23. Locke
LOCKE
“Fucking shite,” I muttered under my breath as I reached the high street. The vendors were already packing up. I’d missed the entire flaming thing all because of some bloody vegetables!
“The Highland Sausage Company has cleared out,” Aiden called, directing a group of volunteers across the street. “You lot start breaking down that tent.”
I couldn’t believe I was this late. When I woke up this morning, I’d intended to head straight out first thing, after just one quick stop at the office to grab some paperwork.
But it was just one thing after another once I got to my desk, and by the time I’d actually gotten on the road, I knew I’d be lucky to make it in time for the kilted dash.
Having a produce truck overturn on the motorway was the last thing I’d expected.
If I’d known it would turn out that way, I would have gotten in my damn helicopter.
“There you are!” Weston called as I approached the green. He was standing there with Alistair, foreheads sun-touched, both of them still wearing their kilts. Their knees were grass-stained, and I could tell they’d had a good time today.
Bitterness crawled up my spine. I never wanted to see another potato for as long as I lived.
Weston clapped me on the shoulder as I reached them. “Here just in time to help with cleanup.”
“Heard you got waylaid by some produce,” Alistair said.
I rolled my eyes. “What a nightmare.”
“This is what happens when you don’t eat your veggies,” he joked.
Behind his smile, I could tell he looked a little weary, a little wrung.
That was only to be expected, after the trial.
I suspected it had taken a lot of mental energy for him to bring Kenna up for the weekend at this point, when the case was drawing to a close.
The looming question of the verdict would have been enough to send me into a spiral for the weekend, but Alistair was good at holding it together for his daughter.
I could only hope I’d do half as well as a father.
But thinking of fatherhood made me think of my baby’s mother. What I really wanted to do first was locate Isla and wrap my arms around her. “Either of you seen Isla?”
Weston lifted his hand, pointing along the high street. “She’s been assigned to decoration removal.”
I must have walked right past her.
“After you say hi, Tam needs help getting all the logs from the caber toss back on Callum’s truck. You can give us a hand with that.”
I nodded. “See you in a few.” I turned around and hurried back down the street. I spotted Isla folding a banner. Her eyes widened as I dashed toward her.
“You came?”
“Of course I came. I told you I’d be here.”
Her eyebrow rose. “Yes, hours ago. Sort of thought you might have turned around when you realized how late it had gotten.” She looked unimpressed. “I hope you got a basket of produce for your troubles.”
I huffed, shaking my head. “How do you turn over an entire truck doing a lane change? Bloody useless driver.”
Concern flickered across her face. “There were no major injuries, right? That’s what Jo said.”
“Jo’s correct, as usual. Minor injuries only. The driver will be fine. His reputation on the other hand—”
“—is mashed?”
The corner of my mouth quirked. “I’ve missed your truly terrible puns.” I caught her face between my hands and pecked her on the lips. Once. Twice. Three times. “I’ve just been nabbed to help move the cabers, but I wanted to say hello before I started.”
Isla pulled back, poking me in the chest to stop me from kissing her again. “Better get to work before Jo sees you. Don’t think you’re not on her shit list.”
I smirked. “As long as I’m not on yours.”
She hummed, mumbling something I couldn’t quite decipher as I hurried off again to make the most of my time helping Weston and Alistair.
“Sandwich?” Isla asked me as she turned into the kitchen at the inn. “I bought some really nice cheese and bread from one of the vendors at the festival.”
“Please,” I said, following after her. I collapsed into a chair at the table, sighing gratefully.
I was starving and exhausted. Tear down and cleanup had taken far longer than I’d anticipated, but I hadn’t felt right bowing out early considering how late I’d been.
Now I had a tension headache brewing behind my eyes.
“Have you even eaten today?” Isla asked, taking ingredients out of the fridge. Cheese and tomatoes and ham and lettuce and a cucumber.
“I threw back a coffee at the office,” I grunted, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes. I couldn’t wait to eat and then climb into bed with her.
“That’s not food,” she pointed out, pulling two slices of bread from a bag and laying them on a cutting board.
“I meant to stop somewhere on the way but never got around to it before the accident. By the time the traffic cleared, I just decided to power through straight to Braeburn.” I reclined in my chair, releasing a breath that buzzed my lips.
“If I’d known what a disaster the commute would be, I would have just jumped in my helicopter. ”
“Should have gotten it to pick you up Mission-Impossible style,” she quipped, spreading mayo across the bread.
“Any longer in that traffic, and I might have been tempted. I’ve never seen a more dysfunctional operation in my life.”
“We can’t all be Locke-Fraser levels of organized,” she said, layering meat and cheese.
“All I know is one second I’m flying down the motorway, the next it’s a gridlock. People are out of their cars, tossing potatoes off the side of the road. Then the police are there, asking people not to get out of their vehicles.”
“Sounds like chaos,” Isla agreed.
“It was bloody annoying!”
“Right. I get that.”
“And you know Scots,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “Everyone’s having a good laugh about it. Calling their mates down at the pub. Meanwhile, I’m stuck there—”
The plate landed in front of me with a hard clank. The top of the sandwich fell off as I glanced up at Isla’s raised eyebrow.
“Look,” she said, hands to her hips. “I understand that being stuck in traffic was frustrating, but are you ever going to ask what you missed? How about if Jo was able to fill your judging duties at the last minute?”
I blinked at her, confusion setting in. She had to be taking the piss. “Surely that wasn’t a problem?” I huffed a laugh. “How hard can it be to find someone in Braeburn willing to eat good food and judge people about it? Eating and bickering over who’s right are basically national pastimes.”
