Chapter 31
31
Fraser couldn’t avoid the cabin forever. He did, after all, have wood to chop and furniture to craft if he was going to make a go of his new business. His fingers trembled on the steering wheel as he parked outside his gate, and after pulling his keys from the ignition, he urged Bernard onto his lap to bury his head in his fur.
“What am I going to do, Bern?” he whispered, scratching his pointy ears.
Bernard put his paw on the window as though pointing to the cabin and saying, Just go inside and ask her how she is, you plonker.
“I can’t do that. I have to let go of all this now,” Fraser argued, resting his temple on the cool windowpane. Rain pattered down, adding loud white noise to his conflicted brain chatter. “She’s going. Any day now. And she’s not good for me. Everybody else needs me, too!”
Bernard whined.
“I know, but it was my fault she got hurt, so I’m clearly no good for her either. And we just… we can’t keep giving each other so much when it can’t lead to anything. All it does is hurt. I don’t have time to be hurt.”
Closing his eyes, Fraser shook his head. I’m monologuing to my bloody dog now. That’s how ridiculous this woman has made me.
Clearly, his sad little speech had bored Bernard, because he placed his paw on the door handle, swung it open and rushed out. He pushed the unlocked gate open and sprinted straight to the cabin, where his new favourite person resided.
A rock buried in Fraser’s chest. Even his dog wanted to keep her here. He would be furious if Bernard started showing signs of separation anxiety once Harper returned to Manchester.
When Bernard barked at the door impatiently, Fraser forced himself out of the truck. The soil squelched against his boots as icy rain ran down his face. He marched up the porch steps and knocked on the door. Like yesterday, there was no reply, and that same panic returned like a gale-force wind.
“Harper. Answer the door, please,” he called.
She didn’t. Probably still angry at him, which she had every right to be. Maybe she’d already headed out to write, but he’d hoped she might be tucked up in bed, recovering properly, so that he wouldn’t have to fret about her health for another day and night.
Impatiently, Bernard hopped up on his hind legs, lowering the door handle. It creaked open to reveal an empty cabin.
Her things were gone. The blanket she’d kept on his couch. The collection of coats she’d hung on his door.
His stomach dropped. He strode in on shaking knees, going straight to the bedroom.
The sheets were made neatly, pillows plumped in place. No suitcase, no clothes, no her.
She was gone.
Fraser opened his mouth to swear, but no sound came out. If he had felt broken yesterday, he felt ruined now. He went back into the living room, convinced that if he just looked again, he’d find proof that she was still there. That she hadn’t just left without saying goodbye.
All he found instead was an envelope on the coffee table. He sank onto the couch and grabbed it, tracing the letters on the back.
Thank you for everything.
Her curly handwriting had become as familiar to him as his own after so many weeks of watching her plan in that little notebook, fluffy pen in hand. The envelope was heavy: bank notes, he realised, filled it. Her week’s rent, and surely extra, along with the key to his cabin.
Gone. She was really gone.
He dug his palms into his eyes, trying to force his breathing to remain steady, but it was hard when he felt like something had been ripped from him. He’d known it would hurt, but not this much. This, he’d never be able to protect himself from. No amount of caution could have prevented it.
Bernard whimpered quietly, nuzzling beneath Fraser’s hands to lick his chin.
“She’s gone, bud,” he rasped. “Sorry. It’s my fault.”
He couldn’t blame her for it, either. He’d been a bawbag yesterday, and had spent the night feeling sick as he replayed his own stiff responses in his head. And for what? He was still on the brink of tears. Pushing her away hadn’t saved him from feeling pain or abandonment.
If anything, it made it worse. She didn’t know what she meant to him. She didn’t know how badly he’d miss her.
Leaning back on the couch, Fraser wrapped his arms around his torso as though he could contain the hurt. It spilled out anyway, making it hard to catch a full breath. What now? Would he just have to carry on with his day, even though he was heartbroken?
A sharp corner jutted into his hip. He sighed, reaching under the cushion to yank it away – and froze when he felt cool metal.
He recognised the smooth matte rose-gold instantly. Her laptop. She’d left her laptop.
Though he knew it was wrong, a kernel of hope grew inside him. This gave her a reason to come back. Besides, she’d said she would be here for Flockhart’s reopening and Fraser’s launch. Surely, even if she didn’t want to see him, she’d return for the sake of the friends she’d made. To say goodbye.
His hands shook as he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the laptop, opening their short text thread. They hadn’t needed to message one another much, seeing as they were usually together.
You left something, he typed quickly.
He sent the picture, laying his hand atop the lid as though it was a living, breathing thing. A tangible piece of her he could hold onto until she came back.
The three dots indicating that she was typing appeared. Stopped. Started.
Stopped.
He waited like a fool for minutes, expecting them to return, but they didn’t.
In the end, the reply never came.
