Chapter 15 #2
Of course, the orchard was the perfect place for a quiet wedding, with its grassy, flat surface and the aligned fruit trees providing a natural aisle.
The view of the Highlands would make a perfect frame for photographs, and early-season apples would provide splashes of red once August rolled around.
Harper tugged Fraser further into the daisy-littered grass, admiring the draping green leaves and ripening cherries while rambling about marigold wreaths and fairy lights. Fraser murmured something in her ear that made her giggle, and Rae turned so as not to intrude on their private moment.
Beside her, Cam rolled her eyes. ‘Can’t take them anywhere.’
‘I’d forgotten people could be that happy, honestly.’
‘I know. It’s disgusting.’
Rae smirked, leading Cam to the fence, where they could lean in the shade of the stone archway, a safe distance from the lovebirds. A heatwave had been forecast for the weekend: good for the farm, terrible for Rae, who would have appreciated a bit of rain. Sweat clung to her already reddened skin.
‘I thought you were all loved up, too,’ she pointed out, gesturing to Cam’s gold wedding band.
Cam shrugged, twirling the ring around her finger. ‘I am. I’m just more normal about it than those two.’
‘Most people are, I think.’ She steeled herself for the apology she knew Cam deserved. ‘Cam, could we maybe chat after this? I’d like to apologise for being a shitty friend.’
Cam scoffed, refusing to meet her gaze. Her dark eyeliner was smudged from all the squinting. ‘It was years ago, now. Don’t bother.’
‘I want to bother, because you meant a lot to me when we were young, and I’m only just now realising that I did a rubbish job of showing it.
’ Rae forced herself to inch closer. Really, she wanted to squirm away, avoid this guilt and discomfort forever, but she was tired of living in a place where everybody resented her.
Dad, Gran, Martha… Even Struan had made some remarks that had dripped with the faintest bitterness.
‘It was weird after you and Martha broke up.’
‘I always knew you’d pick her side.’
‘It wasn’t like that—’
She was cut off by a stern, distant bellow. ‘Rae!’
Snapping her head up, she found Dad limping across the field, Milly and Maisy bounding ahead with their tongues lolling happily.
A cool shiver rattled down her spine when he beckoned her over.
That was the you’re in trouble beckon, first experienced at the age of four when she’d painted a portrait of herself in crayon on the kitchen wall.
‘If I don’t come back, I’ve been murdered.’ She trudged out of the orchard to meet him by the tayberries. Behind her, she could hear Harper and Fraser fussing over the dogs, not such a terrible soundtrack to her upcoming demise.
She feigned ignorance. ‘Everything okay?’
His stormy features looked stark in contrast to the sunny day. ‘I just spoke to Myra. Imagine my surprise to find out that we’re hosting a bleeding wedding here!’
‘I’m taking care of all of it—’
He held up a hand to block her excuses. ‘You’re out of line, Rae.
In fact, you passed the line somewhere between Oz and Glasgow.
’ He motioned to the sky to emphasise his point.
‘This is my farm, and I decide how it’s managed.
Who do you think you are, coming back here and acting like you run the place?
All this chef business must have inflated your ego, and you know what? It doesn’t fit here anymore!’
She recoiled at the acid in his voice. She’d never seen him this angry, not even when Mum left – and never, ever at her. Still, ire overpowered the hurt. Did he expect her to turn an opportunity like this down, when he’d all but admitted the farm was one bad season away from shutting down for good?
‘I’m trying to make sure there’s still a farm to run!
’ she hissed, casting a sidelong glance towards the orchard.
Harper and Fraser had politely turned their backs, but Rae worried this would ruin their plans.
Seeing their wedding venue host in a domestic with her father was hardly part of the romantic fantasy they had planned.
‘You and Gran can’t do this alone, and this wedding would earn us enough to get back on our feet. ’
‘And how, exactly, do you expect it to work when none of us have any experience? You’ll make a fool of us all, Rae.
Your head is in the bloody clouds, just like it always has been.
’ He huffed, rubbing a hand over his beetroot face.
Dirt clung to the crevices of his wrinkled features, the creases of his clothes: proof he worked too hard to let it all go to waste.
How could she possibly be the enemy in this situation, when she was trying to prevent that?
Did he truly think so low of her?
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means you’ve always been too good for us, just like your mother.
And just like her, you’ll jet off again by the end of summer, and it’ll be us left to clean up your mess.
Maybe you can whiz around, hosting fancy events and reviving the Strawberry Fair, but when you’re gone, there’s no way I’ll be able to keep up. All you’re doing is making it harder!’
Having her mother’s abandonment thrown in her face knocked the wind from her lungs. Had he despised her for leaving all this time?
Rae’s chin trembled. Don’t cry now, she willed herself. Later. People are watching.
Maybe she had overstepped, but she wasn’t sure what she’d done to deserve this level of spite.
All at once, her idea of home, of safety, crumbled. She no longer felt welcome in the one place she’d always belonged, and it was like the dry soil was collapsing beneath her feet.
Dad’s lips pressed into a thin line. She thought perhaps she saw regret carved there, but she couldn’t be sure through her blurred vision.
Don’t. Cry.
‘Do you want me to send them away?’ she whispered.
Dad dismissed her with a wave, turning his back and whistling for the dogs to follow. ‘Do what you want,’ he muttered bitterly. ‘You always have, anyway.’
She wanted to hide, but where? The orchard was full of people expecting the best from her. The house wasn’t hers. She had nowhere to go.
Squeezing her eyes closed, she tried to focus on the stiff heat closing in.
If she couldn’t have walls, at least there was this: muggy air and birdsong and soft mud beneath her wellies.
She was fine. Upright. Her cheeks were dry, and she still owed it to Harper and Fraser, and to the farm, to go on.
No time to break.
She returned with her chin defiantly high, trying not to buckle under Cam’s knowing gaze.
‘I think we could both use a drink after this,’ Cam offered. ‘What do you say?’
Rae clutched the olive branch with both hands and a desperate nod, even if it had only been extended out of pity. ‘Yes, please. A drink sounds perfect.’