The Trouble with Scotland

by Patience Griffin

  “Yeah. Graham,” Sadie said, kind of dreamily. “My reaction exactly.”

  “Hey, now, lass,” Ross said with mock hurt. “Yere husband’s in the vehicle with ye.”

  Sadie patted him. “You’ve nothing to worry about. Graham only has eyes for Cait.”

  Cait reached over and laid a hand on Rachel’s arm. “Sorry I didn’t say anything sooner.”

  “I get it.”

  Cait nodded and spoke to Ross. “Graham’ll be home next week. The production shuts down until after the New Year. It’ll be nice for Mattie and me to have him back.”

  Rachel wondered if Cait would tell him then about the pregnancy. Surely, she wouldn’t keep it hidden from him too long. She wondered if Cait’s chest was always so expanded. Graham would certainly notice a change there, wouldn’t he?

  The conversation switched to Christmas, and Rachel turned inward, thinking more about her own turmoil than about the joyous occasion they were describing. Hannah leaned against her and fell asleep. Rachel dozed, too.

  She came awake as the van pulled down the hill toward the parking lot. Ross was talking on the phone.

  “Good. We can use the help getting my mum’s stuff to the cottage.” He hung up.

  Rachel gently woke Hannah. “We’re here, sweetie.” She glanced around at the familiar sight of the bluffs looming out of the earth at the back of the village and how the small houses seemed to sit precariously on the edge of the ocean—a quaint row of dwellings daring the sea to engulf them.

  Ross parked the van and jumped out to help his mother.

  Rachel felt stiff from the flight and then the long drive to Gandiegow. She climbed out and then helped Hannah.

  As she reached in to grab her tote, something caught her eye on the walkway. No.

  Someone caught her eye. Strolling toward the parking lot, he looked so much like Joe. Tall, broad, with dark hair. But where Joe’s hair had been kept short—the better to peddle pharmaceuticals—his cousin’s long hair blew in the wind off the ocean. Six years had changed him. His features were chiseled, and where an easy smile for her had once existed, a stony frown remained.

  But he was as beautiful as ever.

  Rachel stopped breathing, but the voice in her head shouted loud and clear, What is he doing here?

  “Mommy, are you all right?”

  For the life of her, Rachel couldn’t stop staring at the man she never thought she’d see again. They all turned to look at her.

  When he got close enough, he nodded in her direction. “Ye’re back.”

  How could he have no emotion on his face? She was dying here.

  “Hey, Brodie,” Ross said. “Grab a bag from the boot. It’s going to take us a couple of trips.”

  * * *

  What in the blazes is she doing here? Brodie Wallace couldn’t believe his eyes. It felt as if Ross had sucker-punched him in the stomach. And yet here Rachel was, standing in Gandiegow’s parking lot. The only woman who had ripped his heart out. The only woman he’d ever loved.

  And he’d never forgive her.

  Never.

  Six years ago, he wasn’t the only one toppled by the instant attraction. He knew she had felt it, too.

  His cousin Joe had brought her home to Gandiegow two weeks before their scheduled wedding. Brodie was taken with Rachel from the start, which was no surprise. He and Joe had always gone for the same type of lass. Funny, smart. Even as lads, they’d competed, and Joe had won. Whenever Brodie found a girl, Joe would swoop in and steal her away. Brodie understood. Joe was a charmer with the gift of gab, and women couldn’t help but fall under his spell.

  Day in and day out, Brodie tried to keep his distance from Joe’s bride, but they had been constantly thrown together at Abraham’s house. They danced around and avoided their feelings. But on the day of the wedding, he’d climbed up the bluff to clear his head and hide out in the ruins of Monadail Castle. When he arrived, Rachel was there, as if it was meant to be. She turned at his approach but didn’t budge from the stone ledge. He had noted her puffy red eyes. She’d been crying.

  He’d lifted her chin so she would look at him. “What’s wrong?” The question was fatal.

  “Why didn’t I meet you first?” she cried, and threw herself into his arms, kissing him and knocking him from his moorings. His heart had slammed in his chest like a tidal wave.

  “What are you going to do about it?” he’d asked, and she’d only shaken her head.

  But that kiss and the way she’d looked at him, they had meant something—they had meant everything. For an hour they held on to each other, Brodie confessing to her that he’d never felt like this before. He knew it was love, but he couldn’t tell her that until she called off the wedding. Which he was certain she would. More certain of it than the snow on the ground, the tide in the ocean, and the blood in his veins. Rachel loved him as he loved her. But then Grandda always said, Women can’t be trusted. Just an hour later, Rachel walked down the aisle and repeated her vows, tossing Brodie away as if he was nothing more than spoiled bait.

