Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The days that followed blurred into work and family.
Lucy kept herself busy but there was nothing she could do about the nights.
Because the nights were worse — nights were Oliver.
She lay awake, jaw tight, building lists in her head: ruthless, arrogant, untrustworthy.
Enemy of the people of MacLeod’s Cove. Enemy of her.
And then she’d remember the way he’d looked at her, and the list would fall apart.
Day followed night, and she made excuses not to go to MacLeod’s Cottage. One of the drawbacks of a tight-knit family was that there was nowhere to hide — no quiet corner you could vanish into without someone noticing the empty space you’d left.
She put it off for as long as she could, until Jen arrived unannounced at the café.
She hadn’t been expecting her because every day now, during school hours, Jen could be found at their father’s old desk in the drawing room of MacLeod’s Cove, writing.
She’d found her muse after years of losing it.
Lucy couldn’t help wishing she’d stayed, tending to it, at MacLeod’s Cottage.
Today at least. Like a coward, Lucy fled into the walk-in larder.
Marcus appeared a moment later. ‘Jen’s here for you.’
‘I’m busy, Marcus. Tell her I’ll catch up later.’
He hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Sure.’
Lucy waited until she thought Jen had had enough time to grab some cakes for herself and Kate and leave the café before she eased the door open. Jen stood on the other side with arms folded, and a look on her face which meant business.
‘You can run,’ Jen said, ‘but you can’t hide.’
Lucy grabbed a couple of tins off the nearest shelf as if she’d come in for a purpose and slipped past her. ‘What are you talking about? I thought you creative types didn’t go in for clichés.’
Jen’s mouth twitched. ‘There’s a reason they’re called clichés.’
‘I don’t want to know.’
‘You’re going to hear it anyway.’ Jen’s tone was light, but her gaze wasn’t. ‘Because they’re easily understandable. And you need to understand that you’re running away from something because it’s too hard, and you can’t. It’s too important.’
‘I love you Jen, you know that, don’t you?’ asked Lucy with forced politeness.
Jen narrowed her eyes. ‘Yes. And the feeling is mutual, which is why I’m here.’
’No. If you really loved me you’d respect the fact that I want to hide from the world, and you’d leave me alone in peace!’
Jen ignored the first half of her sentence and simply cocked her head in question. ‘You’re not “in peace” though are you?’
Lucy huffed, staring past her at the kitchen as if a miracle might occur there. ‘God give me strength.’
Jen gave a short laugh. ‘You’re sounding like Mum now.’
‘Because I now understand how she felt when all of us lot were mithering her.’
Jen’s humour faded. She stepped closer, voice gentler. ‘Lucy… you were there for me when I needed you. Let me return the compliment. I can’t leave you like this.’
Lucy gave one last attempt at hiding her feelings and tried for a tight smile but, from the shake of Jen’s head, she knew Jen wasn’t fooled. ‘Jen, please,’ was all she could say. Any more and her voice would crack.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t leave this.’ She put an arm around Lucy’s shoulders and steered her out through the back and into the garden. They walked to the end, where the arbour threw shade across the bench.
Lucy’s stomach clenched at the memory of sitting here with Oliver. Her feelings then had been quite different — engaged, combative, alive with interest. Now the fight had been replaced by something heavier, an ache that threatened to overwhelm her.
Jen waited until they were seated. ‘Sam’s been asking around about Oliver.’
Lucy jerked back. ‘He’s been what?’
‘Not here. In Australia. Old contacts.’ Jen watched her carefully. ‘He wanted to know why Oliver pulled the handbrake on everything.’
Lucy jumped up. ‘Sam had no right. I can handle it.’ If it hadn’t been for Jen’s hand over her arm, gentle but insistent, she’d have walked away.
‘Maybe,’ Jen said quietly. ‘But a little bit of help doesn’t hurt. I should know.’
The reference to Jen’s own recent traumatic past was enough to sit Lucy back down again.
‘Of course. I know. And I love that you’re offering, but really I don’t see there’s anything that anyone can do.’
‘Sam found something.’
Lucy went still.
‘Sam spoke to one of his mates — someone who lived near the Perry-Warnes family in Khandallah. Oliver’s father was violent.
To him and his mother. My mate’s father tried to intervene once and got thrown out.
He would’ve called social services, but not long after, Oliver’s mum left — apparently she died a few years later — and Oliver was sent away to boarding school.
’ Jen’s eyes softened. ‘He was about seven.’
Lucy stared at the climbing roses as if they might rearrange themselves into something she could bear.
