Keepsakes from the Cottage by the Loch (Loch Cameron #6)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

We were inseparable.

I don’t remember the day that we met, but my mum told me that it was the first day of nursery school. On that day, Ramsay was playing by himself in a corner. He had a dark bruise on his cheekbone, Mum said.

Ramsay always had bruises.

Apparently, I went over to him and gave him a hug. Maybe it was the bruise that made me do it, even though I wouldn’t have known what a bruise was at that age. I certainly wouldn’t have understood why he had one on his face.

We started playing together, and we were best friends from that day on.

Then, when we were in high school, Ramsay was walking me home one night – we’d gone for a walk up on Queen’s Point – and he kissed me. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. I had loved Ramsay Fraser for as long as I could remember.

I was his safe place. That was what he told me, over and over, as the years passed. My family was his real family. The family of his heart. He spent as much time as he could at my house, helping my parents at the Inn on weekends, just happy to be there. He always said, one day, I want a family of my own. Just like yours. I felt the same, and I never imagined having that family with anyone else other than him.

We toured Scotland as Highland dancing champions. We were never apart. I thought we would be together forever. He was the other part of me. With Ramsay, I felt whole.

But, just before we went to university, we argued. I think that I was afraid of letting him go: we’d never been apart, and, suddenly, he was going to Edinburgh, and I was going to Glasgow. He had said, don’t worry, hen, we’ll still see each other. You’ll always be the home in my heart.

But I was so afraid that I’d lose him, I told him that I wanted us to end things. I said that we should both be free at university. We shouldn’t be beholden to each other in a time when everything was new. I was stupid, and proud.

I’ll never forget the look on his face. If that’s what you want, hen , he said. But please know that I’d wait for you. I’d wait forever.

That first Christmas, we both came home, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’d missed him so badly, that whole first term. I’d hated being away.

We got back together again: he’d missed me too. We’d both been stupid to believe that we could ever be apart. Even if we had to be at different universities, then we could still see each other when we could, and talk, and email, and be the other’s missing half.

That New Year’s Eve, Ramsay proposed to me on Queen’s Point, overlooking Loch Cameron. He reached up to his neck and took off his half of a heart pendant we’d both worn since we were teenagers, or even before then. It was the first time, to my knowledge, that he’d taken it off: he handed it to me solemnly and said, now you have my whole heart. I’ll get you a ring, though. As soon as I can.

Of course, I said yes. I was so full of love for him, and in love with the idea of our future together. We both wanted the same things: we wanted to win the international Highland dance competition, travel, then get good jobs – structural engineering for him, teaching for me. I fantasised about teaching at the same little primary school in the village that we’d both gone to. Then, a home in Loch Cameron. Two children. All the simple happiness that anyone wants.

To me, a ring wasn’t the goal. The simple gesture of him giving his half of the necklace to me was what I still remember, all these years later. That meant so much more to me than any size of diamond.

Yet, three months later, Ramsay Fraser disappeared from my life, never to return.

I was heartbroken. The centre of my whole life had fallen apart, and no one could give me an explanation.

It was a betrayal of all our dreams – everything we’d planned for our future.

And, though I never said it to anyone, I knew it was my fault. And knowing that – the secret I’ve kept ever since – broke my heart, savagely and completely.