Secret Garden (18 page)

Mack set his beer on the bar. “Colin, you can’t do that.”

“Actually, I can,” he said calmly.

“But what about the tour?”

“I’m still on the pro tour—I’m not out yet. And there’s no rule that says I can’t train from here for the New York Cup.”

Mack shook his head, looking stunned. With a laugh, he appealed to Colin. “What brought this on?”

Colin explained it in terms that his caddie could understand. “I met a couple guys at Kildrammond who I think will make good swing coaches. You know I need to make a change there.”

Mack blew out a breath, nodding, his gaze darting toward the table where Bonnie was delivering a tray of drinks. “Okay, but what about Daisie Lee?”

Colin gritted his teeth, but honestly, he couldn’t blame Mack too much for bringing her up. So much of Colin’s life at home had revolved around taking care of his mother. Being available when she needed him, more out of guilt and old wounds than because he really wanted to.

“You let me worry about her,” he said.

Mack let out a sigh. Colin got the feeling there was more to Mack’s reluctance to staying in Scotland than he was letting Colin see. But Colin could guess.
Bonnie.

“So you don’t care if I don’t train with you?” Mack demanded. “Come on, Colin. Shouldn’t I be worried about that?”

“No, it’s not that I don’t care,” Colin said. Now that he considered it, though, he did prefer to make this a fresh start, on his own. Mack could be a bad influence—he was too much like the way Colin had been, and Colin didn’t want that anymore.

“You know what? On second thought, I do want you to go home, Mack. Take a week’s vacation—I’m paying. You’re still my caddie, so you don’t have to worry about losing your job. You just don’t want to be here in Scotland much longer, am I right?”

“Scotland’s great,” Mack said, rolling a cardboard beer coaster down the polished bar. He glanced at Colin. “It’s just Bonnie—if I stay much longer, she’ll get the wrong idea.”

“Yeah.” Colin nodded, watching Bonnie anxiously gazing over at them. She seemed to be what Mack referred to as a
clinger
. Mack liked to be free above all.

“I already told her I’m leaving tomorrow,” Mack said, “and that I’m not coming back. If I stay, it will make things complicated.”

Colin nodded, feeling sorry for Mack and Bonnie both. “I understand.” He slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Take Doc’s jet home tomorrow, have a good time on your week off, okay? We’ll keep in touch until the tournament.”

“You sure we’re good?” Mack asked anxiously.

“Always,” Colin said. “I take care of my people.”

* * *

S
TONE-COLD SOBER,
Colin took the key his nana had given him and let himself inside her cottage.

“Colin?” Jessie met him at the door. Her eyes were red and swollen as if she’d been crying. “Rhiannon rang us. We were worried you weren’t coming back.”

He nodded briskly to his grandmother and gave her a smile. Then he figured
what the hell?
and curled his arm around her and gave her shoulder a squeeze. He didn’t want her to cry. He felt as though he was the adult now, and he would have to show her the way. “Let’s go in the kitchen and talk.”

She gave him a look of relief. But this was different from the way Colin had used to cheer his mother up when she was upset. He wasn’t going to do that anymore—wasn’t going to minimize himself. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook for what she’d done. But he wasn’t going to blame her, either. How could he? When it came right down to it, after the initial shock of the betrayal, he felt compassion for the situation they’d all found themselves in.

He led her to the table and pulled out a chair for her. Jessie—his nana—really was frailer than he’d realized. He’d had hints that she’d been feeling weak during their golf game, but she’d been wearing her bulky rain clothing and that had hidden her size. Now she wore a thin pajama top, and he could see the weight and vitality she’d lost since she was in the prime that he remembered.

He set his key on the table and sat straight-backed in the chair opposite from her. Even Jamie came into the kitchen wearing slippers and a bathrobe. Colin nodded at him, too. “I’ve decided to stay and train at Kildrammond for the next week. Is it okay with you both if I stay here while I do?”

Jamie’s mouth fell open. He swiveled to stare at his wife, but Jessie was clasping Colin’s hand, nodding, tears leaking from her eyes. “I prayed this would happen.”

