Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
I let out a small huff of amusement. “I think you mean I’m too old.”
She turned more fully into me. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“Do you really think you’re too old for me?”
“Aye.” I reached out to stroke her cheek. “But I’m a selfish bastard, so that won’t stop me.”
“Good,” she whispered back.
Callie appeared out of the restroom, breaking the intense staring match between me and her mother. We strolled out into the frosty first day of December, Callie sandwiched between us. She took hold of her mum’s hand and then tentatively reached for mine.
At her slight hesitation, at the reminder she’d had no real paternal affection in her life, I ignored the fear that wouldn’t abate no matter how hard I tried, and I took her wee hand in mine.
Callie’s sweet smile cut through that fear, dimming it until eventually it washed away in certainty. Her happiness at walking hand in hand with her mum and me was what mattered. No one knew what the future would bring. But I could give this to Callie now.
I could give them both this.
Because I wanted it too.
Terrifying to admit, but it was the truth.
Callie, a reserved child with those she didn’t know, chattered incessantly as we walked along Princes Street. I was glad of it. Glad to see her father hadn’t traumatized her too badly all those weeks ago. Thank fuck children were so resilient.
“Oh!” The startled gasp drew my gaze from Callie to the woman we’d almost walked into. I drew to a stunned halt. My cheeks prickled, vaguely aware of people bumping into us and muttering their annoyance as they had to go around.
Callie’s wee fingers tightened on mine, but I couldn’t drag my eyes off the older woman, her face familiar, but changed.
My mother’s blue eyes, the same shade as my own, were wide. Her lips parted but then clamped together again.
Her gaze darted down to Callie and over to Sloane before returning to me.
When she said nothing, I gave her a brittle nod and guided Callie and Sloane around her.
I felt Sloane’s questioning gaze but stared straight ahead, not looking back.
Never looking back.
I only allowed myself to look back once a year, and the week for that was not this week.
“Who was that?” Sloane finally got up the courage to ask ten minutes later as a children’s jewelry section in a small boutique distracted Callie on the cobbled lane of Rose Street.
“No one,” I replied. If my tone wasn’t warning enough, I shot her a cool look before heading over to join Callie.
“Pick one,” I said, after observing her preoccupation with a stand of bracelets.
Callie’s eyes widened. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Go on,” I insisted.
Her joy over the bracelet was a slight distraction from my mum, whom I hadn’t seen in two decades. When I went to share a look of amusement with Sloane, I found her staring out of the shop window, expression contemplative. She worried her lip with her teeth.
Unease shifted through me when she finally looked at me, and I couldn’t read what was going on behind her unusually flat expression.
Then she sighed and shook her head with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You spoil her.”
I shrugged, trying to shrug off my disquiet. “She needs spoiling.”
Sloane nodded and gestured for Callie to follow her out of the shop. “Time to head back.”
We had a train to catch and then from there, the drive from Inverness to Ardnoch. Tension radiated between us, though, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to deal with it on top of the memory of my mother’s stunned face on Princes Street.
At the station, as we waited on the platform for the train to arrive, I stood behind Sloane and coasted my hand down her hip where Callie couldn’t see. I pressed a kiss to her temple.
And sighed a heavy inward sigh of relief when Sloane leaned back into me and caressed my hand with her own.
Thirty-Three
SLOANE
We were allowed into the grading room so long as we were quiet. Walker, Regan, Thane, and I took a few seats on the bleachers of the huge gymnasium where Callie and Lewis’s first tae kwon do grading would soon be underway.
Walker had smartly advised we take seats near the front because our kids’ grading was up first, and we’d be leaving after that. In all the time Callie had been going to classes, I had been unable to watch one. She’d shown me her moves in the house, but it wasn’t the same, and I’d been carrying definite mom guilt about my lack of presence in this part of her life.
It was the weekend after our trip to Edinburgh with Walker. All of our friends now knew we were dating. Monroe was ecstatic, Brodan needed to stop teasing Walker or he might lose an eye, and Regan had been throwing me gleeful looks all morning. The woman was a year older than me, and yet you’d think she was thirteen from the way she was acting.