The client, Sherry.
I stare at him blankly, feeling my palms start to sweat at the thought alone. Why would I call her?
He shrugs. To clear the air, apologize if you wanted, but get her side of things. It sounds like she was very much Team Violet. I suspect she’d have felt differently about this situation.
I mull this over as the waitress brings over our food. Finn opted for a haddock burger, while I’d gone with the Clubhouse—a classic.
We eat in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Finn says, Well, I’ve got to say, as much as I love my job, I have not missed working the past few weeks. He smiles at me as he says this.
Did you have any issue getting so much time off?
Finn looks at me a little quizzically. Why would I?
Well, some jobs are more intense than others, I guess. But when I was working, it was never easy to get more than a few days off here and there. The only reason I could come here for so long is because I don’t exactly have a job right now.
He shakes his head at me. No, darling Violet, it was not a problem. There’s a team of us at the clinic, so the burden will not fall to one person alone. If someone gets sick, or injured, or has to take holiday, we’re covered.
He pauses for a moment, trying to meet my eye. So that’s what it was like? Everything falling solely to you?
Yes, I think, but don’t want to admit that out loud.
I think, Finn continues, swallowing his last bite of burger, When you start your own business, Violet, you can hire more than one of you.
It feels like such a far-off dream, so the only reply I can manage is a simple, Maybe.
What are your plans? After next week, I mean?
I look at him, unsure what he’s asking me. He clarifies, “There’s only one week left before the wedding. Are you staying here after the festivities are over, or are you headed home?
I feel my stomach bottom out. He doesn’t seem to notice my sudden, debilitating panic. I wipe my already-sweaty palms on the sides of his hoodie that I’m still wearing.
I’m not sure yet, I say, hoping he backs off.
But it plays on my head in a loop for the rest of the meal: One week left.
Chapter 30
VIOLET
THE LAST WEEK BEFORE THE wedding goes by in a blink.
Alba, Rose, Florence, and I have spent nearly every day together, doing the final rounds to make sure everything is ready for the big day. Flowers, dresses, programs, figuring out who has to be where at what time, and who’s doing what. Part of me thrives at being back in this kind of role.
Florence and Alistair are getting married at the church in Iona, and then we’re going back to the bed and breakfast for the reception. We have a company coming to set up a giant tent in the yard first thing tomorrow morning for the party. Alba and I spent all of yesterday hanging string lights around the property.
While the cabins are all full this week, Alba’s made sure it’s only wedding guests here now, including Rose’s parents and a cabin for Finn and Alistair’s mom, so the newlyweds can have some privacy at their own home.
Finn and Alistair have also been busy with their own wedding prep, as well as building a new dock at the lake house. Finn apparently asked Florence about a wedding gift, and she had begged him to help his brother build the replacement wharf. It sounds like Alistair accepted the help a little begrudgingly.
But despite the busy days, often not spent together, every evening without fail, Finn knocks softly on my cabin door, begging me to let him try again to beat me at Scrabble.
He hasn’t won yet, and some smug part of me is pleased that he hasn’t been able to do it. It keeps him coming back every night, after all.
He always makes us each a wee cuppa tea, as he calls it, and we recount our days, like some old married couple. I make a point to fully dissociate from the wonderful, addicting feeling of having a person to relay all these things to every night.
This morning, all of us went down to the church for the ceremony rehearsal. When I had walked down the aisle with Finn, he had run his hand up my arm once, in a slow, deliberate stroke. A gentle hey, Violet and an assurance that he had me.
For the rest of the morning, I’d shivered every time I thought of that touch.
