Chapter 18
Eighteen
CALLIE
T he following Monday, a postcard arrived at my parents’ house for me. It was from an old friend. The postcard had the words “Greetings from London” along with an image of Big Ben on it. On the back was a handwritten message:
Taking some time to see the world. Being here makes me think of you. Maybe I’ll come to Scotland to say hello to ma belle amie. Gabriel.
It was out of the blue. After the way things fizzled out between us, I hadn’t expected to ever hear from Gabriel again. Yet I was glad. It was nice to know he still thought of me and I was relieved to hear he was taking some time for himself. There were many things he didn’t tell me and I think one of them was how stressed his work made him. I didn’t really expect him to travel all the way to Ardnoch to see me, but I appreciated the sentimen t and the postcard put a smile on my face. As did the fact Mum and I sold out at the bakery by eleven o’clock that morning. Now that tourists had fully descended on Ardnoch, we were busier than ever. It had been a good morning so far.
I’d been there to see a bride’s face when she saw the wedding cake Mum had made for her. She’d burst into tears of happiness, and I was so freaking proud of Mum for creating such special moments for people.
Then Arro Adair, Lewis’s aunt, had stopped by the bakery before work. Apparently, Mum had told her I was looking for a place to rent. It was true. Although Harry had apologized and I knew he meant it, I still sensed a slight resentment from him that I’d inadvertently made his life so difficult these past few weeks. I thought maybe if I got my own place, it might help ease things between us. And maybe it would shut up all the folks who were saying I was mooching off my parents. My salary from the bakery was decent, enough to get a small flat.
“Our cottage, the one you used to stay in when you first moved here with your mum, is back on the market for rent,” Arro had explained as she bought a couple of pastries. “It’s yours if you want it.”
The two-bedroom cottage Mum and I had lived in before moving into Dad’s bungalow was a quaint period property on Castle Street. Honestly, I loved the cottage. But … “I’m not sure I can afford it.”
Arro had suggested a rental figure that made me gape. “Surely, you can get more than that?”
“Maybe. But I’d rather have you living there because I know you’ll take care of it.”
“Aunt Arro, are you sure?” The aunt part had slipped out because it’s what I started calling her years ago when I was with Lewis.
She’d beamed, her beautiful pale blue eyes lit with delight. “Absolutely. It’s yours .”
I almost burst into tears, but I had too many customers to see to, to indulge in that reaction. Promising to call her later, I shot my mum a giddy smile. She returned it, but I saw a twinge of sadness in hers. I assumed it was because I’d only just returned home and now, I was moving out. And I was sad to do it. Scared, even. But I was twenty-five and I’d lived in Paris on my own for a few years. It was time.
As the ladies cleaned up, I moved across the floor to lock the door just as Carianne waltzed in. She saw the empty counters and sighed. “Darn. I wanted to take some cakes into the salon. Late start this morning.” She tucked a strand of her own perfectly coiffed hair behind her ear.
In comparison to how well put together my friend looked, I had to be a fright. My nape and forehead were damp with sweat and tendrils of my hair escaping my hair tie stuck to my skin. “Sorry.” I gestured around. “Today we were cleaned out by eleven.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Carianne shot Angie and Cathy a look before lowering her voice. “Do you have a minute?”
“Uh, sure.” I gestured for her to follow me behind the counter and into the kitchen.
Mum and Carianne greeted each other.
“We’re just nipping outside for a minute,” I told Mum before leading my friend out back into our private parking area. There was no one about out here, compared to the busy main street on the opposite side of the building. “What’s up?”
Carianne drew her shoulders back. “I want to keep things open and honest between us … so you should know that I asked Lewis out on a date. And he said yes.”
A sudden bout of nausea overwhelmed me, and I turned, in a panic, afraid I was going to be sick. Leaning on the wall, I swallowed fr antically, trying to stop the sensation from turning into reality.
“Oh my God, Callie, are you okay?”
Rage thrummed through me, but I stuffed it down, like I always did. I wasn’t afraid of anger, but I’d always been afraid the rare times in my life when I’d felt hateful anger. Because I didn’t want to be like him. Like my real father.
And right now, I fucking hated Carianne.
And Lewis.
He’d come back for me, my arse! It didn’t take him long to change his mind about that.
