Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
GAVIN
“What can I help you with?” Dad asks, blinking at me.
I lift the Echo device. “Mrs. Winter wants festive music while she works in the kitchen, so I’m bringing this down.”
“We used to have the wireless in there.”
“I think you took it when you moved out.”
“Right.” He smiles expectantly.
I don’t move. Isn’t he going to bring up the campervan I saw on his computer? Or the laptop sitting here that he didn’t mention the other night when he was in my office? Or the fact that his campervan is missing? Or where he and Mum have been spending their days?
Or why he’s chosen to stay here all of a sudden when he’s wanted nothing to do with me or this house for three years?
“Is dinner almost ready?” Dad asks.
“No, not really. Ruby has something in the slow cooker, but Maeve is working on caramels now. Tom is going to make fudge, I’ve heard.”
“Delicious.”
I want to scream. This is ridiculous. We both know about him looking at the campervan sales lot near Inverness; it’s where Dad bought their first van.
He saw me looking at the laptop. He caught me red-handed.
Now we’re going to pretend nothing happened?
Just let the massive elephant sit in the room and say nothing?
“Well,” Dad says, in that way that means the word as a complete sentence. He rocks back on his heels, waiting for me to vacate the room.
Clarity slams into me. He’s the parent, the adult, and this is his secret to share, whatever it is. Yet, if it’s going to be discussed, it’s on my shoulders to bring it up. He never will.
I’m reeling from the elephant itself, but also from the discovery that I have to lasso it with a rope and lead it around with me until I’m ready to swallow my reservations and say something. Dad gets to walk away, evidently, with no worries at all.
How does he do it?
I give a nod, though I’m not sure why, and step around him to return downstairs. When I pass through the living room, Mum is telling a story, her arms waving about as she draws them in. She’s charismatic, and she has a way of bringing people onto her team.
“Gavin,” Hamish calls from the couch.
I stall near the door, but lift the device. “Just need to plug this in.”
I can’t stand to remain behind a moment longer. My limbs feel jittery and anxious. Everything about this is off. I’m fed up, and with a house full of guests, this is the wrong time for things to come to a head.
It’s not easy to find a spot out of the way for the Echo to sit, but I manage to sneak it behind the jam drops.
“Thank you, Gavin.” Maeve throws her arm around my back and pulls me in for a quick side hug. “You’ve been so kind to open your home to us. I want to adopt you as an honorary Winter for the season.”
Adopt me. I used to wish Granny would do that, but then I would feel guilty for the thought and push it away. I know she’s joking, but right now I want to accept.
“Mom, we talked about this,” Callie says.
“Sorry, sorry.” Maeve gives another squeeze and lets me go. She returns to the stove to stir the pot. “It’s the holidays. They make me all sentimental.”
“I think they do that to most people.” I give her a commiserating smile before commanding Alexa to play classic Christmas music. It starts with “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
“We’re here,” Granny says, pushing the door open. She’s put her hair back into some sort of neat knot and changed her jumper out for a burgundy one that doesn’t quite swallow her up as much. “What can I do to help?”
“Welcome! We’ll need all the house decor poured into bowls,” Maeve says, gesturing to the grocery sacks sitting on the end of the table full of sweets.
Granny pulls me in for a hug and kisses my cheek. “Grandad is out there arguing with your mum about the stockings. Violet is concerned that there aren’t any hanging from the mantelpiece, if you want to manage the situation.”
Callie looks sharply in my direction.
“We never hang them anymore,” I say. “But the hooks are out. Ruby can put up the girls’ stockings. Everyone can hang theirs if they’d like.”
Granny shrugs. “Christmas Eve is tomorrow, so she must be feeling the urgency.”
“Can you blame her?” Maeve asks. “Wouldn’t want her to worry about Santa skipping her house. She’s already so far from home.”
“True,” Callie says, watching me carefully.
I want to tell her I’m doing fine, but my body feels like a storm is raging internally, so maybe that’s not entirely true. The back door through the boot room is practically singing to me.
Mum’s laugh echoes through the front room, making my limbs tense. She’s chosen to be present this evening, apparently. It should be a good thing, but I can already see it’s going to be a show, much like the night she and Dad had dinner here with Callie. Only then I was in a healthier state of mind.
I don’t know if I can take it right now.
The door swings open and Mum comes in, wrapped in flannel and still wearing her boots. “We had the most extraordinary lunch today. I was just telling Hamish all about it. You’ll have to let us take you sometime, Gav.”
I nod, because I don’t trust myself to open my mouth and say anything normal.
“You’ll never guess who we ran into. All the way in Inverness, and we step into this little shop for lunch, and there’s Blair eating with her little girl.” Mum snaps her fingers, looking to the ceiling for help. “I can’t remember her name.”
My entire body freezes like an ice sculpture. She was practically Liv’s grandmother for a few years. The child left a hole in my heart the size of the North Sea, and my mum can’t even remember her name? Fury spreads through me, white hot and lethal, but it’s laced with pain.
“Liv,” I say.
“Right. Liv was there. Cutest wee thing, she is. I invited them to join us for dinner, but Blair said they’re returning home tonight. Something about wanting to spend Christmas in their house.” She shrugs as though this is a strange concept.
The strange concept is inviting your son’s ex to his house for dinner without asking him first. She’s fully aware of the emotional roller coaster that woman put me on.
Worse, despite all of that, my hopes soared for the briefest moment that I’d get to see Liv before they crashed again on the rocks. Why didn’t she stay with her dad until Christmas like they had planned? I don’t get to ask these things, to find out the answer, and it hurts.
