Prologue
There is nothing less attractive than a man playing the bagpipes, which quite frankly is a tragedy. I mean, the getup is hot. Kilts that cut off at the knees, showcasing lovely calves, strong muscles, sometimes a little hint of sinewy thigh. And the stance: the tender cradling of the bagpipe under those brawny arms. It melts something inside you. Makes you think,Huh, maybe this guy has nurturing instincts. Maybe he would cradle me that way.It’s the perfect blend of strong and soft. Swoony in a gruff, almost accidental way.
But then it starts. The initial jarring drone that burns your ears, followed by the absurd, almost cartoonish puffing of the cheeks.
Though I suppose I don’t really have time to ponder the anti-aphrodisiac effect of bagpiping at the moment. Right now, I have bigger things to worry about. Namely the fact that the middle-aged white woman who had been walking down the aisle of this little church at a slow, stately pace is now standing frozen halfway to the altar.
The violinist continues playing, but the bride doesn’t move at all. From where I sit in the back row, I catch a couple exchanged glances between the folks lining the pews.
“Maggie,” someone hisses, but Maggie doesn’t move.
Since her back is toward me, I can’t see her face, but I can sure see my father’s. His brows are furrowed, and the light overhead highlights the deep grooves in his forehead. His lips move, but he must be speaking softly because I can’t make out what he’s saying. He takes a half step away from the altar, his hand outstretched toward Maggie, a bewildered expression on his face.
And that’s when Maggie bolts, pivoting on her heel and barreling right back up the aisle in a blur of frothy lace and tulle.
A chorus of gasps is released all at once, but it’s my father’s voice I hear chief among them.
“Maggie! Wait!”
But Maggie doesn’t listen. If anything, she runs faster. She’s almost all the way out of here when her red-rimmed eyes latch onto mine. It only lasts a millisecond. A quick, barely there acknowledgment, but it makes my gut twist. A sour taste fills my mouth.
And then she’s gone, flying out the kirk doors. My father follows only a few feet behind her, running toward the exit, still calling out her name.
People all around me are getting up, craning their necks, a flutter of motion on every side, but it’s the bagpiper chasing after my father who catches my attention.
His kilt swings around his legs, and his broad chest swells with exertion.
All thoughts of Maggie and my father slide out of my brain.
This man has height and width in spades, and his pitch-black, perfectly wavy hair whips around his face as he races past me.
My heartbeat doubles, then comes to a roaring stop when his brown eyes pin me with a bone-chilling glare.
“This is your fault,” he whisper-yells at me on his way out of the church, his arm pointed accusingly in my direction.
And I can’t even argue with him.
It absolutely is.
1
Two Days Earlier
I push my soaking-wet bangs out of my eyes and squint, trying to make sense of my surroundings, but all I can see is gray and mist and rain.
I don’t know how I managed to get lost this quickly. I’m used to navigating new cities, corralling groups of people onto buses and through airports to far-flung destinations all over the world. So, when my taxi driver asked if I could get outhere,insisting that the hotel was justright over there,I graciously agreed. After all, why should he have to loop back around in this traffic? What’s a couple seconds of walking through the rain?
Of course, what had been a light drizzle turned into a downpour in two seconds flat, the map on my phone decided it was the perfect moment to stop giving me directions—the tinny voice repeatedly saying that it wasrecalculating—and I’ve somehow ended up walking for at least fifteen minutes now, which can’t be right. I’mnot sure if I’m getting any closer or just heading farther and farther away.
I spy a bit of green awning and tighten my grasp on my suitcase, yanking it behind me as I seek shelter. I take a moment to catch my breath, pressing as far back out of the rain as possible, the cold of the stone wall at my back seeping into my skin.
This trip—like the bangs dripping across my forehead—was a mistake, an impulsive decision made in a moment of weakness. Last week, I’d walked into my standing semi-annual hair appointment, fully intending to ask for my usualplease trim just the bare minimum to avoid split ends,when I accidentally scrolled across my ex’s hard launch of his new relationship.
A picture of the two of them filled my screen. They were sitting in a worn, red pleather booth, his arm casually tucked around her shoulders, her head resting in the curve of his neck. We’d been broken up for eight months, so I wasn’t surprised that he’d moved on. And our breakup hadn’t been all that dramatic. We both traveled for work so often that it actually took me a few weeks to realize he’d packed up his things and moved out of our place. When we finally talked about it, we ended on good terms, but that booth…It had been our spot. The neighborhood bar we’d discovered together. I’d assumed we’d both been avoiding it out of courtesy to each other, but he must have kept going if he’d taken herthere.
I looked up at my reflection in the mirror, asked my stylist for a change, fell in love with it immediately, then cried and regretted it all when I got home.
A door to my right creaks open, releasing a beam of soft, butter-yellow light. It brightens the growing dark of the street for a moment, and as I turn toward it, I catch a whiff of something warm and yeasty.
