CHAPTER TWO
Avonlea – Now
Idrum my fingers on the steering wheel and follow the slow line of cars off the ferry. It’s been a year since I set foot here, and that was only to settle my grandparents’ estate. Before that…
Well, I’d gone a whole decade.
Now though—now I’m here indefinitely.
And it isn’t where I thought I’d ever move to. At least not until recently. Not until I received an offer I couldn’t refuse.
But the anxiety making itself known in my pulse has nothing to do with my love for this place.
There’s nowhere on earth as beautiful as the Isle of Skye, in my humble opinion.
No. It has everything to do with the memories—the shame and pain tied to this town are what’s kept me from wanting to come back.
I drive down the narrow roads, away from the Armadale Ferry Terminal, toward the town I called home for eight summers. Toward Cluaran, and the Thistle & Tartan Inn.
During those summers, Aileen and Angus Murray were like a second set of grandparents to me. No, they were better, because my grandparents were…
I shake the thoughts of them away. They won’t help me settle in here. It’s enough that I’ll be working next door to their old farm, bombarded by the memories of that place every day.
I’m doing this for Angus, I remind myself. Dying or not, he wouldn’t have asked me to drop everything ahead of schedule without good reason.
But I’m doing this for me too. Living in the city has lost its appeal. It’s busy. It’s noisy. It’s dirty and crowded. Being in Glasgow was the best thing for me and Lennox these past ten years, but I have to believe this change will do us good.
I scrunch my nose against the sting of tears.
Leaving my son behind for two months to finish the school year is grating on me.
I know it’s what’s best. I know he’ll be fine with Mum and Dad.
And I know that making him transfer mid-year would’ve thrown him further off-balance, especially since he’s already struggling.
But I feel like I’m missing a limb being this far from him.
Angus said I could take whatever time I need to see him on weekends, and my parents are planning a visit to Skye next month, but it’s hard. I miss my boy even now, and it’s only been five hours since I kissed him goodbye outside his school.
My heart rate picks up as the quaint town of Cluaran appears ahead of me.
When Angus called me two weeks ago and asked me to move up the timeline of our arrangement, I almost backed out completely.
I wasn’t ready yet. But I couldn’t do that.
Not when I learned he’d had a heart attack.
That his heart is failing him, that staying on as head chef of the T&T Pub is no longer an option.
His words about wanting to keep the legacy of his kitchen in the family had my eyes overflowing with tears.
Family. The Murrays were family. Are family…
And now Angus is dying, and the unfairness of that makes me want to scream.
The Thistle & Tartan Inn fills my windshield.
Its white stone walls stand out against the green of the trees and hills behind it, and beyond it is the farm.
The farm where I spent my summers. The one I haven’t set foot on since I was seventeen.
Not even when I came here last year to finalize its sale.
I met with the solicitor in the inn, unwilling to revisit that part of my life. Especially with Lennox in tow.
Little did I know that day would set all of this in motion. Seeing Angus. Seeing Aileen. Remembering the part of myself that loved this place. Loved them. Having them meet Lennox and embrace him with that same love, easily and openly. They healed something in me that day.
I step out of my car and my shoulders fall away from their position close to my ears as the smell of the nearby loch registers as the scent of home.
The wooden door before me is adorned with a brass thistle, wrapped in Murray tartan.
The deep greens and blues are struck through by a vibrant red, creating a plaid pattern I know by heart.
Almost as well as I know my own Stewart family tartan.
The heavy metal handle compresses under my fingers and the door opens silently.
Someone must’ve recently oiled the hinges.
I lift my chin and take in the entry. Wood paneling, rock floors, cozy couches, and a fire in the hearth warming the space.
A wistful smile tilts my lips when I find it still looks the same as it did last year—and every summer of my childhood.
Distracted, I catch my foot on the coat rack and the bloody thing pitches forward. I barely catch it—and myself—before I go sprawling across the floor.
The racket draws the attention of the man behind the reception counter, and his head snaps up. “Christ, are you okay?”
I nearly let the rack drop to the floor in my shock.
You know when you’re watching a movie dubbed in another language and you see the actor, know what they’re supposed to sound like, but the voice doesn’t match with the words coming out of their mouth?
That is my current predicament.
