Epilogue #3
At my abrupt shake of my head, Flora frowned but turned back to finish making the coffee. With two to go cups in hand, she rounded the counter to hand them to me. “On the house.”
“Flora, you have to stop giving me free coffee.”
“I have to do nothing of the kind.” She pushed them toward me.
With a grateful smile I took them. “Thank you.”
She refused to let go of them, however, as she bent her head to give me a very serious look. “There’s something you should know about Brodan—”
“If it’s about his collapse at the wedding, Flora, I already know.
” I cut her off, my heart racing just at the mere mention of his name.
I’d escaped seeing Brodan Adair when he was in town a few weeks ago, but not only had the villagers told me about him collapsing at his brother and sister’s double wedding, the tabloids discovered it from someone at the hospital where he was treated.
“No. It’s about—” she cut off as the bell above her door rang and she turned to see who’d stepped in. Flora released the coffee and tensed before shooting me a worried look.
Pulse racing at her strange reaction, I looked toward the door and it felt as if the floor gave way beneath my feet.
Brodan Adair.
In the flesh.
More handsome now than he even was as a young man.
Brodan was classically good-looking with a strong straight nose, beautiful pale blue eyes, and a mouth where the lower lip was much fuller than the top.
There were lines around his eyes that didn’t use to be there but they only made him more attractive.
As did the five o'clock shadow on his cheeks.
He was thirty-seven now. We both were.
It’s so unfair that men age into their looks, I thought a little hysterically.
I hadn’t seen Brodan in real life in almost eighteen years.
And he was staring at me as if he’d seen a ghost.
Strain tightened his features as our eyes connected across the room. Those pale blue eyes used to give away everything Brodan felt. Now there was nothing in them. Just polite coolness.
Even anger would have been better than that.
A man shifted at Brodan’s back and for the first time I realized he wasn’t alone.
How I had missed his companion was only evidence of Brodan’s ability to make you forget everything else around you.
His friend was at least six feet four, six feet five, and ruggedly handsome.
He had a trimmed beard and dark hair that was shaved at the sides and longer on top.
His chest was as broad as Brodan’s and the two of them seemed to fill the entire café.
Feeling eyes on us, watching the reunion of Brodan and Monroe, my cheeks grew hot and I felt more than a wee bit nauseous.
That nausea only increased when Brodan strolled toward the counter, his eyes moving to Flora. “Flo, how are you?” he asked congenially, moving behind me and not acknowledging my presence. “Can we have two Americanos, please?” I tried not to shiver at the rumble of his familiar voice.
Flora gave me a pained look I couldn’t stand.
“I’ll see you later,” I practically whispered.
“Okay, sweetheart.”
I walked away without a backward glance but Brodan’s companion blocked the door.
His face was expressionless as he moved to the side and pulled the door open for me.
“Thanks,” I murmured and hurried out before I allowed myself to really feel my first encounter with my ex-best friend.
He’d ignored me.
After all these years… he just ignored me.
Like I’d meant nothing to him.
Then again, it shouldn’t surprise me, since he’d thrown me away and never looked back.
A tear so painful, it made me breathless, opened up in my chest. That man had occupied my mind more times than I liked to admit which was really shitty considering he obviously never thought of me.
Blindly, I made my way to the post office just in time before it closed to collect my parcel.
I couldn’t tell you what words I exchanged with the Postmistress, my mind still reeling from the Brodan encounter.
The parcel, however, pulled me out of my stupor.
It was a large, awkward box containing craft supplies for a project I had in mind at school.
Unfortunately, like most schools I’d worked at, the budget just wasn’t there for these kinds of things so like many of my colleagues, I bought it out of pocket.
In the end, I precariously balanced the two coffees on top of the box and ambled down the street, ignoring the bemused expressions of the people I passed. While I’d never been so grateful to see my car, the situation was a distraction from the arsehole who’d returned from my past.
He’d ignored me!
Lowering the box to the ground I opened the boot and realized I needed to make space for it so I began pulling out shopping bags filled with my mum’s groceries.
As I lifted one out, the bottom of the bag gave way and my mum’s milk, bread, fruit, canned soups and all, went flying every bloody where.
Tears of frustration burned in my nose, and then I made the mistake of looking straight ahead.
My heart skittered in my chest as Brodan stood outside Flora’s with his silent friend and stared impassively at the sight of me surrounded by fallen groceries.
Then he abruptly looked away and those tears did their damndest to spill out but I forced them back, pinching my lips together as I bowed my head to collect the groceries.
