Chapter 20
SAM
Rosie is sound asleep when I slip out of bed and head to the kitchen to put some coffee on. I have no idea if she likes coffee, but I’ve got the kettle full and a few tea bags out if she’s more of a tea person.
A soft knock at the door alerts me to the room service that’s being delivered.
Again, I overprepare. She told me what she’d have for breakfast in bed but they didn’t have brioche so I panicked and ordered way more to compensate.
I open the door to a picnic basket straight out of a child’s imagination and take it to the kitchen to unpack.
Freshly baked pastries, little jars of jam and marmalade, eggs, sausage, black pudding, potato scones, and various fruits in a bowl. The smell alone has my stomach rumbling.
“Something smells amazing.” I turn to see Rosie, messy hair, a sleepy smile, and swimming in my damn shirt from yesterday. She’s got her pyjama shorts back on too, but she may as well be naked.
Her eyebrows rise and I realize I’ve been staring at her.
I clear my throat and gesture at everything spread out on the counter, forcing myself to stop gawking. “Figured we’d worked up an appetite and I wanted to make sure it was adequately fed.”
She makes her way to take a closer look, gravitating to the pastries first. “I have eaten way too many croissants since being here.” She laughs, her hand going to her stomach, and I’m ready to tell her that’s totally fine.
“I don’t know if I will ever regret a croissant though—even bad ones are good. This is me living.”
I pull down two plates and hand one to her. “Let’s dive in while it’s hot.”
Rosie takes a croissant and then adds eggs, sausage, and a potato scone.
She takes a quick bite of eggs, then adds a shake of salt and a few shakes of pepper.
It’s hot that she tasted before seasoning.
Nothing else gets added to her plate, no other sauces or seasoning, and I quickly follow suit, loading my plate, grabbing the bowl of fruit, and following her out the back door to the little patio set that sits in the centre of the garden.
We sit across from one another picking at our breakfast and stealing glances. I’m a confident guy; I had my head between her legs last night, and yet right now it’s like I’m sixteen again and I just had my first kiss. I’m a bashful mess.
“Did I see coffee inside?” Rosie asks, breaking the silence, and I stand up so fast I nearly flip the table.
I place my hands on the sides, steadying it. “Yes, sorry, I meant to ask, but I got distracted by food. I’ve got tea out too.” She makes a face, and I don’t need to ask for clarification. Rosie does not like tea. “Anything in your coffee?”
“Milk, please,” she sings, pulling her foot up on the chair and resting her chin on her knee, watching me with a tiny smile as I back into the cottage.
“Be right back,” I tell her, spinning around and rushing back to the kitchen.
I use the opportunity of being alone to toss back my meds and then pick apart a croissant as I lean against the counter, waiting for the moka pot to boil.
The coffee over here is better but so much less convenient.
I bought a drip coffee maker in my first year because I didn’t have the patience to wait for a tiny amount of coffee to brew.
My impatience in my early twenties is nothing compared to right now when I’ve got a beautiful woman waiting for me to come back.
I should have had them bring a carafe of coffee down too.
Next time, I think. It’s an odd thought considering this isn’t going to be a thing. I assume we both know that we’re both merely scratching an itch.
When the coffee finally finishes, I grab two mugs and the little carton of milk that was in the semi-stocked fridge and head outside.
Rosie’s attention is on the hills beyond the short stone wall, a piece of croissant seemingly forgotten in her hand.
If I were a painter, I’d paint a hundred versions of this. She turns to me, and I realize that this is the version I’d paint, the one where she smiles at me while I bring her coffee. Maybe I should take up painting?
“A handsome man bringing me coffee on a beautiful summer morning in the Scottish Highlands… What the hell is this life?”
“I was thinking the same thing, except…” I try to motion that I mean reversed, but I’m holding too many things to have it make any sense. “Well, bringing a beautiful woman coffee in the Scottish Highlands is pretty great too.”
Rosie’s smile grows once she’s about to take her first sip, the steam curling in front of her face as she tips the mug.
The difference in this woman across from me today versus the one I first met on the plane is wild.
She didn’t seem overly flustered on the plane or anything, but she didn’t seem free; it was like something was holding her together.
Today though, and quite frankly, last night, it’s like she’s broken free—she’s looser, more peaceful.
“How is it?” I ask as she lowers the mug and sets it next to her plate.
