Chapter 1 Monroe
MONROE
PRESENT DAY
ARDNOCH, SCOTLAND
Itried desperately not to think of the pile of jotters that needed marking piled on the back seat of my car as I miraculously found a parking spot on Castle Street.
Renovations were ongoing 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 car’s boot, but I’d promised her I’d pick her up a to-go coffee from Flora’s, and I had a package to collect 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 dinner, and spend the rest of the evening marking my primary five class’s math and their online work 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 had rented to me for peanuts at his beachside caravan park.
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 that 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, I really had no good excuse to not run to Mum’s rescue.
But after accepting the job, I tried to find somewhere to rent and realized my hometown had risen from my financial reach.
I made a fairly good salary and there was only me.
However, the rent was high in the village.
That, plus the average council tax, made living in Ardnoch almost impossible.
I just couldn’t afford anything that was available, not with rent and all the other bills.
Not on my own. So now I was stuck in Gordon’s caravan park 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 vowed to never do so again, else I 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 to grab myself and Mum a coffee. I nodded hello to a few locals as I made my way 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. Belle 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 was 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 among 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.
The Adairs were part of what was once known as landed gentry, their castle and large estate passed down through the generations.
When we were kids, they were also what was known as land rich but cash poor.
Until the eldest of the five siblings, Lachlan Adair, made money as an actor and businessman, and retired from acting to transform their home into a members-only club for those in the film and TV industry.
Thane, the second eldest, was a respected architect; Brodan obviously was an even bigger Hollywood star than Lachlan; Arran had returned from his travels to buy the Gloaming with Lachlan, renovate it, and run it; and the youngest, Arrochar, was a forestry engineer.
As close as I used to be to Brodan, I’d also been good friends with Arran and Arro … once upon a time.
While Arran 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 Arro, and she’d made no attempt to reach out, so I think avoidance was 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 about open teaching positions for next year.
At the abrupt shake of my head, Flora frowned but turned back to finish the coffees. 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 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’s 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 with a lower lip much fuller than the upper.
He had 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.
He was thirty-seven now. We both were.
It’s so unfair that men age into their looks, I thought.
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 gazes connected across the room. Those pale-blue eyes used to give away everything Brodan felt. Now there was nothing in them other than 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 evidence of Brodan’s ability to make me forget everything else around me.
His friend was at least six foot four, six 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 attention on us as patrons watched the reunion of Brodan and Monroe, my cheeks grew hot, and I felt more than a bit sick to my stomach.
The nausea only increased when Brodan strolled toward the counter, his gaze moving to Flora. “Flo, how are you?” he asked, 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 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 come as a surprise, since he’d thrown me away and never looked back.
A chasm so painful, it made me breathless, opened in my chest. That man had occupied my mind more times than I liked to admit, which was shitty considering he obviously never thought of me.
Blindly, I made my way to the post office just before it closed to grab my parcel.
I couldn’t tell you what words I exchanged with the postmistress, my mind still reeling from the café 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 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. While I’d never been so grateful to see my old Yaris, the situation was a distraction from the arsehole who’d returned from my past. Until I reached my car.
He’d ignored me!
Lowering the box to the ground, I opened the boot and realized I needed to make space, so I pulled out shopping bags filled with my mum’s groceries.
As I lifted one out, the bottom of the bag gave way, and 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 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 tried their damnedest to spill, but I forced them back, pinching my lips together as I bowed my head to collect the groceries.