Chapter 7
Seven
SKYE
There’s a uniquely Scottish silence that isn’t silence at all—just the wind holding its breath and the sea deciding whether to kick up a fuss or not. We didn’t have that this morning.
We had vans.
We had cameras.
We had men in black parkas practicing their “I’m just doing my job” faces.
The paparazzi had arrived.
By the time I made it downstairs, the lane outside the inn looked like the king was about to visit.
Five cars nose-to-tail, a tripod in my herb bed, a man in a yellow hi-vis vest that definitely did not come from anywhere official.
And between them and my front gate stood Esther and the Book Bitches, wearing knitwear and righteous purpose like armor.
I cracked the side door and peered out, biting back a grin as Esther stomped forward, the poor paps ready to fight a battle none of them realized they’d already lost.
“Parking is residents-only, lads,” Esther announced, hands on hips, clipboard at the ready. She had added a high-visibility sash over her coat, which I suspected she’d made out of pure audacity.
One of the photographers held up his press pass. “We’re working press.”
“Aye, and I’m the Queen of Sheba,” Esther said. “Thirty pounds for parking, cash only, immediate payment. All proceeds to the Winter Warmer Fund.”
“Thirty pounds? We’re on a public road,” the pap complained.
“Public road, private land, public nuisance,” Meredith chimed in sweetly, pointing at the tin can she’d duct-taped to our garden wall with PAY & DISPLAY scrawled in gold marker. “No pay, no stay.”
Shannon swept in, cheerfully lethal. “Tickets for the Christmas Cèilidh are also available,” she trilled, holding a book of hand-made tickets like a Vegas dealer.
“Usually they’re thirty quid each, but for you lads, we’ll do twenty.
Comes with a free candy cane and a stern lecture about trespassing. ”
I smirked. The Christmas Cèilidh was two quid a ticket.
“Ladies,” a man from the third car said, trying a smile he probably saved for door staff, “we don’t want trouble.”
“Perfect,” Esther said. “Neither do we. That’ll be thirty quid for parking, four tickets to the ball, and a fiver for the sausage rolls you’ve been eyeing since you got out of your car.”
Cherise spread out her hands to indicate the basket of rolls from the bakery she had at her side.
“I don’t want a sausage roll.”
“You do,” Meredith said, already bagging them up with the force of destiny. “It’s for charity.”
Gregory materialized from nowhere, wearing his “Honorary Bitch” badge and a glower that could sour milk. “And if any one of ye steps past that gate, I’ll let these ladies show you what type of damage can be done with a knitting needle.”
“We’re not here for trouble,” Parka repeated, gaze sliding toward the upstairs windows. “We just need a shot of Mr. Byrne. Then we’ll be out of your hair.”
“Then you’re in the wrong place,” Esther said. “We’ve only got a John Smith.”
“I love them,” I said, pleased with their ferocity. Kingsbarns always stood for their own.
Behind me, the front bell dinged with the energy of doom. My guests had come downstairs.
I pasted on a smile and closed the door behind me, stepping into the foyer, where our Italian couple huddled with their luggage and the American clutched a newspaper to her chest like a shield.
“Skye,” the American said gravely, as if delivering news about a beloved but disreputable relative, “your front garden has turned into the BBC.”
“They’re not from the BBC,” I scoffed. “They’re … freelancers.”
The Italian woman wrinkled her nose adorably. “We cannot stay. We adore your inn, but the paparazzi outside the window, they make the romance … eh …”—she rotated her wrists helplessly—“limp.”
“Flat,” her husband supplied.
“Flat,” she agreed. “We will go to St. Andrews where there is more peace.”
“I completely understand,” I said, my smile starting to hurt my face. “I’ll comp your last night and help you book a taxi.”
“They’re blocking the lane,” the American observed helpfully out the window.
“I’ll get Gregory to move them,” I said, with the breezy confidence of a woman who would absolutely send Gregory out to menace the vans with pebbles.
The German pair came down at nine sharp with backpacks and expressions set to “efficient disappointment.” By ten thirty, the inn was a hollowed-out shell.
Biscuits uneaten, bookings canceled, my bank account looking at me like it needed a hot-water bottle and encouraging words.
Outside, the Book Bitches rousingly caroled O Come, All Ye Faithful at a volume and a key likely chosen to specifically disrupt audio recording.
I retreated to the front desk with my ledger and my pride and a smile so brittle I was worried my jaw would lock. Noah appeared at my elbow, which I absolutely did not find comforting.