  Ross nudged him, pulling him back to reality.

  “What?” Brodie said, the voice sounding harsh.

  Cait eyed him curiously as if he’d cast his line into an opposing wind. “You two know each other?”

  “Aye.” Brodie’s gaze dropped down to the little girl holding Rachel’s hand. The child gaped up at him. God, the girl has Joe’s eyes. Brown. Rich as the soil on Here Again Farm. Where he’d hidden out after Rachel betrayed him. He snapped his gaze away from hers.

  “Brodie was best man at my wedding,” Rachel provided to Cait. “To Joe.” As if clarifying which wedding.

  Has she married again? Brodie’s gaze slid to her hand, and he hated himself for looking because he sure as hell didn’t care. He didn’t care if she was married. He didn’t care if she was in town. He didn’t care if she disappeared altogether.

  She was frowning back at him now.

  Good. Let her frown. He didn’t give a damn. She was nothing to him. Nothing. Just another heartless female.

  He stalked to the rear of the van, yanked out a couple of bags, and stomped away with them, not certain where he was supposed to drop them off.

  As if Ross had read his mind, he hollered after Brodie, “Thistle Glen Lodge.”

  Thoughts, like fists, pummeled Brodie.

  A little warning would’ve been nice. Why hadn’t Abraham—his own grandda—told him that she was coming? Brodie didn’t need this right now. He had his hands full with taking over Abraham’s fishing business and trying to nurse the old man back to health.

  Brodie wondered if he dropped the bags in the sea whether Rachel would leave. And take the kid with her. Maybe he should call Ewan and head back to Here Again Farm. Or maybe Ewan’s cousin Hugh could use help at the wool factory. Anything to get out of town and away from her.

  He took the bags to the quilting dorm, but didn’t return to the vehicle for a second load. Instead, he headed home to have it out with Grandda.

  As he opened the door to the cottage, he heard Abraham coughing, and Brodie’s fury disintegrated. He couldn’t roar at the old man. He owed his grandda nothing but gratitude for first taking him and his mother in when Da had died, and then for letting Brodie stay on when his mother remarried shortly afterward.

  He found his granda nearly hacking up a lung in the kitchen while trying to pull down a mug.

  “Here,” Brodie said. “Let me get the tea. You sit.”

  Abraham nodded and coughed in response.

  Having Rachel back was ripping open all the closed wounds. Grandda never questioned why Brodie hadn’t come back for Joe’s funeral. But just having Rachel over at Thistle Glen Lodge made Brodie want to give his grandfather that explanation now: Though he’d wanted to pay his respects to Joe, he hadn’t been able to bear seeing her again.


  The kettle whistled and stopped him. Brodie poured water into the teapot and put the lid on.

  He turned to Abraham. “She’s here.”

  His grandfather spun around, searching the kitchen with rheumy eyes. “Who’s here? Deydie?”

  Brodie looked around, too, in case the old head quilter had miraculously appeared. But it was just the two of them. He settled in next to Abraham. “Joe’s widow has arrived.”

  “What?” His grandfather looked truly confused. Then a smile stretched across his face, one that Brodie hadn’t seen in quite a while. “So she came. Did she bring the babe?”

  The girl was hardly a baby. “Aye.” He stared hard at his grandda. “So ye really didn’t know she was coming?”

  The old man rose, ignoring him. “If Rachel’s in the village, why isn’t she here right now?”

  “She’s settling into Thistle Glen Lodge.”

  Abraham had that confused expression again. “Nay. Ye know she has to stay here.”

  No!

  “She wants to stay at the quilting dorm.” I can’t have her here.

  “Git over there now and tell her she’s staying with us.” Abraham might have been sick, but he could bark out a command as if still captaining his boat.

  Brodie stared back at him for a long moment but finally caved. If his grandfather hadn’t done so much for him his whole life, he would’ve argued.

  “Fine. I’ll fetch them after you have your tea.” Brodie poured the steaming liquid into their cups.

  “Go now. I want to see the lassie.” Abraham started coughing, and for a moment, Brodie wondered if he did it to get his way.

  To stall, Brodie pulled down the to-go mug he took out with him on the ocean and filled it for himself. “I’ll bring her back,” Brodie said out of duty. Aye, that was all it was . . . duty.

