CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Avonlea – Now
Truth?
The word hit me like a ton of bricks the second it left Jamie’s lips and nearly knocked me off my feet—and to my death.
I was attempting to work up the courage to tell him.
The words hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t know what to lead with.
Lennox is yours. You have a son. We have a son.
Each version felt like a gut punch, none of them right.
Too much, too soon.
Not enough, too late.
You’d think him asking me for the truth would’ve been the perfect opening. He was literally asking for what I’m most terrified to give him, yet it only served to remind me that right now there’s nothing true between us.
I made it that way.
Everything since we parted ways at seventeen comes back to this one truth I couldn’t give him then, and still can’t now.
Not even the bookstore can hold my attention once I make it into town. Though, the hot cuppa from Freya’s Tea Shoppe helps to settle how shaken I feel after the near accident. My body’s reaction to being so close to Jamie was just as unsettling.
I can’t stop thinking about how good it felt to be held by him. My body melted into his like it remembered, and then it just let go.
How long has it been since I cried like that in front of another person who wasn’t my parents? If I’m honest, I haven’t been that unguarded with anyone since Jamie.
And how sad is that?
I follow my feet home, watching the uneven cobblestones under my wellies as I spiral deeper into my thoughts.
I never expected an apology from Jamie, and it was so damn sincere too. But he isn’t the only one at fault. I played my own part in our friendship—relationship… whatever—falling apart.
I’m the one who cut him out of my life and lied when we always promised each other the truth.
Nope, not going to do that.
Beating myself up for decisions I made as a heartbroken and scared seventeen-year-old won’t help anything. I had my reasons. And when the sands of time wore those down and I wanted to make a different choice, new reasons presented themselves.
But things have changed, and I need to forge a new path forward.
When I pass a cottage just down from the inn with a For Rent placard in the garden, it feels like a sign. My gut tells me it would be perfect for me and Lennox, and the first step on this new path needs to be locking down a place for us to live. Only then can I consider telling Jamie everything.
I wonder—not for the first time—why he’s never settled down with anyone.
In my years of silently keeping tabs on him through social media, I’ve never seen a woman make an appearance other than his friend Rory—and she’s been around since he first moved to Tahoe.
I was irrationally jealous of her as a teen, and as embarrassing as it is to admit it, I still am.
It stung to watch him move on with a new friend. Especially another girl.
As a perpetual bachelor, how will he react to finding out he’s a dad?
Or that he’s missed out on ten years of his son’s life?
I don’t even know how I want him to react.
Do I want him to want to be part of Lennox’s life?
The obvious answer is yes, but we have a good thing going.
I don’t want to completely obliterate our comfortable balance if Jamie isn’t even going to be around.
And he won’t be.
He has a whole life in America to go back to once everything settles here.
He won’t stay. He wouldn’t stay for me then, and he won’t stay for Lennox now. So, at best, he’d be a part-time “dad” from a world away which will only hurt Lennox… And me.
Or what if he doesn’t want anything to do with Lennox? That thought makes my heart ache in my chest. How could he not want him?
Stop, Avi. You’re getting ahead of yourself.
I inhale deeply when I reach the loch and look out over the shining waters. There’s no use overthinking all the possibilities. I just have to tell him and figure out the rest from there.
I head up the garden path to the kitchen, looking at the bench swing that sits in place of the tire we once played on.
So much has changed.
The kitchen is oddly quiet. The calm before the storm that comes between breakfast and lunch.
I set to work chopping onions for tonight’s sauce, the scrape of my knife across the cutting board the only sound in the space.
I’m thankful for the potent sting the onions elicit—at least if anyone walks in, they’ll think my red-rimmed eyes are due to them.
I toss them into a pan with some garlic and herbs and the kitchen is instantly filled with their aromatic scent. Everything inside me relaxes a little. This is where I feel most comfortable, most at peace. In my kitchen.
As I wash my hands, a pair of booted feet pass the window on the way up the ladder to the roof. Jamie’s boots.
I guess things haven’t changed that much. I wonder if he’s headed up there to escape whatever it was that happened between us earlier, or if he just needs to think. Or maybe he wants to write.
I never see him on his computer, like I’d expect if he’s working on a new project.
Instead, he’s always with Aileen or Angus, helping with whatever he can around the inn.
Whether it’s checking in guests or oiling rusty hinges, cutting back the hedges when they get unruly or tidying up the parlor.
I even spotted him turning down beds one evening when they were short-staffed.
It’s clear he’s attempting to lighten their load.
But surely he’s still writing?
“Mornin’, lass,” Hamish says, walking in the kitchen door.
“Mornin’, Hamish.” I nod in his direction and then dry my hands before checking the onions.
“Everything prepped for lunch?” he asks, looking into the saucepan from the other side of the cooktop.
“Aye, and I got a head start on the sauce for dinner.”
Thank goodness Angus already had an incredible team when I got here.
