‘Make it?’ Bea suggested.
‘I was going to say until you’ve written the book.’ Amira laughed and it sparked laughter in Bea too. She turned her mind to her readers. They were the fulcrum around which her writing career revolved, and that was all she had, so focusing on them would help keep her balanced. People depended on her.
‘You know what, Ams? You’re right,’ Bea tried to soak up Amira’s positivity. ‘I have to think of the readers. I owe it to the ones I already have, and there are new ones out there that deserve to find me.’
‘Exactly! You can do it, Bea. Remember that girl in college who had heaps of self-belief? Be her. And don’t think about Josh or any of that stuff. It’s all thousands of miles away.’
‘Thanks, honey.’ Bea wished she could reach down the phone and give her friend a hug. ‘Gee, I miss you already.’
‘Miss you too, babes. Call me anytime.’
Bea said goodbye, hung up and considered a plan of action. She had to hold onto the good vibes the phone call had given her and make things happen before she could change her mind again. She had to find a Scotsman to be her next hero.
Chapter 2
Cal
Cal Butler coasted into shore on the last wave of his morning surf. Not unusually for August in Scotland, the rain was teeming down and the sea choppy and unpredictable, but Cal paddled on. Surfing in the sun was his preference, but surfing in the rain was invigorating – as if you were winning against nature. And Cal needed to score some points on that front.
As he waded through the shallows towards the beach, Cal glanced back to check on his younger sister Eilidh. She and her triplet sister, Cara, were five years younger than Cal and he was protective of them. Living in the same village outside Edinburgh, Eilidh often joined him on his morning surf, sometimes with Cara, and he always had one eye on the waves and another on his sisters to make sure they were safe.
Eilidh caught the crest of her final wave. Cal turned his attention towards the beach. An older man – possibly around sixty, the age of Cal’s own father – was walking his dog. He tried to push the worries from his mind and concentrate on the dog and its zest for life.
‘Stop it. I know what you’re thinking, and it won’t help.’
How long had Cal been staring at the dog? Long enough for Eilidh to have had ridden into shore and be standing next to him reading his mind. She knew he was thinking about the phone call yesterday from his mother, about the fact that his father now had a sentence on his life. Motor neurone disease was its name, and it would entail a rapid decline in mobility for Jimmy Butler. Cal couldn’t get his head around this.
‘It’s unbelievable, right,’ said Eilidh. ‘How is it possible that someone so energetic and dynamic, who runs a multi-million distillery empire, will be confined to a wheelchair and reliant on others for support?’
Cal didn’t like it when his sister presented things so bluntly, but it was exactly what was on his mind. He would try his best to avoid dwelling on it too much by throwing himself into his work running his bar off the Royal Mile, in the heart of Edinburgh, but it wasn’t easy pushing down something as monumental as this. Cal loved and adored his father. Growing up, he had always been his hero, especially considering that when Cal was six years old, a couple of years after his emotionally abusive biological father had died, Jimmy Butler, his father’s older brother, had married Cal’s mother, Amanda, and taken on Cal and his two younger siblings – Jamie and Niall – as his own. Amanda and Jimmy had one child together – Sean – and then fostered and adopted from a troubled background, triplets, Eilidh, Cara and Nate. There weren’t many men who would put their heart and soul into it the way his father had. But Jimmy Butler wasn’t any man; he was a powerhouse in so many respects: as a father, a businessman and a person. Cal couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him deteriorate.
But there was another reason Cal dreaded going to see his father, and it involved the family business.
When the siblings were growing up, Jimmy Butler had always talked of his children working for and taking over the family company. So far, Jamie, the second eldest, was the only one following that plan, working as an operations manager in the headquarters in Kinshore on the Kintyre Peninsula. Jamie loved working for BDL, but Cal, as dogged and determined as Jimmy, had wanted to do things differently. Whisky might run in the family, but so did proving yourself. So, at twenty-three, after completing the degree that Jimmy had insisted all his children study for, Cal took a job as a barman and worked his way up through the ranks, first to bar manager, then – having saved and invested ruthlessly – leaseholder, and after that full bar owner at thirty. Cal was now thirty-four and his bar, Butler’s, had one branch in Edinburgh’s Old Town with plans in the pipeline for further development.
‘Do you think this will change things?’ Eilidh asked as they walked up the beach. ‘Change your mind about being part of BDL?’
Eilidh had hit on the reason Cal had a knot in his gut when he thought about going to see his father. With this news about his father’s health, there would be more pressure than ever on Cal to become part of Butler’s Distilleries Limited. It would be Jimmy’s wish before he passed on to know another of his sons worked for the family business. And with only Jamie employed at Butler’s, it would mean more likelihood of outsiders coming in and taking over.
‘I don’t know, Eils. I’d never say this to Dad but I’m kind of past the point of needing something to fall back on.’
‘I think we all know that. It’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it?’
‘Yep.’ Any visit home by Cal would be uncomfortable on two levels: seeing his father a shadow of his former self and letting him down by telling him he had no desire to work at BDL. He, therefore, was putting it to the back of his mind for as long as he could.
‘Come on,’ he said to Eilidh, opting for distraction as today’s coping mechanism. ‘I’ll race you to the road.’
And before Eilidh could register what was going on, Cal was pounding up the beach, surfboard under his arm. Amidst the grey and bleakness, he could create a shaft of light if he ran hard enough, then block the rest out with work.
Chapter 3
Bea
The rain lashed the pavement outside the coffee shop. If Bea hadn’t been so deeply in the writing zone, she would have noticed that the ferocity of her typing sounded like a mini rainstorm. Two thousand words down in the past two hours. She allowed herself a break, sipped her almond mocha, reached for her phone and let her fingers drift to the Instagram icon. The voice in her head saiddon’t do it, but resistance was futile. Ever since Josh had left her for this Avery Delaney woman, Bea sneaked occasional looks at Avery’s profile to see what she had that Bea didn’t.
Logically, Bea knew the answer. Everything and nothing. You couldn’t compare a curvaceous redhead with a penchant for vintage fashion to a gamine blonde whose style was almost always designer. Josh had loved Bea’s curves and had said that he was so proud to be seen with this stunning redhead who made heads turn wherever she went. Amira had remarked that it was like comparing a rich red wine to champagne; they were both delicious in their own right, yet entirely different. Still, Bea couldn’t help butpeek at Avery’s profile, maybe to convince herself that the other woman wasn’t perfect.
Avery’s latest post showed her somewhere in a lush, green landscape wearing a flowing maxi dress. Stunning as ever. Bea sighed. This was a mistake. Why wasn’t there a picture of a normal looking Avery, one with some wrinkles or pigmentation on her face? Of course, there wouldn’t be. The woman’s sole purpose was to promote herself through social media. Then Bea noticed something that stole her breath. The curve of Avery’s stomach. Was it a little belly fat or was it a bump? A bump bump. Bea glanced at the caption and her fears were confirmed.Twelve weeks today. Can’t wait to meet Little Bean.
