We had weddings on Saturday, but if I worked hard, I could get all the prep done in time for our date. "See you then," I told him.
"See you then, Sophie."
I hung up and felt what I could only describe as a smile in my heart. This was absolutely right. Hamish and me, together at last.
Just then I heard a flush and Anna stepped out of the bathroom right next to where I'd been standing. "Good morning," she said, and the way she ducked her head and avoided my gaze told me she'd been eavesdropping.
"You heard all of that, didn't you?"
"Mostly the part about you spread out in panties with a condom—that image kind of pushed away my ability to hear whatever else you were saying."
"I didn't know you were here!"
"Clearly."
"Turn some lights on next time," I said, walking over to the closet to put my purse away.
"I got here and had to pee so bad there wasn't time."
"I told you about getting the large." Anna lived in Oceanside, and when traffic was bad and she picked up the large latte instead of the medium on her way to work, she always had this issue. God forbid parking was hard to find outside.
"I'll never learn," she said. "But tell me about the Hammer please. That was him, right?"
I hated that name, but I was in too good a mood to let it bother me now. "Yes. We are going out on Friday. On a proper date."
"That hopefully ends with you spread out in your panties and a stack of condoms?"
I thought about that. It seemed unlikely that Hamish was a virgin, but if he was, I shouldn't push him. I also didn't want to give him the impression that I'd had a lot of experience with men—though after seeing the string of condoms in my table, he probably had that impression already. "Maybe," I said.
"Nice." Anna grinned, and we both washed our hands and began to approach the business of making cakes. We had two weddings this weekend and I needed to decorate Jumpy and Jock's four tier chocolate-banana sponge.
"I think I'm going to marry him," I said, letting every girlhood fantasy I'd ever had run away with my tongue.
Anna dropped a spatula and turned to face me. "Um. Okay. I feel like I need to say something here."
"I know—" I wanted to stop her from telling me it was too early to say such things. But Anna's mouth was already there.
"I get that you've known him your whole life. I get that you've loved him since you were four or whatever," she said, stepping nearer when I turned back to the fondant I was rolling out. "But listen, Soph. You're an adult now. You need to get to know him as an adult, right? Maybe he's changed. Maybe you've changed. Maybe you should take this a little bit slow, right?"
I bit my lip and focused on the rolling pin beneath my palms. "Maybe."
"Definitely. You can't assume that everything will just pick up exactly where you left it." She was nodding, clearly in agreement with herself. "And let me ask you this. What do you do when Mr. Match emails you and says he's found your perfect match? It's probably not going to be Hamish, right?"
"I don't think I need Mr. Match," I said. I didn't think there could possibly be anyone else for me. Seeing Hamish again had confirmed it. I'd felt the rightness click into place inside me. I didn't need to look any further.
"Just keep your options open."
I looked up and met her eyes then. "I get that you don't understand. There's a lot about where I grew up, and how I grew up that I don't think you'll get. But I know you're a romantic, too. So Anna," I turned to face her, "believe me when I tell you that Hamish is the man for me. The only man. I've known it my whole life."
"I'm scared for you," she said. "What if you miss something because you're so focused on him?"
"I had six years to find someone else," I reminded her. "There's not a single part of me that's worried about that. Hamish is my future and my past."
Anna sighed, but I sensed she wasn't going to argue anymore. And it wouldn't matter if she did. I might not be certain about much, but I was absolutely certain that Hamish and I were meant for one another. And if Mr. Match showed up with some other man, it wouldn't matter. No amount of math or logic could detract from what I knew in my heart.
Chapter 95
Hold My Cooler
Hamish
There was not a day in the memory of days that had come before Friday, that had found me this nervous.
I was not a man who worried excessively about what I wore, or about my hair. Or, let's be honest, about whether there were crumbs in my beard. The guys on the team think of me as some kind of crazy foreigner, always up for a party and usually willing to take things just one drink too far and cap them off with a whole string of my favorite emojis.
And I probably am that guy.
But the thing is, when you're not busy trying to impress the women around you, life can be quite free.
It wasn't that I didn't like girls, or that it hadn't crossed my mind to take one home now and then. Truth be told, I had taken a couple home. Just never got to the end of the road with them, if you know what I mean. I was not inexperienced, and I knew how things worked, but none of those girls was Sophie. So I'd never bothered trying to impress any of them. I'm sure they were nice girls, but they just didn't matter to me.
Which is why this was different. And why the plaid button down shirt I'd first put on was strewn across the end of my bed along with the three I'd tried since then. I'd also decided dark jeans were too formal, and then somehow worked my way into my kilt and back out again. Now, a half hour from the time I was to pick up Sophie, I stood buck fecking naked in the middle of my bedroom, wondering what the hell was wrong with me.
Finally, I pulled the dark jeans back on and closed my eyes, letting my fingers choose one last shirt from my closet. This one was a dark forest green, and it would have to bloody well do. I wasn't going to be late for the first date I'd made with a woman since I'd moved here—and the only woman that mattered.
It had been another beautiful San Diego day, and as I pulled up the curving drive to Sophie's apartment over the big garage, I took a deep calming breath and tried to push away the nerves jangling in my mind.
