Page 62 of A Secret Scottish Escape

Pictures of his unassuming wife reared up in front of me. If what my mother was saying was the truth, there were going to be innocent people caught up in all this crossfire.

I aimed a look over at Dad, who was observing me and Ed.

As we all resumed seats and the rest of the guys bunched up to allow me to sit down, I wondered whether trawling over the past was such a good idea after all. I had had twenty-nine years of ignorant bliss. Harry had raised me, ferried me to my dance classes when I was all sugar-pink tutus and my ballet bag was bigger than I was, helped me through meltdowns for my exams, comforted me when I was a seething mess of teenage hormones. He had cried and grinned all the way through my graduation ceremony and taught me to drive in his old Chevrolet pick-up truck.

I smiled fleetingly at the memory of him as we bounced over the old fields at the back of Grandma and Grandpa’s cottage, me crunching the gears and Dad rolling his eyes heavenwards and hissing, “For pity’s sake, Layla, please be careful with her!”

Nothing could steal that from me.

I dragged my eyes away from the laminated pub menus Jack had plucked from the end of the table and pushed across to each of us.

Dad was laughing at something Stan was saying as he sat beside him. He had his head tipped back and his grey eyes were crinkling at the corners.

Then I snatched a glance along my side of the table to where Mikey was telling Ed a story about the time he’d found a Battalion fan trying to scale the first floor of the B&B they had been staying at in Aberdeen. “She’d really had a few,” he lamented, “so I gave the poor girl a black coffee and then she started telling me about this guy at work who she was mad on.”

Ed’s mouth twitched with mild amusement.

“So what’s everybody having?” I asked, my attention switching back to the menu.

Mikey watched me prepare to write down the food order. “This is just like old times. It’s great!”

Jack peered down the table and folded his arms. “I thought you said you never wanted to be in a band again.” Jack pointed a finger at Mikey. “Do you know, Layla, five minutes before you arrived, this one was saying that he wants Battalion to be a regular thing again?”

I smiled and caught Dad’s eye.

“I’ve got two ex-wives to support,” argued Mikey.

“Well that’s not our fault, is it?” piped up Stan. “If you’d think with your brain rather than another part of your anatomy, you wouldn’t have to graft all hours in that music shop of yours.”

Mikey flicked up one brow. “It’s not my fault I’m irresistible to women.”

“And in which parallel universe is this?” asked Jack, rolling his eyes.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the witty banter bouncing backwards and forwards like a tennis ball at a Wimbledon final. It was helping to distract me a little from the paternal issue I was facing.

I glanced down the table to Ed who was sitting there gawping at his phone and not participating much in the conversation.

“Not joining in then, Edward?” asked Mikey, noticing his silence.

“I’m just texting Karen,” he confessed, brandishing his mobile as proof.

Mike pulled a comedic face. “You’ve been let off the leash for a couple of days, man. Make the most of it.”

Ed snapped his head up from his screen. “We’re not all like you, Mikey.”

What a hypocrite!

Mikey picked up his pint glass and grinned over the top of it. “You can say that again.”

I fired a meaningful look over at Dad and went to open my mouth, but Dad frowned at me and made a brief “Shhh” motion with his mouth.

While the rest of the guys discussed what beer they would have with their meal, Dad leaned across to me. “Don’t worry,” he hissed. “I’ll handle it.”

My lips ground together. “Did you hear that comment from Ed? That’s rich coming from him. He’s got the cheek to have a go at Mikey when he had a fling with Mum.”

Dad put one finger to his mouth. “We’ll sort this. I promise.”

Finally, I nodded.