Because that mouth belongs to Jameson Murray, my Jamie, but the voice is wrong—too grown-up, his accent less pronounced from his years overseas.
My brain fights to understand. What is he doing here?
I snap my mouth shut, but it’s the only movement my body is capable of making as I stand and stare.
His rich auburn hair is styled to perfection—as opposed to the tousled red mess I remember from our youth—and he has a beard. A beard? The Jamie I knew would never. But I don’t know this man. I don’t know him at all.
His green eyes are round behind wire-rimmed glasses, mouth pulled taut in a firm line, and the paper in his hand is crumpled beyond usability.
“What are you doing here?” we say at the same time, and I almost laugh, but the lump rising in my throat stops it. I pull my lips between my teeth and wait for him to say something, blinking too rapidly, afraid that if I look away, he’ll vanish like a mirage.
He doesn’t, and I start to fidget on my feet. The uncomfortable silence stretches between us and I’m suddenly very aware of how cramped this reception area is.
And that’s when Aileen walks in.
“Oh good. You’re here. You remember Jameson, of course.” She nods, as if this is the most normal situation on the planet. As if my world didn’t just flip on its axis. “Avonlea, dear, where are your bags?”
I look at Aileen, then back to Jamie, then back to her. I attempt to clear my throat, but it gets stuck, a cracking sound of discomfort the only thing that escapes.
“Bags?” Jamie says, and I flinch at the roughness of his tone.
“Yes, bags, Jameson. Will you help Avonlea bring them in?”
I shake my head and words spill from me without the slightest ability to filter them. “No. No! I can get them. In fact, maybe I should stay someplace else. I’ll just go.”
Aileen reaches for my arm just as Angus lumbers around the corner, leaning heavily on a cane.
“Nonsense, lass. Get over here and give this old man a hug,” Angus says, and tears spring unbidden from my eyes. He looks frailer than I’ve ever seen him—thinner, tired, a larger-than-life man made small by illness and age—and my heart breaks.
I wrap my arms around him, but it’s not until I catch Jamie’s gaze on us that the tears spill over. Of course he’d come home now, for Angus—just like I did—and dammit if I don’t wish I could be glad he did. But I can’t. Because this just made everything about my being here all the more complicated.
I can only hope he won’t be staying long. He has a whole life in the States. One I’ve only glimpsed through the lens of the internet—not that I’d ever tell him that. Maybe I can just avoid him while he’s here. He’ll be gone before… well, he’ll be gone before this has to get complicated.
I bury my face in Angus’s shoulder and breathe him in. He smells the same, like spicy aftershave and herbs from the kitchen. He pats my back before gently pushing me away to look me in the eye.
“Those tears best not be for me, lass. Goodness, I ain’t dead yet.”
I suck in a breath, but he chuckles good-naturedly. I guess he’s at the joke-making stage of his diagnosis. I am not, and the shattered look of heartache on Jamie’s face tells me he isn’t either.
“Jameson,” Angus says over his shoulder, pulling me into his side to face his grandson. I avert my gaze. “Would you check Avonlea into room four. She’ll have it indefinitely until she finds herself a place in town.” He looks down at me with a nod.
That is what we discussed, but it feels impossible that I could stay at the inn now that Jamie’s staying here.
If that isn’t incentive enough to find my own place ASAP, I don’t know what is.
Jamie nods, lips tight and eyes narrowed, then looks down at the computer.
“So, where are those bags?” Angus asks.
“In my car. I don’t have much with me right now. I’ll bring up the rest of our stuff once I find us a place.” I notice how Jamie’s shoulders stiffen but try to ignore it. “Thank you for letting me stay here until I do.”
“That’s what family does.” Angus presses a kiss to my cheek and lets me go.
“Once you get settled in your room, come down to the kitchen and I’ll introduce you to the staff.
Of course, you might remember a few of them.
” He winks at me and slowly walks toward the back of the inn, a slight limp in his step.
Aileen has wandered over to chat with guests in the parlor, leaving just Jamie and me. Alone.
The same tension from before crackles between us. I can’t find words for him right now. I can’t find words for myself… for this situation. So, I turn on my heel and walk out to my car, wondering how on earth I’m supposed to look him in the eye when I return.
The man who was my first love.
The man who was my first everything.
The man who first broke my heart.
The man whose eyes I look into every night when I kiss my son to sleep.