Chapter 35
Skye
By morning, the farmhouse felt less like somewhere we had returned to and more like somewhere we had started inhabiting.
The difference was subtle enough that I might not have noticed it if I hadn't spent my life looking at rooms and asking what made them feel used rather than staged.
Irish's boots were beside the kitchen door instead of lined neatly with his travel bag.
My coat hung over the back of a chair because I had been too tired to put it away properly.
Two mugs sat beside the sink from coffee neither of us finished before going upstairs, and the old sitting-room fire had burned down to a bed of gray ash beneath the grate.
None of it would have mattered to anyone else.
To me, it mattered enormously. Homes weren't created by perfect design or expensive finishes.
They became homes through occupation, repetition, and the accumulation of evidence that people expected to return.
Irish was standing at the kitchen window when I came downstairs, already dressed in jeans and a dark shirt with the sleeves pushed to his forearms. He held a mug in one hand and stared across the fields toward the stone wall where we'd stood the night before talking about a future neither of us had been able to define without eventually laughing at how badly designed our lives were. He heard me.
"Morning."
"That depends."
He looked over his shoulder. "On?"
"Whether you've made coffee."
"Aye."
"Then morning." His mouth curved. I crossed the kitchen and accepted the mug he had already prepared for me. It was stronger than anything Brigid would have approved of and exactly how I liked it. I took a sip.
"You're learning."
"Don't make it a thing."
"It is absolutely a thing."
Irish turned back toward the window. I leaned against the counter and studied him for a moment.
Something about his posture had changed again, although by then I had stopped expecting every shift to announce itself dramatically.
Healing, if that was what this was, seemed to happen through smaller choices: sleeping through the night, opening drawers without hesitation, sitting in his father's chair without treating it as sacrilege, inviting people into the farmhouse, and allowing himself to imagine coming back before he'd even left.
"What are you thinking about?" I asked.
"The garden."
That was not the answer I expected. I moved closer to the window.
Outside, the front beds had become an argument between old planting and years of enthusiastic neglect.
Lavender leaned across the path, rosemary had escaped whatever boundaries it once possessed, and the climbing rose beside the sitting-room window had stretched beyond its original support and begun reaching toward the gutter.
"That's dangerous." Irish glanced at me.
"What?"
"You're voluntarily discussing the house."
"I've been discussing the house."
"Only after I provoke you."
"I regret starting this." I smiled and looked outside again.
"The rose needs support."
"Brigid says Mam loved it."
"I know."
"You're not removing it."
"I said support, not execution." His eyes narrowed slightly.
"And the garden?"
"Needs work."
"Helpful."
"You want the professional version?"
"No."
"Good, because it's expensive."
He laughed quietly. The sound still affected me every time I heard it inside this house.
I set my coffee down and pointed toward the window.
"The bones are good. The front beds can be brought back without turning everything into something polished and unrecognizable.
I'd keep the lavender, rosemary, rose, probably whatever survives beneath the weeds, then rebuild around what was already here.
" Irish watched the garden as though he could see it changing.
"Mam planted the lavender."
"Then the lavender stays."
"Finn hated it."
"Why?"
"Bees."
"Reasonable."
"He got stung once and declared war."
"Less reasonable." Irish smiled.
"Maeve liked the rose."
"Then we save it." He looked toward me. There was something quiet in his expression.
"You say that easily."
"What?"
"Save it." I understood. Restoration was not about preserving something exactly or freezing it in place; it was about saving what remained by allowing it to keep growing. I rested one hand against the counter.
"That's what restoration is supposed to do." His gaze stayed on mine.
"Not make something look untouched?"
"No. That's usually how people ruin old buildings." He leaned his hip against the counter.
"Explain." I smiled.
"You're asking for professional knowledge before breakfast?"
"Apparently." I moved closer to the window.
"Good restoration respects what was there without pretending time didn't happen.
You stabilize what matters, repair what's damaged, replace what can't reasonably be saved, and make sure the building can still function for whoever lives there now.
" Irish's expression changed slightly. I heard the metaphor as soon as the words left my mouth. So did he.
"Subtle," he said.
"I wasn't trying."
"That's worse." I laughed. He reached for my hand. The contact came naturally now.
"Could you do it?" I looked at him.
"The farmhouse?"
"Aye." My pulse changed.
