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“I’m not your baby sister; I’m your twin!” I protested, sitting up with a grunt to rest my back against the shop counter.

“Five minutes is five minutes, baby,” Mac replied smugly, as he always did.

He’d lorded that handful of minutes over me ever since he’d discovered he’d been born a whole five minutes before I followed, half his size and squalling twice as loudly. The familiar taunt was like a comforting hug.

“I’m serious. Thank you for staying,” I repeated as he sat up and settled himself next to me with far more grace than I had.

Mac and I complemented each other completely and were polar opposites in almost every way that counted.

He moved through life gracefully, with an economy of motion that would have made my old yoga teacher weep with appreciation, while I stumbled my way through like an oversized octopus missing a few critical limbs. He read people like open books, whereas I hadn’t seen my ex-husband’s true colors until a judge had finally shattered the illusion with a firm crack of his gavel.

The judge had barely batted an eye as Jim turned puce and spouted some of the most heinous things I’d ever heard come out of anyone’s mouth. I had been shaken to my core, but Mac hadn’t been the least bit surprised when I’d called him that night to give him the full rundown.

“That tracks” was all he’d said about Jim’s behavior before suggesting we get out of town for a while so I could clear my head. As though a brief jaunt to another country was all it would take to get two decades of toxicity out of my system.

It came as no surprise that Mac had instinctively known that traipsing around Scotland in our ancestors’ footprints would allow me to get back in touch with deeply buried parts of myself. What was shocking was that he hadn’t anticipated I’d fall head over heels in love with the country and a dilapidated shop in a tiny coastal town on the other side of the world, or that I’d spontaneously purchase it.

I was the least impulsive person I’d ever met, which no doubt explained why I kept catching Mac eyeing me as though I’d sprouted a second head and he couldn’t figure out where I’d been hiding it all this time.

“All joking aside, have you figured out a game plan?” Mac asked, casting a dubious eye around the place, pausing an especially long time on the beaten-up old hardwood floor we’d found under the grimy layer of ancient linoleum, instead of the beautiful one I’d hoped for.

My back twinged in protest. While my spirit was undaunted, my body was another issue altogether. “Not yet. For some reason, I keep thinking something floral.”

“Floral? As in a flower shop?” he asked, arching a dubious eyebrow at me. “You? Who can’t keep even the hardiest houseplant alive?”

“Hey!” I protested, swatting his arm half-heartedly, grateful for the distraction. “First, you can’t kill cut flowers.”

Mac laughed.

“And second, I said ‘something floral,’ not ‘a flower shop.’”

He frowned. “What kind of shop is floral but not a flower shop?”

I shrugged. “Beats me. If I knew, I’d have my answer.” My stomach contracted painfully, but I shied away from the feeling that I was not seeing the answer clearly only because I was too scared to look closer.

“Craft shop?” Mac brightened, pleased with his idea. “Pressed flowers are floral!”

Before he could get carried away and start ordering yarn, I shook my head. “There’s a cute one three doors down. They sell craft kits for tourists and general supplies for locals. They even hold regular paint-and-wine nights.”

Mac placed his hands on his cheeks in mock horror and gasped. “Not paint-and-wine nights!”

“Yep. At least it’s not sign-making on reclaimed wood,” I teased, elbowing him gently in the side.

“Ugh,” Mac groaned, dropping his forehead onto his knees. “Don’t remind me. He gave me a new one just before we left. You’ll never guess what it says.”

“Oh! Let me try!” I cried. “‘Live. Laugh. Love.’?” I offered after thinking it over for a minute.

“Please!” Mac looked a little affronted at the suggestion. “That was the first to go up.” He rolled his eyes. “Over our bed,” he added with another groan as he rubbed his forehead tiredly.

“‘Life is short; eat dessert first’?” I ventured.

“Nope.” Mac shook his head dramatically. “Worse.”

My eyes widened. “Worse? Oh, that is bad! ‘Bless this mess’? Oh! I know! ‘Forgive our mess. We’re making memories’!”

Mac pretended to gag. “Stop. Please stop. I can’t. He went with ‘It’s a good day to have a good day.’”

The dismay on his face sent me into a fresh fit of giggles.