22. London
It was fair to say I was dragging the next day. After I left Murray in the music room, I’d miraculously managed to fall asleep only for my alarm to go off an hour later.
Copious amounts of coffee kept my mind alert, but my limbs felt heavy. Taran had texted, asking me to have lunch with her at the LSLS charity shop, so I’d finished up at the B and B, stopped at Pages & Perks for more coffee, and then grabbed sandwiches for me and Taran from the bakery.
The Leth Sholas Bakery & Tearoom was run by an Australian couple, Brian and Harry Weaver. We’d gotten along great until I started my honesty box and I noticed a considerable cooling toward me. I knew I wasn’t imagining it as Brian took my order stone-faced.
My cheeks felt hot, hoping the customers behind me hadn’t noticed his decidedly less than friendly customer service.
After I paid, he handed over the brown paper bag with the sandwiches and cakes I’d bought and suddenly asked, “So, when can we expect you to open your own bakery?”
I almost dropped the bag. “Excuse me?”
His brow pinched together. “Everyone has been raving about the pastries and cakes in your honesty box, so we’re no longer sold out by noon on the days you fill that bloody thing.
” His tone turned waspish, and he winced.
“I mean … Harry and I just want to know when to expect the competition to ramp up.”
“Brian … no. I’m not opening a bakery. I just … I get a kick out of the honesty box. It kind of renews my faith in humanity that people leave money for the cakes and pastries. I don’t make anything from it. It covers the costs of the ingredients and then the rest I donate to the LSLS.”
Brian’s shoulders slumped. “So you’re not … you’re not competing with us? You’re not testing the waters before opening your own place?”
“I’m not,” I promised and raised an annoyed eyebrow of my own. “I wish you’d voiced your concerns. If the honesty box is impacting your business, then I want to know.”
“It’s not.” He shook his head, expression sheepish. “London, it really isn’t. If you’re only doing it on a Wednesday, it really isn’t. I’m so sorry. We thought …”
“It’s fine.” Was it, though? I felt like there was room for more than one bakery in Leth Sholas, especially during high season. But since I genuinely didn’t have any plans to open a bakery, I didn’t see any point upsetting them by questioning why they had such a problem with the idea.
“Here.” Brian suddenly ducked to reach into the cabinet between us.
“Apple and cinnamon cake for you … millionaire’s shortbread for Kelly …
and Murray loves our gingerbread cake.” He straightened, beaming at me as he put the cakes in the box.
“On the house. A belated congratulations on the nuptials.” Brian presented the cake box with a flourish.
I took it with gratitude but was glad to leave the bakery, feeling weird about the fact that Harry and Brian had probably been bitching about me to each other for weeks. They’d probably been even more concerned when I’d married Murray knowing they wouldn’t be rid of me anytime soon.
As always, I felt the sting of rejection a little deeper than most. I shrugged it off because it shouldn’t matter what Brian and Harry thought of me. The only opinions that mattered were the people I cared about. And who cared about me.
Hurrying down Main Street, I smiled to the locals I passed. Seeing Laird and his crew in the harbor unloading one of Murray’s boats, I waved. A wide smile stretched my cheeks when Laird and five of his men took the time to wave back.
Taran was busy with a customer when I walked into the charity shop. As I approached, I realized the customer was Dr. Stornoway, one of the island’s physicians.
“London, Molly was just telling me she’s entering the Glenvulin Fair for the horticultural event.” Taran grinned mischievously at me. “We both agree you should enter.”
“Hi, Dr. Stornoway.” I placed the coffee, lunch, and cake box on the counter. “I missed the fair last time.”
“You can call me Molly when I’m not in the surgery,” the older woman offered. “And the fair is wonderful. I have high hopes for my hydrangeas this year.”
The Glenvulin Fair was hosted on the island for a week at the end of August. Last year it was overshadowed by the Highland Games, which Glenvulin hosted every two years.
The year the Highland Games were not held, the fair became the event.
Not everyone was into it, but if you were a craftsperson or gardener or any kind of creative, you could bring your produce and products to compete against others in specific categories to win prizes.
The agricultural part, the livestock show, was the main event.
But the horticultural element also seemed to get the islanders in a bit of a tizzy.
“It’s not for months.”
“Aye.” Taran reached for the coffee I’d brought her. “But the deadline to participate is next week.”
“You should enter into the bakers’ division.” Molly nodded enthusiastically. “Everyone’s been talking as much about your delicious cakes and pastries as they are about the fine husband you wed. Congratulations, by the way.”
As always, guilt flickered through me as I took her thanks. I hated lying to people. Therefore, I diverted back to the original topic. “Do Brian and Harry participate in the fair, by any chance?”
“They do.”
“Then I’ll sit this one out. I kind of had an inkling they didn’t like the honesty box, but I just found out they were worried I was intending to open a competing bakery.” I grimaced. “Better not poke the bear.”
“Oh, nonsense.” Molly scowled. “No one gets to intimidate you into not doing something you want to do.”
