Page 52

“How old are they?” Piper asks.

“Ronan’s thirty, Fallon’s twenty-seven.”

She screws up her nose, understandably so. My dad having an affair with someone so young is bad enough, but Scarlett being younger than his daughter is even worse. I’ve been trying not to think about it. I can’t imagine how Fallon feels about it.

Admittedly, I haven’t asked. I’ve barely spoken to them since I got here; a few texts here and there, updating them to let them know I’m alive, but only when they ask first. I’ve called my mom a few times, but not as often as I should, and I’ve spent every call directing the conversation back to her because I have no idea how to talk about what I’m doing without letting on where I am—and why. None of us have ever been good at keeping anything from our mom, who has a sixth sense for weeding out lies.

I feel guilty as hell for being away from her right now, for shirking my eldest-sibling responsibilities, and leaving Ronan and Fallon to lie to her, but she seems to be doing well. The doctors seem happy, and she sounds healthy. According to her, my dad hasn’t been around much lately. Another thing I’m trying not to think about. Because there’s another woman somewhere—Sally from New York—and either she’s okay being in a relationship with a married man, or, like Scarlett, he’s made her an unwilling participant in an affair. I know I should look into it more, and I know I’m going to have to confront him about all of it at some point, but I’ve found myself in a precarious little Clover Pines-shaped bubble, and I’m not ready to pop it yet.

Scott asks how I’m managing to work remotely with the time-zone difference, and the question takes me aback for a second, until I realize they’re trying to get to know me. Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t grill me the first time I met them, but this doesn’t feel like an inquisition. Scarlett’s parents seem genuinely interested in learning about me, and it feels nice. Like they’re okay with me being here, all things considered.

“Work has been easier than I expected,” I begin, explaining that I’ve been scheduling most of my meetings early in the morning, usually before the kids wake up, or after they go to bed. Our main office is in Dublin, but we have offices all over the world—London, Berlin, Melbourne, Paris, New York, Vancouver—and the clients I work with are all over the world too. I’m used to taking meetings at weird times, and, thankfully, a lot of my job is email-based.

“I have full control of my schedule, so I can take the hours I need away from my laptop,” I tell them, and Scott whistles.

“That’ll come in handy around harvest season. It’s all hands on deck around here.”

James read me a book all about canola farming the other day, while I was making us pizza bagels—his favorite meal just now—for lunch. Harvest season is late summer. Which means … Scarlett’s dad thinks I’ll still be around come September. And he seems to be okay with that.

I don’t know if they’ve picked up on whatever is going on between Scarlett and me, and maybe they’d feel differently if they knew, but, somehow, I don’t think so. Piper was okay with it, and Landon’s stopped eyeing me quite so hard whenever I dare to look at Scarlett.

It’s more than I could ask for. I already feel at home with Scarlett and the kids, and her family are a huge part of their lives. I want to fit in here, too. I want to stay and come to family dinner every weekend, help out with the harvest and Landon’s Christmas tree farm. But gaining Scarlett’s family’s approval is only a fraction of the battle ahead, I know that.

First and foremost, I don’t want to do anything that unsettles the kids. Right now, they like having me around, but I have to be prepared for that to change. They’ve figured out that I’m related to them, but not how, and it’s only a matter of time before it comes out.

Not just with the kids, either. My dad is a godawful father, but he’s not completely absent. Even if we somehow kept things under wraps for a while, Scarlett mentioned he just shows up a couple of times a year. He could show up tomorrow for all we know, and we’d be forced to confront things. Technically, he can’t stop me from staying in Clover Pines, but he could stop me being around the kids if he really wanted to—or if he is really pissed about Scarlett and me. I want to believe he’s not that much of an asshole, but the evidence is not pointing that way.

Then there’s my mom, my siblings—not to mention how complicated immigration is.

And Scarlett. She’s been slowly letting me in, letting me tentatively pull down the walls she’s surrounded herself with, and last night was a big step. I made it clear that I wanted more than one night, and I know she does too, but I can tell she’s scared. Of course she’s scared. She has all the same worries I do, in addition to the fact that she’s had her heart completely decimated by a Michaelson before.

I know I’d never do anything to hurt her or the kids, but I don’t blame her for being a little gun-shy. It would be weird if she wasn’t. It’s my job to prove that she’s safe with me, that the kids are safe with me.

There’s more to it than her being scared, though. One thing I’ve learned about Scarlett, since I first knocked on her door, is that she’s giving and caring to everyone else, but not particularly kind to herself. For so many years she’s deprived herself of anything she wants—hell, I don’t think she’s even dared let herself want anything. And now here I am.

I want her to recognize she’s allowed to have things for herself. She’s allowed to have her own time, her own joy, and it doesn’t take away from Caitlin and James. It doesn’t make her a bad mom. She acts like she’s trying to atone for having them young, in less-than-ideal circumstances, but she has nothing to atone for. They’re happy and thriving.

Scarlett deserves to thrive, too, and it would be an honor to play even a small part in that. But undoing so many years of damage is easier said than done.

23

Scarlett

After we finished eating yesterday, we all gathered in my parents’ living room to watch a Christmas movie together, and Caitlin brought up riding lessons again. At least I didn’t run outside to cry this time, but that might have more to do with the way Killian put his arm around my shoulder and played with my hair, his touch comforting me. I liked having him there with my family. A lot. It scared me enough that it was preferable to focus on the riding lessons, and I spent the rest of the movie mentally rearranging my limited finances to see where I could make room to pay for them.

The honest truth is probably nowhere, but maybe I can pick up a few extra hours at the diner each week. I don’t want to—I’m already relying on Killian to look after the kids more than I’d like to. Not that he minds; I just don’t want them to feel like I’m never around. But I know how badly Caitlin wants this. I’ve been dreading finding out how much lessons cost, but I can’t budget for them if I don’t know, which is why I bit the bullet and asked Killian if I could borrow his rental car while he’s working today.

Obviously, Killian being Killian, he was fine with it, and I was overthinking it for no reason. He tossed me the keys, pulled me in for a kiss, and told me to have a good day with a smile that forced me to remember how to breathe. It should be illegal to be that charming.

The Lowry’s Lucky Horseshoe Ranch borders what used to be Piper’s family’s farm. Once upon a time, it was a cattle ranch, but for as long as I’ve been alive, the Lowrys have been more about horses than cows.

When I was a kid, people came from all over the county to learn from his dad, a renowned trainer. Back in the day, his mom was champion barrel racer, and his sister was, too. Then there was the accident that people in Clover Pines refuse to talk about to this day.

Now, Mrs. Lowry runs a horse rescue with her son, Cane. He still does riding lessons, but not to a competitive level. He’s always been good with kids—he used to babysit me, Piper, and Landon—but he’s in his forties now, and not quite the happy-go-lucky Cane he was when he babysat us. The kids still love him, though.

The yard is quiet when I pull up and hop out of Killian’s rental. There are no lessons during school hours, so I walk past the indoor riding school and go in search of Cane. It’s not a big yard, so it’s not surprising that I find him with ease. He’s mucking out a stall, while a speckled white horse tries to steal something from his jeans pocket.

“Quit it, Pebbles. You’ll get the carrot when I’m done,” he says, turning around to glare at the horse, right as I knock on the stall door. Surprise lights his face at the sight of me. “Scar. Hi.”