"Professionally?"
"Professionally."
"That's a terrible idea." His brows drew together.
"Why?"
"Because you're a difficult client."
"I am not."
"You argued with me about a bathroom you haven't even looked at properly."
"It's my bathroom."
"It's offensive."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it is." His thumb moved across my fingers.
"I want you to do it." The humor faded. I studied him.
"This isn't a small project."
"I know."
"You'd need surveys. Structural work first. Electrical, plumbing, roof, windows, damp. Then we decide what actually needs changing."
"Aye."
"And I won't turn it into some modern version of itself just because that's easier."
"Good."
"I'll argue with you."
"Expected."
"I'll probably argue with Brigid."
"Encouraged." I smiled. Then I realized what he had actually asked. He wasn't merely asking whether I could advise; he was asking whether I would take responsibility for helping shape the farmhouse into whatever came next.
"Callum." His expression softened when I used the name.
"What?"
"Are you sure?"
"Aye."
"Because this means accepting that things will change."
"I know."
"Some furniture may move." His face hardened theatrically.
"Within reason."
"The bathroom is going."
"Absolutely not." I laughed. He pulled me closer.
"You're enjoying this too much."
"Immensely." He kissed me once, slow enough that the conversation disappeared for several seconds. When we separated, I stayed close.
"Then yes." Something shifted in his face.
"Yes?"
"I'll do it." His hands settled at my waist.
"Thistle & Stone?" I nodded.
"As a proper project."
"Invoice me."
"I will."
"Don't make it ridiculous."
"No promises."
He shook his head. I smiled. It should have felt like a business decision.
It didn't. It felt like something far more intimate.
Irish was asking me to help change the physical shape of the place that held his worst memories.
He wasn't asking me to erase those memories, only to make room around them.
We ate breakfast while discussing repairs in enough detail that I eventually went upstairs for my notebook.
By the time I returned, Irish had found old maintenance files from the drawer beside the telephone and spread them across the table.
Roof inspections, boiler servicing, electrical reports, damp surveys, and chimney checks filled the file, years of proof that he'd kept the farmhouse standing even when he couldn't make himself return. I read through them slowly.
"You've spent a fortune on this place."
"Probably."
"You don't know?"
"Didn't look too closely."
"Why?"
"If it needed something, I paid it." The answer stopped me. For fifteen years he'd insisted paying maintenance didn't count as caring for the house. It absolutely did. Maybe not enough to live here. Enough to refuse to let it fall apart. I looked across the table.
"You never abandoned it." His jaw tightened.
"I wasn't here."
"That's not what I said." He stared at the papers.
"You kept the roof sound. You replaced the boiler. You repaired the windows. You had damp monitored. You didn't come back, but you never let the place die." Irish said nothing for a long moment. Then he looked toward the hallway.
"Didn't know what else to do with it."
"Still counts." This time he didn't argue. My phone rang before the conversation could deepen. Isla. I answered immediately.
"Hi."
"That sounded suspiciously eager." My entire body relaxed at the sound of her voice.
"You've been difficult to reach."
"I've been sleeping."
"Good."
"Apparently everyone has decided sleeping is now my full-time occupation."
"They're not wrong."
"They are extremely wrong." Irish looked toward me. I mouthed, Isla. He nodded and gathered the maintenance papers quietly, giving me the kitchen without leaving completely.
"Where are you?" Isla asked.
"Farmhouse." A pause.
"His farmhouse?"
"Yes." Another pause. Longer.
"Oh." I closed my eyes.
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was absolutely about to." Despite everything, I smiled.
"How are you?" Her voice softened.
"Better today."
"Really?"
"Mostly." I knew better than to press the word.
"Did you sleep?"
"Six hours."
"That's good."
"Skye."
"Sorry."
"You do the hovering thing even from another country." I looked toward Irish. He heard. His mouth moved. Traitor.
"I'm working on it."
"So am I."
The quiet between us felt easier than it had immediately after Croft House. Then Isla said, "I want to talk about work." My instinctive response arrived instantly.
"No." Silence. I closed my eyes. That had been automatic. Exactly the thing she had already asked me not to do.
"Sorry." Irish looked toward me. I exhaled.
"That came out wrong."
"Very."
"I don't want you feeling pressured."
"I'm not."
"Okay."