“That’s nice,” Maeve says, dropping a spoonful of her caramels into a glass of cold water and watching it closely. I don’t know why she’s doing that, but I assume it’s part of the process and not something she’s doing for fun. “What took you to Inverness?”
“Oh, looking at a new vehicle.”
The kitchen had already grown too hot, but this adds petrol to the flames. I can’t take it anymore. If Mum is going to ask me to buy her a new campervan, it’s not going to happen in front of any of my guests. I’m glad none of them seem to feel the tension radiating off me in waves.
“I need to bring the horses in.” I slip around the women and head straight through the boot room, stopping long enough only to stuff my feet into some wellies before letting myself outside.
My breath mists the air immediately and my open skin prickles in the frigid air.
I was a right eejit coming out here without my coat.
I stuff my hands into my pockets and trudge across the back garden.
There’s no way I’m returning to the house. Not while I can breathe in this freedom and fresh air. My heart hammers in my chest, banging against my lungs. By the time I make it out to where Elephant and Piggie are roaming, I’m breathing like I ran all the way from the castle.
Moonlight shines over my horses, and it doesn’t take much coaxing to get them to follow me to the barn, because they know it means dinner.
Piggie neighs, nipping at my shoulder, and I brush her aside.
I’m so overwhelmed, I can’t manage another thing right now.
Not even my playful horse, which feels unfair to her.
I stop walking and run my hand down her mane. “Sorry, lass.”
“I have a feeling you’re not talking to me.”
That American accent has become like a second voice in my head the last few days, so I wonder—very briefly—if I’m imagining it before I make out Callie’s silhouette coming my direction. “Is there something I need to apologize for?”
She holds out something that looks suspiciously like my coat. “Maybe running outside without proper winter gear? You’ll catch your death out here. If that’s a thing. Is that really a thing, or just something moms say to make us wear coats?”
“I don’t know.”
Callie drops her head to the side, the light shining in her brown eyes. She inhales, letting out a heavy breath, then holds up my coat. “Here.”
“Thank you.” I slide my arms into it and feel instant relief. It’s far too cold to be out here unprepared. “That was childish, but I was overwhelmed.”
“You don’t need to explain yourself, and you definitely don’t need to put yourself down, Gavin. You’re entitled to your emotions.”
I draw in a shuddering breath, sensing at any moment the dam will break and a flood will bury her if she isn’t careful. “You make it easy to be vulnerable.”
“You don’t have to talk to me,” she says. “I’ll leave you in peace. I just wanted to bring your coat.”
“Will you stay?” The words are out of my mouth before I consciously think how badly I want her to remain. The last thing I need is to be left alone with my thoughts. Certainly it will spiral me down a dark hole that I’m better steering clear of.
“Of course I will.”
“We should feed these two.” I rub Piggie’s neck again and nod toward the barn. “Was my mum upset when I left?”
“No. She didn’t seem bothered at all.”
“Good.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Yes. Evidently I do. This woman feels safe, and it’s been so long since I’ve had someone like that to confide in. I do have Rory, of course, but I can’t draw him away from his family now. I could never bother Rhona outside of business hours.
While my granny has always been on my side, Mum is her daughter, which has made our relationship tricky at times. She’s torn between us, and I try to respect that. Callie is heaven-sent—in more ways than one.
“You know of the complex past I’ve had with my parents.
I didn’t mean to, but I found the campervan they’ve been eyeing.
It’s eighty thousand pounds, Callie. If I had any hope they planned to buy something themselves, that doused it.
The payments I give them biannually could never cover something so grand. ”
Callie’s hands are in her pockets, her puffy coat swishing with every step she takes. “That’s a lot to expect from you.”
“To be fair, they haven’t asked. But my dad found me looking at it and said nothing.
It’s hard to be in a relationship without communication.
They don’t speak of things, which wouldn’t be terrible, except it means they brush everything under the rug.
I can’t force them to talk to me, of course.
But I live in constant fear that I’ll wake up one of these mornings and they’ll be gone for good.
” Maybe that should give me a measure of peace, but no man wants to lose a relationship with his parents entirely.
“Is that how they typically operate?”
“They don’t ever stay here, but aye, they leave on a whim.
We make plans, they don’t arrive, and I get a text a few days later that they’re in Ireland or Wales or down in Yorkshire.
” I unlatch the barn gate and swing it open for Elephant and Piggie to walk inside.
They go directly to their stalls as I flip the switch, an orange light glowing weakly overhead.
Callie follows us in and closes the horse’s stall doors. “That sounds incredibly unstable and erratic.”
I climb the ladder to the hayloft and start to pitch the hay into Elephant’s trough before moving on to Piggie’s. When I get back down to the ground level, I find Callie leaning on Piggie’s stall door, watching her eat.
She turns around and holds my eyes as I approach her. “You have a right to fight for yourself and set boundaries, remember?”
“Aye, Callie, I mind our conversation from yesterday.”
Her mouth quirks into a smile. “Did you feel any desire to talk to them about boundaries today?”
“It’s frightening. There’s a risk of putting my parents off me, and two days before Christmas…”
“It’s understandable to hesitate.” She shrugs. “You have to do the right thing for you.”
How easily Callie accepts my feelings and thoughts makes affection surge within me. “Right now, the only thing I want to do is stay here with you and not think about my parents anymore.”
Her brown eyes dart to mine. The mood shifts, as though the air itself now holds a static charge. She swallows, and when she speaks again, her voice is quiet. “If you want a distraction, you could always help me mark another thing from my bucket list.”
It takes all my self control not to pull her into my arms. “Anything, Callie.”