Colin put his other hand on her thin ones, but he gave her a stern look, too. “This situation will work out for the best—don’t you worry about that. But I’m asking you to never lie to me again. Are we clear?”

“Y-yes. Of course.”

“Good.” He nodded. “If that’s the case, then we’ll get past this.”

Jamie pulled out a chair and sat, too. He seemed to be struggling to say something.

Colin caught his gaze and held it. “Look, I know I was wrong, too. I’m sorry for my behavior when I first landed in Scotland. There won’t be any more late nights. I’ll call you if what I’m doing might mean a disruption to your schedule.”

“You never disrupt us,” Jessie insisted.

“Do we have an agreement?” Colin asked Jamie.

Jamie pressed his lips together. He was still struggling with what he had to say.

“I know the years haven’t been easy for us,” Colin said. “I wish my parents had been able to figure out how to stay together and make it work between them, but they couldn’t, and nothing we do can go back and change that.”

He made sure to smile at his grandmother so she didn’t feel too badly. “I noticed the birthday cards in your purse, Nana. I saw how often you thought of me. I thought of you, too.” He nodded to Jamie and addressed him next. “And, yes, I’ve considered what Rhiannon said to me tonight, and I’ve decided I want to work on getting past it. Do you want to do the same?”

For a long moment Jamie was silent, he just sat with those pressed-together lips. Then, with a jerk against his seat, and the scrape of chair legs being violently pushed back, he rose and enveloped Colin in a bear hug.

Colin took that as a yes. “Okay, then.”

Jamie withdrew, still with that solemn, fierce look on his face. “We took too long. But it’s better late than not.”

Colin nodded.

“The best day I ever knew,” Jessie said, “was the day you came back to Scotland.”

“Well, keep that in mind when I’m up at the crack of dawn for my daily tee time.”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem.” She winked at him. “You can start the breakfast for us.”

He laughed, his load feeling lighter. He still had to phone Daisie Lee, of course, but he had an idea how he would handle that.

He pushed up from the table and glanced at the time. Nine o’clock, still early, but he was exhausted. “Great. I’m going to bed now.”

Jessie followed him to the stairway. When she was out of earshot from Jamie, she said, “I’m sorry for the terrible lie about your father. Would you like to talk with him? I can ring him up right now.”

Colin froze. He hadn’t anticipated that happening. Not at all. “I don’t think so, Nana.”

“Colin, you’re our family. That will always mean something to us.”

His words came out with difficulty. “What’s he doing now?”

“Dougie lives in Italy.”

Yes, that was what Rhiannon had said.

“With the woman he left my mother for?” Colin asked.

“Oh, no,” Jessie said gently. “This is another woman. She...has a young son.”

Jessie seemed awkward discussing it with him, as well. He couldn’t imagine this was any easier for her than it was for him.

He felt the lump in his throat. Colin had to ask because he had to know. “Does he have any other children besides me? Do I have blood siblings?”

“No, Colin. Just you.”

And yet his father had never sought out Colin, not once.

“I’ll ring him up,” Jessie said. “It will take just a minute.”

Colin ground his teeth. But Jessie was gazing at him with such pain and longing that he knew he needed to allow it, for the sake of peace with her. He knew better than to expect anything good to come of it, though.

“Go ahead,” Colin said. “Make the call.” He’d talk to his father now, do it fast, like ripping off a bandage. Then, afterward, he’d go upstairs and take a long, hot shower. Try and sleep off one of the longest days he’d ever experienced.

Jessie’s face lit up with joy at his response, and it made him feel good that at least she was happy. She found her cell phone, an ancient model, and with her brow concentrating, squinting into her glasses, she tapped at a single button. Direct dial.

Colin crossed his arms and leaned against the banister, bracing himself.

Rhiannon’s haunting landscape was on the far wall, so he stared at it, jarred at first, because he wasn’t yet sure how he was going to deal with her. In the scene she’d painted, a light fog was coming off the grass, and it gave him the feeling of being in a dream. As if none of this were really happening.

Growing up in Texas, in that tin corrugated trailer, he’d dreamed of this moment. Of hearing his father’s voice again. Of hearing him say that everything would be okay, that he would come back and fix things and return their lives to normal. After all, Colin’s mom had never remarried.