I waved off my so-called friend, gulping in a lungful of air. “I’m fine. I … uh … I’ve just been feeling a bit sick lately. Maybe coming down with something.”
“Oh.” Carianne stepped back like I might be contagious. “Okay. Well … are … are we okay?”
Everything that had happened in the last few weeks crashed down on me.
The villagers, people I’d grown up around, talking shit, trying to make me feel bad for going off and experiencing life and the world. Gossiping in front of their kids and saying things they shouldn’t overhear, only for it to be repeated with the sole purpose of tormenting my wee brother.
And me just smiling and bearing it because I wanted everyone to like me, to accept me, to love me.
Look where that had gotten me! Stressed out of my mind trying to make the bakery work, leaving my parents’ house out of necessity rather than want, and agreeing that it would be wrong of me to be pissed off if my friend dated my ex-boyfriend.
I pushed off the wall and glowered at her. “No, Carianne, we’re not okay. Don’t come around me anymore. I don’t want to see you.”
“Callie!” Carianne called after me, audaciously sounding shocked. “Callie, don ’t be like that.”
“Fuck you,” I replied without heat. “And fuck Lewis Adair too.”
I let the bakery door slam shut behind me.
Mum gaped, clearly having heard my last words.
I shrugged, like I wasn’t in incredible emotional pain. “Carianne asked Lewis out, and he said yes.”
Anger darkened Mum’s face. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nope.” I tugged hurriedly at the knotted tie on my apron. “Do you mind if I leave early? I could do with a walk.”
“Of course. Can … can I do anything?”
“Nope.”
“Callie—”
“I feel like I can only trust you and Dad right now,” I choked out. “I was supposed to come back here and be happy. Safe and happy. Like always. And right now, I would give anything to be back in Paris. Anything.” Maybe the postcard from Gabriel this morning just made me long for a simpler place. A place where the connections I made had been shallow, easy, uncomplicated. No one had wormed their way into my heart, friends or lovers. Right now, that seemed like the answer. Because if you only cared on a superficial level, no one could hurt you.
That evening, I dragged myself to Thurso for my first tae kwon do class since returning to Ardnoch. I was feeling a bit out of shape and ready to get back to it. When we were kids, we had to drive all the way to Inverness for a class, but Dad had told me there were two guys running classes in the same sports center where he held his jujitsu school. One of them was one of his security guards at the estate .
I’d signed up online a few nights before Carianne’s revelation. I considered not going to the class tonight, but in all honesty, I needed the physical exertion and somewhere to focus my hurt and fury.
The last thing I wanted or expected was to walk into the class and find Fyfe at the head of it, chatting with Lewis.
No.
They couldn’t possibly be the guys who ran the class.
Dad would have told me.
I turned as if to bolt, but Fyfe caught sight of me. He wore his white dobok. It had the World Taekwondo badge on the chest.
“Callie.” He patted Lewis on the shoulder and headed over to me, his black belt knotted around his waist. Five gold stripes on the end of it told me Fyfe was now a fifth dan black belt. Wow. From the bloke who couldn’t afford lessons, to a fifth dan black belt. He’d surpassed even me. “I saw your name on the list. Glad to have you in the class.”
I tried not to look beyond him at Lewis. “You’re the instructor?”
Fyfe nodded. “Me and Evan Willis. He’s a security guard at Ardnoch Estate. He runs the Tuesday and Saturday classes.”
“Callie.” Lewis approached. He also wore his whites. His black belt had four gold stripes on one end and three on the other. He’d advanced to seventh degree.
My own belt still only had three because I’d stopped going to gradings while I was in Paris. And gradings were where you were tested to advance to the next level. Now seeing the gold stripes on both Fyfe’s and Lewis’s belts, I felt an old familiar competitiveness rise in the wake of my anger.
“You’re taking this class now too?” I practically spat at Lewis.
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Is that a problem?”
“No.” I shrugged with an ambivalence I didn’t feel. “Just looking forward to kicki ng your arse.”
He smirked, assuming this was banter, and pointed at my belt. “You need a few more stripes before that happens.”
Oh, I was so ready to pulverize him.
Fyfe, as it turned out, was a hard taskmaster. He’d split the group up by age and then levels. We were a small class of twenty, with the kids at the front, teens in the middle, and adults at the back.