She hums. “Perfect.”
I take a sip for myself, the rich flavour dancing across my taste buds reminding me why this type of brew method is preferred to drip.
“Are you going on the group hike today?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I haven’t decided yet. Maggi is with my in-laws until tomorrow. We’re trying this little break from one another thing and thought doing it here when I’m still nearby would be ideal.”
“Are you planning to send her over here for extended periods of time?” I ask, cutting into the potato scone and pairing it with a slice of black pudding.
Rosie’s brow furrows, and I wonder if I’ve perhaps dug too deep. Maybe the question is too personal.
“I’m still trying to decide if moving here is something we should do.”
I stop mid-cut, not knowing why her words have me feeling suddenly anxious. “What’s holding you back?”
“The familiarity of home. Not that Scotland isn’t familiar. Eric and I were back and forth all the time before Mags. This is my first time back since he died. He loved living in Canada and leaving… I don’t know. I feel like I’d be really leaving him behind.”
I know what I want to say, but I have a feeling it’s not what I should say. I want to tell her that you can’t leave someone who has left you, whether or not it was their choice.
“What do you think he’d say to that?”
She groans, tipping her head back and running her hands through her hair, taming the sleep tousled tresses.
“He would not be happy with me. I mean…” I watch as she starts to waver, blue eyes brimming with tears, mouth working, fighting with her emotions.
“He knew how much I love it here. I would have moved here in a heartbeat. As I mentioned before, my parents are gone. My sister, Beth, lives in Germany with her family. I have friends but no family nearby. Maggi getting to spend time with the only other family she has aside from me would be great.”
“We’re both being held in place by ghosts,” I say, almost to myself.
“What do you mean?”
“My parents died shortly after I retired. First my dad, then my mom a couple weeks later.”
“Oh, Sam,” she whispers, reaching out to take my hand.
I focus on her fingers in mine, using the contact to keep me grounded.
“My dad’s passion was his bookstore. I never wanted to take it over, but he left it to me, with the intention that my mom would run it, and I haven’t had the heart to sell it or close up.
So in a way I’m stuck living in a city I don’t want to live in doing a job I never wanted to do because of some unavoidable need to keep myself tethered to his legacy. ”
“What would you do if you gave up the store?”
I look back up and think, this. I’d find myself a small cottage somewhere in the Highlands and hide away with a beautiful woman, good coffee, and endless potato scones.
“I’d be back here in a place like this, far away from everyone. Maybe take a coaching position somewhere. I don’t know. I don’t allow myself to dwell on it too much. I don’t believe I’d survive the disappointment of never following through.”
She gives my hand one more squeeze and leans back in her chair, looking around with a furrowed brow, clearly lost in thought.
“We’re both in predicaments of privilege.”
“How do you mean?”
Her blue eyes sweep back to me, and she takes a sip of her coffee before continuing.
“We have options. We aren’t necessarily being forced to accept one or the other.
Emotions, or ghosts as you call them, are holding us in place.
But we could make the jump tomorrow if we wanted to.
Stuck and yet remarkably free at the same time. ”
It’s a sensible way of looking at things. So sensible that I suddenly feel quite silly for not seeing it from that angle.
“So if you were me, what would you do?”
Rosie lets go of a raspy laugh and shrugs. “I’m the last person you should ask. If I tell you to give up the bookstore and move over here, it makes me a hypocrite. But I guess I’d also ask, Sam, do you think your dad would want you doing something your heart wasn’t in?”
The million-dollar question. I have lost countless hours of sleep regretting not talking about this before he died.
But for some reason I always thought I’d have time.
Even with a date on the calendar for his grand exit, I always thought there’d be more time.
So I put it off and put it off, and then suddenly the discussion seemed inappropriate.
Why would I want to distress a dying man?
I was an adult—surely I was capable of figuring things out without asking my dad for help.
“I don’t know.” I sigh, suddenly desperate to change the subject. “I think we should go on the hike.”
I watch as she finishes chewing a bite of croissant, her eyes on me the entire time. “Why should we go on a group hike?”
Ideally, I’d keep her here for the day and make use of every second of privacy allotted by the cottage, but I also have a feeling that being around other people may be a fun little experiment. Build some tension as we—
“What?” I ask when her head tips, eyes narrowing as she scrutinizes me.
“Do you believe you can keep your hands to yourself?”
A challenge.