Chapter 42 #2
Cal took a deep breath but said nothing for a moment.
He needed to get his words right on this one and show Bea that to him this meant more than she could know.
‘One person taking advantage of any one person is not okay,’ he said.
‘But I know that’s not what’s happening here.
You haven’t come with me expecting anything, I can see that.
And, if anything, I blame myself for the confusion between us. ’
Bea scrutinised him and Cal wondered if he had said too much. He didn’t want to talk about this, but something bigger was driving the compulsion. She’d opened up about a huge part of her life and he owed her an explanation.
‘Bea, my dad – my biological dad – he wasn’t the nicest of guys. The dad we are going to visit is my adoptive dad, my uncle actually. But to me, he’s my real dad. You can’t deny biology, but my birth father was a different man from me and from my adoptive dad. Different in so many ways.’
‘Oh, I see. Did you know him well, your biological father?’
‘Not really. He died when I was four. But well enough to get the measure of him. At the time, I looked up to him, wanted his approval for things, because what kid doesn’t want to be loved back by their dad.
But I learned over time that he wasn’t all that.
He was a liar and a drunk, to name but a few things.
And I know my mum went through years of trauma counselling even after he died and she’d got together with my Uncle Jimmy.
Over the years, he’s shown what a real dad should be like and I’ve been lucky to have that.
He’s been like that mountain over there in terms of support to all of us.
It takes some man to take on three children fathered by your awful brother, have another one and adopt three more. ’
Bea’s eyebrows almost hit her hairline at Cal’s revelation. ‘Wow, Cal, I never knew this about your family. I mean, I knew about the triplets, but not about everything else.’
‘Of course you didn’t. And I’m not telling you because I need sympathy or anything. I just want you to know that I’ve always been a bit fearful of turning out like my biological father, so I sometimes overcompensate and end up being an arse anyway.’
‘Oh, Cal.’ Bea leaned into him. ‘You’re not an ass. Or how you say it. Arrrse.’ Bea tried to roll her ‘r’.
‘Well done. Well, I was putting my own agenda first and not considering how that might impact you. So for that I apologise.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ said Bea. ‘And I didn’t know about your family background. It sounds real complex and challenging.’
‘It was, but I’m a big boy now and I’m lucky to have a dad like the one I do.
A man who taught me the meaning of hard work and right from wrong.
And there’s probably something else you should know before we get to my folks’.
Cal swallowed hard, the words he’d feared saying for what they might do to him, backing up in his throat.
But he had to tell Bea; this was the time.
‘My dad has recently been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, or ALS as you might know it. This is the first time I’ve seen him since he got the news. ’
‘Oh, Cal.’ Bea grasped his hand. ‘Oh my goodness! That’s huge. I am so sorry.’
‘Thanks.’ Cal took a breath to steady himself. He’d said the words and the world was still turning. ‘He’s always been this total presence of a man, a force to be reckoned with. To see that diminish is going to be so strange.’
‘I completely understand.’ Bea comfortingly stroked Cal’s strong fingers. ‘I remember when my own father died; it was so hard watching him become smaller and smaller, although the spark of him was always there. I guess it will be the same for yours.’
‘Aye,’ Cal agreed. His character will always be solid, steely Jimmy Butler with a heart as wide and as deep as this loch.’
‘That’s exactly it And that will be what you remember, too.’
For a moment or two, Cal stared out at that very loch, lost in his own thoughts.
‘Aye, I hope so,’ he said. ‘All I want is to be as good a man as he is and make him happy and proud of me before he goes.’
‘You are a good man,’ Bea assured him. ‘And I’m sure he is bursting with pride about you. How could he not be?’
Cal shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never felt I measured up.
After all, what’s running a piddly wee bar compared to a distillery empire?
He turned back to Bea, knowing he needed to stop now before his words dredged emotions from too deep within him.
‘Anyway, we weren’t meant to be talking about me.
The original point was that I appreciate that I can’t undo five years of whatever your ex has made you think; that would take a lot longer than we have together, but I think that to solve the money thing, how about from now on we go Dutch? ’
Bea nodded. ‘If that would be okay,’ she said.
‘But on one condition?
‘Okay, what?’
‘That tonight, you enjoy yourself with me.’ Cal swept his arm towards the pebbled shore where the loch lapped gently and then back to the hot tub. ‘Are we going to stand here and argue about money when we’ve all this to enjoy?’
‘Um… well,’ Bea conceded. ‘You do have a point.’
‘Yeah, I do.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘It’s a deal, about the going halves.’
‘Great. Now can I make another suggestion?’ Softly touching Bea’s shoulder, Cal manoeuvred her to face him.
She offered no resistance. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he continued, tucking one of Bea’s delicate red curls behind her ear, ‘but I thought I’d start by getting naked and into that hot tub, and I wonder if you’d join me? ’
She glanced towards his hand, a twinkle in her expression, then shifted back to his gaze, her face solemn again.
‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘I thought that I might like to do something more wholesome. Say pick some pebbles on the beach. Before it gets dark, you know?’
Cal cocked his head to the side. ‘Oh, really?’
‘Yeah, I told my mom I’d bring her back some Scottish pebbles.’
‘You did?’ She was teasing him and he knew it, but he’d humour her.
If she was willing to wait then he could too, although it would be bloody difficult.
‘That’s an interesting way to use up your luggage allowance but picking pebbles it is.
’ He separated himself from her before all the free will drained from his brain.
‘I’ll call reception and ask for a basket. ’
Bea threw her head back and laughed, and Cal, thinking she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, felt something even more potent and dangerous than sexual longing stir inside him.