callies here, too.” Gavin looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t.
I hold still, keeping quiet to leave room for him to speak.
I’ll sacrifice more essay-writing time if it means hearing from him, but he just lets out a long, weary sigh.
“Fancy a cuppa, then? I’ll stick the kettle on while you get started. Password’s johnnieboy, all lowercase.”
“That would be great.”
I’m still trying to catch my breath when he leaves, but he’s right. It’s time to get to work.