“I do. Thanks.”
I paid for my coffee, aware there was a line behind me but weirdly feeling the need to say something else.
“If you ever need anything …”
Taran’s expression softened. “That’s my line. But thanks. Same. If you’re a regular in here, I’ll see you a lot now. I’ve come home to take over the store.”
I heard what she wasn’t saying and battled the urge to tell this stranger how sorry I was. Now I recognized that look on her face. I’d seen it on my own whenever I looked in the mirror after my parents’ death.
Gesturing with my cup, I gave her a little wave and walked out of the coffee store feeling unbelievably sad for her.
“Tierney!”
I glanced up to find Cammie strolling toward me. The McQuarries were a tall bunch. Cameron was five ten, built like a glamor model, and had a thick mass of long blond hair. Every other week there was a new streak of color in the two bands framing her face; today it was fuchsia pink. Her nose was a little too long and her mouth a little too wide—but she had that thing, that quality, that made her attractiveness transcend the nonsensical lie referred to as “traditional beauty.”
She wore a tight-fitting rain jacket with a belted waist with her jeans and hiking boots, barely any makeup, and yet still managed to look put together. Slim gold rings with varying stones decorated almost every one of her blunt-nailed fingers, and when her right sleeve was pushed up, it revealed her tattoo, a beautiful, delicate branch of heather to symbolize her niece Heather. When her nephew was born, she had his name, Angus, wound into the tattoo in script.
Usually of a sunny disposition, I tensed at Cammie’s somber facade as she approached. She gestured to the store behind me. “Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
Her blue eyes glistened. “Isla Macbeth has metastatic breast cancer. It’s not … They didn’t catch it in time. She’s decided not to seek treatment.”
I’d known it was something like that. I’d seen it written all over a devastated Taran Macbeth. I squeezed Cammie’s arm. “I’m so sorry. That’s why Taran is home.”
Her head whipped toward the coffee shop. “She’s in there?”
I nodded.
Cammie stared at the store for a few seconds, hesitating. Then she gestured for me to walk with her. “Taran is …wasQuinn’s girlfriend in high school.”
I thought about my handsome contractor and the pretty brunette and could absolutely see it. “How sweet.”
She made a huffing noise. “It was until it wasn’t. We all thought they’d end up together. Finding love here isn’t easy. But Taran left Leth Sholas for Glasgow Uni and things fell apart between them. They broke up and my brother in a drunken, miserable state, made the stonkingly bad decision to sleep with Kiera.”
“That’s his ex?” So far, I hadn’t been given many details about the personal lives of the villagers I now found myself among, but it felt good that Cameron trusted me enough to share.
“Heather and Angus’s mum.” She referred to Quinn’s children. I’d learned over the past few weeks that Quinn was a single dad to a seventeen-year-old girl and twelve-year-old boy of whom he shared joint custody with his ex.
“He became a dad at eighteen and because our own father bolted when we were kids, leaving Mum to raise us alone, Quinn didn’t want that for Heather.”
“Wait. I thought your parents owned a farm.”
“Greg is our stepfather,” Cammie explained. “He came back to Leth Sholas to take over his parents’ farm and he and Mum reconnected from their childhood. Don’t get me wrong, we think of him as Dad now, but he didn’t come into our lives until Quinn was eleven and I was eight. Quinn remembered how hard it was for Mum. He didn’t really get a chance to be a wee boy because he had to help her out so much, even taking care of me so she could work nights. Anyway, he married Kiera because he didn’t want Heather to grow up without a dad in the house. They tried for years to make it work, even going so far as to deliberately have Angus. I love my brother, but he should never have … Anyway, Kiera did what was best for her in the end and left. She’s moved on and is happy with her new partner.”
I’d noted the lack of ring on my contractor’s wedding finger. “And Quinn? Did he move on?”
Cammie huffed. “One thing you should know about island life is that it makes for a very shallow dating pool.”
That I didn’t mind at all. I wasn’t here to date. I shoved thoughts of Ramsay McRae from my mind. “Now Taran’s back …”
“Aye, that’s not going to happen. Taran … When she found out Kiera was pregnant, she was beyond devastated. She never came back to Leth Sholas. Taran and I were close, but she cut me off too.” Cammie gave me a sad shrug. “I understood. Quinn broke her heart so badly she hasn’t returned to Leth Sholas in eighteen years. Isla and Taran’s brother, Laird, would always leave the island to go visit Taran in Glasgow. Last I heard, she was engaged … I wonder if her fiancé is here too.”
Not only was her mom dying, but Taran had to return to a town where everyone knew her painful history … where she had to face the man who broke her heart. I hoped her fiancéwaswith her to support her. “That is too much for anyone to deal with all at once.”
“Aye.” Cammie took a shuddering breath. “Her dad died when she was eight. So all she’ll have left is her brother Laird and Laird’s wife and their kids too. But maybe if she has a fiancé … I don’t know. I wish she’d let me be there for her.”
“Have you tried?”
