Chapter 68 Callan
CALLAN
“Any word from Astrid this week?” Travis inquires as we enjoy a quick pint of the local craft beer after work on Friday at our usual place, propping up the bar on our stools.
I shake my head. “Our conversation takes a back seat to the emotional pain she’s going through now.”
“I can’t believe Devlin didn’t show up even one time to check on her in person.”
“He’s a prick. I honestly don’t know what she sees in him.”
“If it were any other woman, I’d say it was his money, but Astrid has never been like that. Jess said she didn’t even want the flowers he sent, claiming his assistant picked them.”
Jessie, Ana, and Beth were very kind to Astrid these past two weeks.
Dropping by with food and supplies and just checking in on her.
Ma said that’s the only reason Elsa didn’t hop on a plane after Astrid called her.
The old friends spoke for a while, and I know Mum would love to reconnect with her.
She has lots of friends here now, but no one she gets on with as much as she did with Elsa.
“I don’t doubt it, but I can’t imagine he’s that different to any other billionaire.” I finish my pint.
“Maybe you should drop by and see her.”
I shake my head again. “Ma said they talked for a bit, and I need to be patient because she’s going through a lot.” I drop a couple of dollar bills on the counter for Dan and stand. “I’m gonna head.”
“You sure you don’t want to come over? You know Jess always makes way too much food.” Travis drains his beer, drops a couple of dollars on the counter, and climbs off the stool.
“I appreciate the offer, but I just want to put my feet up and chill out. Watch some footie on TV.” My parents have taken Darcy to New York for the weekend, and I can’t remember the last time I had a completely free weekend to myself.
The World Cup is on, and some of my old teammates are playing for their countries, and I plan to cheer them on from the comfort of my sofa.
“All right, but if you change your mind, you know where we are.”
We part ways outside and head for our respective homes.
Driving along the winding driveway I had constructed on the left perimeter of Whispering Woods never fails to steal my breath.
I still pinch myself that I live here. Knowing my daughter is growing up surrounded by the beauty of nature warms my heart.
Darcy loves swimming in the lake and foraging in the woods.
The only thing missing is the woman who owns my heart.
I’m thinking of Astrid as I park my car in the garage and walk into the house through the connecting door.
After making some pasta, I head into my large living room with my bowl of food and a beer, settling into my leather recliner chair and flicking on the TV.
I’ve just finished eating when I get an alert on my phone that there’s someone at the main gates.
Butterflies swoop into my chest, and my heart races like crazy when I spot Astrid leaning out of her car window with her finger to the keypad.
I press the button, and the gates part. “Drive through and keep to the left,” I say, knowing she can hear me.
“I’ll see you in a bit.” I watch through the various cameras as she drives slowly along the edge of the woods, heading for the house.
Shoving my feet into my runners, I walk into the kitchen to deposit my bowl and fork in the sink, and then I head outside, pausing to turn on all the outside lights on my way.
Astrid’s car is just rounding the bend, and I will my frantic pulse to calm down. If she’s here, it can only mean one thing. Nerves instantly fire at me, but I tell myself I can do this. I have waited a long time to explain the events of that night to her, and anxiety has no place interfering.
She pulls to a stop on the gravel just outside the garage, and I walk toward her. Shock is etched all over her face when she gets out. She slams her door shut and stands rooted to the spot as I approach, spinning her head this way and that, trying to soak it all in.
She looks pretty as a picture in a knee-length summer dress with thin straps. A white cardigan is tied around her waist, her long legs are bare, and her feet are encased in a pair of wedge sandals. Wavy hair streams effortlessly over her shoulders and down her back.
“Hey.”
Tears shimmer in her eyes when she turns to face me. “Callan.” She almost chokes on the word. “How did you…what is…how is this possible?” She visibly gulps, and I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around her and hold her close.
“I’ll tell you everything.”
“I can’t believe you own all this.” She rubs her eyes before turning to face the lake. “We used to daydream about living here.”
