‘You’ve never been?’ I asked and he shook his head.
‘More of a Hogmanay man, myself, but I’m game to go if you are.’
A carol service. A nice, wholesome, brightly lit activity where we would be surrounded by dozens of other people. Perfect.
‘If you’re sure,’ I nodded. ‘I’d like that.’
‘It’s a date,’ he replied before checking the time on his watch. ‘Dinner will be on soon. Are you up to a family feed or is Caroline’s migraine back again? Entirely up to you, I reckon we’ve done enough damage for one day if you’d rather not.’
He was right, we’d really outdone ourselves already,even when we hadn’t meant to. Caroline certainly wasn’t winning any popularity contests in Balmaclay. I’d had every intention of skipping dinner and spending the evening alone in my room, but when his eyes drifted back to mine, the thought of sitting up here by myself when I could be downstairs with Callum seemed stupid.
‘Give me a knock and we’ll go down together,’ I said, hoping I wouldn’t live to regret it.
Chapter Twenty
The atmosphere around the McLay dinner table was more tense than the time Joel came home from work and casually told me and Desi his boss was selling two face-value Taylor Swift tickets for Wembley but he’d passed.
Elsie was absent, but Derek, Lizzie and Rory were all seated at the table when Callum and I appeared, fifteen minutes later than we were requested. His father had the decency to avoid eye contact as I shuffled past, but Lizzie openly examined me with the same kind of scrutiny I applied to before and after photos of Lindsay Lohan.
‘Sorry,’ Callum said as he held my seat out for me. ‘I lost track of time.’
‘My fault, obviously,’ I huffed, rubbing at my red-rimmed eyes. ‘Everything’s always my fault.’
Lizzie eyed her son as he took his place beside me. ‘Everything OK, Caroline, dear?’
It was. My eyes were red thanks to the makeup remover I’d scrubbed over them after an aborted attemptat winged eyeliner. Lizzie McClay didn’t need the facts, let her chalk it up to another Caroline nightmare.
‘Everything’s grand,’ Callum replied for me. ‘Can we just eat?’
After he’d left my room, I’d given myself a good talking to, a much needed reminder about why I was there. I wasn’t in Scotland to defend Callum’s life choices to his family, I didn’t need to know whether or not he still had feelings for his ex or whether he’d end up returning to Balmaclay or not.
And I certainly shouldn’t be entertaining ridiculous fantasies based on nothing more than proximity, fairy lights and a fantastic arse.
It went against the very fibre of my being to admit it but Desi had been right to warn me about catching feelings. I was in a big old fancy house, with a gorgeous man, at Christmas. Who wouldn’t get the warm and fuzzies? All I had to do was keep a lid on myself and avoid too much one-on-one contact. Seventy-two hours from now, this nonsense would all be over, we’d be on the train back home and soon enough, the bizarre Christmas I spent in Scotland with a man I barely knew would be a hilarious brunch story and nothing more.
‘It’s stew for dinner,’ Derek said when Fiona came in with a giant silver tureen. ‘And another veggie roast for you, Caroline.’
‘Been looking forward to it all day,’ I replied, one single tear slipping down my cheek.
‘This looks good, Fi,’ Rory said as she served the youngest McClay first, the two of them sharing an affectionate look. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a wee taste, Caro?’
‘It’s Caro now, is it?’ Derek looked at his son and then at me, the lines around his eyes deepening with effort as he tried to work out when we’d become such besties. ‘You should’ve been down in the barn with me and Rory this afty, Callum, you missed a treat.’
‘That’s right,’ Rory said. ‘Dr Dickson came over and put his arm up a cow’s arse, all the way up to the elbow, then it shat all over him. A true Christmas miracle.’
‘You know, I’m really not that hungry tonight.’ I offered Fiona a pleading smile when she placed another mound of oily, compressed vegetables in front of me. ‘Maybe I could just have some toast?’
She narrowed her eyes in my direction. ‘You’ll eat it and like it. Bon ape-bloody-tite.’
‘It’s a shame your friend couldn’t come with you,’ Lizzie said to Rory, expertly steering the conversation in a more dinner-friendly direction. ‘I was looking forward to meeting him.’
‘You can say boyfriend, Mum. And it’s ex-boyfriend now so don’t worry yourself.’
I sneaked a sidelong glance at Derek to see how he reacted to Rory’s correction but no, there was nothing. At least his attitudes towards his children weren’t completely stuck in the past.
The stew Callum served himself looked delicious, so did the giant hunk of crusty bread, still warm from the oven, sitting on the plate beside it. Truly, it was everything I could do not to faceplant directly into the tureen and hoover it up like a bottom-feeding fish, and if I hadn’t been distracted by a very loud bell ringing through the house, I might’ve cracked.
‘Who would be ringing the doorbell at this time of night?’ Derek wondered aloud as he stood to investigate.‘Rory, go and get my golf clubs. A four iron should do it.’
