Long Shot hg-1

by Hanna Martine

  “Points for honesty. One thing you’ve never lacked.”

  “Neither have you.”

  Down at the triangular pub, a fight broke out on the sidewalk between groups of guys dressed in different colors meant to represent sports teams she didn’t recognize. “Mom, the other reason I’m calling is to tell you that I won’t be able to send money for a while. I’m going to be a little short on cash, and I don’t know for how long.”

  What came out of her mother’s mouth shocked the hell out of her. “Are you in trouble?”

  “No, not in trouble.”

  “I don’t need it anymore, if that’s what you’re worried about. I have a job. It’s just cleaning offices, but it’s a job. I’ve been saving what you’ve been sending for a surprise trip to see Aimee and the little girl I’ve never met.”

  Through the phone, Jen heard the metallic strike of a lighter, the gentle hiss of a newly lit cigarette, and her mom’s deep inhale. “Why are you gonna be short on cash? Thought you just told me you got this big promotion?”

  “I did get the promotion.” Jen placed her palm on the glass. “I just didn’t accept it.”

  * * *

  Leith had been right. About so much.

  Tim had called from New York that morning to offer Jen the position of running the London office. On one hand she’d been expecting it; on the other she’d been in complete denial. She kept waiting for the relief and triumph to sweep through her, but it never came. After telling Tim she’d think about it and would get back to him, she went for a walk along the Thames. She stood on the Millennium Bridge for a long time, over one of the world’s great rivers, in one of the world’s most majestic cities, and all she could think about was the little creek running through Gleann.

  That shouldn’t have made any sense. But it did.

  She had thought that making it to this point in her career would heal her, that it would take a needle and thread and stitch up what had been shredded during her childhood.

  But it didn’t actually mean anything to her, not inside at least. Not where it mattered most. This promotion was a title and something to tell people, but it was only window dressing.

  That true healing she had to find elsewhere. And she already knew where to start looking.

  She called Tim back right then and there, plugging one ear with a finger to drown out the sounds of everything she was turning down, and told him, “Thanks, but no.” And then gave him her resignation.

  The rest of the afternoon she’d hunched over her computer crunching numbers, researching, formulating business plans, consolidating files . . . and trying not to call Leith.

  He’d made it pretty clear that if and when she came back to him, she had a lot of proving to do. She understood; her track record with taking off and leaving him high and dry wasn’t so good. That’s exactly what she intended—to give him proof—but she needed to get a lot of things squared away before she contacted him.

  Two weeks away from him felt like an eternity, but she would have to force herself to wait just a little bit longer.

  After the sun had gone down, and her eyes burned with computer strain, and her brain hurt from thinking, she’d finally sat back and surveyed what she’d created.

  It was her dream, her needle and thread, right there in pixels and paragraphs, and she’d never even realized it until this very moment. She’d been dying to call Leith right then and there, but there’d been two other people she needed to talk to first. That’s when she’d dialed her mom.

  One more person to go.

  As expected, voice mail picked up. Jen sighed. “Aimee, it’s me. I know you’ve been getting all my messages these past two weeks and I don’t blame you for ignoring them, but please call me back. I just talked to Mom and I want to tell you about it.”

  An hour and a half later, at nearly midnight London time with still no sleep in sight, the phone rang. And then Jen told Aimee every word she and their mom had shared, except the part about Mom wanting to visit. That little tidbit she’d let come out on its own; she’d let her mom have that.

  “Your messages said you’re in London. How the hell did that happen?”

  Jen considered that. “Misguidedly. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. I’m coming home.”

  “Does Leith know that?”

  “We, uh, haven’t spoken since the day before I left. I told him I was going to England, he got angry, which made me angry, and then I left. It was stupid and I need to make it up to him. I want to get him back.”

  A long, pregnant pause. “I’ll tell you what you should do. You should go surprise him at the Connecticut Highland Games this weekend.”

  Her heart started to pound in her ears. “The . . . why?”

