Page 51 of A Secret Scottish Escape

I dropped my head and caught a wavering glimpse of my pale face reflecting back up at me in the swirls of the loch.

A tear glided down my cheek as I sat there, my trainers dangling over the water – unaware I was being watched by a man in a black hoodie, who was feeling every bit as conflicted and confused about his life as I was about mine.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I don’t know how long I sat there, watching the summer sky melt into a kaleidoscope of baby pink and tangerine.

The hills of Loch Harris were morphing into the promise of an inky silhouette.

Dad had tried to ring me dozens of times, but I’d switched off my mobile. All I wanted was to be alone with my feet dangling from the end of the jetty.

Harry is my father. He is, I assured myself. Tina was just playing her usual, spiteful mind games.

A breeze was picking up across the loch now, making the formerly calm surface stir itself up into small whipped peaks.

I scrambled to my feet and wrapped my arms tighter around myself, wishing I had brought a jacket. Admittedly, that had been the last of my thoughts when I’d bolted away from my dad’s place.

I felt drained and insignificant as I made my way past The Conch Club, as I thought of it now. I said its name over and over again, trying to distract myself from the impending dark.

I had been so excited about the direction my life was finally taking.

Thoughts of Mac and his deceit still burned, but there had been at least a glimmer of a fresh start.

Now this.

I conjured up an image of Ed Stockton. He didn’t have my dad’s easy charm or confident swagger.

From what I could remember from when I was younger, he had sported the same big rocker hair but there had always been something hesitant about his demeanour.

Was my mother now telling us that she had been sleeping with both of them at the time I was conceived and therefore wasn’t sure which one of them was my real father? It would seem so.

I paused in front of The Conch Club, sitting there all dark and closed off, and stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jeans.

The fear of not being my real father must have burned away at the back of Harry’s mind for years.

I’d always thought it was simply about the difficult logistics of being a single parent and a musician on the road that had made Battalion take a back seat in his life.

But now it turned out that that wasn’t the reason at all. The real reason was that he feared his suspicions all those years ago might have been true.

Why couldn’t Tina have just left the past where it was? Why couldn’t she have just let Dad and me carry on with our lives as normal? I surmised that when she had seen for herself that neither of us needed her or wanted her, she had decided to unleash her poison again.

Life had always been about Dad and me. We were a team and nothing could ever destroy that.

I reached my car, climbed in, and sat for a moment, trying to fight the gathering lump in my throat. I couldn’t let Tina destroy everything. Maybe she was telling the truth and maybe she wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to allow her to take control of Dad’s life or mine as some sort of payback for us getting on just fine without her.

I dashed away a tear with the back of my hand and fired up the engine.

I swung back into Dad’s drive and watched as my headlights slid across Dad’s windows. I spotted his silhouette dart up from his chair in the sitting room.

“Where the hell have you been?” he shouted, striding towards the passenger side of my car.

I clambered out, shamefaced. “Sorry, Dad, but I needed to get away for a bit.”

He cupped my face in his weathered hands. Anger and relief were lighting up his eyes. “I’ve been ringing you.” He took a step backwards and appraised me. “You look cold. Cold and knackered. Come on, I’ll make us a cuppa.”

He strode back towards the cottage, the open door allowing a flood of orange lamp light to lap down his front steps.

I felt my chest rise and fall and I began to follow him. The odd star looked like shards of glass, emerging now out of the blueberry-coloured sky.