“Let’s just get through this week,” I said, rinsing my cup, my back to him, forcing myself to gather my composure. What else was there to say? He’d apologized for thesong that had shattered me all those years ago, and now what? There was nowhere to go from here.
“You make it sound like it’s a penance,” he said, and for once I had no smart remark.
Turning, I looked at him, needing him to go lest I do something stupid like cross the room and pull his mouth down to mine. Even after all these years, I couldn’t deny the man still had unmistakable charisma. It followed him around the room, changing the molecules in the air as he moved, and hit me straight in my core.
“Good night, Noah.”
He nodded once, like a man agreeing with a judge, then stepped back into the corridor. “Good night, Skye.”
He left. The floorboard above creaked again minutes later, moving from one end of the room to the other.
I poured the rest of the water from the kettle out, flicked the lights off and stood there for a moment, because sometimes the dark is honest with you in a way the light refuses to be. Like when I’d lie awake at three in the morning and wonder if Noah ever missed me.
Shaking my head, I climbed the stairs and paused because, apparently, I liked to punish myself, and listened.
At first, nothing, then the brush of strings. Not a song. Just fingers testing a chord.
Yearning swelled, and I hurried up the stairs to my flat on the top floor and rushed through a basic bedtime routine. It wouldn’t do me any good to think aboutwhat ifs. What if I had stayed with the band? With Noah? Would I, too, be a household name? Would playing my music on the world’s stage have brought me joy?
In bed, the duvet smelled of laundry soap and loneliness,so I made a list in my head to put myself to sleep—buy a new washer hose, find a new plumber who wouldn’t call me “hen” in a way that made me murderous, make extra scones for the Austrian tourists who were eating like locusts, deleteSkyefrom Harper’s playlist at the pub.
Tonight I’d been the woman who ran from a pub to escape the pain from a song written in her past. Tomorrow I’d be the woman who runs an inn like a boss and knows better, because at the end of the day, keeping the inn running was the only thing that I could control.
When I finally drifted, I dreamed of a garage, frosted breath, fingers raw from strings, with a boy looking at me like I was his future. I woke up with my jaw clenched and tears drying on my face.
Four
NOAH
Insomnia, thy name is Kingsbarns.
I spent the night lying on a mattress that felt like it had opinions about me, listening to the old house breathe. Radiators hissed and a floorboard squeaked every time someone crossed the hall.
By morning I’d achieved that special level of tired where your shadow looks hungover. Showering in hot water that alternated between “glacier melt” and “hell mouth,” I made a mental note to sneak a look at Skye’s boiler. My old man had been a plumber, and though it had been years since I’d done any work like that, I could still remember the basics.
I still hadn’t turned my phone on, but one glance at my email on my laptop was enough for me to slam it with a resounding thud.
Bloody Glen.
He’d swept me away when I was too green to know any better, and though he’d delivered on his promises to make our band famous, he’d also, apparently, done a lot of shady things along the way. I’d given Glen too much signing power, believing that he’d always look out for our best interests, and it turns out, he’d had other motivations all along.
News of which, I was just finding out about.
Along with the rest of the world.
Too tetchy to face Skye this morning, I slipped past the lounge full of lodgers eating breakfast, a hat pulled low over my face, and stepped into the wintry morning sunshine. The faded light fell upon a place that held some of my happiest memories, and I headed for the bookshop that had once been my sanctuary when I wasn’t fiddling around on my guitar, teasing out notes and avoiding chores.
Tucked down a small, sheltered lane, Highland Hearts Bookshop had a bell over the door and Christmas garlands strung along the edge of the roof. It looked like it had been freshened up recently, with a bright coat of paint on the door, and an intricate window display of woodland fae building a Christmas tree from a stack of books.
“That’s inventive,” I said, admiring the work, and pushed inside. The smell of books, a hint of cinnamon, and smoke from a woodburning stove greeted me and I sighed, feeling some of the tension that banded my shoulders ease. Bookshops had always been a refuge for me and Highland Hearts had been one of my first loves where I’d disappear to read about knights and elves and warriors on a quest.
A plush stag wearing a Santa hat stood on the counter next to signs that offeredStorytime with Rosie: ElvesWho Make Bad ChoicesandHarper’s Holiday Romance Recs: Heroines that move abroad and fall in love.Two women turned as I entered, Harper from the pub, and another I hadn’t met yet. Harper had a fresh-faced beauty that only came from being wildly in love, and she smiled cheerfully at me.
“Oh, hello,” Harper said, nudging the woman next to her whose smile made you want to hand over your secrets and your wallet. She wore a jumper that read BOOKS > BOYS, which I decided not to take personally. “Come meet, Rosie, the new owner of Highland Hearts.”
“Good morning,” Rosie said, with a tone that implied she’d had a lot of coffee. “If it isn’t John Smith?”
I winced.