“That’s not the point,” Isla said. “You made a commitment to be there.”
“It was just a little contest,” I reminded her. “It’s not like the success of the entire day was contingent on me being here. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”
Isla scoffed, arms crossed as she leaned back against the counter. “If it’s just some silly little contest, then why have you been bitching and moaning about being stuck in traffic? What does it matter that you missed it?”
“I’m upset about being late,” I clarified. I hated being late. She knew that. Our first meeting should have shown her as much. “I said I’d be there, I tried to be there, but it didn’t work out—thanks to the idiot driver—and that’s aggravating.”
“The driver wasn’t the reason you were late. You were late because you waited until the last possible second to get on the road. That was your decision.”
Fuck. “You’re right. That was my mistake.”
But Isla was on a roll now. “If you’d come last night, as we planned, the accident wouldn’t have affected you at all. Or you could have just come first thing in the morning instead of waiting to wrap up ‘a few more things.’”
I pushed the plate away. “You’re talking like I was faffing about wasting time, Isla. I was bloody working.”
“So that makes it okay to break your word? You were supposed to be here, fulfilling your commitments. And as far as I can tell, you haven’t bothered to apologize for that. Not once. Certainly not to me.”
“Apologize for what exactly?” I exclaimed. For not being around to eat some haggis? “I didn’t cause the flaming accident!”
“You made a promise that you would be here!” she said. “Does that not mean anything to you? Or, let me guess, because it’s not some client waiting with a property deal, it doesn’t actually count. It just gets slotted way down on your priority list, right?”
So this wasn’t about the festival at all. This was about Dougal. The tension headache brewing behind my eyes pounded like thunder. “You know that’s not true.”
“I heard what you said to your father when I was there the other week,” she said, eyes narrowed. “About your priorities not changing. So I just want to know when I can actually expect you to show up. Or am I always going to come last?”
“I’ve been showing up this entire time!” I snapped. “Anything you needed, I made it happen. You said the word, and it was on your doorstep the next day.”
Isla groaned, rubbing her face with her hands. “I don’t understand what you’re not getting about this. Do you really think I need you to do online shopping for me? I can also click the delivery button, Locke. I need you. Present and attentive.”
“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” I was on the verge of exploding. “I spent weeks with you in town!”
Isla shook her head. “You were in town because it was convenient for the deal. Let’s not pretend that I’m what kept you here. The moment the deal was done, you were gone again.”
“To bloody work! But the second there was something to do with the baby, I dropped everything to be there.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, voice laced with sarcasm. “You showed up to the midwife appointment with your nose in your phone. That was extremely helpful.”
Anger boiled in my gut and climbed its way up the back of my throat like acid. “I took time off to come to the festival today, but that doesn’t mean I get to slack off on all the work that needs to be done.”
“I understand how jobs work,” she muttered. “But there’s always going to be as much work as you decide to take on. You’re always chasing something. The next property. The next deal.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I growled.
“What about when our baby is born?” She said the words like a challenge.
I was beginning to feel desperate. I needed her to understand me. “I’m not going to miss our kid’s life,” I promised. “I’m terrified at failing at that. You know that.”
“But are you going to prioritize being there for the baby, or is work always going to come first?”
“Those two goals are interconnected,” I said, the words ground out between my teeth. Isla massaged her eyes. “By making sure the business is strong and stable, I’m securing our baby’s future. Trust me. Work is the one thing I know how to do right.”
When Isla pulled her hand away, she was crying. “You sound just like my father.”
Part of me yearned to reach out, to comfort her, but the rest of me was filled with an angry fire, and that was stronger.
She was so hyper focused on her version of events, she wasn’t even hearing me.
Why didn’t she understand that in order to take care of her and the baby, I had to show up for the business? “You’re being irrational.”
The second the word left my mouth, I wanted to claw it back.
Isla looked like I’d slapped her. “And you’re being ridiculous thinking that I’m going to be okay with you blowing in and out of town—in and out of our child’s life—like some errant breeze.
You forget I’ve already lived through that once,” she said.
“I told you how my parents’ relationship broke down when Dad went all in on the business.
I explained how hard that divorce was on me.
How I struggled with the idea that he was never going to put me first. Is that the way you want our child to feel? ”
“That’s not fair,” I snapped.
“It is!” Isla said, her voice rising. “Because I know how this goes. You’ll pull away until all this baby gets are phone calls and cards on their birthday. If they’re lucky.”
“I’m not Dougal,” I seethed. “And you don’t have any right to take it out on me because you’re upset with him.” I jammed my finger into the table. “I’m here. I showed up. And I’m not the one pulling away, you are.”
“You’re right,” she bit out. “I am pulling away. Because I can’t bear to watch our child live through another version of my childhood, dealing with two parents who are always fighting about why Daddy is never around.”
I resisted the urge to tug at my hair. “I shouldn’t have to defend myself like this just to provide for my family!”
“And I shouldn’t have to fight this hard to get you to choose your family!” Isla shot back.
“You’re blowing things out of proportion.”
“No,” she said, cheeks red, eyebrows pinched tight. “Everything’s pretty clear from where I’m standing. And I’m done trying to justify and make excuses for you.”
“If that’s how you feel,” I said, throwing my arms out in the face of her dagger-like glare, “then what are we doing?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Not anymore.” She stalked right past me. “Whatever we were, it’s done.”