It was like walking into a well-oiled machine.
I’m sure it would have been rewarding to build a restaurant from the ground up like my mother and father did, but it’s been one less stress to have the support of both Angus and Hamish.
“Aye, perfect. I’ll take over for a bit if you’ve got anything you need to do before the lunch rush.”
My phone buzzes in the back pocket of my jeans, giving me a timely excuse, and I take him up on his offer. “Okay. Come get me if you need anything,” I say, pulling it out and seeing Lennox’s name on a banner across the screen.
At that moment, Angus pushes through the door with a smile on his face. “Ah, he’s got me now. Go talk to your wee laddie.” He points his chin at my phone.
“You’re not supposed to be cooking.” I level him with a glare before feeling a second buzz in my hand. “Hamish, don’t let him lift a finger.”
“You’re no fun, you know that?” Angus says back. He squeezes my bicep when he passes and then sits heavily in the chair behind his desk. “There, you happy?”
His mock scowl makes me laugh, because not even that look on his face hides the jovial man he is underneath.
The bags under his eyes say he’s tired, but you’d never know it with the way he acts.
But just because he pretends well doesn’t mean I don’t see it.
“Very. Now you better still be right there when I get back or I’ll tell Aileen. ”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he says, feigning outrage.
“Don’t test me.” I smile at him and then give Hamish a lift of my eyebrow to let him know I’m not messing around.
Unlocking my screen, I see the texts from Lennox.
Lennox
You busy?
Mum?
Ah, the impatience of a ten-year-old.
Me
What’s up, bud?
Lennox
Can I go to the movies with Lachlan tonight?
Me
What did your grandparents say?
Lennox
To ask you.
Me
Lachlan’s being nice to you?
Lennox
(eyeroll emoji) Aye
Me
Okay. Are you busy, or do you want to talk for a few minutes?
Lennox
Sure
And then there’s the one-word answers. Parenting at its finest.
My phone rings in my hand and I swipe across the screen and head upstairs with it pressed to my ear.
“Hey, how was school this week?” I ask without preamble, even though I’ve asked about his day every evening.
“It was fine, Mum.” His voice is annoyed… Not my favorite kind of hello. But even with his tone, just hearing my boy on the other end of the line makes my lips lift into a smile.
“Okay, I was just checking. Have anything fun planned with your grandparents this weekend?” I ask.
Letting myself into my room, I sit on the edge of my bed and flop back onto it.
“I think Gran is working, but Pa said he’d take me hiking.” There’s an uptick in his excitement at this.
My grin widens. Hiking was something I did with my dad on the weekends when Mum had to work. It was where my love for the outdoors started.
An unexpected benefit to having Lennox so young is that my parents get to enjoy all of his active years right along with him. They’ve only just turned fifty and are still getting out and traveling and taking adventures whenever they can, and now they get to include me and Lennox in them.
“That’ll be fun. Is he taking you anywhere cool?” I ask, tucking my arm behind my head and propping myself up.
“Loch Lomond.”
“Nice! I can’t wait to show you some of the places up here. Since we didn’t get a chance to explore last year.”
“Gran said you’re coming home in a few weeks, but I thought they were going to bring me to Skye.”
I stumble over what to tell him.
I can’t exactly go with the truth—that his dad is here—so I settle on, “I haven’t gotten us a house yet, so I thought it’d be easier for me to come to you for a few days. Once I get our new place figured out, you can come up, okay?”
“Aye, sure, whatever.” I can hear the disappointment in his voice.
“So, what’s the movie tonight?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Whatever Lachlan wants, I guess.” I can picture him rolling his green eyes and shrugging his bony shoulders. He’s rail-thin after a growth spurt this spring, all knobby knees and elbows.
“Shouldn’t you have a say?” I push. I want him to stand up for himself more, and I’m sick of his friends walking all over him.
“They were already planning to go when he said I could come, so I don’t think I get much choice.”
His “friends” at school have been excluding him more and more lately. I don’t know why, but it seems like he’s always the afterthought. I’m ready for this school year to be over. Then he can move up here and hopefully find a new group of friends.
One more thing to add to my list: enroll Lennox in the local school. I should ask Jamie about it, considering he actually went to primary school here.
“I hope you have fun at least. You call Gran or Pa if you need to be picked up early or anything.”
I miss being the one he could call. This distance between us is so much harder than I anticipated.
“I’ll be fine, Mum,” he says, like he’s exasperated with my overprotectiveness.
“Okay, sorry. I just miss you. You’re doing okay?”
“Yeah, Mum, jeeze,” he grumbles. Then his voice softens when he adds, “I miss you too.”
I close my eyes and soak in those words. Six more weeks. We can make it six more weeks, right?
“Have fun tonight. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Bye—” I start to say, but he’s already hung up.
Ten-year-olds, I think with an eye roll. Ten—it’s the same age Jamie and I were when we met, and that feels like a lifetime ago now.