“Sorry.” She removes a tissue from her bag and dabs her eyes. “I’m still a bit hormonal.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I’m grateful to you and your mom and all the girls. I appreciated the support so much.”
“Everyone was happy to help. You have people here who care about you.”
“There really is no place like home. I have missed Ryemont.” She casts a glance around as she takes a mouthful of her wine. “I’ve missed the clean air, the easygoing vibes, and the quiet. It’s so peaceful here. While I love New York, it’s chaos in comparison.”
“There is no place like here. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
“You’ve carved out a little piece of heaven on earth, Callan, and you still haven’t told me how you ended up here.”
“Prepare to be shocked.”
She arches a brow. “Hit me with it.”
“The Scottish inventor didn't die; he remarried after his first wife died and moved back to Scotland.”
“No way!”
“Yes, way. I spent months digging around in archives, libraries, and visiting the town clerk’s office, trying to figure it all out. The legend didn’t get it totally wrong. There was a first wife, she was from Ryemont, but they tragically lost their child to tuberculosis. His wife was often found wandering around the woods, crying, and calling out for her dead son, but she didn’t drown either; she was trampled to death by a horse and carriage after wandering out onto the road in the dark.”
“That is so sad, but I’m glad neither of them died in the lake.”
“Same.”
“So, what happened to the inventor after he returned to Scotland, and what about the house here?”
“He abandoned the house, and maybe he intended to return one day, but he never did. He had two children with his secondwife, and I managed to compile their family tree, thanks to Ancestry. I found one of his great-grandkids and reached out to Elizabeth. She got in touch with the other four great-grandkids. Get this, none of them even knew about the property or the first wife or the legend or anything.”
“It must’ve been a huge shock.”
“A happy one when they realized I’d found the title deeds and I had proof they were the rightful owners.”
“How long were you working on all this?”
“Took a year to track them down and another year to get through all the red tape. The inventor’s descendants hired a lawyer, got their rights reinstated, and, after an agreement with the land agency, they sold the land to me. I had to pay the agency a fee, but it was deducted from the agreed sale price, which was very fair. I had just enough left over from my football contract to pay it, build the house and guesthouse, and set up the company with Travis.”
“When did you move in here?”
“We’ll be here five years in January. Travis and I did a lot of the manual labor in our spare time until things got too busy with GH Construction, and then I hired more contractors to finish the rest. We got the cottage built in three months, so Darcy and I could move out of Ma’s and be here while the main house was built. This place was move-in ready three days before Darcy’s fourth birthday.”
“I’m still blown away you did this.”
I want to tell her I never stopped hoping she’d live here with us one day, but I can’t. I can’t express any of those sentiments while she’s still engaged to another man. “Doing this literally saved my life.”
Lines furrow her brow. “What do you mean?”
I exhale heavily. “I was in a very dark place after I got that bitch out of our lives. I still have some bad days when the thingsshe did to me, to us, threaten to smother me. Knowing Darcy needed me and building this house were the only things keeping me tethered to this world for a long time.”
Her eyes widen as shock plays across her face. Her hand shakes where it grips her wineglass.
“The things I have to tell you are not easy, Astrid. Not easy for me to say. Not easy for you to hear.”
“I’m scared,” she whispers.
“I’m scared too, even if I have been waiting years to tell you.” A heaviness coats the air. “If you want to back out, I will understand.”