“You’re late. Again,” Andy said, offering a reproachful glance as Fraser walked into Flockhart’s. Andy stood behind the brand-new front desk, which Jack and Fraser had built together but not yet painted. To Andy’s left, Jack hammered away at the frame of the new arched doorway to the dining room. The reception area might not have been finished quite yet, but it already felt much brighter and airier, drawing light from the dining room windows and giving a view of the old tree swing in the garden.
“Slacker,” Jack muttered, winking at Fraser before stepping down the ladder.
“Got caught up with something.” Fraser’s jaw ticked with a tension he couldn’t dissolve. He unfastened Bernard’s lead so the dog could roam freely, then set down his toolbox on the desk. On top of it lay Harper’s laptop. He hadn’t been able to just leave it. She didn’t have a key to the cabin, and what if she was on her way back for it now?
Deep down, he knew this was unlikely. Knew that he was just grasping for hope where it didn’t exist. He didn’t even know what he’d say to her if she did come back. “Sorry that your near-death experience sent me spiralling into a pit of self-loathing”? “Sorry that I care so much that I’m too afraid to be with you, too afraid to get my heart broken”? “Sorry I’m a fucking prick who doesn’t know what to do with all the things you make me feel”?
Nothing he said would change the truth: that he was a coward.
“Something, or some one ?” Andy asked, their hazel eyes sparkling.
He ignored them. “Where do you want me?”
“Uh oh. He’s cocked up. I can tell.” Jack rubbed his hands together as though he quite enjoyed the idea. “First fight already? That must be a record.”
Fraser’s nostrils flared as he tried to keep his breathing even. He didn’t need this today. He just wanted to work so he wouldn’t spend hours, days, weeks thinking about her. He just wanted this weight on his chest to be lifted.
“Oh, shite,” Andy whispered, ducking their head to look up at him properly. “What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fraser—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he uttered sharply, cutting them off.
Jack raised his brows in surprise. Andy stepped back, surrendering.
The uncomfortable silence soon grew stifling, and Fraser almost wanted to shout it out then and there. She’s gone. She’s left me. It’s all my fault.
Instead, he gripped his tape measure, snapping it open to figure out how long the skirting boards would need to be across the newly constructed staircase.
Working didn’t help any. In no time, he was reimagining that last interaction they’d shared. He’d dropped her off outside the cabin, hospital band still wrapped around her wrist. They’d barely spoken – because of him. Because he’d pulled away.
“Goodbye, Fraser,” she’d murmured.
He’d only grunted out a “See you”, relieved when she’d disappeared inside. He’d wondered what was wrong with him to react so drastically to what he knew was an accident. Why couldn’t he just suck it up, take the good with the bad the way most people did? Why was he so unbearably afraid of what he felt?
“Fuck!” A searing pain bit into his finger. In his distraction, he’d placed his hand too close to the bloody saw, and now blood gushed from the tip. “Fucking eejit. Stupid fucking eejit!” Anger rushed through him without warning, and he kicked the closest thing he could find: Jack’s box of tools.
Clutching his hand to his chest, he let out a guttural shout, no longer knowing if it was the pain in his finger driving him, or the one in his chest. He was just tired of this day. Tired of himself. Tired of everything. A week ago, he’d been happier than he’d ever known possible. Now, he was broken.
“Jesus, Fraser, stay still.” Andy rushed to him, grabbing his wrist firmly. “Let me look.” Their brows knitted in worry as they prised his hand away from his shirt, where already rusty blood stained the fabric. It trickled down his knuckles, and he stared at it without really seeing it, his breaths reduced to shallow gasps.
“Jack, get us a cloth or something,” Andy demanded.
A moment later, a towel was thrown their way. With shaking fingers, Andy wrapped his hand up. “Fraser, just breathe,” they said softly. “You’re all right, pal. I don’t think it’s that deep.”
But it was. It was so deep that he didn’t know where to go next. It was so deep that he saw her everywhere he looked: painting the wall by the staircase, tapping on her keyboard in the dining room, crouched lovingly beside Bernard.
“ Fraser ,” Andy repeated.
He was sweating. When had he started sweating?
Andy sighed, turning to Jack again. “There’s a first aid kit in the kitchen cupboard. Could you get it, please?”
“Aye, of course.” Jack left the room.
Gently, Andy guided Fraser backwards. “Sit down on the stairs. You look like you’re going to pass out on me.”
He felt like it, growing dizzy. Together, they lowered onto the third step, knees bumping as Andy edged closer to inspect his finger. He worked up the courage to look at it, glad to find the blood flow was already slowing.
Andy breathed a sigh of relief. “It isn’t as deep as it looked. You just caught the tip.” Pressure squeezed around his shoulder, and it took him a moment to realise it was Andy’s hand soothing him. “Fraser, what the fuck is going on with you? You don’t make mistakes.”
