‘Good. About time he had a taste of his own medicine.’
Alicia couldn’t help but agree.
Ten minutes later, with Chad firmly departed and a return unlikely, Alicia sat with Connor in the kitchen. She hadn’t realised at the time quite how much adrenaline his visit had generated but in the stillness of the room her booming heart rate was now audible.
‘Butler’s Eas Inchafallon. The finest Scottish malt.’ Connor placed the bottle on the counter. ‘You ready for a dram?’
Alicia was, but drinking Butler’s whisky was like opening a dam and letting in a torrent of emotions. Every sip would be a journey back to Scotland. To Jamie.
‘Sure,’ she said to Connor. If anything, she needed to calm her nerves and soothe the awkwardness that came with facing with her brothers, with having to look them in the eye. What had they seen? Ugh. She’d rather usher him away and never know. But Connor – her big brother – had protected her, so Alicia would try to get through the awkwardness, employing the tactic of sketching while they drank. As they sipped Jamie’s malt, Connor talked about all thingsClan Bràthairsand Scotland and Alicia let her pencil sway across the page.
‘But I want to hear about your trip,’ he said as he poured them each a second dram. ‘Give me all the goods. Let me live vicariously through you.’
‘You’ll be going to Scotland to film again soon, won’t you?’
‘Yeah, but I need my fill now. Tell me where you went, who did you meet? Did you go to Glencoe?’
‘That’s a no to Glencoe. But yes to the Kintyre Peninsula and also to a beautiful hotel in the Highlands.’ A misty calm washed over Alicia thinking about the view from her lodge window of Ben Corrin and the surrounding mountains. And then there was Jamie. He belonged in that landscape – rugged, commanding and utterly captivating. God, she missed him.
‘And there was a man, right?’ Connor asked, astutely.
‘Pardon?’
‘Well, who’s that you’ve been sketching for the pasttwenty minutes?’ Connor motioned to the pad on Alicia’s knee. ‘I assumed you were drawing me but, handsome as I am’—he affected a Scottish accent—‘that’s no ma coupon.’
Alicia stared at the pad where Jamie’s striking face gazed back at her. She had absent-mindedly been creating his likeness on the page.
‘Oh, that’s just…no one.’
Connor laughed. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay, not exactly no one.’ Alicia affected nonchalance with a casual shrug. ‘That’s Jamie. Jamie Butler.’
‘Jamie Butler of the clan Butler.’ Connor spoke in a dramatic movie trailer voice. ‘Maker of whisky and lover of women.’
‘Yes, funny, that’s exactly how he didn’t introduce himself.’
‘What?!’ Connor’s jaw dropped open. ‘I was kidding. You met the owner of Butler’s whisky?’
‘Yes. Well, his father owns it, but Jamie will inherit it all.’
‘Woah! I have to meet the guy, tell him his whisky is out of this world.’
‘Okay, well, you’ll have to track him down yourself. Too many complications for this girl.’
‘Looks pretty simple to me.’ Connor indicated the sketch pad. Then he thumped his heart. ‘Follow this, Breagha.’
‘Sorry, what?’ Connor was always quoting from his show, finding a line to match every occasion. Some had a lyrical beauty to them.
‘I mean follow your heart. And Breagha means beautiful. Because you are, Leesh, and you deserve to be happy, more than any of us. You clearly have this guy embeddedsomewhere in your soul. Maybe it’s time to do a bit of rearranging of the emotional furniture.’
Alicia had always known Connor to be the most sensitive of her brothers, but this was a new aspect. Rearranging emotional furniture. Wow! as Jamie would say.
‘Are you mellowing at last, little bro?’ she asked.
‘Ha! Not a chance. Just been working on some stuff and it’s taught mesome stuff.Think about what I said, though.’
‘I will,’ Alicia conceded. If Connor could work on himself from the inside, there was no excuse for anyone else. She would try her best to make the most out of therapy and see what it meant for her emotional furniture.