I come up beside her. “I bought it for us,” I quietly admit, my chest bursting with pride as I glance around my property. “I spent years pulling it all together, trying to make it how we imagined it. Seeing you here now is” —Everything. It’s everything.—“surreal.”
She stares at me for a few beats, and I see all manner of emotions swirling behind her eyes.
My heart pounds behind my chest wall. I love her so fucking much.
I always will. She was always meant to be mine, and having her here is something I’d begun to think would never happen.
Astrid gulps and looks away before skimming her gaze across my property. “You have a boat.”
“Not quite the luxury yacht I had in mind, but it gets us around the lake. I go fishing with the lads regularly. The lake is teeming with trout and salmon. Ma loves bragging how her fish pie was made with fish I caught on my lake.” I thank God every day for blessing me with an amazing mother.
There were times growing up I took her for granted, but never anymore.
“Darcy comes sometimes, but she doesn’t quite have the patience required, and her constant chatter alerts the fish to our presence. ”
“This is…it’s incredible. Truly, Callan.” She points to the right. “What is that place?”
“That’s Whispering Cottage. A guesthouse. Dara stays there when he visits sometimes.”
“You tore down the inventor’s house.” She stares across the lake at the site where the old house stood.
“I had no choice. It was a safety concern. Originally, I’d hoped I could renovate it and build on to it, but the surveyor exposed several areas of concern, and his recommendation was to tear it down. It’s our fruit, vegetable, herb, and flower garden now.”
“Wow. This is heavenly.” Wispy strands of her hair blow around her face in the soft nighttime breeze. “Darcy is a lucky girl to get to grow up here.”
“She loves it, and she spends every summer day in the water. She was swimming like a pro by the time she was four.” I shove my hands in my jeans pockets to avoid the urge to touch her. “She’s not here, by the way, so we can talk in private. I’m assuming that’s why you’re here.”
She nods. “Roni told me they were taking her to The Big Apple for the weekend with her usual level of subtlety.”
I burst out laughing. “That sounds about right.”
Astrid stares at me as if in a daze.
“What?” I rub at my mouth. “Do I have sauce on my face?”
“No.” She worries her lower lip between her teeth. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard you laugh like that. I’d forgotten how your entire face lights up.”
“I don’t think I’ve laughed like that since then. For a long time, there weren’t many reasons to smile at all.”
“Not for me either,” she softly says.
“I’m sorry.” I grip my thighs through my pockets, barely resisting the urge to comfort her. She’s still wearing his ring, I have to remind myself, and she’s only here for the truth. “I hate how much you got hurt.”
She looks out across the lake, her eyes following the softly dappled water as it laps lazily at the shore. She turns and looks up at me. “Before we get into it, please tell me how you came to own this place.”
“There’s a bit of a story to it.” I jerk my head to the side, where I have a large patio with a few dining tables and chairs, and some sofas and tables. “How about a drink outside while I tell you? I have white wine or beer or—”
“White wine is great, and I’m happy to sit outside.”
“Cool. Go take a seat, and I’ll be right out.”
I sprint inside and fix our drinks before walking the length of my downstairs and exiting onto the patio through the games room. Astrid is seated on one of the sofas, facing the lake. “This is the perfect place to entertain,” she says.
“It really is. In the summer, I have family and friends over a lot. We were all here for the Fourth of July.” I offer the wineglass to her. Our fingers brush in the exchange, igniting a flurry of tremors across my hand. Her touch is literally electric.
“Thank you for the invite, but I was still not feeling great.”
I sink onto the couch alongside her. “It’s fine. I understood.” A teeny part of me had hoped she might come, but deep down, I knew she wouldn’t.
“I appreciated the food basket. It was thoughtful and totally delicious.”
We had tons of food, and I’d packaged up a bit of everything and had a guy Uber it to her.
I’d have hand-delivered it myself, but she asked me to stay away, and I’m trying to honor her wishes.
“I knew you were by yourself, and I wanted you to know we were thinking of you.” That prick didn’t even bother flying home for the holiday.
“It was very much appreciated.”
“How are you doing now?” I ask before lifting the beer bottle to my lips.
