PROLOGUE
MONROE
Years Ago…
A cinema was a quiet place on a Monday morning, even if it was summer and the school holidays.
There were only a handful of other people waiting in the large cinema foyer.
Nothing to distract me from the vertical ceiling banner with Brodan Adair’s gorgeous face plastered over it.
I couldn’t believe it the first time I saw his brother Lachlan on a chat show promoting his debut Hollywood film.
From there Brodan started appearing in secondary roles. Nothing that tempted me to watch his movies and TV shows. However, it had been hard to miss his escalating success. Now there he was on a giant poster advertising his first big movie in the lead role.
An ache I’d carried around in my chest for years splintered painfully.
Turn back around and get the hell out of here, I urged myself. Stop being such a masochist.
But I couldn’t.
The desire to see what had become of him was too great now. I thought years apart would numb it, might even erase it… but ironically the distance had only made my heart stubborn.
Fuck.
Throwing my shoulders back I marched across the foyer to the ticket counter and bought a ticket to the next showing of Brodan’s movie.
***
There he was. That horrible ache bloomed hotter as I gazed up at Brodan on the big screen.
The script called for him to play the role with an American accent and he did it flawlessly.
It almost made him seem like a different person.
Except for those eyes. Everything was always in Brodan’s eyes.
It was a wee bit disconcerting to see he was such an excellent actor because for a while I could almost forget this gorgeous leading man was once my best friend.
Until he kissed the gorgeous leading woman with genuine passion.
There were rumors they were dating in real life.
Watching them, I couldn’t believe it wasn’t true — their chemistry was on fire.
Ridiculous hurt and jealousy filled me. Possessiveness.
He was mine first, I thought childishly.
Brodan had never really been mine in the way I wanted but when we were children, he was everything to me. Memories I tried so hard to forget consumed me, whirling before my eyes, blurring out the sight of Brodan Adair, Hollywood Actor…
I knew by my mum’s cut lip as I walked into the kitchen that it was one of those days. I opened my mouth to talk and she shook her head frantically.
Shit.
We lived in a small row cottage on the edge of Ardnoch. Our village was tiny but not so tiny that we didn’t have streets that were known for housing folks who had less than other folks. We lived on one of those streets.
“That Monroe?” Dad yelled from the living room across the hall.
Mum’s eyes widened and she mouthed ‘leave’.
My heart lurched in my chest and I turned to go just as Dad appeared in the kitchen doorway.
His face was red, his eyes bright with whisky. Fists clenched at his sides.
Dad was an alcoholic. I didn’t know that when I was a wee kid. Or at least I didn’t understand it. I was twelve now. I was in my first year at Ardnoch Academy. So I knew. I knew things now I didn’t know then. I knew it was the drink that turned my dad into a monster.
My hands were clammy.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Where you been?” he stepped toward me belligerently.
“School.”
“You should be out working, helping,” he snarled.
“I’m t-twelve,” I quietly reminded him.
“I was working at twelve, you lazy wee bitch.”
“I have to go to school, Dad. It’s illegal not to.”
His nostrils flared. “You think I don’t know that? You trying to be smart with me?”
“No. It’s just… few places here will hire you for a part-time job until you’re fifteen.” Plus, I wanted to go to school. I wanted to do something with my life.
“Try harder. We’ve got bills to pay.”
I don’t know what came over me. If I was just sick of living my life walking on eggshells with the man, but I muttered, “Maybe if you didn’t spend all your money on drink.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I froze, nauseous with fear.
His expression darkened with rage. “What the fuck you say?”
“Dad—”
“Callum, don’t,” Mum pleaded.
“Wee cheeky bitch. Come ‘ere!”
Everything from that point was a blur of black and red and pain. I could hear Mum screaming, ‘Stop!’. She must have finally got him off me but it seemed like my face hurt everywhere and I couldn’t open one of my eyes.
“Why?” Mum hissed. “Why did you provoke him?”
I tried to speak through the pain but the only thing I could think of was my best friend’s face.
Brodan.
I wanted to be with Brodan.
He made me feel safe.
My right side screamed with pain as Mum pulled me up onto unsteady feet.
“Look what you made him do,” Mum cried softly. “This is your fault.”
My fault?
Was it?
Maybe it was.
Brodan’s dad would never dare hurt his children. I knew Brodan wished he was around more. That looking after the Adair brothers and their wee sister Arrochar had mostly fallen to the eldest, Lachlan, but still. Mr. Adair seemed like a gentle man. Like he’d never beat his daughter to a pulp.
“Now we’ll have to keep you off school for Christ knows how long,” Mum huffed and I could see through my one eye that she was tearing up. “Let me get some antiseptic for your lip and then we’ll get some ice on your face.”
On which part? I thought numbly, despite the pain.
Then as she walked dejectedly out of the kitchen, I got up. Dad was still here. He could come back and do more damage. Maybe even kill me this time.
So I stumbled toward the kitchen door, the floor seeming to bob up and down like waves in the sea. I pushed past the strange feeling and threw myself out of the house.
Terror made me pick up my heavy legs and I ran.
I took the back streets toward the road that led to Ardnoch Estate.
Brodan and his siblings rode their bikes to the castle they called their home.
In a few years Lachlan would be old enough to drive them to school.