“I’d do it if I really wanted to.” Even as I said it, I wasn’t sure that was true. And that sucked because London before Nick would have entered the fair just to prove to Brian and Harry that their irritation with me was their problem, not mine.
My words to Murray last night came back to me.
What I said to him was the most honest I’d been with myself in a while.
I was lost.
I’d made a bad decision, and I was paying for it with horrendous regret and loss of direction.
Molly bid us goodbye a few minutes later and Taran flipped the open sign on the door to Closed so she could have her lunch break. Inside the small staff room, I turned the conversation to wedding plans.
“RSVPs are all in.” Taran took a huge bite of her sandwich. After she’d swallowed, she continued, “There’s no going back.”
“Not that you want to.”
“Goodness, no. But sometimes I wonder if we should have done what you and Murray did. Or even what Tierney and Ramsay did. Something small, quick. Private.”
I snorted. “The islanders would never forgive you. Quinn is their favorite son, and watching him get his happily ever after with you means a lot to them.”
Taran blew out a breath. “You’re right. I know you’re right. That’s why we decided to use some of the money we made on that pocket watch and put it toward the big wedding at the castle.”
My friend referred to an antique that was discovered in her mother’s belongings.
Last year, Taran asked an antiques expert, Edward White, to appraise her mom’s collection.
Unbeknownst to her, the creep discovered a very valuable pocket watch.
White owed debts to an even bigger creep, Christopher Pollock.
They attempted to steal the pocket watch, but Taran had put it in storage at her brother’s house.
Pollock, an absolute bottom-tier moron of a criminal, held us both at gunpoint at the house, threatening to kill everyone if Taran didn’t give him the pocket watch.
He shot Edward White, who hadn’t signed up to be in involved in murder and had taken Taran, almost killing her before Ramsay and Quinn found them. Edward White and Pollock were both in prison now. And Taran and Laird’s mom’s pocket watch sold for a cool ￡15 million at auction.
“September will be here before we know it. Speaking of …” She went on to ask me if I was free at the end of next month to spend two nights in Glasgow.
Taran had booked appointments at several bridal stores over a Friday and Saturday, but we’d need to stay over in the city.
I was sure it wouldn’t be a problem, but I’d have to check with Murray.
“How is that going? You and him?”
As if he’d heard us, my phone vibrated on the desk between me and Taran, and Murray’s name appeared on the screen. I swiped it and saw it was a link to a song. My heart picked up pace with curiosity.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“So? How are things?” Taran reiterated. “How is Kelly?”
I explained the current situation and how I thought it best to give Kelly space.
Give them all space. Taran frowned and pressed her lips together like she disagreed.
In any other circumstance, I might have pushed her to be honest with me, but between how tired I was and feeling low in general, I didn’t want to hear anyone else’s opinions right now.
Our conversation turned to other things, even though my mind kept going back to Murray’s text. I wanted to know what the song was. What it meant.
As soon as I could, I made my excuses and tried not to hurry out of the shop, but once I was out the door, I picked up speed in the opposite direction.
I took the path behind the store on the left that ran along the coast away from Leth Sholas.
The coastal path was a great place to take in the wildlife.
There were otters on muddy sandbanks that eventually gave way to small, sandy beaches.
Puffins nested on the rockier parts of the coastline.
Once, a few months back when I’d walked down here with Nee, we’d seen dolphins gliding through the water.
The lull of the lapping sea was soothing, as were the cries of the gulls above. But I hadn’t come out here to listen to the island. I’d come out here to be alone to listen to a song Murray Shaw had texted me.
For some strange reason, my fingers shook a little as I clicked on it. The song was called “Be the Bird” by the musician Rhodes. I’d never heard of him.
Beautiful acoustic guitar music filled the air, and a gentle male voice followed suit. I closed my eyes and listened to the lyrics. He sang about not letting me look back on my life and think I’d taken a wrong turn.
Tears thickened my throat.
The tempo increased as he told me I was someone, that I was born to fly high. He asked me to promise to keep fighting for the life I wanted.
Tears now wetted my cheeks as he sang about my being younger than him but that he listened to me.
Like he saw wisdom in me?
As I listened to the beautiful song through, I played it again. And again.
Feeling seen. Feeling cared for.
Feeling bolstered and braver because Murray Shaw thought I was brave. He thought I was something special.
And I wanted to prove him right.
It was somehow easier to blame myself for what Nick had done than accept this horrible person happened to me, not because of me. But I needed to learn to be kinder to myself. To believe in myself again. I couldn’t do that hiding in my own head.
Maybe I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life career-wise anymore.
But that didn’t mean I had to be lost.
I had a place here right now, and while our relationship wasn’t that of a husband and wife, Murray was my friend.
If I was brave enough, I could help him and Kelly get through one of the hardest periods of their lives.
Taran’s pinched expression when I’d suggested giving Murray and his daughter space flashed in my mind. She’d disagreed. And I think I knew why. I was the one person in their lives who understood them to an extent that most people couldn’t.
I understood Kelly.
She didn’t need space.
She needed to feel seen as much as her father had just made me feel seen.