Chapter 37
While twilight is my favourite time of the day, sitting on the back step with a coffee first thing in the morning and watching the garden come to life is one of my favourite things to do.
There’s a red deer who visits if I’m quiet and patient enough.
One advantage of old age is my increasing desire to sit still!
Extract from Joy’s journal
Waking up with Logan for the third time felt as if the stars had aligned.
Everything finally made sense. Tilly’s anxiety had been replaced by an inner peace that was accentuated by the sunshine slanting through the window where the curtains were open on the dawn.
Only the sound of nature accompanied Logan’s gentle snore and he couldn’t have looked more relaxed if he tried, lying on his front with his arms wrapped around his pillow.
She smiled at the memory of them being wrapped around her for most of the night after the fire had died down and they’d retreated from the sofa to the comfort of Logan’s room.
Tilly slipped out of bed, but not to escape an awkward encounter when Logan woke up.
The peace she felt was because she was comfortable with the situation.
She wanted this to be the new norm, and for them to wake up together every day.
Except they’d both be leaving on the weekend, with Logan going back to Edinburgh, while she…
She had no clue yet what she was going to do, except she would have to go back to Newcastle at some point to return the hire car, ensure Stefan was out of her house then sell it.
She made a coffee and drank it on the kitchen doorstep, glad of her hoodie even if her legs were bare.
The blue sky promised another fine day and the sunshine brightened the garden, warming the dew-speckled grass.
It was peaceful but never silent. Birdsong filled the air and the grey horse in the field snickered.
In the woodland beyond the river, Tilly spied movement.
She picked up her phone and used the camera to zoom in on a lone red deer.
This was the peace Joy had talked about in her journal.
This was happiness, being here with Logan.
This way of life was so different to what she was used to, but wasn’t it what she’d always been chasing?
Her whole life she’d been desperate to find a place she belonged and to figure out what she wanted, when it had been staring her in the face for years.
She’d just needed to stay still long enough to see it.
When her teeth started chattering and she’d finished her coffee, she returned to the kitchen.
Not only had the slower pace of life been good for her, but it had allowed her the time to do things she rarely did, like make breakfast for Logan.
There were an awful lot of things she enjoyed because they were tied up in him.
She carried a tray upstairs to Logan’s bedroom. Pausing in the doorway, she took in the scene: Logan stirring and Barney stretching out on the floor at the foot of the bed. Her new family.
An intense happiness hit her like a wave smashing against rocks, yet she felt gently pummelled rather than a wreck, because she was accepting of the changes and open to the possibility of more vulnerability, happiness and love.
‘Morning, handsome,’ she said, crossing the room.
Logan shuffled upright and rubbed his eyes. ‘Breakfast in bed?’
‘Thought we deserved it.’
‘After all the energy we expelled last night.’ He grinned.
‘Thought you might need to refuel for round two.’ Tilly placed the tray on the bed and slid beneath the duvet to warm her legs. ‘Or is it round three?’
Logan took a bite of his bacon buttie. ‘Pretty sure we’re on round four,’ he said through a mouthful.
‘You can manage that?’ she teased.
‘Is that a challenge?’ He took another bite of the bacon roll while not breaking eye contact.
‘If you want it to be.’ The ease with which they were teasing each other over their newfound intimacy proved to Tilly how right it was.
Their friendship had developed into something exciting and wonderful.
Sitting in bed together munching on bacon butties and flirting while knowing full well that they’d have their hands on each other any minute meant everything.
Logan cast his plate aside. ‘Challenge accepted.’
* * *
They eventually dragged themselves out of bed to take Barney for a walk. They peeled off when they got back to the house to tackle the final few jobs, with Tilly finishing up in the cottage and Logan boxing up the last of his aunt’s belongings in the house.
At one, Logan found her in the garden cutting back the tree branches from around the living-room window. ‘Fancy popping out for lunch?’
‘I thought the pub was closed during the day?’
‘We’re going somewhere else.’ He took her hand and pulled her in for a kiss. ‘Think we deserve a break.’
‘As long as you’re not going to make me drive down another eight-mile track?’
‘It’s not too far this time, I promise. Although we do have to get a boat.’
Leaving Barney asleep in the kitchen, they drove for a little over twenty minutes mostly along the opposite shore of Loch Na Keal.
The view back across the water towards the mountains where the house was hidden among the trees was one Robert had painted many times, and Tilly would miss it desperately when they left in a couple of days.
They parked the hire car and walked the short distance to where they could get the boat over to the Isle of Ulva.
Tilly had been to the island once before with Logan but the restaurant had been closed.
It was larger than Iona, but less populated, a wild expanse of land with a herd of Highland cows and only a handful of people living there, plus a hostel and a couple of off-grid bothies for a proper in-the-middle-of-nowhere experience.
The boatman was on his way over as they reached the sloping dock, a quiet Scot who ferried them and another couple across the short stretch of water in his small boat.
What a place to live, Tilly thought as they paid and thanked him.
It put the chaos of real life sharply into focus when she was somewhere so peaceful, getting a taste of a different way of living.
Time was running out and there was still lots to do at the house, but their desire to spend time with each other was overriding everything else.
Being here was an opportunity to make new memories, because Tilly was unsure what the future would hold once they left.
