I blinked several times, though I wasn’t a stranger to Kalen’s kindness. He’d always seemed to take care of me without calling attention to it.

  “Tea is fine.”

  Old habits died hard. I didn’t want to put her out. Part of me wanted to help, as that was what we did at home. But I graciously sat and waited as she brought a steaming plate of food over to me.

  Every inch of the plate was covered with food. There was no way I could eat it all.

  “Wow,” I said.

  She grinned. “It’s a lot, but my Kalen can eat and this is his favorite meal.”

  “I don’t know where to start,” I said, truly mystified.

  “Try what you don’t recognize first. That way if you don’t like it, you’ll have something on your plate you do like.”

  I nodded and moved my fork to the dark disk of mystery food.

  “Aww,” she said. “That’s black pudding. Give it a go.”

  Having a stomach Lizzy said was made of steel, I could eat just about anything. I cut into the dark disk with the edge of my fork and scooped up a half bite.

  “Mmm,” I said, though I wasn’t exactly sure what I thought of it.

  “It’s not for everyone,” she said.

  “I don’t hate it.” I aimed my fork at a square of fried meat. “What’s this?”

  “Loren sausage or square sausage. It’s mincemeat, or what you Americans would call ground beef with spices and such and then fried.”

  I dug in. It was really good and I nodded my appreciation.

  “I think I know the rest. Ham,” I said, pointing to that meat.

  “Some call it Canadian bacon as well, I think. We call it streaky bacon.”

  I took a bite of it as well. There were also a fried egg, sausage links, mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans, and toast.

  “It’s all very good, but I honestly don’t think I can eat it all.”

  She laughed. “It’s fine. There’s plenty more for the boys.”

  When she called them boys, including Turner and Kalen, I was struck imagining Kalen in his youth.

  “What was Kalen like as a boy?”

  For a second she wore a wistful expression before it faded into sadness.

  “The boy was much like the man, stubborn and driven. He didn’t have much of a childhood, I’ll admit. I have to take the blame for that.”

  I rested my fork on the plate and gazed into the woman’s haunted eyes, waiting for her to continue.

  “I guess I shouldn’t start the story there. In my defense, I should begin at the beginning.” She sighed. “I’d gotten into college much to my father’s dismay.”

  That sounded too familiar.

  “Part of the reason he let me go was I promised to get a job and send money home.”

  Though her eyes were on me, they’d gone far away.

  “I hadn’t ever had a job before, but I’d landed one as a waitress. That’s where I met Roy.”

  It took me a minute to connect Royce King with Roy.

  “He was charming, of course. Said all the right things to make me smile while I took his order. I have to admit, I got butterflies just being near the man.”

  Like father, like son, I thought.

  “But I wasn’t foolish, or so I thought. His pretty words, full of compliments, didn’t sway me to immediately go out with him. My parents had warned me about men and the things they wanted. But Royce didn’t give up. He showed up several days in a row before I finally agreed to go out with him.” Her expression became thoughtful. “When he told me he was taking me to a fancy restaurant in Edinburgh, I told him I had nothing to wear.” She laughed. “His way of solving that was to take me dress shopping.”

  She sighed and again I thought of Kalen and his gifts. Did he know how much alike he was to his father?

  “I think what endeared me to him was he never pushed for more than the chaste kiss I was willing to give. For a whirlwind month, he took me to places I’d never been. It was such the adventure.”

  Her eyes grew more unfocused as I wondered if she was seeing the past in her head. She blinked rapidly and focused on me again.

  “I won’t bore you with all the details… Let’s just say I knew my father would never allow such a guy with his rich looks and American accent to date his only daughter.” After a long, deep breath, she continued, “Rebelliously, I didn’t let that stop me. He was fascinating in all the ways that I’d always dreamt of, like in the movies.”

  She paused again and I could see her going back to that time in her mind.

  “When he told me he was leaving to go back to America, I was devasted. I’d fallen deeply in love and felt the twinges of heartbreak until he said he wanted me to go with him.”

  She pursed her lips in thought.

  “I told him I couldn’t. My parents would never agree.”

  Though I knew she went, I felt on the edge of my seat as if I was reading a chapter that ended on a cliffhanger.

  “He said, though I might think it was too soon, he wanted to marry me. I felt like Cinderella. But I’d been right about my parents. They didn’t agree to any of it, but not for the reasons you might think. My father wanted compensation for losing his only daughter. Roy denied him. I think that’s what made up my mind. He told my father I wasn’t a thing to be sold and that he should be happy I’d be well taken care of.”

  That sounded nothing like the shrewd man I’d met.

  “So I agreed even though my father warned me I was making a mistake. He also told me I wouldn’t be welcome home when I realized it.”

  “How did your mother feel?” I asked.

  “She wasn’t allowed to have an opinion. But I think secretly she was happy I was getting out of the life she was stuck in.”

  It was eerie how similar our lives were.

  “At first, everything was new and exciting. We’d married in Scotland and obtained papers for me to leave. And he married me again in New York. Everything was like a fairytale, even with galas and beautiful gowns. Roy showed me off like a prized possession.”

  “What about college?”