Sharp pain cut through my ribs and I had to slow to a walk.
It would be ages before I got to the drafty old castle and I hurt so much, I didn’t know if I could make it.
“Roe?!” a familiar voice called.
I lifted my head, trying to see through my one eye down the road. Blurry figures were up ahead.
On bikes.
Brodan?
Brodan! I tried to open my mouth but suddenly the world tilted and my legs seemed to disappear.
Pain shot through my knees.
“Monroe!”
Brodan.
It seemed like only seconds later hands were on me and I looked up into Brodan’s frantic face. Tears glimmered in his eyes. “Arran, get Dad.”
“What… what’s going on?” I heard his brother Arran whisper.
“Arran, get Dad!” Brodan yelled. I could hear the panic in my friend’s voice.
Then his arm was around me, and he held me to him. “You’ll be okay, Sunset, you’ll be okay. I won't let anything happen to you ever again. You’re safe. I’ve got you, Roe.”
I blinked, coming out of one of the most vivid memories of my childhood. Tears wet my eyes and I glanced quickly around to make sure no one paid attention.
There were only two other people at the screening and their eyes were glued to the film.
To Brodan.
From the moment my father had begun beating me, Brodan, my best friend since our first day at Primary School, had become my protector. Even at twelve, he’d been determined to take care of me. Because of him and his father, my life changed after that day.
And I’d stupidly thought Brodan’s passionate commitment to my wellbeing meant something.
I would be fourteen years old when I finally admitted to myself that I loved Brodan more than just a friend.
Hope had bound me to him until he shattered it.
In my hurt, I’d acted impulsively.
We ruined everything he and I.
So why couldn’t I be free of him?
My tears spilled over as I looked at his face on the screen.
So familiar.
And yet so much a stranger.
I didn’t know who that man was. That knowledge was so fucking painful I couldn’t stand it.
Wiping angrily at my tears, I pushed up out of the seat and turned my back on the screen.
On him.
Enough. It was enough now.
I had to forget him. To move on.
I had to.
CHAPTER ONE
MONROE
Present Day
Ardnoch, Scotland
I tried desperately not to think of the pile of marking sitting on the backseat of my car as I miraculously found a parking spot on Castle Street.
There were still renovations going on at the local hotel and restaurant, the Gloaming, so the car park was filled with work vans, vehicles, and the camper vans of the very last tourists of the season.
Mum’s food shopping was in the boot of the car, but I’d promised her I’d pick her up a to-go coffee from Flora’s and I had a package to pick up from the post office before it closed.
Then I had to drop off the food, make mum’s dinner, get back to the caravan, make my own dinner and spend the rest of the evening marking my primary five class’s math jotters, while bingeing episodes of Gilmore Girls on my laptop.
What a glamorous life I led.
The sooner I got to Mum’s, however, the sooner I could return to the caravan Gordon was renting to me for peanuts on his caravan park down by the beach.
It turned out returning to my hometown of Ardnoch wasn’t as simple as I’d thought it would be.
When my mum’s neighbor called to tell me Mum had broken her hip and wasn’t coping on her own and that there was an opening for a teacher at the village primary school, there had really been no good excuse for me not to run to Mum’s rescue.
Until after accepting the job, I tried to find somewhere to rent and realized my hometown had risen from my reach.
I made a fairly good salary and there was only me.
However, rent was pretty high now in the village.
That, plus the average council tax, made living in Ardnoch out of reach.
I just couldn’t afford it, the rent, and all the other bills.
Not on my own. So now I was stuck in Gordon’s caravan and trying not to panic about it.
I could always move in with Mum but after a few weeks of living with her when I first returned, I’d vowed to never again as I might as well resign myself to a life of misery.
No, my only real sensible option was to tough it out in the caravan for the year.
Worries up to my eyeballs, I strode down Castle Street toward Flora’s first to grab myself and Mum a coffee. I nodded hello to a few locals I recognized as I made my way over to the counter. Flora looked up from cleaning and gave me a wide smile.
“Monroe. How are you today, sweetheart?”
Flora was always lovely to me. Her mum, Mrs. Rannoch, was Mum’s neighbor and while Flora was older than me and we didn’t exactly grow up together, she’d known, as her mother did, what my family situation had been like.
I didn’t confuse their kindness for pity and I was grateful to them both.
Coming home had not been easy so having a couple of friendly faces in amongst those who gossiped about my return meant a lot.
“Rushed off my feet as usual.” I smiled at her. “How has your day been?”
“Quieter. There are only a few tourists left now. Usual?” she asked.
“Please.” I popped in nearly every morning and afternoon for my coffee.
Flora got the fancy artisan coffee machine going and then turned to me. “So, reconnected with any old friends yet?”
I tried not to wince at the pointed question.
Flora had encouraged me to make more of an effort to rekindle my old friendships.
Unfortunately, all three of my old friends belonged to the same family—the Adairs.
While Arran Adair had already made it quite clear that he wanted to be friends again, there was just too much water under the bridge.
I’d avoided his sister Arrochar and she’d made no attempt to reach out to me so I think avoidance was probably the right way to go.
As for number three, he was probably off in some exotic country filming his latest movie.
It didn’t matter, anyway. I’d already started reaching out to schools along the Central Belt in the Lowlands, enquiring if there were any teaching positions open for next year.