London
Ten minutes later, Nee was dealing with a guest, and I was giving the kitchen a once-over.
Nee had worked with Cammie, the local interior designer, to restore the Victorian coastal look while bringing the place into the twenty-first century.
The kitchen was like something out of a magazine and nothing like the commercial kitchens I’d worked in for most of my career as a sous chef.
It had pale blue shaker-style cabinets and Victorian wallpaper with the same pale blues mixed with greens.
The countertops were white and gold quartz, and the island took up most of the floor space, giving me an extra farmhouse sink, storage, and prep space.
My favorite thing was the eight-zone induction range cooker. It came with two ovens and a proving drawer, but Nee had foreseen the need for multiple ovens and added two more on the wall.
It was plenty for a small guest house where the kitchen was only used in the mornings and the few evenings a week—Nee gave me free run of the kitchen and I used the facilities to bake my pastries and cakes.
After calling goodbye to Nee, I ducked out of the elegant entrance that led to the guest parking.
The guest house sat on a hill above Main Street and had amazing views toward the water, but not on the parking lot side.
My feet crunched across the wet gravel as drizzle drifted down over my hair and clothes.
I tugged my rain jacket closed against a chilly breeze as I walked down the hill.
A fork in the road at the bottom greeted me.
Left led to Main Street and right led to an uphill climb past residential streets and the A-road that led around the island.
Directly opposite me was another hill where streets branched off into commercial and residential, away from the village hub.
A few streets back from the harbor in a quiet cul-de-sac was a modest, ordinary bungalow I rented from my friend Taran Macbeth.
When I’d first arrived on the island, Taran, a stranger to me and a new friend to Nee, had offered me a room in her home.
She’d inherited the house from her mom who had sadly passed away only a few months before my arrival.
Her mom’s passing had brought Taran back to the island after an eighteen-year estrangement from her then ex (now fiancé), Quinn.
I’d moved in with her, and I guess you could say we trauma-bonded.
There were times in the last eighteen months I felt closer to Taran than I did even to Nee.
It took over a year, but Quinn and Taran finally found their way back to each other, and they’d moved into his house together. Taran had given me the bungalow, but I insisted on paying rent.
Truthfully, it took me weeks to sleep after she left.
I feel lonely here … I let the thought loose.
I immediately chastised myself because it was that sort of thinking that had led me to allowing Nick’s suffocating control.
Back in New York, pre-Nick, I’d lived by myself, no problem. I’d enjoyed the alone time. So I refused to believe I was lonely now.
Then again, maybe that’s why I’d started dating too.
Not just because I wanted to prove Nick’s damage wasn’t permanent, but because maybe I did want someone.
It was difficult not to feel longing for a romantic relationship when I saw Nee with Ramsay and Taran with Quinn.
Their love stories weren’t perfect—none were—but they were in loving, kind, passionate relationships.
I didn’t think I trusted any man the way they trusted theirs.
Well … that wasn’t true.
An aching pang flared across my chest as I decided against going home and turned toward Main Street.
There was one man who made me feel like I could trust him. One man who made my skin hum and my heart beat rapidly anytime he was near.
Murray Shaw.
I’d never been so hyperaware of a guy in my life. Not even Nefarious Nick.
That scared me too, though.
Because I’d been very wrong before.
But this man … he was … there was something different about him. Something gentle despite how physically large he was.
Looking out toward the harbor where a mishmash of boats swayed softly anchored on the water, I could almost visualize him with his crew, unloading today’s catch.
I’d thought about making a move at last New Year’s Eve party, but when we danced, he’d held me like I was made of crystal and was aloof in a way that told me I’d misinterpreted our previous interactions. I knew when a guy was into me and when a guy wasn’t.
I decided his disinterest was a good thing.
My emotions were still too tangled up to trust anyone.
Shoulders slumping at the honest realization, I bit back a sting of tears.
I wasn’t ready to date.
Not yet.
Damn Nick.
Damn him to hell.
Searching out my distraction, I walked toward the Leth Sholas Life Boat Service (LSLS) Charity Shop that Taran managed.
She’d kindly allowed me to put an honesty box outside her store.
I’d never heard of the concept of an honesty box until I moved to Scotland.
Basically, people sold their wares from a box or sometimes even a small, unmanned store and depended on those who took the items to pay what they felt was a fair price for them.
When Cammie suggested it to me as a place to gauge people’s reactions to my pastries and cakes, I’d thought she was kind of nutty.
But shockingly, people took the food and paid for it and paid fairly, sometimes even generously.
I think the generous part was because everyone knew I was donating fifty percent of my proceeds to the LSLS.
I broke even, but I still got a kick out of seeing how empty the box was.
I grinned at it now as I pulled some antibacterial wipes out of my shoulder bag.
Opening the glass-fronted box Quinn had built, I wiped down the crumb-covered shelves, delighted by the emptiness.
Every Wednesday morning I filled the box with savory and sweet pastries and an assortment of cakes.
I’d been doing this for six weeks, and once word got around, Taran told me the box was empty by ten in the morning.
Grinning to myself, I wiped it all down, emptied the cashbox, and took half into the charity shop.