“I do, actually.” His voice cracked. “Big ones.”
Rattles emerged from the kitchen, echoing down the empty hallway. Clearly, Jack was having trouble finding the first aid kit.
Fraser was glad. Andy seeing him like this was one thing, but Jack… He wouldn’t get it.
He wasn’t sure anybody would.
“What’ve you done? Where is Harper?” Andy asked, face creased with concern.
He shook his head. “Gone. She’s gone home.”
“ Why ?”
“I told her to. She had a job interview back in Manchester.”
“But she didn’t say anything to me,” Andy said. “We were planning the reopening!”
“Because she wasn’t going to leave so soon until I drove her away.” Bitterness seeped into his tone, burning his tongue like acid. “I freaked out.”
Andy blinked. “That much is clear.”
“I started caring too much.”
“Is that a bad thing?” They cocked their head. “You’ve always cared too much. About everyone. You’re the first person anybody in this town calls when they need help.”
“Exactly. I feel like I’m always worrying about something. Mum, or my sisters, you and this place. If I care this much about someone else, about someone who isn’t family, how am I supposed to keep the rest of my life together?” He pressed his lips into a fine, miserable line, the corner of his mouth trembling. “My family needs me, and I can’t...” He sniffed, wiping his cheek with the back of his uninjured hand. It came away damp. “I can just about hold it together for them, but for her?” A sad chuckle. “For her, I’m already fucking ruined.”
“Oh, you silly, silly boy.” Andy shook their head slowly, placing his bloody hand in theirs. “You silly, silly, silly boy.”
“I’m really glad I chose you to confide in. You always know the right thing to say,” he groused.
They tutted, though their expression was laced with sympathy. “Fraser. Why do you think I stay far, far away from relationships?”
“Because you have a cold, cold heart?”
“Yes, but no. Because I have a B&B to run, and it’s sort of hard work.” They lowered their gaze to his hand, applying more pressure with the towel. “If somebody made me feel the way she makes you feel, mad enough to cut my bloody finger off, I would be terrified, too. I wouldn’t be brave enough to let them all the way in, not even into this place, even if it would be better run with a partner like my parents did it. But this is my home, and it’s all I’ve ever known, and why would I risk someone hurting not just me, but this, too?”
“Here it is!” Jack startled both of them, emerging from the kitchen with the green first aid kit in his hand. He placed it beside them on the step, scratching his rough beard. “Should I call an ambulance, or what?”
“No. Sit down. We’re having an intervention,” Andy demanded.
Fraser groaned.
Jack obeyed.
As Andy opened the kit and produced a packet of bandages, they continued, “Fraser has chased off the woman he loves because he is scared.”
“Uh oh. That’s a very bloke-ish thing to do, mate.”
That was an insult, as far as he was concerned. Fraser prided himself on not being a bloke, or at least not a typical one. Not like Jack and his series of unfortunate escapades featuring too much beer, and too many lasses whose names he couldn’t remember.
He winced as Andy wiped down his wound, revealing the gash beneath the blood. It wasn’t deep enough to warrant stitches – or so he told himself. Two hospital trips in as many days would be excessive. He was sure Sorcha would help him out later, not before reprimanding him for being an incompetent tube.
“He thinks that he has too many people to take care of, and being with Harper would be too much,” Andy informed as though he wasn’t there at all. “Of course, this is an absolutely bonkers assessment.”
“Absolutely,” Jack agreed solemnly. Then frowned. “Why?”
“ Because ,” Andy locked their gaze on Fraser’s, “his family and friends are quite capable of looking after themselves, even if he is a very kind, supportive individual skilled at taking care of people and places.”
He rolled his eyes. “My sister is barely holding it together.”
“Well, that’s not true. Your sister went out on Saturday and had a nice wee day with her kids and her new friend, Harper. I saw her smiling with my own eyes.”
“My mum raised us all on her own!” he reminded Andy. “She needs help, too!”
“She needed help when you were kids. Now, she lives with her daughter and three grandchildren. I reckon when she needs an extra set of hands, she’ll ask for it. Don’t you?” Andy said sternly.
He glowered, hating that they made it sound so simple. So easy. “She has her own health issues. Living with arthritis isn’t easy for her.”
“Good thing a team of doctors and support workers, as well as all three of her children, are helping her with that,” Andy retorted. “Please, do continue with the excuses.”
He was having trouble finding any more, honestly. He looked to Jack for help, but he only shrugged. “You’re on your own, mate.”
“There’s work,” Fraser decided. “I’m always working.”
“Oh, yeah, with that business that Harper herself helped you set up .”
His friend was impossible. He was quite sick of their rationality, honestly. Usually, it was Andy’s job to be unreasonable, and his job to talk them down.
