It was obvious they were close from their friendly bickering, and I grinned at the show they put on. For all their faults, I found myself missing my own family. I had kept my phone off, knowing what I would find if I turned it on: countless text messages, missed calls and voicemails. I hadn’t left my siblings any clues, just an empty room missing the few essentials I had packed. I’d caught a cab to the airport, and my car sat in the garage. The only person who had any idea where I had vanished to was my father. There was no way I could have left without letting him know, but even then I had been brief in my message, a handwritten note I had slipped beneath his door that simply said:
Papa,
I’ve gone after my dreams.
Please understand.
I love you.
—D
PS: Will call once I’m settled.
I’d opted to keep my note short to the point. Otherwise, I knew my siblings would have latched on to any clue to find me, and while I didn’t know what they would do if they discovered my destination, I did know they were prone to inserting themselves. I didn’t even want to imagine how Sithean would look with my four siblings on the loose. The last thing I wanted was to have to keep an eye on them. This getaway was for me and me alone. I was sure that I was, at the very least, owed this time in Scotland.
Looking away from Agnes and Callum, I swallowed hard and repeated the mantra I’d used to ground myself no less than a dozen times over the morning: I deserve this. I deserve this.I deserve this.
It was hard to keep my head up and a smile on my face when guilt at leaving kept looming overhead. Maybe if I spoke to my father I could calm down? Knowing that he was happy and accepting of my journey to Scotland would surely make my heart lighter, and I vowed to phone him as soon as I was able.
“What’s got ye looking like a storm cloud?” Callum said, appearing at my side. He was still munching on a cookie and giving me a curious look.
“Excuse me?” I blinked and realized I’d been staring off into space, frowning.
Callum nodded at me. “You look like you just remembered something...miserable.”
“Oh, let her alone!” Agnes rolled her eyes at him and slid the tray of cookies out of reach. Callum pulled a face at that, but Agnes paid him no mind and fixed him with another of her patented Or Else stares and said, “Make yersel useful and take her on a tour of town, hmm?”
My stomach flip-flopped at the prospect of being alone with Callum, but I didn’t dare let on what I was feeling. No use in feeding Agnes’s fixation with matchmaking us. No telling what the woman would do if she had even the slightest hint that I was interested in her very attractive nephew.
Besides, I hadn’t missed the stern look she’d just directed his way. The last thing I wanted was Callum to be saddled playing tour guide for the American tourist when he surely had more valuable things to do.
“He doesn’t have to—”
“Be delighted to,” Callum said, cutting me off.
“What?” I looked to him in surprise but Callum had already swung away, striding toward the front door of the bakery.
“Perfect!” Agnes glowed with pleasure, and I could see it was in no small measure because she thought her plan at matchmaking was succeeding.
“Isn’t there still so much that needs to be done?” I asked in a weak whisper.
“Dinna fash,” she told me, grabbing a pair of mixing bowls and setting them down in front of her. “The fey folk will help me. They always do. That’s what happens when you save their king.”
I had been following Callum, but her words stopped me in my tracks. “What?” I looked at her, trying to see if she was serious or not, but Agnes’s back was turned toward me as she began gathering ingredients for her next baking project. King? Fey were one thing but now there was a king? Although, Ihadpromised to believe.Besides, after my mediocre showing at making shortbread, I didn’t have a leg to stand on to argue that I would be more useful to Agnes than fairy helpers, real or not.
My eyes drifted over to my shortbread disaster and I grimaced. A well-disciplined five year old would be capable of more than what I’d produced.
“Och aye! No staring at this,” Agnes gestured at the pan, “and thinking ill of yourself. You did a fine job today with the customers. It isn’t easy to step into a new kitchen and bake something you’d never done before. You’ll get it tomorrow, you hear?”
I gave her a glum nod. “Okay.”
Agnes wiped her hands on her apron and paused in her work to come stand beside me. “Now go with Callum and enjoy yersel,” she ordered, wrapping her arms around me and giving me a tight hug. “Do ye understand?”
“Yes,” I told her with a smile.
She gave me a little nudge toward the front door where Callum waited. “Good, now go on. I’m fine. They fey will help me, remember?”
“I expect to see this place covered in baked goods when we get back,” I joked.