  “I guess he’s throwing? Last I heard was that Duncan dragged him back into the circuit after how well he did in Gleann.”

  Jen pressed a straight arm to the counter edge and leaned in heavily. “He threw? After I left?”

  “Yeah. You didn’t know?” Aimee sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Oh God. No. He didn’t say anything.”

  And why would he have, given how she’d blindsided him with news of her leaving for London? He hadn’t wanted to guilt her into staying, because he didn’t work like that. He’d just wanted to make his points about her goals and her upbringing and her mom, and to keep himself out of it.

  Damn selfless man . . . whom she wanted so much it made her chest ache.

  She wished she could have seen him throw.

  “So you’re coming home?” Aimee cut in.

  “I am. I quit my job and I’m going to start my own events company.”

  It felt incredible to say, the first poke of the needle through torn flesh and muscle.

  “I’d say I’m impressed, but very little of what you do doesn’t impress me.”

  Jen smiled into the phone. “You’ll like this, then. I’m going to focus on smaller events put on by smaller clients like Gleann who maybe need overall help with organization. I’m a whiz with budgets and I really, really loved bringing the citizens together. You know, teaching them how to fish instead of casting the line out all by myself.”

  Aimee gasped. “You were really good at that. Maybe Bobbie would hire you. Melissa’s underwriting the winter crafts convention, so there’s no lack of money. And they trust you.”

  She couldn’t deny it. Going back to teeny tiny Gleann and working on those events gave her a sense of hope, an undeniable exhilaration. “When I get my materials put together, I’ll send them over.” At last she yawned, the crazy, full day suddenly smacking her upside the head.

  “I get the hint,” Aimee said. “I’ll tell Ainsley you called. She’s over at Bryan’s now.”

  “How is my Flirty McGee?”

  “Ah, stop! Too young for flirting!”

  Not if she kept hanging around T, she wouldn’t be, but Jen didn’t say that.

  “So can I tell Sue what you’re doing with your job and all?”

  Jen rolled her eyes. “Sure. But don’t tell me what she says. I don’t want to know if she gives you those tight lips and looks at you over her glasses, and then maybe mentions how I didn’t pick up her dog poop that one day fifteen years ago.”

  Aimee laughed. “Okay, but maybe she’ll hire you back for the games next year and, I don’t know, actually pay you.”

  “Love you.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d said that to Aimee. Maybe never.

  “Love you, too, sis. I was mad at you for leaving during the games, but I’m not anymore. We all came together after you took off. It turned out great. Well, as great as it could be. Everyone talked about what a wonderful job you did. Despite the cow.”

  “Maybe that could be my new tagline. ‘Haverhurst Events. I do a great job. Despite the cow.’”

  Jen hung up with her sister and fell into bed with a smile, her hand stretching to the empty pillow beside her.

  * * *

  Three days later, Jen was carrying a backpack filled
with her stuff out of the office building where she’d worked under Tim Bauer for six years. It wasn’t much, in the grand scheme of things. She hadn’t brought much of herself in.

  But that would change. She was going to put her heart and soul into her new venture, and each and every client would be able to see and feel it.

  Her phone rang. It did that decidedly less these days, so when it happened it never failed to make her jump and then rush to answer, wondering who it could be. Hoping against hope that it would be a certain someone.

  The number on the screen was unrecognizable, but it was an area code she knew to be upstate New York.

  “This is Jen Haverhurst.”

  “Jen, hi, my name is Ann Wagner. I’m director of the Finger Lakes Tourism Bureau. I’m looking for assistance in setting up incentive packages in my area. I’m told this is an area of expertise for you?”

  Suddenly Jen felt light as air, her sandals barely touching the concrete. “It is, and I’d love to talk to you about it.”

  Ann exhaled. “Fantastic!”

  “May I ask how you got my name? My business cards aren’t even printed yet.”

  “Oh. Sue McCurdy told me about you.”