He looked unfairly good in a jumper and a baseball hat pulled low over his head.
“Hey.” His voice lowered. “You okay?”
“I’m thrilled,” I said brightly. “I’ve always wanted to conduct a stress test on my business.”
He leaned on the desk like he’d forgotten he was public property. I glanced up, glad I’d pulled the curtains closed.
“I can help.”
“With what, exactly? Waving at the cameras in a way that says ‘move along’? Writing a new song called ‘Get Off Skye’s Drive’?”
He slanted a look at me. “I was thinking more like … I could cook. Make sure the Book Bitches have enough tea so they don’t decide to body-check someone into the kirk. And also …”—he tapped the ledger with one finger—“… this.”
My laugh was sharp as glass. “You want to help with my accounts?”
“I know numbers,” he said, unoffended. “Tour budgets, overhead, that beautiful spreadsheet on how much bananas cost per show.”
“Um, no offense, Noah, but we’re literally in this position because of your lack of attention to numbers.” I grimaced, but that was the truth of it.
Noah straightened, his face tightening.
“That’s fair, but I worked with the numbers I was given. Which, apparently, were fake.”
“I’m sorry.” I sighed, and pushed the ledger away from me. “This isn’t your problem to deal with.”
“I know, Skye, I’m not trying to take over, I’m just trying to help.”
“That is what people say right before they take over,” I snapped, and winced at myself.
He studied me for a long beat. “Skye.”
“What?”
“How long have you been holding this together with duct tape and stubbornness?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I lied.
“Your boiler apologizes when it works. Your radiator sounds like an elderly pug. The wallpaper in the blue room has air bubbles. You’re doing the work of three people and eating toast standing up over the sink.”
“I …” I didn’t know what to say.
Noah looked back at me. “Let me help.”
“I don’t want you to see it,” I blurted. When his brow furrowed, I huffed out the rest. “The messy bits. The places where it’s threadbare. The places where I’m threadbare.”
His face did a thing that had nothing to do with pity and everything to do with recognition. “Skye.”
“Don’t,” I warned.
“I already see it,” he said gently. “I’m not here to be impressed. I’m here because being with you is the only place that’s every felt right to me.”
That ridiculous, unhelpful ache in my chest yawned open. I slammed the ledger shut before any actual feelings could escape and changed the subject, because it was the only defense I possessed.
“Why do you care if I’m still songwriting?” I asked, surprising myself, but desperate for a change of subject.
“Because you should be doing it,” he said simply, creases fanning out from the corner of his eyes as he studied me, trying to follow along with my erratic thoughts. “You always should have been. You were the best of us.”
“I run an inn now, Noah,” I said, again, like repetition could make truth into excuse. “I do laundry. I change sheets. I unclog showers. I don’t sit around waiting for a muse.”
“You used to write in laundromats,” he said. “On buses. In queues. Once on the back of my hand when you couldn’t find a notebook.”
“That was because you’d lost the notebook,” I said, stabbing a pencil into the jar.
“You married a man who didn’t mind that you worked yourself into the ground,” he said, too carefully neutral to be casual. “Why?”
“Do we have to—”
“Yes.”
I stared across my small lobby until the room blurred. “He was … nice,” I said finally. “Safe. He thought love meant never raising your voice. He liked spreadsheets and new tires and the same toast every morning.”
“And you left,” Noah said, not a question.
“I left,” I said. “Because ‘safe’ started feeling like ‘silent.’ Because I forgot what my own voice sounded like unless I was telling someone about check-out time. Because he made me feel like a set of good habits and not a person. Because he wanted kids and I …” I cleared my throat. “I didn’t.”
“That’s perfectly fine to not want that, Skye. I never did either,” Noah reminded me. I’d forgotten that about him. “Though I’ll admit … a part of me broke when I heard you’d married.”
“I read the magazines at the hairdresser,” I said dryly, raising an eyebrow at him. “You dated many a famous woman, Noah. Was it an oil heiress? Or that producer who made a record that sounded like a migraine?”
“I loved two of them,” he said, and the honesty made me blink. “Not … well. Not in a grown way. I loved being loved. I loved not being alone on the road.”
“Honest,” I said, impressed and yet, so very irritated.
“I hate that I didn’t fight harder for us,” he said, the words dropping into the room like coins into a poor box. “I should have, Skye. You were worth it.”
The room stilled. The house shifted around me, the room closing in, as my thoughts scrambled. This was a hell of a conversation to be having on a random Tuesday morning.
But isn’t that when all life-changing conversations happen? When you least expect them?