  She’d mentioned that she’d begun school.

  “Roy promised I could go to school in America once all my paperwork was complete. But there was always an excuse. It was too late to enroll. Then I’d gotten pregnant and I was too sick, which I was. Then I would be so close to giving birth. And then I should focus on our son.”

  Her words drifted off as her eyes fell to her lap. Suddenly, I felt like an intruder and almost told her she didn’t have to continue when she did.

  “I could have lived with all of that. The parties and entertaining. Even the disapproval of me from his parents and all of their friends. None of that mattered because I was in love and thought he loved me too until I found out I wasn’t the only one he shared a bed with.”

  Were all men cheaters? I didn’t think Father was, but the culture in our community didn’t forbid it. They just gave it another name: sister wives.

  “There were many women. I caught him ducking out of sight at the parties we attended with a beautiful woman and thought maybe all men were that way. My father was the same. But the final straw came when I caught him with our nanny. The one he insisted I have.”

  The bitterness was fresh on her tongue.

  “I fired her the next day. He wasn’t happy and made sure I knew where my place was. At the time, I wasn’t strong enough to stay. Selfishly, I bought two tickets back to Scotland with money I’d saved from shopping sprees he’d sent me on. I’d been frugal, as was my upbringing. I didn’t like to spend money the way Roy did. So I saved, which worked out for me because I didn’t have any other means to get money on my own.”

  It was so easy to identify with her situation. Every woman in my community, happily married or not, was in the same situation.

  “I came home and ended up on my father’s door with my son in one hand and our bags in another. My mother welcomed us with a hug. Keeping his word, my father didn’t. He said I’d made my choices and turned us away.”

  I was grateful my father wasn’t that kind of man.

  “We ended up in a small town outside of Edinburgh. I was lucky enough to find a small room above the only pub, where I got a job waiting tables. It wasn’t much. Pride kept me from calling Roy for help. Not that I could have. Cell phones weren’t exactly a common thing back then and landlines weren’t cheap.”

  She paused and I thought that might be the end of it, until she spoke.

  “Kalen had a rough go of it from the start. The majority of the clothes he had for me to take were blazers and trousers. His father preferred him to look like a little man than a little boy.”

  “How old was he when you left?”

  She thought. “He had just started what you Americans call kindergarten.”

  I wanted to ask if she had pictures of him, but she continued.

  “As you can imagine, we didn’t live in a fancy place. The school kids teased him about his fine clothes. I remember the first time he came home from school with a bloody nose and torn shirt. I went mad on the administration for allowing my son to be beaten up.”

  She shook her head more to herself. “Kalen didn’t complain. Instead, he took the can’t beat them, join them approach. He began talking in Gaelic like everyone when not in school, which sounded odd in his American accent. Eventually that faded.”

  “Does everyone speak Gaelic?”

  “No. It’s common in certain areas like where we lived.”

  “Did he get in trouble a lot?”

  “Aye. He wasn’t a bad boy, but there are only so many times a mother can be called into school and hear them say, ‘he’s smart but…’ His excuse was always, ‘Someone else started it first’.”

  I could imagine Kalen as a teenager butting heads. He was more of a leader than a follower.

  “Between that and barely being able to put food on the table, I threatened to call his father and beg him to take him. Kalen swore if I did, he’d run away and I’d never see him again.”

  “So you didn’t?” I figured that much, but I asked anyway.

  “I didn’t. Though it pained me to watch my sweet boy turn into a closed off and not exactly sad, but maybe a little mad at the world young man. One who did things over the years to help our circumstances that might not have been lawful even though he denied it.”

  That fit the man I knew.

  “I remember a time when I’d come home to a feast and Kalen had no job. I told him not to do anything illegal. He just smiled and said he was old enough to help so I didn’t have to work more than one job.”

  I didn’t want to speculate on what she had to do to survive or what Kalen did. The very idea broke my heart.

  “Only once did I get a call to pick him up at the police station. And on the way out, he promised it would never happen again.”

  “What was he in for?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not for me to tell. I forgave him and he’s kept his word. Now he’s made a name for himself and done his best by his mates and me. Griffin is a godsend and like a son to me, and Keely…”

  “Who’s Keely?”

  Her watery smile spoke volumes. “Not my story…” She pinched her chin as if in thought. “Eventually, though he doesn’t think I know, he made a deal with his father to get us out of the debt we were in to survive.”

  Heavy footsteps stopped her words.

  “We survived,” Kalen said, shocking us both into silence.

  Neither one of us knew how much he’d heard.

  Isla hurried to her feet and went into the kitchen, most likely to get a breakfast plate for him.

  He sat across from me with cold eyes and said, “It made me the man I am today.”

  Isla set a plate in front of him with piping hot food. One glance at me and I saw her mourning as I did for the boy who hadn’t had long to be a child.

  “Enough of that,” Isla said. “I’m grateful you’re home and you built us this place.” She patted his shoulder. “Every day I’m thankful.”

  He looked up at her. “I would have built you a grander house if you would have let me.”

  She laughed. “This is plenty big enough. It’s almost too big when you’re not here.”

