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SEVEN

I pulled my phone from my pocket an instant before it rang.

“I’ve been gone less than a day and a half. How are you already in trouble?” Mac asked, sounding exasperated, which I knew meant he was genuinely worried about me.

“I’m not in trouble,” I said, in the most reassuring tone I could muster.

“Tell that to the twin-bond spidey-senses. I expected you to be sad, but this feels excessive. I feel like there’s a colony of bees crawling under my skin. What’s up?” he demanded.

“He’s here.”

“He who is there?” Mac sounded distracted, so I gave him a moment to connect the dots. His voice sharpened. “Wait. He he? The guy?”

“Yes.”

“Hold on a second while I park. I can’t navigate this traffic and listen properly.” He cursed and honked long and hard. “What do you mean, he’s there?” he asked when the chaos had subsided. “How’s that possible?”

“He just… showed up!” I cried. “Something about a coworker showing him the real estate agent’s video, and his boss offering him a job here.”

“He’s there for good?” I’d never heard Mac’s voice go so high. “He moved to Scotland for you?”

“I don’t know? Maybe? He said it was more complicated than that, but he had to run before he could explain. What do I do, Mac?”

“I don’t know,” he cried before sucking in a deep breath. He continued more calmly. “What do you want to do?”

“Run after him, fall to my knees, and beg him to forgive me?” I asked, my voice painfully small.

“And what are you not going to do?” I didn’t need to see his face to know he was arching his eyebrow.

“Run after him, fall to my knees, and beg him to forgive me,” I replied sadly.

“Darn right. Repeat after me: We do not prostrate ourselves at the feet of men, no matter how hot they may be.”

“You’d do it for G!” I protested.

“Well, yeah. But he’s the love of my life,” Mac replied, as though stating the most obvious fact in the world.

“What if Art was mine, and I just threw it away?” My voice cracked, and I swallowed a sob attempting to burst free.

“Aw, babe,” Mac crooned. “That’s not a thing, and you know it. If it’s meant to be, it will be.”

My heart sank. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

Furious honking erupted on the other end of the line, and Mac cursed a blue streak in response.

“Babe, I have to go. These drivers got their licenses in Kinder Joys, and it brings me nothing but sadness. Don’t do anything rash. Love you. Mean it. Bye!”

The phone went dead in the middle of another fury of honks and yells, and I sighed. I missed my brother so much it hurt, but I didn’t miss Boston-area traffic in the least.

EIGHT

Since I’d grown up in a small coastal town in Massachusetts, I’d expected to feel more or less at home in Banhaven. But more than an ocean separated Portney from my new home.

For starters, the two massive Highland cows lifting their heavy heads over the fence to watch me walk down to the coffee shop as they chewed their cud rhythmically and solemnly were a notable difference. Portney was a bustling tourist town, with streets teeming with cars and people passing through on their way up and down the New England coast. Banhaven was far enough out of the major throughways that the only people in town were residents or holiday-goers, as the locals called the vacationers.

Well, residents, holiday-goers, and me.

I hadn’t been in town long enough to feel like a local, but I wasn’t passing through either, even though I was staying in a B&B like a tourist. For days, I’d felt strangely displaced, like someone’s plus-one at a boisterous event where everyone had known each other for years. Except that I didn’t have someone to hold my hand and introduce me to the crowd.