The Art of Burning Heather (daughter’s escape to the Scottish Highlands becomes a mother’

Chapter 1

Twenty years ago

Scotland

“You’ll catch your death, Delilah!”

Delilah MacDonald kept running.

“Young lady, get back here!”

But her mother’s voice was fading as the endless green-and-rust streaks of the Scottish wild rose in front of her, daring her to go and go until she found where the world ended.

Her cheeks stung as her pigtails whipped around her face, and still Delilah’s heart soared.

She closed her eyes and threw her head back, laughing as the distance grew.

She was only nine years old, but she knew the difference between being trapped and being free.

Delilah opened her eyes just in time to see the cliff’s end.

Rocky earth bit into her palms and knees as she dropped and skidded to a stop with inches to spare, sending pebbles bouncing down the sheer stone face toward the slate colored sea.

She listened to them fall until she couldn’t hear them anymore.

“Holy Shit!” Delilah shouted. She sat on her knees, clasped her face in her hands, and cackled into the sky—because she had just cheated death and because she was not supposed to say shit.

Someone spoke behind her. “I thought Americans weren’t keen on swearing.”

She froze.

“You’re bleeding,” they said.

She spun around to find a boy, his head cocked to one side. He was skinny and short with wavy reddish hair sticking in every direction, but what stood out were his eyes. They were yellow, or maybe something like gold? Delilah had never seen eyes like those before.

He raised an eyebrow. “And I think you almost just died.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t die, did I?” She was glad her mom wasn’t around to call for an attitude adjustment. “I’m perfectly alive.”

The boy smirked and walked toward her all confident, even though he was smaller than she was.

When her mom and grandma had taken her shopping for this trip, they’d given her another lecture about needing bigger jeans.

No boy wants to date a girl that’s bigger than him, Delilah.

Sometimes she looked at her thighs and wondered if a boy with bigger legs even existed.

His Scottish accent was thick. “Running with your eyes closed is a stupid thing to do.”

“Following girls like a super creep is pretty stupid, too.” She got to her feet and made a show of looking down at him, but he just stuck out his weirdly big hand.

“I’m Lachlan.”

Delilah scanned the bulky camera on his hip and his warm boots—nothing like the knock-off Converse with her big toe poking through that she’d snuck into her suitcase. His smile turned his eyes warm, like the honey Auntie Maureen—no, wait, Auntie Mo—liked to have in her tea.

“I’m Delilah.” She went to shake his hand but pulled hers back when she saw the blood smeared across her palm.

“Yeah,” he said as he observed her shocked reaction. “Did I mention that you’re bleeding?”

Worry shot through her. Blood was dripping from her knees in red paths through the soft hairs on her legs and staining her new white socks. She shrugged like it was no big deal.

“It’s not that bad.”

“You should see your face.”

Okay, that was just rude.

“What is your proble—” Delilah started, but then remembered grabbing her cheeks before she knew she’d be smearing blood around. She must have looked like she’d just fought a bear or something! She rubbed her palms against the dark fabric of her shorts. “My mom is gonna kill me!”

“Why?”

She could not deal with this tonight—the last night before they had to go back to Los Angeles. The last night for her to be happy, unless she ruined everything by pissing her mom off. Delilah kneeled and rubbed her hands against a patch of damp grass.

“Because!” she cried. “Just look at me!”

Lachlan, the strange boy with the strange eyes, stood just above her with his hand still reaching down. “I am looking at you. Let me help you up.”

“I can do it myself.”

“I bet you can,” he said, but he didn’t withdraw.

Delilah hesitated. “My hand is gross.”

“I don’t mind.”

She felt like crying when he pulled her off the ground, but it wasn’t because of the way her hand hurt. He took a water bottle out of some pocket and poured it over a corner of his jacket.

“Here. Try this.”

Delilah rubbed the jacket against her face super hard. “Did I get it?”

Lachlan tilted his head again. “Almost.”