“Better.” She sips her wine and looks out over the lake. “Physically, at least. Emotionally, I’m still a little shook up.”
“That’s to be expected when you didn’t know.” Tears build in her eyes, and she looks so lost. I just want to bundle her up and love her with my whole heart so she never feels the things she’s feeling now. “You’ll be okay. Just give yourself time.”
Hearing the news that day in the hospital was a shock to me too. How I wish it had been my baby, and I was the one allowed to take care of her after the loss. I sure as fuck wouldn’t have abandoned her to handle it all alone.
“Sorry.” She removes a tissue from her bag and dabs her eyes. “I’m still a bit hormonal.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I’m grateful to you and your mom and all the girls. I appreciated the support so much.”
“Everyone was happy to help. You have people here who care about you.”
“There really is no place like home. I have missed Ryemont.” She casts a glance around as she takes a mouthful of her wine. “I’ve missed the clean air, the easygoing vibes, and the quiet. It’s so peaceful here. While I love New York, it’s chaos in comparison.”
“There is no place like here. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
“You’ve carved out a little piece of heaven on earth, Callan, and you still haven’t told me how you ended up here.”
“Prepare to be shocked.”
She arches a brow. “Hit me with it.”
“The Scottish inventor didn't die; he remarried after his first wife died and moved back to Scotland.”
“No way!”
“Yes, way. I spent months digging around in archives, libraries, and visiting the town clerk’s office, trying to figure it all out.
The legend didn’t get it totally wrong. There was a first wife, she was from Ryemont, but they tragically lost their child to tuberculosis.
His wife was often found wandering around the woods, crying, and calling out for her dead son, but she didn’t drown either; she was trampled to death by a horse and carriage after wandering out onto the road in the dark. ”
“That is so sad, but I’m glad neither of them died in the lake.”
“Same.”
“So, what happened to the inventor after he returned to Scotland, and what about the house here?”
“He abandoned the house, and maybe he intended to return one day, but he never did. He had two children with his second wife, and I managed to compile their family tree, thanks to Ancestry. I found one of his great-grandkids and reached out to Elizabeth. She got in touch with the other four great-grandkids. Get this, none of them even knew about the property or the first wife or the legend or anything.”
“It must’ve been a huge shock.”
“A happy one when they realized I’d found the title deeds and I had proof they were the rightful owners.”
“How long were you working on all this?”
“Took a year to track them down and another year to get through all the red tape. The inventor’s descendants hired a lawyer, got their rights reinstated, and, after an agreement with the land agency, they sold the land to me.
I had to pay the agency a fee, but it was deducted from the agreed sale price, which was very fair.
I had just enough left over from my football contract to pay it, build the house and guesthouse, and set up the company with Travis. ”
“When did you move in here?”
“We’ll be here five years in January. Travis and I did a lot of the manual labor in our spare time until things got too busy with GH Construction, and then I hired more contractors to finish the rest. We got the cottage built in three months, so Darcy and I could move out of Ma’s and be here while the main house was built.
This place was move-in ready three days before Darcy’s fourth birthday. ”
“I’m still blown away you did this.”
I want to tell her I never stopped hoping she’d live here with us one day, but I can’t. I can’t express any of those sentiments while she’s still engaged to another man. “Doing this literally saved my life.”
Lines furrow her brow. “What do you mean?”
I exhale heavily. “I was in a very dark place after I got that bitch out of our lives. I still have some bad days when the things she did to me, to us, threaten to smother me. Knowing Darcy needed me and building this house were the only things keeping me tethered to this world for a long time.”
Her eyes widen as shock plays across her face. Her hand shakes where it grips her wineglass.
“The things I have to tell you are not easy, Astrid. Not easy for me to say. Not easy for you to hear.”
“I’m scared,” she whispers.
“I’m scared too, even if I have been waiting years to tell you.” A heaviness coats the air. “If you want to back out, I will understand.”
She tips her chin up, staring deep into my eyes. “I have waited a long time for answers. If you’re willing to tell me, I’m willing to listen.”