Chapter 9
Nine
SKYE
The news broke by mid-afternoon the next day.
Noah Byrne cleared of wrongdoing.
A presenter with swishy blond hair called Noah “an unwitting victim of a trusted adviser” in that polished, sympathetic tone they save for rescued seals and handsome men with tragic eyes.
I put my phone face down on the counter and stared at the toaster.
By the time I’d finished making tea, I’d received a dozen texts.
Don’t let his ego get too inflated, or he’ll be unbearable.
Noah padded into the kitchen in socks, hair still sleep-ruffled, and read the text message over my shoulder.
“Och, I’m the unbearable one?” Noah asked. “You saw what happened when you gave Esther a microphone.”
Turning, I slid into his arms and chuckled.
“True. She’s an absolute menace.”
“Apparently I didn’t help embezzle millions,” he said.
“Congratulations on officially not being a criminal.”
He hugged me tighter, and I burrowed my face into his chest.
“God, Skye. You were right. About it all. I hate what trusting him meant for us.”
It was tough to hear the regret in his voice. All those years lost.
Shaking it off, because there was no use trying to change the past, I left his arms and put the kettle on, because that’s what we did when emotions got the best of us.
It was all too new, and at the same time, so very old …
for me to really unravel all the complicated feelings that the night before had brought for me.
Being with Noah again had been amazing, our chemistry had always been off the charts, but I wondered if that was the easy part.
Giving ourselves to each other was as natural as taking my next breath, but now in the bright light of morning, I worried that my heart just might not be able to handle watching him walk away again.
Outside, the siege had turned into a carnival.
Word got out that tonight’s Christmas concert would go on—as if Esther would ever let a little fraud and international scandal ruin her event—and the village hall sold tickets faster than mince pies at the bakery.
There was no hiding the fact that Noah would be playing at the concert, nor did I think they tried.
Now that he’d been exonerated, it was time for him to sing for his supper, so to speak.
Kingsbarns had stood for him, now it was time for him to repay the favor.
The paparazzi, having been strong-armed into paying for parking and forced to sing carols off-key as penance, bought tickets too, even though they’d been warned about filming during the event.
By half four, Noah had been smuggled into the hall by way of laundry bags being taken to the laundromat. Esther coordinated his movements like she was a spy in the military, with detailed instructions. I was surprised she hadn’t gotten herself a walkie-talkie.
“Let them have their fun,” Noah said, pulling a laundry bag over his head in the back of my car.
“You have to be careful how much leave you give them,” I warned him, but he only chuckled as I slammed the door and drove the long way to the village community center.
The center was one of those multi-purpose places with a large open room and a stage that has seen everything from nativity plays to furious debates about bin collection.
Tartan bunting swooped from beam to beam, a forest of poinsettias lined the front, and someone had fashioned a photo backdrop with paper stars and the words A Very Kingsbarns Christmas in letters cut from glitter card.
In the back room, the kids’ choir buzzed like a shaken bottle of Irn-Bru.
Cherise organized folding chairs while Shannon poured wine into paper cups.
Esther, clipboard under her arm, wore a silver headband that said “Director” in rhinestones and the aura of a woman who was ready to yell at you if you stepped out of line.
“You’re late but also early,” she pronounced, which is peak Esther. “We’re running ten minutes behind and two steps ahead.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked, but she was already turning to bark at a teenager who’d wandered off with the microphone.
The Book Bitches were rehearsing their skit—because of course they were. Tonight’s pièce de résistance was a short reenactment of Pride & Prejudice.
Apparently, they’d looped Esther’s husband in to play Mr. Darcy, and Wallace, the pub’s warrior kitten, was set to make his stage debut.
Harper slid up beside me, handing me a paper cup of wine and a conspiratorial grin. “How’s your stomach?”
“Anxious,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “Means you’re about to do something that matters. Also, look.” She nodded toward the side door. Two men with expensive cameras waited in the corridor, shivering in their parkas, clutching tickets. “We made them buy programs.”
“You made programs?” I laughed. “How much did you charge?”
“Whatever they had in their wallets, plus a promise to clap for the pensioners.”
