“Are yefeckingkidding me?”
Chapter 23
A week later
Meditation and yoga, once reliable friends, had become traitorous bitches. Aila hadn’t been able to shake her yearning to return to Finn even while the staggering impact of that final night with him continued to rattle her to the bones. In the entirety of her twenty-seven years, she’d neverfeltso deeply. Sex had never been anything more than a meeting of bodies, an exorcism of the libido. It had never been about connection. Nevertheless, she could have sworn she saw into Finn’s heart and soul that night.
That was unnerving enough.
The idea that he might have been able to do the same was alarming.
So, she’d run. Run from Finn. From the possibility of what he might have seen. She’d fled like the hounds of hell were on her heels and all the meditation of the mind hadn’t been able to convince her heart that she’d done the right thing. Aila then turned to Brontë’s drug of choice: running. In truth rather than figuratively.
Turns out she was too out of shape to manage anything faster than a brisk walk, though Rab appreciated her efforts. There was something soothing about those long hours. Just a girl and her dog. They talked out the problem…. Rather he listened and offered the occasional garbled woof of understanding while she tried to make sense of the mush her thoughts had become. He licked away her tears when she cried, another new hobby of hers. At night, the warm weight pressed along the side of her leg was a comfort, though obviously couldn’t compensate for the loss of another presence next to her.
She couldn’t let it go.
Normally she’d lose herself in her work. Even that couldn’t distract her enough to push Finn from her mind.
Oh, Violet and her buggered sense of humor. That hadn’t helped either.
“There you are! What is this Granny tells me about you finding your white knight?”
“Brontë!” Aila ran to her friend as Brontë leapt from where she’d been sitting on the settee and hugged her…perhaps a little too hard given Brontë’s playful yelp.
Her friend drew back and grinned at her. “Oh my God, look at you! I almost didn’t recognize you without makeup. What is going on?” Brontë smoothed back Aila’s hair to reveal her ears. “And no piercings? Even the belly button one?”
Aila batted away Brontë’s hands when she playfully reached for the hem of Aila’s shirt. Aye, that one was gone, too. As for the makeup, she hadn’t rocked any of her usual over-the-top looks since she’d been back. Reluctant to explain why, Aila instead turned to the man behind Brontë and hugged him, too. They’d become good friends over the past few months. “Tris, so good to see ye. How are ye?”
“Verra well, Aila. Dinnae let Brontë tease ye. Ye look lovely.” He kissed one cheek and then the other as he stepped back. “How are ye?”
Unfailingly polite. Kind. Tris was a perfect gentleman as well as being a braw, handsome Scotsman. The perfect product of his time. The universal philosophy that things got better with time was so off. The past had proven to produce some of the best.
A lump formed in her throat. She swallowed it back without answering his question. “What are ye two doing back so soon?”
Brontë laughed and leaned back against Tris. “A little birdy told me I should get home.”
Aila’s lips scrunched. “That reason better no’ be a wrinkled auld bawbag of a man with ruddy ears and a drinking problem.”
An inquisitive light lit her friend’s gaze. “It doesn’t, however I’m incredibly curious now. Has Auld Donell been back? He’s not been hanging around Violet again, has he? I swear I sensed something was going on last time I was home.”
“Nay, I have no’ seen him.” Aila drew back with studied innocence. “Why would I see him? He hisnae been about here sinceCyranoclosed.”
“No?” Her friend’s gaze filled with skepticism before affection filled them. She hugged Aila again. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed ye, too.” Oh, she truly had. Both of them.
“We’ve got to catch up.” Brontë dropped back down on the sofa with a grin and cuddled up against her man when he joined her and put an arm around her shoulders. “First, you must tell me what Granny meant when she said you’d found your white knight. Have you met someone?”
Aila rolled her eyes. Of course, Violet had told her granddaughter about Finn. The bare bones of it, no doubt. Just enough to tease. Just enough to taunt Aila with her little riddle.Look it up. She’d laughed her head off, knowing what the result would be. She’d poked fun at Aila all week with what she’d found in her Google search.
Finlay. From the GaelicFionnlagh, meaning fair or white warrior.
“I ken ye believe in fairy tales, Brontë,” she said. “But dinnae let Vi get yer hopes up. I never have and still dinnae. Nae offense, Tris.”
He grinned and she saw the resemblance to Ian. “None taken.”
The meaning of Finn’s name was nothing more than another one of those incredible coincidences. Like her clan motto on the necklace. A quirk. Finn was not her bloody white knight.