“ And ,” Andy cut in before he could say more, “don’t you dare use this place as an excuse, either. I know I’ve been hard on you, but most of it was either in jest or a ‘me’ problem, and I suppose I didn’t actually realise how much of a nitwit you are. By that, I mean how much you choose to put on your plate, beyond what we ask of you.”
They bit through some tape, wrapping it around Fraser’s bandages. Then, they softened. “I’m sorry for that. You’ve done more for me than I know how to thank you for, and I never meant to make it seem otherwise.”
“Now I know something’s wrong. Andy is apologising,” he murmured.
“Honestly, I’m getting a wee bit uncomfortable.” Jack tugged at the collar of his shirt with a grimace. “We’re not going to start singing around a campfire, are we?”
“Grow up. This is how adults talk,” Andy snapped. “By the way, I hate it when you make me act emotionally intelligent. I’m supposed to be the moody eejit, not you.” They poked Fraser in the shoulder. “So do me a favour. Put your big girl pants on and tell the bloody woman you love her. Yes, it is scary, and yes, I too would shite myself, but she made you happy. More importantly, she made me happy. Her paintwork was actually very good!” They motioned to the walls behind them, now a smooth, creamy shade of orchid white.
Fraser rolled his eyes. “It isn’t that simple. She lives in Manchester.”
“Oh, no. Not that terribly far away city inaccessible by public transport!” mocked Andy.
Jack snorted. “They have a point, Fraser. It isn’t that far in the grand scheme of things.”
This intervention was starting to feel an awful lot like a press gang. He scowled at both of them. “It’s far away enough to disrupt my old life!”
“Love is disruptive. She’s been gone a few hours and you’ve already chopped off your finger. You can’t expect things to be easy, Fraser. That isn’t how life works. Except for me. I refuse to suffer through anything remotely difficult.” They slapped his shoulder and stood up. “Anyway, now that you’ve clearly decided to sort out your shite and live happily ever after, we need to go back to my problems. Is Harper still going to be here for the big party or not?”
Fraser breathed out hard and leaned against the wall, the smell of fresh paint making him dizzy. At least the throbbing in his finger was already fading. All that drama, and it was only a wee gash. He would have been embarrassed if he wasn’t so rattled. “Probably not. By then, she’ll have a job. Her old life back.”
“By then, you will have made amends.”
“Andy,” he deadpanned. “I’m not going to do that to her. She deserves something uncomplicated, and right now, I can’t give her that.”
“So the intervention didn’t work at all.” Andy leaned against the desk glumly. “ Men . It’s all right. I’ll write her a strongly worded email.”
Fraser had given up trying to have a normal conversation. He tipped his head back, lids drooping shut.
“Fraser, have you been writing fairy smut?”
“Fairy what ?” Jack asked.
Fraser snapped his head up in bewilderment, finding Andy staring wide-eyed at their laptop screen.
No, not theirs. Harper’s.
“I know you’re into fairies and all, but this is extreme…”
He jumped up quickly, which only set his finger throbbing again. “That isn’t mine. It’s Harper’s!”
“Oh, cool! I’ve been wondering what she’s working on.” Andy began scanning over what must have been her manuscript.
Jack peered over Andy’s shoulder. “Is this what lasses are into nowadays?”
“Yep. That’s why you’re not having any luck recently. You don’t have wings.”
Jack rolled his shoulders back as though mildly insulted.
An uncomfortable feeling writhed in Fraser, and he went to bat them both away, but Andy tore the laptop off the desk and stepped away to keep reading. “This is actually really good. It’s a wee bit self-inserty if you ask me, though. A princess in an enchanted forest? Let’s see if we get an appearance from a handsome lumberjack, eh?”
“Andy, stop it!” he scolded. “That’s personal. She wouldn’t want you reading it. She wouldn’t even let me read it.”
“That’s because it’s very obviously a love story about the two of you !” Andy scrolled further, pulling a face. “Ick, that’s some smutty smut.” But they kept going until Fraser would have risked losing another finger to stop them. “Oh my god.”
“Andy—”
“Okay, what I can glean from this is that she wants to stay here after all. This is one big ‘fuck big city dreams, I want to live in the woods’ story.”
He faltered at that, heart pounding. “Really?”
“Yup. The princess is trying to find her way back to the place where she was born.” Andy narrowed their eyes. “The goal is to live there again with her family after getting taken from them as a kid. But… when she gets there, she isn’t happy, because it means she has to leave the handsome fella who helped her on her way.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” he muttered, though his heart pitter-pattered as though maybe it did.
“It means something. Trust me.” Andy looked up at him. “Either she’s going to realise it first, or you’re going to have to get on your horse and go to save her yourself.”
Jack frowned. “You have a horse?”
Fraser ignored him, pinching the bridge of his nose as it began to sting again.
This wasn’t a fairy tale. He couldn’t let himself believe that it was.
But he wanted to. God, he wanted to.