It was worse than she’d imagined after hearing what Augi had discovered, and she hadn’t imagined anything very good.
A hard childhood didn’t excuse what Oliver had done.
But it explained the armour. It explained the reflexive need to win first, strike first, control the narrative before anyone else could.
And it explained — uncomfortably — why she’d seen something behind his eyes as he’d stood in the shallows, letting the waves lap around his feet.
She swallowed and forced the thought back behind a wall. ‘Not all people who grow up like that become… like him.’
Jen frowned. ‘That’s a bit tough, Luce.’
Lucy shrugged, but couldn’t find the words to defend herself. She didn’t want to feel sympathy for him. She didn’t want her anger diluted by understanding.
Jen squeezed her hand. ‘I’m not saying forgive him. I’m saying… talk to him. Not to fix him. Not to rescue him. Just to know what’s true. Otherwise you’ll spend your whole life wondering.’
Lucy’s mouth twisted. One part of her wanted to agree. Another part clung to betrayal like it was a life raft.
‘He’s renovating the hotel now,’ Lucy said, trying to make it sound like a conclusion. ‘We’ve won. He’s doing what the village wanted.’
Jen’s gaze held hers. ‘And why is he doing that?’
‘He said the reason was “commercially sensitive”.’ Lucy did air quotes with two fingers, as if that would make it less ridiculous.
Jen snorted. ‘Drop the “commercially” and he’d be closer to the truth.’
Lucy shook her head. ‘Why are you insisting he’s secretly some emotionally sensitive empath? He’s not.’
‘I’m not saying he’s an empath,’ Jen said dryly. ‘I’m saying there’s something there. And you know it, or you wouldn’t be walking around like a zombie and hiding in a larder.’
Lucy glared. Jen didn’t blink.
Jen leaned back with a sigh. ‘If you won’t talk to Oliver, talk to Dan. He looked into Oliver’s Wellington project for you before, didn’t he? He can tell you if there’s some clever business reason why this change benefits Oliver.’
Lucy nodded slowly. ‘Hm, I guess I could do that.’ She shot Jen a brief smile. ‘Knowledge is power. That, at least, she could manage.
Jen nodded, satisfied. ‘Good. And you won’t have to go far. I saw him heading to the library earlier.’
Lucy’s eyebrow rose. ‘The library? Since when does Dan go to the library?’
Jen’s grin widened. ‘Since Augi.’
Lucy let out a low whistle. ‘Wow. There must be something in the air.’
Jen stood, brushing stray petals from her jeans. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ She hesitated, then softened again. ‘And Luce — if you need me, you know where I am.’
Lucy’s chest tightened in that way it always did when Jen’s kindness caught her off guard. ‘Thanks, Jen. I appreciate it. It’s hard, you know, because I don’t really trust myself anymore. Not after what happened with Laurent. He destroyed my faith in men.’
‘They’re not all the same. You need look no further than the two men in my life to realise that. Good luck.’ Jen squeezed her shoulder once and headed back through the café.
Lucy waited until the knot in her throat uncoiled, then wiped her hands on her apron as if that could wipe her mind clean, too. It couldn’t. So she went to the library.
It was only a block away, and on most days Lucy couldn’t get from A to B without being stopped three times.
Today she kept her head down, only returning a wave from an elderly couple taking their daily constitutional, and exchanging a few words with a young mum tiredly pushing a crying baby in a pram.
By giving the people setting up the market in St Andrews Hall a wide berth, she got to the library faster than usual.
The library doors were open to the morning sun, and the decking outside had colourful beanbags which were already taken with teenagers reading under the awning.
Inside a mother was reading to her toddler and Dan was pretending to look at some non-fiction books.
She knew he was pretending because one hand rested on cookery books as if he’d meant to pick one up.
But he wasn’t looking at the books; he was looking at Augi who was talking to a local writer.
Lucy clapped him on the back and dropped down on the sunny window seat. ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ she said with a knowing grin.
Dan grimaced, knowing he’d been busted, and pushed the cookery book back onto the shelf. ‘Don’t start.’
Lucy tilted her head, enjoying this more than she should. ‘Here to expand your literary horizons? Or just hoping someone will talk to you in a soothing Greek accent?’
His ears went faintly red. ‘What do you want, Lucy?’
‘Oliver,’ she said.
Dan’s expression shifted from flustered to alert in a heartbeat.
Lucy flicked her gaze to Augi — who met it briefly, before returning her attention back to the library patron who was in full flow. ‘Come outside.’