It was just Sophie.
My God, it was Sophie.
She came down the stairs on the side of the building before I was even out of the car, a smile on her face so wide it could have warmed the Durnish Sea.
I got out of the car to greet her, to walk her to her side, but instead of getting in the car, she flung herself into my arms, and when I laughed and bent down to look at her, she kissed me.
We stood in the driveway for a long incredible minute, Sophie in my arms where she belonged, and our hearts and breaths matched perfectly as we kissed hello. But it was much more than a greeting. It was a kiss that acknowledged everything that had passed in six years and seven-thousand miles. It was a kiss that spoke of a frigid clear night on the Durnish Highlands when two young kids finally acknowledged their hearts. It was a kiss that rolled down a high grassy mountainside like a sheep would, gathering mud and vegetation as it went, bigger when it ended than when it had begun.
Sophie finally broke away from me with a grin across her pink and lovely face, and said, "I'm so happy to see you."
It was a good way to start the night.
"I'm glad to see you too," I told her, not ready to let her go quite yet. "More glad than I can say." I stared a long minute into those bright blue eyes—so familiar and comforting—and I let myself finally feel at home. Because for me, Sophie was my home.
"Ready to have some fun?" I asked her, walking her to the passenger side of the big silver truck I'd been driving since I got here. It was the first purchase I'd made with my football money.
"Absolutely," she said, but she hesitated, looking uncertainly up at the passenger seat as I opened the door.
Sophie was wearing a tight little skirt that showed her curvy hips and legs perfectly. It was modest enough that Mam wouldn't have had much to say about it, but tight enough that I had plenty to say. A
nd nice though it was, the skirt was going to make it next to impossible for Sophie to climb up into the cab of the truck. She glanced back at me with a crooked smile, and I laughed, picking her up around the waist and setting her on the seat with ease.
"Thank you," she said, smiling down at me as I closed the door.
"My pleasure," I told her. And it was. Every minute of being back with Sophie was a pleasure.
We went to Belmont Park, the little beachside amusement park at Mission Beach. I was glad Sophie was wearing a sweater and a jacket with her tiny skirt, because as the sun slipped into the ocean, the night air became cool. We rode the roller coaster, both of us screaming like kids, and we sat together on the carousel, Sophie pressed up close against me as we rode in a carriage behind a bright blue horse.
"Interested in that one?" I pointed up to a ferris wheel flinging rows of four people upside down as it twirled.
"I'd rather not see my lunch again," she laughed, holding my hand tight. "But we have to do the bumper cars," she said, pulling me toward them, almost running in her high sandals.
I followed her, and when we were each settled in our little cars, Sophie began a focused effort to jar my molars from my skull.
"Got you!" She cackled, crashing into me.
I ended up driving mostly to escape the maniacal Durnish woman who stayed on my tail cackling hysterically, though she got me at least seven times before the ride was over.
"I think you may have some anger issues you need to address," I told her. "Or maybe we should just get you enrolled in a driving course."
She laughed lightly, leaning into my side again, and looked up at me. "Maybe I had some things I needed to work out. It's been a long time, you know."
"Six years," I said, amazed I'd been able to live without her now that I had her back. She was like air or water—so elemental to who I was that I wasn't sure how I'd survived while we were apart.
"Six years," she confirmed. "Six years of watching you be the famous handsome footballer, seeing you on television every week, hearing your name around town."
We stood beneath the flashing neon lights and swirling noise of the park, but my focus narrowed to only Sophie as I turned to face her. "I hadn't thought of that."
"You didn't have to think of me," she said, her eyes still bright but shining now, filled with emotion. "But I thought of you every day. Thought of how happy you'd looked when I saw you in that bar, with the girls."
My head was moving back and forth before she'd finished, and I tightened my grip on her hand. I'd thought about how hard it was for me to be away from her—I'd never considered how much harder it would have been to know exactly where she was, to watch her from a distance and feel like I'd never have her. It might have killed me. "Soph, I thought of you every single day. There was never anyone else for me. There's only ever been you."
Her eyes narrowed as I spoke, reading some message inside mine that only she could see. A stray tear slipped from one corner of her eye and I pushed it from her cheek with my thumb, letting my fingers linger there on her soft skin. I held my breath as she looked up at me, sensing that something important was being decided in this moment. We were standing in the middle of a bustling crowd of noisy people, pushing and running all around us, but I didn't really notice them. There was only Soph. Because there had always only been Soph.
"I believe you," she said finally, and it was as if my heart was cut from its tethers and allowed finally to lift off and fly.
I kissed her then, pulling her into my chest—maybe rougher than I needed to—and finding her mouth with my own. I tried to tell her everything in that kiss, using my lips to reassure her, my tongue to emphasize my point. There was only her. Ever. Always.
She pulled back to smile up at me, her eyes a little dazed, which made my chest fill with pride. I'd show her dazed later on, I thought. "Hamish," she said. "I'm starving to death."
"I've got us covered, lass." I took her hand again, and pulled her back toward the truck. I opened the back up and pulled out a small cooler. "Can you carry this?" I asked her.