  Jen stopped walking, right there in the middle of the crowded New York sidewalk. Someone crashed into her from the back and glared at her, and she shuffled off to stand in front of the window of a Greek restaurant. “Wait. Sue McCurdy. As in Mayor Sue?”

  “I can’t believe she wants people to call her that, but that’s Sue for you.” Ann chuckled. “She and I were roommates at Syracuse way back when. She called me specifically to give me your name.”

  Jen slapped a hand over a blue-and-white-striped flag painted on the glass, in order to keep herself upright in the face of shock.

  “She said you did a bang-up job up in Gleann for her Highland Games,” Ann went on, “and that I couldn’t go wrong in hiring you.”

  Chapter

  26

  While Gleann had the benefit of the northern New Hampshire mountains, an atmosphere that lent itself more to Scotland, at least the Connecticut Highland Games, held in a small town northeast of Stamford, didn’t have a giant glass box of an abandoned corporation looming over it. These smallish games, where Jen had secretly confirmed Leith was throwing, were set in a beautiful park surrounded by thick stands of trees and pockets of shade and shadow. A building of pale stone overlooked the circle where pipe bands marched in to their competition. Little girls dressed in tartan and velvet, their hair pulled tightly back, giggled and stretched, preparing for their competition. The blare of perfectly timed drums and pipes sailed toward the athletics field, and it was there Jen headed.

  Unsure of how Leith would take her sudden appearance, she timed her arrival toward the end of the athletics competition in the afternoon, desperately wanting to see him throw but also not wanting to distract him. After all, he’d thrown after she’d left Gleann, and apparently her absence had changed quite a bit in him.

  The day was ridiculously hot, and people huddled under portable canopies and umbrellas as they cheered on the ten or so men and one woman, all kilted up, on the athletics field.

  Still a good distance away, Jen immediately picked out Leith. He’d cut off the sleeves to his T-shirt, and the navy blue thing with the white X on the front to symbolize the Scottish flag was nearly soaked through. He wore his father’s kilt and one of his giant smiles. The kind that lit up his whole body and enveloped anyone near him. God, she’d missed him.

  “And now,” the announcer said, his tinny old man’s voice sputtering through the bad speakers, “the final round of weight for height.” Applause circled the towers holding the crossbar. “Competitors are Duncan Ferguson and Leith MacDougall.”

  Jen grew excited. She’d arrived just in time.

  Leith gave a respectable nod to the audience, but Duncan lifted both meaty arms and turned in a circle, mouth opened in a roar, begging the audience to give it up for him. They did, too. Leith just shook his grin at the ground, sweaty, shaggy hair plastering itself to his cheeks and neck. He pushed it off his face and went over to the towers and bar.

  A few more onlookers straggled over to watch this event, and Jen found a place in the shade of a big tree, behind an older couple holding hands in their lawn chairs—just out of sight, should Leith happen to look up.

  He didn’t, though. An intense look of concentration masked his face as he went over to the weight—a great black orb with a thick ring attached to its top—lying tilted in the grass between the towers. She’d once picked up that same kind of weight in the MacDougall garage, and had nearly toppled over under its fifty-six pounds. She remembered how Leith had laughed with her, but Mr. MacDougall had thrown out some words of encouragement, wanting her to try the women’s twenty-eight pounder instead. She’d politely declined.

  “The bar is at fifteen feet,” said the announcer. “Each thrower gets three attempts to get it over using any style necessary, as long as they use only one hand. The weight touching the bar doesn’t matter, as long as it ends up on the other side. First to throw: Leith MacDougall. A fine Scottish lad.”

  Leith pointed at the announcer, grinning, then positioned himself under the bar, looking up several times to get his placement just right. Giving his back to the tower, planting his feet wide, tugging the bottom of his kilt up and over his knees, he reached down and wrapped one big hand around the ring of the weight. Any semblance of a grin died. His lips rolled inward with concentration.

  Knees bent, torso forward, the great muscles in his gripping arm flexed, the ligaments popping out. She watched his neck and face flush. With a heave he pulled the weight from the ground, sending his body rocking, the weight sailing once between his legs, once along the side of his body, and a third time back between his legs. When the weight came forward, he pushed his legs to straighten, let out a shout of effort, and launched the weight high up into the air.