In the row in front of me were two guys and a woman. One guy wore a white belt, so he was a newbie, the other a green belt, and the woman a blue belt with red tape on the ends, which meant she was close to advancing to red.
Lewis and I, the only other two black belts other than Fyfe, stood at the back. The first half of the session, it was easier to ignore his presence. If only because Fyfe’s style of warm-up was utterly exhausting, and I was feeling those three weeks I’d missed training. The stretching was nice. Or it would have been if I hadn’t felt Lewis watching me. I tried to focus on how much I enjoyed stretching and decided I really needed to get back into Pilates too. Once I had my routine at the bakery down, I could start incorporating some home sessions.
After stretching, however, Fyfe hammered us. My thighs burned from tuck jumps, my core from the multiple variations he had us do for the plank, and I was out of breath at one point from running back and forth across the hall.
Finally, once he was assured we were warmed up (and frankly ready to kill him), Fyfe began splitting us up so we could practice patterns.
Lewis tried to talk to me in those moments, and I told him to be quiet .
He had the audacity to appear hurt.
Then, with twenty minutes of class left, we broke into sparring.
Fyfe approached Lewis and I once the kids and teens were started. “I’m thinking, Callie, I could introduce you to Sharon.” He gestured to the woman who wore the blue belt. “And you could spar with her.”
“I want to spar with Lewis,” I insisted. “The two black belts against each other. It’s only fair.”
Fyfe cut Lewis a look.
Lewis nodded, though he glanced at me warily when he did.
A few seconds later, everyone was paired up. No one wore sparring gear, so we weren’t supposed to hit hard. Usually sparring gear was only worn at competition and grading. Or at least, that’s how it had always been at the classes I’d taken previously.
Reluctantly, I bowed to Lewis as he bowed to me.
He’d barely straightened when I struck out, but Lewis was fast and blocked the straight punch. His eyes widened slightly as I struck again and we were suddenly a blur of jabs, strikes, and blocks. Lewis didn’t back down, though I saw the slight confusion in his expression at my fierceness. He kept coming at me, and I had to turn to avoid hitting the wall. I used the moment to pivot on my heel and strike out with my other leg in a back kick. It almost hit him, but he darted out of the way, yet too close to my zone. I threw an elbow strike that brushed his ear.
“What the fuck, Callie?” he muttered, using his palms to block my incoming hook punch, his feet to block my front kicks, sidekicks. And then he went on the offense, though he held himself back, merely trying to hold me off with his longer legs and greater power. Muted power. I knew in the back of my mind t hat if Lewis let go, he could really injure me, if I allowed him past my defenses.
The tank beneath my dobok was drenched in sweat, my suit coming loose from my belt, my breathing hard and fast. I was vaguely aware the rest of the class had stopped to watch us.
“What is going on?” Lewis asked quietly, his own breathing a little fast, shallow, but unfortunately nowhere near as labored as my own.
“You really want to know?” I asked, letting all my hurt and fury blaze from my eyes.
Lewis lowered his arms. “I really want to know.”
In answer, I dropped to the floor and kicked out at the side of his ankles, hitting his weak spot. It was a move my dad taught me years ago. And it was forbidden in tae kwon do. You were not allowed to hit below the waist.
Lewis’s back slammed onto the mat. He was uninjured but stunned.
“Foul! Unsportsmanlike conduct!” Fyfe yelled from across the room, storming toward me, anger darkening his expression. And disbelief. “What are you doing, Callie?”
A smidgen of guilt flickered through me.
But then I remembered Carianne’s little visit to the bakery this morning.
I knew the rules. As a black belt who knew better, my deliberate attack on Lewis was grounds for removal from a class.
But I ignored the guilt, choosing not to care. I swept past Fyfe. “Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out. Wasn’t coming back here, anyway.”
The class gaped, but there was freedom in suddenly not caring if everyone loved or hated, accepted or rejected me.
“Callie!” I heard Lewis call.
But he’d hurt my feelings. Abandoned me. Engaged in a drunken one-night stand with me. Returned to Ardnoch claiming to want me back, but when I said no because I mistrusted his love, he proved my mistrust was warranted by agreeing to date my friend.
I didn’t know him anymore. And honestly, I found myself asking all over again if I’d ever really known Lewis.
So, fuck him.
I was done.