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“Mam is right over there. She’ll step in if I need help. Ye ken she will.”

“But she has Merry,” I protested.

“Merry, who is a sweet little lad who will help us if we need it. Off ye go. Ye’ll be back in nae time, nae doubt.”

With a grateful smile, I ran out the door, hot on Art’s heels. I stopped to watch him walk down the street, my heart hammering in my chest, blinking back tears. I clenched and unclenched my fists. Everything in me screamed that I should run after him to fix what I’d broken. I could apologize. Grovel. Promise to never let her out of my sight again. Or—I stopped and took a deep breath—I could do what he’d asked and let him manage his own emotions and not assume that one fight meant we were done.

There was at least one field with cows to the north of the town and three to the south, where Art was heading. Even though I was fairly certain it was the wrong direction, if I confirmed my hunch that Viv wasn’t in the one up north, maybe by the time I looped back around, Art would be himself again, and we could have a somewhat rational conversation about what had just happened. I wiped my sweaty hands on my apron and stuffed them in my pockets.

How had I ended up here, with my heart in my throat, looking for a child I hadn’t known just a few weeks earlier? How had my escape to Scotland for a quiet time to collect myself and figure out what I wanted most in life become absolute chaos?

I’d imagined myself journaling and taking long walks across the heather as I pondered life’s big questions. Instead, most mornings I barely had time for a cup of the special tea Fiona had blended for me before Merry started lobbing questions, barely giving me time to answer before reloading. When he occasionally stopped to catch his breath, Viv would jump in to complain about homework.

And while I adored long meandering conversations with no beginning or end with Art, and I could not get enough of the feel of his hands on my skin, or his body wrapped around mine, all the time we spent together left precious little solitude for me to figure out what I really wanted out of life.

Letting out a frustrated groan, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed.

Mac answered on the first ring. “What’s wrong, sis? I thought today was the grand opening?”

“Everything’s fine,” I answered reflexively. Then I stopped. “Well, no, nothing is fine. The grand opening is going well, but Viv is missing, I think Art and I had our first fight, and I don’t know how to feel about any of it. Tell me how I feel. You’re usually good at that.”

Mac laughed. “I can’t tell you how you feel from the other side of the world. You know that. What’s going on?”

I threw my free hand in the air and groaned again. “I don’t even know where to start. I left the States to get away from chaos, and I seem to have landed myself in even more.”

Mac made a sympathetic noise. “Is all chaos the same?”

“Obviously not,” I replied. “Until today, I would have said this was happy chaos. I’m not so sure anymore.”

“What happened? Tell your big bro everything,” Mac said. I heard him settling back in his chair to give me his full attention, and I took a deep breath.

“We had a fight,” I explained.

“So you said. About what?”

“About Viv. She went missing during the grand opening event, and when I told Art not to worry because she goes for a walk most afternoons, he freaked out. He got on my case about not watching her more closely. She’s fifteen, Mac! At that age, you and I were out every day, all day, and nobody ever knew what we were doing.”

He laughed a little bitterly. “It might have been better for both of us if they had.”

I sighed. “Maybe. But still, this is a tiny town. Just how much trouble could she possibly get into here?”

“Are you really asking, or trying to defend yourself for not telling him?”

“Stop being so insightful,” I grumbled.

“Don’t call a therapist if you don’t want insights,” he teased.

“I didn’t call a therapist. I called my brother,” I snapped back.

“Same difference in this instance,” he drawled. “But even with my big bro hat on, I can tell there’s more to it than what happened today.”

“Maybe. But I thought I had resolved it all the other night with Art. I don’t know. He wants honesty from me, but that’s just so hard.”

“Of course it is!” Mac cried. “You spent twenty years not being honest with yourself or your husband. That’s a long habit to break. It’s not going to happen overnight just because a hot dude asks nicely. No matter how well he kisses.”

“I was honest with myself,” I protested.

“Were you? Really?” he asked gently. “Did you even know yourself well enough to be honest with yourself?” When I didn’t reply, he kept going. “I think you made yourself small so you wouldn’t upset Jim for so long that you lost yourself along the way. And now you need to find yourself again.”