Michael: Scored the final goal of the match with one.
Scottie: Show off.: )
Michael: Finn was thrilled.What about you?How are you filling your days?
She’d left late Saturday after the Midlands Faire incident.Six days and forever since he’d seen her.Since the scent of her perfume carved a new memory for him.
Scottie: Work.Ha!Going into the office, brainstorming the spring line while making sure the fall launch is set.Winter is almost in the can.For some reason, I’m the only one in all of O’Shay who knows how to write a tech pack.#Jobsecurity.
Michael: But you are returning?
Scottie: Yes.I miss Kate.I miss you Lauchten lug heads.
Michael: She’ll be delighted to have you home.
So would the lug heads.
Scottie:…
Michael waited but the three dots never changed.
Michael: I miss you.Do you miss me?
There.He’d said it.Of course he didn’t send it.But now it was out of his system.
After the Rose Ball, she’d return to Hearts Bend permanently and he’d take on a new assignment.Because it was his calling, his lot in life.
One day down the line, he might meet a lovely woman.Fall in love.If so, they’d buy a tiny cottage by the sea, raise a baby or two, God willing, and he’d rest easy at night knowing he’d carried his cross dutifully.
The fact that it quite possibly cost him the love of Scottie O’Shay would be a distant, bygone memory.
Chapter Fifteen
Scottie
Saturday as she lounged by Shug and Fritz’s pool, Scottie read a book and jotted thoughts and questions on her phone nates app for her meeting with MP Fickle.
But none of it distracted hers from Dad, who was in love, snuggling his fiancée, Remi, in the shallow end.To be honest, it was a bit much, but he’d not stopped smiling.
Remi splashed Dad and he laughed, dunking her under.Were a couple of sixty-somethings allowed to act like teenagers?Remi surfaced with vigor, hopped on Dad’s back, and tried to push him below the smooth, cool surface, but instead, Dad circled her around to his chest and drew her in for a lavish kiss.
Scottie ducked behind her book, the one by the Lauchtenland author.She’d never witnessed Dad as a romantic being.Never saw him as a man with sexual desires.Yes, she was thirty-eight years old and not unfamiliar with being a lover, but this whole scene tilted her world.
Worse, she was jealous at the idea of sharing Dad’s attention.Since she’d arrived, he’d barely talked to her beyond a hello hug and kiss on the cheek.
Meanwhile, over by the grill, Grandpa Fritz chatted with his brother, Uncle Walt, who’d recently been widowed.His three children were out and about in the world, with no interest in O’Shay Shirts.Uncle Walt lived in north Florida after he retired as VP of Sales.
Aunt Leanne, Fritz’s younger sister visiting from Boston, walked from the kitchen onto the white pool deck, a sarong wrapped around her waist, her blue one-piece bathing suit reminding Scottie of the 1950s Hollywood starlets.
“I’d tell your dad to get a room, but it’s kind of fun seeing him in love.”Aunt Leanne stretched out on the chaise lounge next to Scottie, a mai tai in one hand and a thick Danielle Steel read in the other.“So, how’s our princess?I hear you’re going back?”
“For a few more weeks.There’s a ball I’m to attend.And I’m not a princess, Aunt Leanne.”
“Good.Don’t let them peel the O’Shay off you.We’re strong, independent women.Movers and shakers.”
“So are the Blues,” Scottie said.
Leanne O’Shay Neuheisel had cut her marketing teeth at O’Shay Shirts, but when Grandpa Fritz promoted an O’Shay cousin to director of marketing, Leanne resigned, moved to Boston and founded one of the nation’s leading headhunting firms.All five of her children now worked for Neuheisel Co.
