Chapter 3
Three
SKYE
Running a bed and breakfast in December was like being slowly choked by tinsel.
On good days, it was cozy, charming, the kind of place tourists wrote glowing reviews about on TripAdvisor.
On bad days, like today, it felt like living in a snow globe someone wouldn’t stop shaking.
Guests ringing bells, candles burning too sweet, laundry multiplying like rabbits.
And, worst of all, Noah bloody Byrne upstairs, turning every breath I took into an act of self-control.
By nine that night, I’d had enough.
Enough of cinnamon and pine-scented candles, enough of folding pillowcases, enough of pretending the sound of floorboards creaking above me wasn’t the man I’d once loved pacing around in boots.
I told myself I needed to do a nightly inspection of the village seasonal decor, a game where I gave scores to the neighborhood Christmas decorations, but what I really needed was out.
Out of this bed and breakfast, perhaps out of Kingsbarns, but definitely out and away from my past that had come back to haunt me.
I pulled on my coat, jammed a beanie over hair that had given up hours ago, and escaped into the bitter cold that makes your teeth hurt.
Kingsbarns at night is all stone and salt.
The sea sits just beyond the dark, a permanent, patient friend.
Or foe, depending on its mood. A window glowed with a tree strung in warm white lights—tasteful—and two doors down the Jamiesons had a reindeer that blinked like a migraine—less tasteful.
I loved them both. The air smelled of smoke from the fires and salt from the ocean.
It should have calmed me. This was familiar. My place, my town, my people.
Not Noah’s.
He’d given up on me, on all of us, long ago.
Not that it stopped people from bragging that the Noah Byrne had once lived here. I was surprised they hadn’t put a plaque up at his old house. This village dearly loved a good commemorative sign.
My feet picked the way for me, following the same path instinctively. A left past the phone box that never works, another left where the pavement buckles, and then the sign swung into view, laughter and voices drifting from the door that was just closing behind a patron.
The Royal Unicorn.
The local pub, which grounded Kingsbarns, was the meeting point for all major discussions, and had recently undergone a renovation when Harper, an American, had come to Kingsbarns thinking she was going to get a pub experience for a couple of weeks.
Instead, she’d ended up with a boyfriend, a wee warrior kitten named Wallace, and a pub renovation on her hands.
In the end, Kingsbarns had a refurbished pub, I had a new friend in Harper, and we’d all been happier for it.
I paused with a hand on the door, took one last lungful of cold wintry air, and went inside.
Warmth slid over me. The beams that crossed the ceiling were older than everybody in the room combined and were currently draped in tinsel the color of Christmas memories.
Fairy lights looped along the bar mirror, turning the bottles that lined the shelves into their own pretty holiday display.
The pub was doing a fairly bustling business tonight, with most tables filled, and I raised a hand as people greeted me.
Wallace was curled at the edge of the bar, his tail lazily batting a picture frame of Lewis, the former owner of the pub who had passed and left the business to his grandson, Reed. A dram of whisky sat in front of the stool left empty for Lewis, and a pang of nostalgia for Gran hit my heart.
I almost turned right back around, unsure if I was really in the mood to socialize, but going back meant the inn. The inn meant Noah.
“Skye!”
Of course.
Esther’s voice hit me like a snowball. She was at a table in the corner with the Book Bitches, who were as sparkly as the Christmas decorations that lined the windows of the pub. Three of them wore sequined hats, Shannon had antlers on, and Cherise wore a jumper with a T-Rex decorated in ornaments.
Tree-rex, I read and smiled. Despite my mood I went over to them and looked at the damage they’d done on their table. An empty wine bottle was next to another wine bottle that was already half drunk, and five empty shot glasses were lined up like misbehaving children.
I pasted on a smile and slid into a chair because saying “no” to the Book Bitches is like saying “no” to gravity.
“Evening,” I said.
“Evening, she says,” Meredith murmured, eyes a touch too bright. “Look at her. That’s a woman who needs a glass the size of her face.”
Shannon shoved a glass toward me. “It’s a Malbec. It was a Merlot before that, and a respectable pinot before that, but the pinot couldn’t keep up.”
“What’s with the hats?” I asked, nodding at the sequined caps.
“You like? We’re trying something new.” Shannon tugged the brim and pulled it at a cheeky angle over her face.
Cherise pushed the mince pies across. “Eat. You’re peely-wally.”
“I am not peely-wally,” I lied, but I reached for a mince pie anyway. “I am … seasonally translucent.”
