“I’ll deal with it,” Dad promised in his scary Dad voice once I’d told him about Cameron’s reaction.
“How will you deal with it?”
“I’ll have a perfectly civil conversation with him. And I might invite all your uncles to said conversation to remind the wee fucker that you have men in your life who can make him disappear, no questions asked, if he doesn’t stay away from you.”
I met Mum’s gaze.
She just shrugged as if to say, “I’m with him.”
A knock at the door had us looking up as Mor peeked her head in. “You’re all in here?”
Mum patted the bed beside her and Mor bounded onto it like she was five. “Feeling better?” Mum asked, hugging her into her side and smoothing her hair back.
Mor wrapped an arm around Mum’s stomach and melted into her with a nod.
“What are we, the Waltons?” Dad teased.
I snorted as my sister wrinkled her nose in confusion. “Who are the Waltons?”
Mum laughed and reached out to smooth a thumb over Dad’s cheek. “Dude, you’re so old.”
Cackling and then apologizing in the face of Dad’s mock hurt, I let my worries of the day melt away. I’d be fifty and married with my own kids, and still I knew my family could cure any ailment with just the reminder that they existed and that they loved me.
Twenty-Five
FYFE
Jared and Allegra McCulloch were the farmers who owned the land my home was built on. Since marrying, Allegra had encouraged Jared to be more entrepreneurial. They started with rental properties—glamping pods—and then branched out to the small development of architect-designed homes, including the one I lived in. Then they moved onto a few larger rental properties and now were renting out small cabins as office space. All while still running a working farm.
My home office was a no-go at the moment. It wasn’t the sound of Millie that distracted me, it was my need to make sure she was all right any time she made a sound. I required an office away from home, and the McCullochs’ small row of office pods were the perfect solution. The house was a mere ten minutes away in case Eilidh needed me.
This morning’s handover had been awkward as fuck. Eilidh made it clear she still wasn’t ready to talk about last night’s discussion, so I gave her that. For now.
I had a shit ton of work on my plate to distract me. Eilidh had provided the dodgy creeps file, as she called it, and I’d forwarded it to a few employees whom I knew were good at research. It wasa little outside their purview, but I was paying them overtime to get results quickly. One of the people looking at the files was Evan Willis. He was a security guard at Ardnoch Estate and we got to talking because he had serious computer skills.
First, I’d asked him if he’d like to take on some freelance stuff for my company, and then through that, I’d discovered Evan ran a tae kwon do class in Thurso and was looking for another instructor. He had been taking over my classes for me the past couple of weeks until I could figure out childcare for Millie.
On top of that, I had my regular clients to deal with and the new client who wanted their retailer system gone over with a fine-toothed comb. All the while I was researching nanny services (surprise, surprise, there weren’t many options this far north), concluding that Millie would have to go into daycare. I called Regan, but it went to voicemail, so I left a message, asking if she had a space available to take Millie four days a week.
Vision blurred from looking at the screen for hours, I sat back and pushed my glasses up to rub my eyes. I alternated between the glasses and my contacts, especially on days I knew I’d be doing a lot of screen time. It had nothing to do with Eilidh telling me she liked my glasses.
Nothing whatsoever.
Standing to stretch, I picked up my phone and typed out a text to Eilidh, checking in to make sure Millie was good, and then saw Lewis had texted me five minutes ago to say he was on his way.
We were having lunch in my office pod because I needed to talk to him.
My phone buzzed in my hand. It was Eilidh.
All good. Taking her for a stroll in the village. OK?
I sighed at her abruptness and texted back that it was fine.
Two seconds later, I heard a familiar engine. A large window faced out toward the fields, but the pod didn’t have any windows elsewhere. Just a solid door entrance off the small driveway.
I opened the door just as Lewis swung a leg off his Harley-Davidson Fat Boy. He rode it any chance he could, considering he usually had to forsake the bike to drive his daughter in his SUV.
It was so bloody surreal to me that we both had baby daughters now.