Taran wasn’t there, but I left the money with one of the volunteers and walked out still wearing my silly smile.
The salty breeze blowing off the water ruffled through my hair as a pale gold beam of sunlight peeked through a dark cloud above Stòr, and all of it lifted my mood considerably.
When my phone rang, I dug it out of my bag and answered brightly, “Hullo?”
The line crackled as the other person released a heavy breath. “God, it’s good to hear your voice.”
Cold fear flooded my veins, and I stumbled to a stop outside the local chocolate shop.
“Surprised to hear from me?” Nick asked.
“How …” My heart pounded so hard I could barely hear over the blood rushing in my ears.
“How am I calling you? Well, you’ll probably see in the news later today that my lawyers managed to swing a deal for me. No prison time, but I am stuck at home with a not-so-charming ankle accessory.”
No. No, no, no. I huffed out a shaky breath.
“Did you really think a Huston would go to jail? For a little insider trading? No, baby. I must take my slap on the wrist, but it’s only two years.
Then I’m a free man. Thing is, we both know I’m not a patient man, and it has already taken quite a considerable amount of patience to give you space for the last fifteen months.
I’m over it. Though it had the nice side benefit of lulling you into thinking we were actually done. ” He laughed softly.
“We are done,” I managed to bite out. “I have nothing to say to you. I’m hanging up.”
“How’s that visa extension coming along?”
Panic tightened my throat.
He chuckled. “I thought that would get your attention. Did you know that my father is friends with members of the British Cabinet? He went to Harvard with a Brit who is now, and you’re not going to believe this, the Secretary of State for the United Kingdom.
Do you know what a Secretary of State is, baby?
That’s the highest authority on decisions regarding immigration and visas. ”
As his meaning sank in, the street wavered in front of me, my hand shaking so hard the phone trembled against my ear.
“I do believe you’ll be applying for an extension on the work visa soon, and I have to tell you, it’s not looking good. So I’d start packing, London. You’re coming home. To me. And you and I are going to have a very difficult conversation once we’re reunited.”
Screaming sounded in my ears, and I realized it was internal. I was screaming in my head to hang up on him! I did, my fingers shaking so hard I almost dropped my phone twice.
I was going to be sick.
Reaching blindly for purchase on something, anything to hold me steady, I bent over and retched. Only a bit of bile and saliva came up but the urge remained, my chest heaving with the contractions.
“London!” I heard a gruff voice call out and the vague sound of running footsteps. Then an arm braced around me. The scent of cologne mingled with sea salt offered a distraction from my panic.
A strong hand rubbed my back.
“There, there … you’re all right.”
I knew that deep but gentle voice wrapped in a Scottish accent, and I cursed the fates that he would be the one to witness this moment.
Wiping at my mouth, I straightened, and his arm dropped away.
I stared up into the rugged face of Murray Shaw and into his beautiful mossy-green eyes.
Even in my state of panic, awareness shivered through me as our gazes locked.
He searched mine with an intensity that had me coming back to myself.
Reminding me that right now I was in Leth Sholas and I was safe.
“What happened?”
It had to be the shock that caused me to blurt out that my ex had threatened to derail my visa. As soon as the words were out, I wanted to pull them back. Only the girls and Ramsay knew Nick had been abusive. Murray wouldn’t understand why going back to the US scared me so much.
“I … uh … I just … I’ve made a life here,” I tried to deflect, even as I felt the nausea rise again. I swallowed it. “It would devastate me to have to return to the US.”
“Do you really think your ex has that kind of power?”
“I don’t think he’s bluffing.” I screwed up my face as I saw the deep concern in his eyes.
Murray of all people didn’t need to shoulder my problems. He had his own problems to deal with.
He owned the largest fishing company on the west coast. Word had it, he’d taken his father’s little business and expanded it into a small empire.
He now supplied many of the national supermarkets with fresh fish.
And his company offered guided fishing tours around the western isles.
According to Cammie, Murray was the wealthiest person living on Glenvulin.
You’d never know it from his untrimmed hair and scruffy beard.
Or his clothes. His cable-knit sweater had seen better days.
As he stood before me, the wind ruffling over us both, I could smell the sea air on him.
Everyone said he didn’t need to go out on the boats, especially considering he had a large company to run, but I’d seen him down on the harbor working with a crew.
Mingled with the salty sea air was something citrusy and fresh. His soap or cologne. Maybe both. His broad shoulders looked massive in his sweater as his tall frame filled my vision.
“So I’d start packing, London. You’re coming home. To me. And you and I are going to have a very difficult conversation once we’re reunited.”
Nick’s threat echoed in my mind, and I tried to throw it out before I started panicking again. Instead, I focused on Murray’s handsome face that would be even more handsome if he trimmed his beard.
The word was Murray was not only trying to win sole custody of his daughter from his ex-wife but that his ex-wife, because of some marriage contract, was taking a hefty salary out of his company every month. The guy had his own issues to deal with.
“I’m sorry for bothering you. I should—”
“You didn’t bother me.” Murray lifted a hand as if to reach out to me, but he clenched it into a fist and dropped it at his side again. “Can I help?”
“No.” I walked backward away from him. “I’ll be fine,” I lied and then hurried away before he could stop me.