He stepped closer than Delilah remembered ever being to a boy before and took the jacket to press it against her cheek.

Delilah went still, like a bee had landed on her.

One time, when she had pneumonia and her parents were super worried, her mom had taken a cold washcloth and touched her face the same gentle way through the night until her fever broke.

He moved to her hands, and she realized this probably wasn’t good. What the heck was she doing letting a stranger give her a freaking sponge bath in the wilderness?

She snatched the jacket back. “I can do it myself.”

Lachlan gave her a weird look. “I know you can.”

Her skin got hot. “You don’t know me at all.”

“Not yet.” He shrugged. “But we have the whole walk back.”

“It’s not a far walk.”

“I know a longer way.”

Normally, Delilah didn’t have trouble speaking her mind.

She knew exactly what she thought, which was a big problem for her, actually.

Be polite, Delilah! But something about Lachlan was making her brain do things she didn’t have words for.

She wished Chloe were there. She and Delilah would make a pillow fort with Aunt Mo’s old quilt and whisper way past their bedtime until they figured out what was happening with this odd boy Delilah had found in the wild—just like they always did when Chloe had a new secret boyfriend.

But her best friend wasn’t there, so Delilah agreed to take the long way home in the hope of figuring him out.

But as they walked, and he asked her if she knew any movie stars back in California, and she asked him if he had a pet sheep there in Scotland, she forgot about finding answers.

She told him about how she wanted to be an artist someday, like Frida Kahlo with all her colors, and he told her about how he wanted to take photos to remember everything, all the time—and she didn’t feel like he was a puzzle to solve or a game to beat for once.

She was busy feeling, not thinking. Usually, Delilah was always thinking.

She gasped as they came over a hill and pointed to a sprawling purply-pink meadow that looked so bright beside the gray sea and sky. “What is that?”

Lachlan followed her finger. “What, the flowers? Wild heather.”

“Wow,” she whispered, and the sound got lost in the wind. She turned to find Lachlan watching her with that weird look again.

“What? Is there still blood on my face?” She touched a cheek.

“No, no, your face is fine,” he said, grinning. “It’s just beautiful.”

Delilah looked back to the lush blanket of tiny blooms covering the ground.

“Yeah, it really is. Hey! You should take a picture! This has gotta count as something to remember, right?” The camera shuttered as she knelt to pluck a stem that wouldn’t come free.

She watched a bud open into a small magenta colored bloom between her fingertips, like it had been waiting just for her.

She tugged again. “These flowers are freaking tough!”

Lachlan’s cheeks were stained the color of crushed berries. “As tough as they are lovely.”

Delilah liked that. She straightened. “I wonder if they have these back home.” Then the thought of home cut through the moment, and she could hear the clock ticking in her mind. “Crap!” She grabbed Lachlan’s wrist. “We have to go!”

They ran, and too soon they were standing on the path to the bright red front door of the funny little cottage where her aunt was going to live now.

She toed the gravel with her shoe. “Well. I guess this is the last time you’ll see me.”

For a second, Delilah and Lachlan just sort of stared at each other in this way that felt like a balloon about to pop, so she started walking fast up the path without saying anything else.

“Wait!” Lachlan called. “Let me take your picture!”

Delilah stopped on a stepstone right in the middle of a patch of heather she hadn’t noticed before she’d met Lachlan.

“Why would you want to take my picture?” she shouted over the gusting chill.

“To remember!”

“Should I smile?”

“Just be yourself!” Lachlan raised the camera to his eye.

Herself. For the first time since she was very small, Delilah didn’t think about how much she hated being in pictures. She threw both her arms out and roared into the Highlands’ winter winds. The camera flashed.

Her mother’s voice yelled from the cottage. “Delilah? What in God’s name?”

She flinched. “You better go!”

Lachlan hesitated with a furrowed brow before he darted off, and she felt happy and sad at once. He was barely out of sight when the door swung open.

“Delilah, just look at you! You’re a disaster.”