Chapter Fourteen #2
“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask. Sam tenses at my clipped tone, but, even though it’s obvious to him, the stranger doesn’t seem to notice, greeting me with a wave.
“I’ve got tokens from five different countries here,” he says proudly, not even pausing as he continues to tie bag after bag to the branches.
There’s a green ribbon brooch on his T-shirt, a sign of one of Dad’s fan clubs.
Either he or someone else has done the same to another tree behind him, and my stomach clenches at the sight. How many of them have been coming?
“This is private property,” I tell him, but as soon as I do, a younger woman comes marching into view, wearing a I wish I was in Ravian T-shirt.
“Dad, I couldn’t find the postcards you— Oh my God.” She stops a few feet away, gawking at me. “No way.”
I try again. “You are trespassing on private—”
“That’s Ciara Sheridan,” she says to the man as if I can’t hear her. “Dad.”
“Is it?” he asks, looking at me with renewed interest. “I thought she moved to France.”
“She is right here,” I say, practically seething. It’s been months since I’ve had to deal with this and, unluckily for them, I no longer have the patience.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t the best time,” Sam begins in an incredibly friendly tone. Still, neither of them pays him any attention as the woman scrambles to take out her phone. She angles it straight at me, with the house in the background, and I snap.
It’s as though all those social rules, everything that’s been drilled into me since I was a child, go flying out the window as I bat the phone from her hand in a clean strike that sends it tumbling to the ground.
“Hey!” The woman glares at me as she stoops to pick it up, but I have run out of fucks to give.
“Private. Property,” I repeat. “Didn’t you see the sign? Get rid of all this stuff, and get out of here before I call the police.”
“You don’t have to be so rude,” she says, astonished, but I don’t wait to hear another word as I turn on my heel and march back to the house.
Sam stays behind to speak with them. I know he does because I’m already back in the office, seething in my chair, when I hear him come through the front door.
A glance out the window shows me the people are still there, but at least it’s because they’re doing what I told them to do and removing all the plastic they were about to leave behind.
I fold my arms, vindicated yet defensive as Sam appears in the doorway.
“Ciara—”
“Don’t.”
“I know they’re overstepping, but you really can’t talk to your readers like that.”
“They’re not mine! They’re his.”
“They will be yours,” he says, his voice infuriatingly calm, and I’m so ticked off by it that all I can do is throw my hands in the air in a whadda you want from me gesture. It’s a truly stunning comeback. One that probably turns my face bright pink, but hopefully he’ll think that’s from the sun.
I try again. “They always think they can just do what they like,” I say. “As if they have a right to this place.” A right to me. Familiar anxiety grips me. One that had started to fade these past few days but now comes roaring back with a vengeance as I remember what I’ve signed myself up to.
“I don’t have the same relationship as he did with his fans,” I explain. Sam frowns at me, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. “There’s a reason I published under a pen name.”
“I understand, but—”
“You don’t,” I interrupt. “You don’t even believe me.
Not really. I told you how some of them tore me apart when my name was leaked.
There were whole forums dedicated to how I didn’t compare to my dad or how I didn’t deserve to get a publishing deal, and it’s all going to start back up again as soon as we announce it and I know that and I’ll be ready for it, but it’s still a lot to deal with.
” I take a much-needed breath, aware I’m starting to rant.
“I love these books,” I tell him. “I do. And I want to write a good ending and I want to make people happy, I want to make Dad proud. But I’m not putting myself through that again. I need boundaries.”
Sam’s quiet for a long moment. His face serious, his eyes narrowed in thought. “Okay,” he says. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t get it.”
His words are sympathetic, and I don’t know if he’s disappointed in me or just realizing what he’s going to have to deal with, but a silence stretches between us that makes me want to fidget.
“I guess now’s a bad time to tell you about my other surprise,” I add weakly.
Sam just looks at me.
“I thought we could take some time out tomorrow. There’re some old castle ruins that Dad based the original fort on. I was going to take some pictures if you want to come with?”
It’s something I’ve been planning for a few days. The church was step one, the statue step two. But this? This is boss-level, and I’m starting to get a real kick out of seeing Sam’s inner fanboy come through. Something I never thought I’d want.
But Sam doesn’t answer straightaway. He’s got this strained look on his face that I don’t like one bit. “I can’t,” he says eventually. “It’s…I’m busy.”
“Oh.” My disappointment must be obvious because Sam grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Sorry, I should have said something.”
“That’s okay.”
“Sorry,” he says again, and it’s as though he can see right through me. My smile becomes strained.
“It’s fine,” I say, just a little too curt. “I’ll go by myself. I’m used to it.”
I turn purposefully to my laptop and type randomly until Sam stops dawdling and returns to his spot on the couch.
Which only makes me even more annoyed. I don’t know when I started thinking of it as his spot, but I don’t like that I do.
I don’t like anything right now, and Sam must realize this, because he takes the hint.
Or maybe he just wants to get out before I have another meltdown.
In any case, he doesn’t stick around, barely lasting another five minutes before making up some excuse about emails and running out the door.
Well, walking out the door. But I could tell he wanted to run.
I wait until I hear him drive off before I stop typing, my frustration rising as I force myself to focus on the screen.
The faint smell of heather wSA THE FIRST SIGN THAT FINN WAS THROUGH THE WOODS. THHAT HE WAS HOME. THe honey sweets cent tickled nos nose and he;;ihed—
Christ.
I flick the laptop lid closed and stare unseeing at the wall.
It’s not like the guy doesn’t deserve a day off.
God knows he’s been working his ass off on this book ever since he came here.
It’s just that I wasn’t thinking of the castle as a book thing.
I was thinking of it as a…as…I don’t know.
Normal. Not work. Though I guess all things with me are work things to him.
Whatever. He’s here to work. I’m here to work. We’re all one big working family.
I reopen the laptop and get happy with the backspace, accidentally deleting a whole paragraph before I fix it and start again.
The faint smell of heather was the first sign that Finn was through the woods.
That he was home. The honey-sweet scent tickled his nose and reminded him of when he was a child, collecting armfuls of the plant for the old apothecary.
It was a scent that told him he would soon see his mentor. His family. His friends.
And yet.
I sip my now warm lemonade and slump down in the chair, settling in for the long haul.
And yet, despite how far he had travelled, despite the welcome he knew he was about to receive, as Finn began the final leg of his journey back to where he’d started from, he couldn’t ignore the hollowness in his heart. The faint ache in his chest.
The slow, painful realisation that he’d never felt lonelier in his life.