Chapter 9
Spring on Mull is my favourite season when the island comes alive after a cold and dormant winter, with the vibrant yellow of gorse banishing the gloom. Lambs leap in the fields and rainbows decorate the sky.
Extract from Joy’s journal
Tilly wiped away her tears before she got back to the house.
She hadn’t intended to keep things from Logan, but she felt foolish looking up Cal after all these years.
However supportive Logan would likely be, she didn’t want to relive her regret and mortification by telling him.
They’d always been open about their past partners, but both of them had held back from talking about their feelings for Cal and Rosie that summer.
Although Logan had managed to stay friends with Rosie.
Whether there was any awkwardness between the two of them, they certainly had a better relationship than she ever would with Cal. Regret flooded her once again.
She’d taken the words in Joy’s journal to heart.
Just because Joy had found true love at a young age didn’t mean Tilly had, and certainly not with Cal.
She’d had a summer of fun, that was all, but she’d been selfish and callous in the way she’d left him broken-hearted.
And now it seemed too late to make amends.
Logan wasn’t at the house when she arrived back. The painting in the hallway had gone, so she assumed he’d braved a visit to Ivor, which was confirmed a few minutes later when a message pinged onto her phone.
Chatting with Ivor (that’s code for arguing). Meet at the pub at 5 (my excuse to escape).
Tilly couldn’t help but smile, although she was relieved he’d chosen to visit Ivor on his own instead of dragging her along.
The list of jobs to do around the house, the garden and in the cottage was long and with the sun shining, Tilly got to work outside, but she kept getting distracted as she watched the swifts dipping and diving, and spotted a herd of fallow deer in the treeline of the woods beyond the river.
The garden was large and it should have felt like a losing battle with the weeds, but Joy had cleverly planted and landscaped it, ensuring a wild, natural vibe that was in keeping with the surroundings.
It was a tonic to be outside on such a fresh and sunny day, which helped after her disastrous meeting with Cal.
Forty-five minutes before she was due to meet Logan, Tilly washed and changed into jeans and a hoodie, redid her hair into a messy bun, locked up and strolled to the pub.
The lane was shadowed by tall pines and the air was tinged with the freshness of soil and grass, still damp from yesterday’s rain.
Spring was Tilly’s favourite season, the same as Joy’s.
It was filled with possibility, a time for growth and renewal, something she tried to remind herself of when life got tough or stagnant.
The Loch Tavern was set back from the road that cut through Knock, its whitewashed walls just visible among the dense trees.
There was a beer garden to the front, with picnic tables dotted across the grass.
It had always been a proper local pub, warm and welcoming for travellers whatever the weather, particularly as it was on the scenic west coast route that followed the shore of Loch Na Keal and through awe-inspiring scenery.
The pub had just opened for the evening and it was quiet, but a delicious aroma already wafted into the bar from the kitchen. Lamplight pooled in the cosy corners, while a wood burner added warmth to the flagstone floor and blue tartan stool and chair coverings.
Tilly hadn’t expected to see a familiar face, so she was pleasantly surprised to spot Rosie behind the bar.
Her long blonde curls that had been streaked pink were now a mass of short cropped curls and she’d collected a few more piercings since Tilly had last seen her.
The smile she gave was the same, and surprisingly genuine.
‘Tilly Fernsby!’ Rosie sidled down the bar towards her. ‘Logan said you were coming over to help out.’
‘Yeah, for a couple of weeks.’ Tilly slid onto a barstool. ‘I wasn’t sure if you still worked here.’
‘Aye, I do, but I took over the management of the place three years ago. I run it with my partner.’ She swept a damp cloth along the wooden bar.
‘Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever met him.’
Rosie smirked. ‘Her.’
Tilly scrunched her face in confusion. ‘I thought you and Logan had a thing that summer?’
Rosie’s full-throated chuckle sent her curls bouncing.
‘I think Logan may have embellished what happened that summer a wee bit. We always flirted, but that was all it was, because he’s, er, certainly not my type.
’ She chuckled again. ‘We’re friends, nothing more, although he may well have been happy to let you think otherwise. ’
Tilly frowned. ‘Why would he have done that?’
‘You don’t see it even now, do you?’ Rosie laughed.
‘See what?’