“That’s strange,” Jessie murmured in disappointment, covering the mouthpiece of her phone and gazing at Colin with a perplexed look on her face. “He’s not connecting.”

Colin closed his eyes. Felt the disappointment fill him, that old, leftover boyhood feeling of hurt. Maybe it was time to accept that his father would always be this way. Maybe he should just feel grateful that his father was showing him how Colin
didn’t
want to be.

Jessie held up a finger to him and then cleared her throat. She was leaving a message on the voice mail. “Hello, Dougie, this is Mother. Please call me as soon as you can.”

She ended the call and smiled gamely at Colin. “He will ring back, Colin. Perhaps we can get him to pay us a visit while you’re here.”

Colin wasn’t that delusional. He pushed away from the banister and thought longingly of the upstairs room with the bed and the door. “I’ll see you early tomorrow for breakfast, Nana.”

“You’ll see Rhiannon in the morning as well, won’t you?”

Colin paused, his weight creaking on the stair tread. He must have had a pained look on his face, because Jessie walked over and patted him on the hand again.

“You don’t blame her, do you?” Jessie asked. “We asked her to help us tell you. Please, it’s not her fault.”

He gave her a tight smile. “I know all that.”

Jessie shook her head. “I’m not sure you understand. Colin, you don’t know how Rhiannon was before you arrived. She never would have walked over for dinner to a join a group of our size. Or told Paul to treat her as lady of the manor. Or come out of her studio to make an appearance in her kitchen while Jamie visited with Paul.”

“Wait a minute, back up,” Colin said. “What do you mean
treat her as lady of the manor
?”

“Rhiannon’s mother is lady of the manor,” Jessie explained patiently. “Perhaps that’s left over from the old ways, but when the lady is here, she represents the castle and its interests to the community.”

“Can she really do that, with her agoraphobia?”

“Well,” Jessie said, “she’s making a start. It’s precisely why Jamie included her in my...” She gazed at her hands. “...my situation.”

By having Rhiannon tell
him
what Jessie and Jamie couldn’t. Colin got it now.

He squeezed his grip around the ancient, rustic banister. He could admire Rhiannon for taking steps and being braver. But he couldn’t say that he was thrilled with how she’d prioritized being honest toward him as less important than following her protocol and representing her estate.

Especially after she’d made a personal appeal to
him
to be honest with
her
.

And he had been. Brutally, embarrassingly so.

Jessie made a clucking noise at him. “Please don’t hold any of this against her.”

He smiled wanly. He didn’t see how anyone in his situation wouldn’t be wary of Rhiannon now.

Jessie fanned at her face suddenly, the blood draining from her cheeks. She sat down hard on a tufted chair.

Colin rushed to her side. “Nana? Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine.” She took a few deep breaths and then smiled at him. “Sometimes this happens. Nothing to worry about, dear.”

He realized maybe there was more to her sudden urge of getting him back to the Highlands than he’d known.

CHAPTER NINE

O
N
S
UNDAY EVENING
, Rhiannon sat inside her secret garden. This was her sanctuary. When she was upset or stressed, it was the walled hideaway where she went to try and figure herself out again.

It had been years since she’d spent so many hours sitting beneath the tree, her arms around her knees and her shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She’d thought she’d made progress. She had dared to expand her boundaries and try something new, but that failure had shaken her more than she’d realized.

Colin had left without saying goodbye. Not even Jessie had rung her.

The wisest thing to do would be to go back to the more cloistered life she’d been living. Give up her silly dream of being the lady. But earlier, while she’d sat at her easel, she realized she couldn’t do it—she couldn’t pretend that nothing had happened. She couldn’t go back to her old life and still be happy.

A spark of hope had been lit inside her—that life could be different—and now that spark wouldn’t extinguish. And yet she couldn’t see the path to move forward, either.

She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. She was fairly certain that Paul would call Malcolm soon, to tell him what had happened with Colin. She was still upset with the way he’d abruptly left her. She didn’t know how to process this.

Her mobile rang.
Paul.
With foreboding, Rhiannon answered her phone. “Yes?”

“I received a call from the front gate. Colin has been spotted on the cameras.”