Rosie popped up like a ribbon. “Also, we’ve reserved the first two rows for the kids and their parents. The paps are at the back where the cheap seats are.”
My stomach swooped, and I tried to ignore it. This would be fine. Noah was used to performing for much larger crowds.
I found Noah by the stage door, tuning his guitar. He looked different. Lighter, somehow. The jumpy, hunted light had gone from behind his eyes. They also warmed when they saw me and I tried ignoring the shiver of excitement that danced through me at his look.
“You’re on after the nativity chaos,” I said.
“Good,” he said, plucking a string. “They’ll be the headliners. I’m the warm-down act.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I said. “You also don’t have to do this, you know. The paps are still here.”
“I said I would do it, so I am,” he said, his eyes creasing at the corner as he smiled. “Think I can get a glitter banner that says Innocent hung over the stage?”
“Esther will hang you if you touch her set.”
“Fair,” he said, and his smile slid sideways into something softer. “Skye.”
“What?”
“I want to sing what we wrote. Last night.”
My mouth went dry. “Noah—”
“With you,” he said quickly. “Only … only if you want to. No names. Our way. But I … want to stand in front of them”—he tipped his head toward the murmur of the hall—“and sing something we built together.”
The shoebox flashed in my head. The scraps. The bridge we’d hammered into place like two people repairing a fence in the rain. Fear whirled in me. And then something else … a thread of joy that felt like a high wire, dangerous and exactly my kind of view.
“House rules,” I said, my last defense. “No songs about me.”
“It isn’t,” he said, steady. His stormy eyes held mine. “It’s about choosing to come back through the front door.”
“Fine,” I said, and my heart hammered in my chest. “But you’d better catch me if I fall.”
“You won’t.” Noah looked away and then back up at me. “I’ll never let you down again, Skye.”
I didn’t know what to do with that, even though my heart felt like filled to bursting at his words. Could I trust him again? Noah wasn’t a stupid young man anymore, but he also was mega famous. A part of me worried that once again, our timing wasn’t right.
Had I been stupid to even let him into my home? My arms? My bed?
Nerves hammered me as I went to take a seat to watch the Book Bitches’ riotous performance.
Esther burst onstage with the excitement of a woman who put something stronger than sugar in her coffee every morning.
“Welcome, welcome!” she boomed. “Thank you for braving the elements, the economy, and our parking stewards. Tonight, we celebrate community, kindness, and of course, love. Please turn off your phones and remember this is a family show. Swearing will be done by me backstage only.”
Laughter warmed the room. The program rolled on.
The kids’ choir looked adorable in tea towels and wings that shed glitter like dandruff, warbling through Away in a Manger with alarming sincerity, the pensioners’ handbell ensemble ringing Carol of the Bells as if they’d discovered heavy metal, Gregory and Cherise performing a duet that consisted entirely of him glowering while she sang like a contented robin.
The paps sat at the back with their lenses, surprisingly well-behaved, probably because every time they so much as shifted their weight, a dozen villagers swiveled in unison and glared.
I laughed as Meredith swept out as Mrs. Bennet with pearls, a floral housecoat, and a hand fan. “Girls! The Kingsbarns Inn is let. And to a single man of fortune who will donate to the Winter Warmer Fund!”
I laughed as they mentioned my inn. I had hope that guests would return in the new year now.
Esther’s husband, Daniel, in a tragic cravat, arrived as Mr. Darcy.
“I have standards,” he intoned and brought the house down. By the time Esther had arrived as Elizabeth and the cat, Wallace, apparently was standing in for Mr. Bennet, the entire hall was in tears of laughter.
A confetti cannon fired. Esther took the shower of sparkles like a coronation.
“Intermission,” she cried, wiping glitter from her eyelashes and likely calculating the till in her head. “Fifteen minutes. Buy biscuits or be declared a scrooge.”
During the break, half the village drifted toward the back to harass the press while I slipped to the back room to check on Noah.
Everyone in the room was pretending not to look at him as he lightly strummed his guitar, focusing on the paper in front of him, and I was struck by how many times I’d seen that silhouette in the press.
Noah had lived a million lives since he’d left me.