Rosie opened her mouth, then closed it. She poured a generous measure of gin and added tonic and a wedge of lemon and placed it in front of Tilly. ‘This is on the house.’
‘Thank you,’ Tilly said, still frowning. ‘But what don’t I see?’
Rosie rested her elbows on the bar and leaned in, glancing behind Tilly before lowering her voice.
‘I’m not sure it’s my place to say. But it wasn’t me Logan was pining after that summer.
All we’ve ever been are pals who enjoy flirting because it’s wonderfully innocent and there’s no chance of anything ever happening between us. ’
Rosie moved down the bar to serve a customer, leaving Tilly, with her gin and tonic, to mull over her words. Coupled with what she’d read in Joy’s journal earlier, it got her thinking.
What if Joy had meant Logan and not Cal? Tilly had made an assumption because Cal seemed to fit: someone she’d had a brief but passionate relationship with when she was young, but they hadn’t even been proper friends.
Realisation hit her as if she’d bellyflopped off a cliff into the icy water of a loch.
Of course Joy meant Logan; she’d made enough hints that summer, commenting on how good they looked together, and that their friendship bonded them for life.
Tilly had taken her literally that she and Logan were great as friends.
As friends. She’d never thought of them as anything other than that, even while admiring the qualities that made Logan so attractive to other women.
Their friendship meant too much to risk damaging it with the messiness of sex.
He was the one person she could not lose, no matter what.
She took a large gulp of the gin and tonic.
Oh God, did he think about her differently?
Was that why there was a strain that hadn’t been there before?
It wasn’t just because they hadn’t spent this much time with each other for ages, but because there was an undertone of uncertainty over how he felt and where they stood with each other.
In Tilly’s mind, it had always been simple: best friends, nothing more, nothing less, and yet he was the most important person in her life.
After serving the couple at the other end of the bar, Rosie joined her again, her elfin features scrunched into a frown.
‘You look a wee bit perplexed,’ she said. ‘I probably shouldn’t have opened my big mouth. But your assumption about my partner made me realise how little Logan’s talked to you.’
‘Yeah, sorry, I would never normally make that kind of assumption, but I was so certain you were straight and that you and Logan had a thing.’
‘Do you guys not talk? I thought you were tight?’
‘We are… We were. We do talk, but maybe not the way we used to.’
‘You might want to take the opportunity to change that while you’re here. I’m not sure Logan could take any more loss.’
The idea that Logan was worried about losing her was shocking.
He was her person, the closest thing to family, and yet it was true, they had drifted.
She wanted that closeness back; she wanted to be able to talk to him about anything like they used to, and yet she was relieved when he hadn’t been at the house earlier so she didn’t need to explain where she’d been, or to lie.
‘Hey, Rosie,’ Tilly asked. ‘You know Cal Garvie, don’t you?’
‘Aye.’ She looked at her warily. ‘If you’re thinking about stirring up things with him again, then tread carefully.’
‘Oh, I’m not intending to rekindle anything.
And I already looked him up because I owed him an apology.
Not that he was having any of it and was understandably angry, which I expected,’ Tilly explained further.
‘I didn’t think it through before going to his farm, then when I realised he’s married…
Ugh. I certainly didn’t want to get him into trouble with his wife because his ex-summer fling had turned up. ’
Rosie clasped her hands together on the bar. ‘You don’t know about that either, do you?’
‘Oh God, what?’
She sighed. ‘He lost his wife a year ago in a car accident. He’s been left with his two wee girls. He’s been through a lot,’ Rosie stressed. ‘I’m not surprised he was angry; even if you had good intentions, he’s struggling and isn’t in a healthy place. Stirring up the past probably wasn’t wise.’
‘I had no idea,’ Tilly said quietly.
It had been sorrow etched on his face, not just maturity.
Regret and shame gripped her as she nursed her gin and tonic.
She hadn’t considered how Cal would feel about her showing up; she hadn’t stopped to think that he could be married or have children.
To discover his loss and to know he was heartbroken and grieving made her actions even more insensitive, despite her apology being well-intentioned.
She no longer yearned for him, but her heart ached that he’d suffered so much.
Coupled with her confusion over what Rosie had hinted about with Logan, she was ready to drown her sorrows.
It was gone five. Logan would be here soon. For the first time in her life, Tilly was worried about seeing her best friend.