Esther’s eyes narrowed and then she smiled sweetly. “Rough day?”
“You know how radiators develop personalities? One became a soprano. Also, a guest used the microwave to dry socks.”
“Monsters,” Shannon said gravely. Her eyes cut sideways. “We heard a whisper.”
“Of course you did.” I sipped and glared at Esther who looked up at the ceiling. “What whisper, precisely?”
“That a certain man checked into your inn under the name John Smith,” Meredith singsonged. “For all the songs he writes, you would think he would be more imaginative.”
“You’d think. But who cares, right? It’s not that big a deal,” I said, as if I hadn’t spent all evening pretending I couldn’t hear the weight of his footsteps upstairs.
“Mm.” Esther’s hum said she’d allow my delusion as a treat. “Well, if you want us to fight off the paparazzi when they arrive, we can.”
“I’ve been doing cardio kickboxing classes,” Cherise added. She flexed a somewhat wobbly arm. “From a YouTube class.”
“I’m good with kitchen shears,” Esther promised me.
“Good to know. Also, please don’t maim people,” I said, trying to change the subject from the one man I was desperately trying not to think about. “How’s the Christmas charity raffle going?”
“Better since we added Gregory’s calendar,” Shannon said cheerfully.
“You made Gregory do a calendar?” I choked. Gregory worked in the local government office and was an unofficial Book Bitch. He tended to wear beige sweaters and loved crossword puzzles.
“He insisted,” Meredith said. “He’s ‘Mr. January’ and ‘Mr. June,’ due to scheduling issues and the fact we liked those photos best.”
“Is he … covered?” I asked. Please, God, let him be covered.
“Strategic baubles,” Esther said, winking at me. “Don’t be a prude.”
I laughed in spite of myself. The Book Bitches had a way of plucking me out of my head and plonking me into a better mood, whether I liked it or not. The wine also helped. A little.
I was peeling the foil off a second mince pie, my back to the pub, when the door opened.
The pub didn’t fall silent—that only happens in films—but the sound changed. It was thicker. Sharper. Like the air right before a lightning strike.
I glanced over my shoulder, already knowing.
Noah Byrne walked in.
He didn’t belong in a place like this anymore, and somehow he fit anyway.
Tall and confident yet pausing as though he needed permission to enter.
The jacket was too thin for a Fife winter’s night, the scruff that coated his jaw was a couple days past respectable, and his eyes glinted in the lights.
He scanned the room and, of course, found me in seconds.
My insides did a thing I refused to name.
“Oh,” Meredith breathed, not even pretending to be subtle. She fanned her face. “It’s him.”
“Behave,” I hissed.
“Skye.” Cherise’s hand covered mine, warm and soft. “Breathe in. Breathe out.”
“Would you stop? It’s not a big deal. He’s not a big deal.” I broke eye contact, not interested in sparking any rumors that I was seen lusting after Noah Byrne in the local pub.
“I mean, he kind of is,” she said.
“Not helping, Cherise,” Esther said, scolding her. “Now, tell me, Skye. When was the last time you spoke to Noah?”
“A few hours ago when I served him tea,” I reminded Esther and her gaze sharpened.
“You know what I meant. Before that?”
“Who can say, really?” I shrugged. Even though I remembered our last conversation like it was yesterday.
Esther leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. “So I’m going to take that as you’re deliberately avoiding my questions, which means …”
“You still care about him.” Shannon leaned forward, her voice barely a stage whisper.
My cheeks flamed.
“Ladies, we’ve got our work cut out for us.” Esther actually rubbed her hands together and I groaned, burying my face in my wine glass.
At the bar, Noah ordered a whisky, slid the glass between his fingers, and leaned back into his stool like he’d never left Kingsbarns. People were pretending not to stare.
Everyone was staring.
Harper shot me a questioning look from behind the bar. She didn’t know our history, and likely didn’t know much about Noah Byrne at all, but she could tell something was up.
The conversations picked up again, the noise swelling around me, cocooning me from Noah’s presence mere feet away from where I clutched my wine glass so hard I was surprised it didn’t shatter in my grip.
I’d thought I’d moved on from Noah years ago, that I wouldn’t be so affected by him, but it seemed I’d been lying to myself all this time.
Our connection was electric, well at least it was on my end, and I swear my skin buzzed every time his gaze turned my way.
The radio switched songs, and I closed my eyes. Ice flooded my veins as the first unmistakable strum of that guitar riff growled through the speakers.
The opening chords of the song that had buzzed my life like a mosquito I just couldn’t kill.
Skye.