She made a face at me, widening her eyes and pressing her lips together with a smirk, and took the cooler easily from my hands.
"And I'll get this." I pulled a bundle of firewood out, and a bag of newspaper and kindling, and tucked a few blankets into the bag. "Ready?"
"There better be food in here," she said, trying to peek inside the cooler.
"Patience," I told her, and we walked together to a vacant fire ring at the end of the beach, settling ourselves beneath the wide clear sky with the stars staring down at the calm ocean beyond.
Chapter 96
Sand in my Bits
Sophie
Durnish beaches were craggy rocky things, with the ferocious angry sea launching itself in dark cold thrusts against them in its relentless effort to take back the island altogether. But San Diego beaches were different. Calm and wide, with light smooth sand spread back yards from where the gentle tide gurgles in and out, as if the Pacific were merely petting the shoreline, not attempting to reclaim it.
And it was on that calm wide beach that my heart settled after six years of pain and turmoil.
Hamish MacEvoy was a man—strong and sturdy, with dark hair covering his jaw and thickly corded arms. He smiled at me as I sat on my blanket, watching him build a fire for us in the little pit in the sand, and though I saw that capable and imposing man before me, I saw so much more. The wiry teenager I'd loved was here, giving me shy glances as he worked, and the little lad was there, too—exchanging wide-eyed looks with me, the same ones we'd shared as kids when we'd stolen cookies off his mam's counter and run madly out into the fields to enjoy them where no one could find us.
When the fire glowed to life, Hamish pulled a blanket over my shoulders and sat down next to me, pulling two Old Norways from the cooler, along with an impressive spread of meat, cheese, bread, and crackers. "I've got real food too," he told me, pulling a few plastic boxes out and arranging them near us. "Barbecue and coleslaw."
"This is perfect," I told him. And it was.
We sat and ate together under the stars, the smell of woodsmoke mingling with salt air, creating a familiar but different version of smells from our childhood when the sea winds would whip across the highlands, stirring our fires and throwing sparks into the air.
As the moon moved slowly in an arc, we lay beneath it, kissing and whispering. It was cold, and while Hamish's body was warm and his hands were firm and sure on my back as he held me, eventually I was shivering.
"I think I'm turning blue," I told him.
He shook his head, grinning. "What happened to my highland girl?"
"My blood's thin. I've been spoiled by the sun."
His smile slipped slightly. "I don't want to say goodnight, Soph."
"We don't have to. But I'm getting sand in all my bits and I'm going to shiver myself to death if we stay here."
He pursed his lips, tilting his head slightly. "My place?" he asked, and I could hear the hope in his voice.
I nodded, and soon we were in the truck again as Hamish guided it toward downtown, apologizing already for the state of his apartment. "I didn't plan for company," he said, pulling into a parking spot on the street.
He led me to a low building on Market Street, a far cry from the soaring condo buildings I'd imagined he must mean when he said he lived downtown. The doorway he pulled me toward was dark and dirty, and there was a fortune teller's shop on the first floor.
"You live here?" I wasn't sure why it was such a shock—only that Hamish had always gleamed and glowed in my mind, and the images I'd seen of him the last few years had him made out to be a star. I'd seen the women, so I'd assumed the life that went with all that glamour would be equally shiny and luxe. Something about this simplicity made me happy. Hamish was still just the unassuming boy I'd grown up with, never one to make a big deal about his lineage or the fact that he was actually in line for the crown. It was a very long line, but still
.
"Aye," he said, rubbing a hand across his beard, a motion I was coming to know meant he was embarrassed.
My gaze was caught by a woman seated at the table in the window below his apartment. The fortune teller. She was watching us, smiling. "Shall we get our fortune?" I asked, bouncing at his side now.
He looked stricken, taking a step back.
"What?"
"Madame Anastasia," he said, shaking his head lightly. "I'll be honest. She kinda freaks me out."
"Have you gone in?"
"Never."
"Let's go." I pulled his hand and a moment later we were in a dark close space surrounded by the smells of incense and rosewater. "Hello," I said to the woman still seated at the small table, smiling.
Madame Anastasia was probably at least fifty, but she had the kind of face that changed as she spoke and smiled, shifting and changing so at one moment she looked like a weathered old woman, and the next, like a girl in her twenties. Her teeth were perfect and straight, but her hair was a steel grey, tucked back into a loose bun. She was draped in bright fabrics, her clothing a shapeless collection of robe and scarves mixed with strands of glass and metal beads. She rose slightly as we entered, showing us a gleaming smile that made me shiver as Hamish took my hand and held it tightly.
"I knew you'd come inside one day," she said, her voice almost a whisper.
Hamish's grip on my hand tightened at these words, and if I didn't know better, I'd have thought the big man next to me was scared. I glanced up at him, but his eyes were fixed on Madama Anastasia.
She waved us to seats across from her at the table, and I looked around. The small space was draped with curtains in rich colors, and a low ambient music played from somewhere in the back. Though we could see only a bit of the area, sectioned as it was by hanging draperies, the shop must have been quite a bit bigger than it appeared. I imagined a regular living room hidden behind the curtains, Madam Anastasia's hang out area for when business was slow.
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