Even if Glen had screwed him over, maybe it had been worth it? Maybe I’d been in the wrong to leave.
“All good?” I asked, suddenly feeling awkward around him.
“Aye, lass. Now that you’re here.” He smiled up at me and the Book Bitches let out a collective sigh of adoration behind me.
He stood and walked to the door, nodding at people as he went, and then stepped onto the stage. I followed, leaning in the doorframe just off the side of the stage where people couldn’t see me, and watched as he strode confidently to the microphone.
I could feel the shift in the room like a held breath.
Esther, to her credit, did not announce Noah. He didn’t need it. She simply said, “All right then,” and vanished into the wings.
“Evening,” he said, voice steady and warm. “Thanks for keeping our village kinder than the world, and for making the men with cameras buy baked goods.”
Laughter rose, warm and sharp.
“I’m going to sing two songs you know,” he said, “and one you don’t. The one you don’t was written around a fireplace with a good bottle of wine and an honest look at the past.”
He played a holiday song that belonged to everybody. Voices joined him without being asked. He let the hall sing itself, which is why I loved him then and now.
My heart skipped a beat.
Bloody hell, but I did love the man.
A part of me always had.
Always would.
He was impossible not to. His voice rising up, circling around me, dragging me under with his words.
He played a Christmas song the kids knew and he let them lead, all of us laughing and clapping along.
Then he looked toward the wings where I was standing with my hands clenched in front of me.
“I said I’d sing something new,” he said. “But I’m not going to sing it alone.”
The crowd turned as one to the wings. I swear the entire back row—press included—leaned forward, the way deer do when they hear a twig crack. Rosie tipped her chin at me and Harper squeezed my hand. Esther shoved me hard enough to send me two steps forward, and I glared at her over my shoulder.
“Go,” Esther mouthed.
I walked out.
The cameras at the back rose like a glittering tide, even though the locals turned to growl at them.
I saw their lenses, their black glass, the awful hungry attention of them and for a second, my legs wanted to turn and bolt straight through the cardboard stable and into the cold.
Then I found Noah’s eyes. The years fell away.
He looked exactly like a boy in a freezing garage offering me a chord.
He held out the second mic.
I took it with trembling hands.
He started the progression we’d built on the rug. Soft, with room around it. I heard the first line in my head like a dare and then I said it out loud, into a microphone, in front of the village and the press and the universe and my gran.
“I’m not the girl who held your chorus while the kettle learned to sing.”
A ripple went through the room—not surprise, not shock—but recognition. Noah picked up the next line like a kindly echo.
“We’re not the kids who ran for corners when we felt the edges sting.”
I sang again and my voice didn’t break. He sang under me and our harmony fit without ceremony. The bridge came like a door we’d left ajar and we walked through together. A little girl in the front row put her chin on the stage and just watched. The press leaned forward, their lenses humming.
I didn’t die.
I didn’t even wobble. My hand shook once, but Noah kept the tempo steady like a promise. Our words were simple and so was the melody, which is why it hurt less than it might have and more than I expected.
Then the room did that astonishing thing where it stayed quiet a heartbeat longer than necessary.
There’s a special kind of silence that colors in around you.
And then, like someone let breath back into the world, it cracked and applause spilled up from the front row, bursting in the middle like confetti.
Noah reached for my free hand and I put my hand in his. Heat zinged up my arm and broke softly inside me, and then we lifted our clasped hands to cheers. The cameras caught it and I made the choice I hadn’t made fifteen years ago.
I didn’t let go.
We stood there in a worn village hall with tartan bunting and cardboard hay and a sign that said “No Flash Photography” while flashbulbs popped like fireworks. Noah bowed a little. I bobbed, awkward, and laughed at myself.
In the back room, I slumped against the wall, my breath coming out in soft little pants. Noah leaned beside me, our shoulders brushing.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
He turned his head. “Okay,” he said back, the word full of everything left unsaid. The noise from the hall swelled again—Esther was announcing the raffle winners—and the world returned to ordinary magnitude.
But it wasn’t ordinary.
I looked at Noah and didn’t look away.
This time, if my name was caught in a song, it was because I’d put it there. And if the cameras took me with it, they could take me standing up.