  The hefty thing sailed upward, looking way too big and bulky to get anywhere near fifteen feet. Leith stepped away, whipped around . . . and watched, teeth clenched, as the curve of the ball hit the bar, then rolled over the back side to land with a thunk in the grass.

  The crowd cheered, no one louder than Jen. Leith slapped his hands together once and then acknowledged the audience. Jen ducked behind the old couple in the off chance he’d see her, but he turned to Duncan, who was showing him a jovial double thumbs-down.

  Duncan gave his competitor a hearty clap on the back, then assumed his own position under the bar. He used a little different method to throwing this event—a full-body pivot and spin, more like a classic shot put throw. To Jen, he didn’t seem as graceful as Leith, being shorter and bulkier around the middle. Leith was more streamlined, a little more top-heavy, and at least five inches taller.

  Duncan made fifteen feet, but missed sixteen all three times.

  Leith got sixteen on the second attempt, and the crowd erupted. Duncan stood off to the side, shaking his head but grinning. When the cheering died down, Jen distinctly heard Duncan say, “Good to have you back.”

  She read Leith’s lips: “Good to be back.”

  “And the Scottish lad wins the weight for height!” chimed the announcer to a terrific amount of applause, even though it was apparent Duncan had been the overall crowd favorite.

  Leith took a seat on a stool and grabbed a water bottle, pouring some down his throat, then squirting a healthy dose over his head and on the back of his neck. It took all of Jen’s strength not to go to him. Another competitor went over to talk to Leith. The other guy was older, clearly strong but in a softer, less defined way. It looked like he was asking Leith for advice on the weight, because Leith was showing the man a grip and gesturing to his back and legs.

  This was how Leith had been his whole life. Giving. Accommodating. Generous sometimes to the point of forgoing what he wanted. When he’d revealed the bit of resentment he held for his father and for Gleann, it had shocked her at first, but now she understo
od. It was okay for someone like him to feel that.

  “Next and final event, the heavy hammer,” the announcer said. “And looking at the score sheets, ladies and gentlemen, this event will determine the overall winner of the heavy athletic events here in Connecticut. Duncan Ferguson and Leith MacDougall vying for first place, Duncan with the slight edge. It is my understanding that Duncan won the Gleann games a few weeks ago, so MacDougall might have a score to settle here.”

  Leith and the older man looking for advice went over to the edge of the field and grabbed a foldable set of chain-link fence, like what you’d see behind home plate in Little League games. They set it up behind a log painted white that they were using as the trig. Duncan brought over the hammer—a large ball on the end of a long bar weighing twenty-two pounds—and set it by the trig.

  The scene was so much like Gleann, with the cook smoke drifting through the air, the kids’ area off to the side where the little ones were trying to throw minicabers, the same bagpipe song played over and over again with varying degrees of talent. And Leith, out in the athletic field, looking every bit at home as he did in his truck or . . . lying next to her. Or on top of her.

  She wanted that back. She needed that back.

  On the field, as though her desire had formed a whip and lashed out from her body, Leith looked up from where he was toeing the dirt behind the trig. It wasn’t like his gaze had been wandering around the crowd and then he did a double take when his eyes mistakenly landed on her. No; he raised his head, his stare making a burning line across the grass, and found her instantly.

  Jen startled, pushing away from the tree, her arms falling to her sides. Her first thought sent her back in time and space to how she might have acted in seventh grade when the boy she crushed on looked her way. For a moment, she considered ducking low and crawling away. But he’d seen her, recognized her, knew she was there—there was no denying it now. And really, she’d come here to talk to him anyway.

  Leith froze and just stared. Then, shaking himself out of it, he excused himself from the other competitors and stalked toward her, kilt flapping about his legs, those powerful arms swinging. A few onlookers watched him pass, skittering out of his way as though he might mow them down.