  Once outside, he sipped his tea while making his way to the back of the bluffs where the quilting dorms were—Thistle Glen Lodge and Duncan’s Den.

  He paused at the doorway, steeling himself to set Rachel straight. There would be no repeat of the crazy attraction that he’d felt before. He was over her.

  Automatically, his hand covered his heart, the place where a tattoo artist had inked the bluidy partridge into Brodie’s chest. While the man worked on him, Brodie had drunkenly told him about Rachel, the love of his life. How they’d kissed. How they’d clung to each other. How time had stood still while a partridge had lingered nearby in the snow at the ruins of Monadail Castle. One minute the partridge was there, and in the next it had flown away. Like Rachel. From that moment on, Brodie had no intention of ever seeing Rachel again, but the souvenir of foolishly loving her remained embedded on his chest. Forever.

  He dropped his hand and knocked on the door to Thistle Glen Lodge. Running could be heard on the other side. The door flew open, and the little girl stood there.

  She cranked her head around toward the hallway. “Mommy, the man that looks like Daddy is at the door.”

  Brodie nearly dropped his cup. He stabilized his hand, then shoved his free one in his pocket.

  She gazed up at him, studying every inch of his face. “I have a picture of my daddy. Do you want to see?”

  He didn’t get to answer. She grabbed his hand and tugged. He was too surprised to stop her from pulling him over the threshold. She towed him down the hallway to the living room. When Rachel saw him, she looked as stunned as if the little girl had dragged in a ghost.

  “He wants to see Daddy’s picture,” the girl said.

  “I never said—” Brodie started.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Rachel gazed down at her daughter with a mixture of exasperation and love. “I never know what she’s going to do or say next.”

  “What’s her name?” Brodie asked for lack of anything else to say.

  “Hannah,” the two females said together.

  Hannah dropped his hand and leaned over her roller bag, unzipping it. “I wrapped my guzzy around it.”

  “Guzzy?” he said.

  “The quilt I made for her,” Rachel answered.

  “She made it from Daddy’s soft shirts.” The kid pulled out the guzzy, which was a patchwork of different plaid flannels. She unwrapped the small frame and held it up to Brodie. “See?”

  It was Joe. Not in jeans and a T-shirt, as he had worn here in Gandiegow, but in a suit, standing next to a Volvo.

  “Mommy says Daddy was handsome.”

  The cold finger of betrayal stabbed through the tattoo on Brodie’s chest.

  Hannah turned to Rachel but thrust a thumb at him. “That makes him handsome, too. Right, Mommy?”

  “Abraham wants you over at the house,” Brodie said abruptly.

  At another time and in another place, he might’ve found the kid cute or funny. But it was Rachel and Joe’s kid, and there was nothing cute or funny about what was going on here. He was holding the picture of his dead cousin, and he was standing in the same room with the woman who had obliterated Brodie’s chances of ever having a family of his own. Gandiegow was filled with dozens of happy families; the village seemed to sprout them as easily as the vegetables in the kitchen garden on Here Again Farm.

  Rachel took the picture from Brodie, not glancing at it. “I want to see your grandfather. Hannah does, too. We’re just going to settle in first. Maybe take a nap. It was a long flight.”

  “Nay.” God, he didn’t want to do this. “Ye’ve got it all wrong. My grandfather wants ye to stay at the cottage. With him.”

  Not me. Brodie wanted her and her kid to return to Glasgow, Chicago, or Timbuktu. It didn’t matter. Everything about her made his blood pump faster, ruining the semblance of peace that he’d had since returning to Gandiegow.

  She stared from one of his shoulders to the other, as if he was too broad to fit in the cottage with them. “We’ll be much more comfortable here.”

  As would I. “Old Abraham insists. He’s not well.”

  Rachel chewed on the inside of her cheek. He’d forgotten that she did that when she was worried. Six years ago, he’d caught her looking at him many times, gazing at him with yearning and worrying the inside of her cheek. Because she wanted him, too. He knew it.

  “I can’t stay there,” she admitted.

  “Why?” he asked as if the question wasn’t filleting him, too.

  “It would be too . . . hard.” She looked away. “Too difficult.”

  Tough shite. She didn’t know the half of it. She couldn’t possibly know the fresh hell she was putting him through.

  He wouldn’t tell her either or give her the satisfaction of knowing the pain of her forsaking him as she’d walked down the aisle and pledged herself to Joe.

  “Ye’ll do as Abraham bids.” He took the picture from her and handed it back to the little girl. “Put that away. Ye’re going to go see yere great-grandda.”

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