  A knock came at the door and Isla’s face lit up. “That must be Jonas.”

  Kalen grumbled before shoving a fork full of food into his mouth. I would have laughed if it didn’t feel as though an ocean separated us.

  “Isla, you get more beautiful every day.”

  I turned my attention to a rock-solid looking man who bent to kiss her cheek. He wasn’t fat but not skinny either. Another word I would say was solid. He had a head full of salt and pepper hair.

  “And you must be Bailey,” he said, smiling as he walked over to shake my hand.

  A glimpse at Kalen and I could see he wasn’t the happiest of men to find someone clearly enchanted with his mother.

  “I’m Jonas. I own the pub down the hill. Isla is kind enough to offer me a home-cooked meal every now and then.”

  “Is that the only reason you come sniffing around?” Kalen all but growled the words like an angry bear.

  “Kalen,” Isla admonished. “I won’t have you be rude to my guest.”

  Kalen stood and dropped his napkin on his cleaned plate. “I have to go.”

  I stood too. “Can we talk for a minute?” I asked him, ready to apologize and explain my misplaced words from last night.

  “I think we’ve said all that needs to be said.”

  But and please hung on my tongue, but they weren’t given freedom as Kalen stomped out of the house.

  “That laddie,” Isla said, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t think I’d taught him manners.”

  Steps on the stairs announced Gabe’s and Turner’s appearance. Isla took over being host as I gathered mine and Kalen’s plates and headed to the sink to wash them.

  That didn’t stop the hurt that speared my heart. But I wouldn’t give up. Not yet. I’d made a mistake, and hopefully it wasn’t too late to change it.

  Sixteen

  After breakfast Turner coaxed me to take a walk.

  “It’s almost like home,” he said.

  “It is. I can’t believe I’m here.”

  My first trip outside of America. Though that hadn’t been the plan a few months ago. My failed honeymoon should have been.

  “Are you okay?”

  I gave him a brave smile. “Yeah, actually.”

  I’d dodged a bullet. I would have married Scott for all the wrong reasons.

  “I’m not just talking about that.”

  He wanted to know if I was thinking about the kidnapping.

  I looked off in the distance. “I can’t say I’m free of the nightmares. But I think I’m okay.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  A therapist would probably recommend it.

  “No, not really,” I practically whispered.

  I wanted to stop seeing the man’s face in my head, and talking about it only brought it to the surface even though he was in jail.

  We walked more in silence, hand in hand, until he pulled me to a stop.

  “Look,” he said, pointing off in the distance.

  “Wow. Sheep.”

  He laughed. “I think that one has got his eye on us.”

  The big guy was several yards off, but I couldn’t help but wonder how soft he might feel if I could get close enough to touch him.

  Turner, reading my thoughts, steered me in another direction.

  “No. Let’s leave the sheep be,” he said on the tail of a chuckle.

  They were wandering free, though they were numbered with what appeared to be spray paint. Something I would ask Isla about later.

  For a long time we talked about home and all we missed after we found a spot to sit. Though there was a chill in the air, I had no desire to go back inside.

  Never once did the conversation steer to us, which was what I needed at the moment until I broke that.

  “How did you find out about the opportunity in Africa?” I asked.

  His face radiated excitement as he spoke.

  “A friend from college thought I might like it. She emailed me.”

  Where I should have felt a twinge of jealousy, I didn’t.

  “Someone special?” I asked.

  He lost some of that warmth. “No, just a friend.”

  Everything became awkward. Again, I’d stuck my foot in my mouth. When I tried to let go of his hand, he wouldn’t let me.

  “Just let me hang on to you a little while longer.”

  I got up and we began to walk back.

  Every step back to the cottage was closer to the end I wasn’t sure I was ready to face. I loved this man with all my heart. I just didn’t love him enough to be worthy of him.

  My silent thoughts were derailed when we neared the house and found a woman with long dark hair knocking at Kalen’s door. Isla opened it with Gabe peeking around her skirt. We weren’t close enough to hear what was being said at first.

  “He’s here. I know he is,” the woman said.

  Isla finally spotted us, but glanced away quicker than I could read her expression.

  “Or maybe I can wait and hang out with your grandson until he’s available.”

  Fear graced Isla’s face. “He’s out back,” she said begrudgingly.

  “Thanks. I’ll just walk around,” she said as if she’d been invited inside and decided on her own not to go in. She headed in that direction with only the briefest of glances our way.

  When we walked up, Isla hastily asked, “Do you mind taking Gabe down to the pub? It’s just down the hill like Jonas said.”

  I thought it strange to take a young boy to a pub. Then again, what they called a pub may not be a bar like in America.

  “Sure,” I said, wanting to ease the worry on her face.

  “Thanks. Let me get Gabe’s jacket,” she said.

  Turner added, “I’m going to grab my wallet.”

  I nodded. When they both disappeared, I found myself walking around the house the other direction than the woman had gone. I wanted to know who she was.

  What I saw broke me. In a lover’s embrace, their lips were mashed together.

  The sky had to be falling as moisture ran down my face as fast as I rounded back to the front of the house, understanding the meaning of curiosity killing the cat.