They’d done the woodland walk on Ulva before, so they only went as far as the marshy field of Highland cows with their teddy-bear calves, and the sun-dappled view across the water to Mull.
Tilly had loved the walk beneath shady trees that curved up and down along a twig- and root-strewn path, past rocks covered in thick, spongy moss.
The gentle climb to an open expanse of grass had offered breath-taking views across Loch Na Keal to Ben More and the west coast road they’d driven the other day.
She remembered standing there with the salty breeze buffeting her, feeling windswept and free, almost as if she was on the edge of the world, looking at the cliffs of Mull plunging into the Atlantic Ocean.
Today though with little time and rumbling stomachs, they returned to The Boathouse, a whitewashed stone cottage by the shore, where they ordered coffee and seafood.
They sat at one of the picnic tables that overlooked the water.
Another boatload of people were being ferried across and it was probably the busiest it had been the whole time she’d been on Mull.
Not that it mattered when the new arrivals dispersed for a walk or headed into The Boathouse for a late lunch.
Their Fisherman’s Plates were brought out with an Ulva prawn, smoked mussels, salmon, trout, seafood sauce and homemade bread. It was the perfect food for the setting and after breaking into and pulling apart their prawns, they munched in silence for a moment.
‘This was a good decision.’ Tilly loaded some flaky trout onto a piece of bread and popped it in her mouth.
‘We need to make the most of being here, and we’ve been working hard.’
‘I disappeared for almost two days and left you in the lurch.’
Logan took a bite of the prawn. ‘You’ve helped me loads. I couldn’t have done it without you. And there have been so many reminders to prioritise the good things in life while here. Losing my aunt, hearing what Cal’s been through, remembering my mum puts it all in perspective.’
‘Life is short.’
‘And unpredictable.’ Logan nodded. He skewered a mussel. ‘Rosie took me to see Cal while you were gone.’
‘She did?’
‘Yeah, he needed some advice about converting their old barns into a creative hub for craftspeople, to diversify. He wants something positive to focus on. He’d be keen to have your input with the design.’
Tilly nodded and bit her lip. ‘I’d like that.’
Logan met her eyes. ‘He would too.’
In the past, Tilly had noticed there’d been a touch of jealousy when she’d talked about Cal to Logan, but there was nothing now, just an openness that was refreshing.
‘I understand why my aunt stayed here.’ Logan’s attention swept from Tilly to their surroundings, with the sunshine making the deep blue water glint and the moss-green hills look velvety-soft.
‘Because I’m beginning to question why I would ever want to – leave, I mean.
I keep coming back to the thought of what if I don’t have to live in Edinburgh? ’
‘You mean live here?’ Her heart fluttered with surprise.
‘My business can move with me, I just need a suitable place to set myself up to begin with, but when Cal’s finished his project at their farm, there’d be a proper place to work. It’s somewhere I love, somewhere I’m not sure I want to leave. A place I think of as home.’
How quickly things were moving. Just the idea of Logan living even further away was enough of an upset. Mull had cast a spell on them both, the same way it had for Joy, but was it enough to change their lives completely?
Logan leaned his elbows on the picnic table and sighed.
‘It’s an idea, but there’s lots to think about.
Maybe I’m just sad about leaving and will feel differently when I’m back in Edinburgh.
’ He tore off a chunk of bread and dipped it in the seafood sauce.
‘There’s no rush to decide anything and I’ll have the opportunity to come back, help Cal out too if he needs it.
Ivor as well because he’s going to struggle when Màiri leaves tomorrow. ’
* * *
They were quiet on the drive back to the house.
Their conversation on Ulva had thrown up more questions for Tilly, which had got her thinking about her own future; what she wanted to do and where she wanted to be.
She liked not being tied to a place, but that had mostly stemmed from nowhere feeling like home.
They threw themselves back into work, with Tilly finishing off the tidying and landscaping in the garden ready for the weekend cottage guests. When the sun started to dip, she popped inside to grab her hoodie and a notebook and pen before returning outside.
She wandered through the garden to Joy’s bench and sat for a few minutes listening to the birds singing and the wind whispering through the branches of the trees.
Joy had been inspired by watching Tilly scribbling in a journal that summer fourteen years ago, but Tilly had been enthralled by reading Joy’s thoughts.
She was motivated to do the same now, to channel how she was feeling onto the page, because it seemed the easiest way to make sense of things.
She had a chance to rewrite her story and make decisions that were right for her.
The page was her safe space and an extension of talking to Logan.
They’d opened up to each other and there was plenty more Tilly wanted to say, but for now putting those thoughts down would help her to focus on what was important.
It was her therapy as much as Logan was, and this spot would help free her mind from any lingering worries and fears.
The acceptance of how she felt about Logan was a start, but the transformation of their relationship in a short space of time was something she needed to fully come to terms with, even if she knew it was what she wanted.
In every direction, there was beauty and the landscape was inspiring, showcasing the reason Tilly had picked up a journal all those years ago.
Would she and Logan have got to this point without Joy having written her journal for Tilly?
Other people had seen the connection between her and Logan long before she had, so perhaps, but either way she was grateful to Joy, who had seen through their friendship and hoped beyond all else for them to find happiness together.
Tilly opened the notebook to a blank page and started to write.