Once upon a time, Brodan would have been the first person rushing across the street to help me.
I was vaguely aware of footsteps as I crouched on the ground and stretched under my car for the milk. When I finally got it and pulled it out, I turned to see Brodan’s friend gathering up all the groceries.
Straightening, I looked back at Flora’s. No Brodan. I searched Castle Street. No sign of him at all.
His quiet friend came to me with an armful of all the food. “Where do you want them?” he asked. He was Scottish too.
“Uh, in the boot, thanks.” I gestured.
He drew up to me and I could smell his attractive aftershave as he leaned in and dumped the food in the boot for me.
“Thanks,” I repeated.
He met my eyes as he stepped back. “No problem.”
“I’m Monroe.”
“I know who you are,” he said mysteriously.
“Do you have a name so I can thank you properly?”
“Walker.”
“Thank you, Walker.”
He gave me a stoic nod before he turned around and strode away.
***
If I lived in a world that gave a shit about me and what I needed, I would have been able to drive straight back to the caravan (if we were talking ideal world I’d have my own house) and cry a bucket of tears over my first encounter with Brodan.
Not only had he ignored me, he’d turned his back on me.
His bloody monosyllabic friend was more chivalrous!
Was picking up groceries beneath the almighty Brodan Adair?
Arsehole.
But no. In my shitty, emotional mood, I had to spend time around Mum.
“I said last time that I hate this kind of bread,” Mum snipped at me as she hovered in the kitchen doorway.
“You shouldn’t be off your feet,” I reminded her.
When she fell down the narrow stairs in the house and broke her hip, Mum’s healing didn’t go as well as the doctors hoped. She was now scheduled for a hip replacement, which meant I was stuck playing nurse maid for goodness knows how long. The thought made me want to scream.
“And that’s the wrong soup,” she huffed, picking up the can of lentil soup. “I hate this brand.”
“It’s cheaper,” I murmured.
“Och, well I’m paying for it, so just buy the bloody brand I like.”
I sucked in a breath. “Actually, I’m paying for it. You haven’t given me any money for your groceries.” She’d promised she would but I’d bought her groceries every week for six weeks now and she hadn’t coughed up a penny.
“Oh, so now I’m a scrounger!”
I winced as she raised her voice but continued to put away the food. “What do you want for dinner?”
“A grateful daughter,” she huffed. “I paid for your food until you were eighteen, lass. Surely a few weeks of returning the favor is little to ask.”
Well, technically, it was a parent’s job to feed their child, but who could argue with that logic?
“Dinner?”
She made a sound of disgust and turned away. “Doesn’t matter. It’ll taste like shit, anyway.”
Those tears threatened again but allowed my indignation to fight them back as I hurried to unpack the rest of the food, and prepare Mum’s dinner. Curiosity got the better of me and I googled Brodan’s name on the off chance it might explain his return to the village.
And yup.
There were articles detailing how Brodan had pulled out of several film projects and it was believed he was recuperating from exhaustion on his brother Lachlan’s famous estate in Ardnoch.
Brodan was home.
Indefinitely.
Fuck.
Brodan was also recuperating from exhaustion.
A niggle of concern lit through my panic and I shoved it straight back out. The man didn’t care if I existed so why should I care about him at all?
Pushing the thought to the back of my mind, I took dinner out to Mum and changed the bedding on the single bed we’d put in the living room to save her having to walk upstairs all the time.
“Have you heard from Dad lately?” I asked abruptly, the words spilling out before I could stop them.
I’d asked her numerous times over the last few months if she’d heard from my father but she always said no.
She did so again, with a grunt of annoyance, but still I pushed. “Do you know how to contact him?”
“No.” She snapped. “Now let me eat in peace.”
It was worth a try. I’d tried using the internet to find him but nothing.
I could hire a private investigator but I didn’t have the money to do that.
Something niggled at me about the way Mum always evaded eye contact when I asked.
My gut told me she knew something. I’d just need to try again later.
I left with her criticism of the baked potatoes and salad dinner I’d made ringing in my ears.
I’d needed to make her something quick so I could just get the hell out of there.
My mum was the last person I needed after the horrible, empty encounter with Brodan.
Driving to the caravan park that sat above the dunes of Ardnoch Beach, I let the misery of it all wrap around me. Just for a few seconds.
As I stepped inside the caravan and felt that prickly chill of fall in the evening air, I clung to the misery for a little longer. This place would freeze come winter.
Worry churned in my gut.
Mum’s nastiness echoed around my head.
Then I thought of Brodan.
He was home.
Why the hell did I come back here?