Hadn’t he known everyone in Port Willow by name, and up at the castle too? And he’d only been here since the autumn. Maybe he’s just that kind of guy, befriending everybody? Though she’d certainly never seen him react to anyone in the same agitated, gaping way he’d reacted to Polly tonight.
Her mind raced, trying to figure out what she’d just witnessed. ‘What’s mine is yours,’ she’d said. ‘They had an agreement,’ she’d said. ‘Did she want the shirt off his back,’ he’d said.
If Nina and Mutt were anything more than fleeting friends, surely she’d know something about this woman and what kind of a hold she had over him? For God’s sake, they’d even rehomed a dog together! She’d called herself Bear’s Mummy.
‘Oh no,’ Nina said, slumping on her bed beside her open suitcase. ‘Oh no. I’ve done it again. I’ve let someone else in, let them give me the leg-up I needed, relied upon them instead of showing my worth, instead of doing it on my own. Now he’s off with someone else. Maybe he’s been committed to her all along?’
This all felt very familiar. She packed her case, cursing her own stupidity.
When she heard Mrs Mair clearing the bar of punters after last orders, Nina sneaked through the reception and into the bar, peering around the door, not wanting to be seen looking for him.
There, in the same spot she’d left him, was Mutt, his head propped on one hand, his elbow on the table looking straight at the woman. Polly was talking animatedly, Bear fast asleep on her lap, only now she was on a chair beside Mutt. There were four empty glasses on the table in front of them.
‘Hehasforgotten about me,’ Nina told herself, carrying herself off to bed. Her taxi would arrive in four hours to whisk her away to Edinburgh airport and out of Mutt’s life forever, just as Polly had swept in to reclaim him.
Nina told herself that come her seven a.m. take-off she’d have forced herself to forget the bubbling, excited feeling he gave her whenever he was near. She’d made a friend in the Highlands, he’d helped her, and now she was leaving. She could call him to say goodbye from New York. No need to make a soppy scene, not now she understood what she’d been to him.
She locked herself in her room, climbed under the covers and turned out the light. She was going home and she had a product to sell all by herself. She’d show Luke and Seamus that she could do it. They didn’t have to know she’d had Mutt’s help, and all his friends’ too.
‘Mr Ryan, Mr Casson, members of the board, I’m delighted to return from the beautiful Highlands of Scotland with a craveable new product prototype. And after the success of our, I mean, of Himari’s whisky collaboration, I’m sure you’ll be as excited as I am too…’
She gave up running lines for her pitch, her head aching, curled up on her side and hugged her pillow with a sad sigh.
Beatrice had told her Mutt was a runaway, she berated herself. She’d already known he was here licking his wounds. ‘Well, now the runaway’s been caught again. Polly’s come back for him, and he’s not exactly trying to run now, is he?’
Nina had arrived at the inn crying and regretful, full of frustration and anger, and soon she would be leaving feeling exactly the same way. Well maybe notexactlythe same, she told herself. Beatrice had told her Port Willow helped fix people who needed fixing; and sure enough, a tiny part of Nina had clicked into place this last few weeks.
She knew now that she really did have to go it alone. No more helpers. No more men. Nina Miller had to shine all by herself. It had taken seeing Mutt beguiled by Polly to finally drum the message into her. She was all alone from here on in.
Chapter Thirty-four
Messages on Water
Earlier that evening and as soon as Atholl got home from the willow school, Beatrice told him about the kick, and after he’d stopped holding his face to her belly where he’d been roundly socked in the cheek three times, she also told him about her letter idea.
‘Write a letter to our unborn daughter?’ he’d asked, repeating her words.
‘Yep! I think if we just wrote out how we were feeling it would help me. It was Ruth who gave me the idea. So…’ She held out a pen. ‘Shall we?’
It had taken them a matter of minutes, sitting at Beatrice’s command centre in the sun room. Beatrice wrote the lion’s share, but Atholl said his piece too. They bundled themselves into coats and hats and left the inn with their letter.
‘You’re sure you want to send it by water?’ Atholl asked as they crossed the road and stopped at the low sea wall where the high tide had covered the curving bay.
‘Just like I did before.’ Beatrice nodded, and they both thought of the wild flowers she’d collected on Skye last August, when Beatrice had finally broken down and told the story of her lost child. Atholl, heart breaking in his chest at the sight of her distress, had rushed to his workshop and returned carrying the tiny willow bassinet, a model he’d made for a talk Seth had given a while back on Highland traditions. She’d woven the flowers into the empty bassinet and floated them on the water. She’d watched them drift until out of sight on the horizon, at last beginning the slow process of saying goodbye to someone she’d never met but loved with her whole heart.
Yes, she wanted to send this letter in exactly the same way, and so, in the streetlight glow, Beatrice unfolded the letter and she and Atholl read it aloud huddled together above the dark water.
‘To our darling daughter,’ Beatrice read. ‘You’re more than four months away from us but we cannot wait to meet you.’
Atholl added the next line. ‘It isn’t easy waiting for you and your mum isn’t a very patient person at the best of times.’ They both smiled at this and Beatrice took over again.
‘When you get here, there are so many lovely things we want to show you. You’ll get to meet Echo, your sheepdog. He’s getting old now but we know he’ll always keep an eye open in case you get yourself into trouble and he’ll enjoy sharing your snacks with you.’
Beatrice read on. ‘You’ll love the beaches and the meadows here in the Highlands. Your dad says you’ll probably have learned to weave willow before you can talk but we’ll see about that.’
Atholl placed an arm around her shoulder and he cleared his throat before he read the next part. ‘There’ll be days for paddling and picnics, painting trips too. You’ll have a never-ending stream of new friends coming to the inn, just like your old dad had when he was growing up, and you’ve about a hundred redheaded cousins spread all over the Highlands and islands to play with, and there’s your cousin Chloe in England who’ll be a special friend, I know. You’ve also a granny who’s longing to see you, and Seth’s already called dibs on teaching you how to fish and to ride your first bike. God help you!’
They laughed and Beatrice read again even though her eyes were misting.
