“How are you feeling being back?” Tess asked. She was in the middle of a self-manicure, phone propped up for our long-distance-latte call as she painted designs onto her nails. Though it was less of a long-distance-latte call and more of a long-distance pep talk.
“I can’t tell if I want to throw up or if I’m hungry,” I admitted, sliding my blazer over my blouse. I had Tess propped up behind the sink as I stared at myself in the mirror, doing a last-minute check of my hair and makeup.
“Have you tried eating something?”
“Isla brought me up some toast and jam this morning, but I couldn’t bring myself to take more than a bite or two of it.”
“Aww,” Tess said. “She’s worried about you.”
“She’s been a lifesaver,” I said. Without prying into thewhyof it all, Isla had offered me a room at the Deerhound without hesitating. I’d had to return to Scotland for the court hearing tokeep Jasper from stealing Weston’s inheritance, but like hell was I staying at Lochbrae.
Flying back here had felt like flying back to some strange kind of prison sentence. I’d only just re-settled in Houston after the whole festival debacle. Weston had stayed in Braeburn, and I’d returned to life at the office, using Nancy as an intermediary to avoid having to talk directly to him.
I couldn’t handle that.
Not after the way things had ended.
Distance helped, somewhat, and throwing myself into grad school applications. But every time the world grew quiet and my thoughts strayed to Lochbrae’s heather-filled hills, to Weston’s hands on my body, to him smiling at me across the community center and calling mewife, it felt like someone had clawed a hole in my chest. Our partnership was never supposed to be long term. We were never going to last.
Iknewthat.
But I hadn’t expected things to end the way they did. And I certainly never expected Weston to compare me to Narissa and claim he couldn’t trust me. After two relationships had fallen apart because of my infertility, I’d thought that was my tenderest spot—the place where I’d hurt the most. But Weston’s words had hit me even deeper. Because I had feelings for him. Adult feelings that went deeper than anything I’d experienced before.
I blinked at myself in the mirror, a rush of emotion shivering through me. I fought off the sting of tears. There’d been enough of those lately.
“You don’t really think the judge is going to overturn the will, do you?” Tess asked.
I picked up my mascara wand, fixing my eyelashes. “It’s apparently called a sheriff here.”
“The judge is called a sheriff? Is there a separate sheriff who does law enforcement stuff, or is it all one person?”
“It’s usually constables doing law enforcement. The sheriffs do…law interpretation, I guess. They handle the majority of civil cases.”
“Confusing.”
“The most senior judge is called the Lord President, so do with that what you will.”
Tess laughed. “Kind of badass. But seriously, you don’t actually think Jasper’s going to win?”
“Not according to Weston’s lawyer, but who knows? Everything else is screwed up, why not this too?”
“Lena,” Tess said softly.
I put my mascara wand down. I couldn’t look at her. Tess had flown back to the US with me the evening of the festival, after Weston had stormed out. She’d held my hand tight, reminding me how strong I was even as I spent the entirety of the flight flipping between crying fits and angrily shooting back tiny bottles of wine.
“You’ve got this,” she said.
“I know,” I said, blinking the sadness and the melancholy and the anxiety back behind my professional mask. I wasn’t ready to see Weston again, but I didn’t have a choice. “The lawyer saidit should be a straightforward case. The sheriff will hear the evidence, and we should be done in a couple of hours.”
That’s all I had to endure. A couple more hours of playing pretend as Mrs. Kincaid. Then I could escape back to the other side of the world.
I released an unsteady breath as I smoothed my skirt. “One more hurdle to go,” I said.
“And then it’s all over,” Tess agreed as there was a knock at my door.
“That’s probably my ride,” I said, picking up my phone.
“Call me later?” Tess asked. “Let me know how it goes?”
