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Logan and Caelan Jr come running up to me from the vegetable garden having been digging for worms. Showing me what they’ve found, I survey them with a haughty eye.
“I hope you haven’t dislodged my herbs again, lads.”
“No, Mummy!” says Logan, with those shining hazel eyes and all that wild blond hair. Seven years old and already a terrible heartbreaker.
“Mummy, mine’s bigger!” yells Caelan Jr who’s darker with blue eyes, like me.
“I’m sure it is,” I snigger, as they both wiggle their dirty worms in front of me.
They run back off while I watch from the kitchen window as they lob bits of dirt at one another and make a mad scramble to see who can find the longest worms. Gross! Bringing up boys has been an education to say the least since I never knew many boys growing up, going to girls’ schools and all. The male species wasn’t very well represented during my youth, not with Dad’s cronies constantly hanging around. Needless to say, Caelan is a great father to them both and should write the guidebook on bringing up boys. Hence why they’re always doing gross things, because apparently, that’s all boys want to do and we should let them. So long as they let me hose them down at the end of every day, fine.
My phone rings and it’s Soph. I smirk and answer, “Yessss, this is your ladyship speaking.”
“I’m sure it’s your turn to have them. I’m absolutely sure!”
I go to my calendar on the fridge. “Nope, it’s yours. Valentine’s day when you were seeing that chiropodist. Remember? It was half term and I let the kids have a big snowball fight.”
“Ugh, god. Can’t I owe you one?”
“Another one?” I splutter with laughter. “How’s about you take them tonight and I take them any other night. Name it.”
She thinks it through. “Why can’t you be here all year?”
“Cos I’m a super fandango fabricky person and all that.” Plus I need concerts, shows, the cinema, Oxford Street and Harrods; the boys need private school; and Caelan needs his work for the Royals as their Head of Security. (Something about his regular guys’ night with the prince has often screamed that they’re in league on super-secret projects together, but whatever…)
“Oh yeah, and you roped me into running the castle while you keep your dual citizenship.” It’s a joke we share. “Remind me how I got sucked in again? Cos sometimes, in the dead of winter… I mean, it looks pretty right now, but…”
I laugh loudly into the receiver. “You were a wreck. Remember? He’d had you sign a prenup you never even knew about. So you had no money and he was already on his second wife the moment you two got divorced. Right so far?” She sighs loudly. “You needed a home. And well, we let you stay in our annexe while you helped project manage the reno’s since project management is kind of your forte and all.” She sniggers; he paid her quite well for that. But it was a weight off his mind while he split his time between here and London. “So then you found yourself a cottage in the nearby town having fallen in love with the area. And when Caelan asked you to run the castle during spring and autumn, you jumped at it. We allow you to take a lot of holiday days and your kids can play with mine when we’re up here for the holidays, too. Sound about right?”
“Hmm,” she says dreamily, “and it had nothing whatsoever to do with all these tall Viking men that live around here and swan about in their kilts, trekking across hills in all weathers… sometimes needing a warm bed.”
I double over laughing. “Just wait. One day one of them will get you pinned down again.”
“Yeah, which is why I’m calling. Might have found a special one this time…”
“Ugh, well, take them tonight, then name your night.”
“You got yourself a deal!”
After we hang up, I text Caelan right away:Just got us a child-free night!
His response comes quickly:Hell, does that mean I can finally sleep?
Absolutely not!
Hahahaha…
***
Caelan’s been down at the stud farm all day. That’s another of his little hobbies, so when I text him:Kids are now with Soph. Where the hell ru?I see him receive the message, then start replying:Have a surprise here for you. Come down!
I just went past there on the way back here from Soph’s. I grumble and get in the Land Rover, setting off at speed to hopefully find a naked body waiting for me when I get there.
Instead of Caelan laid out in the hay like a human sacrifice awaiting my plunder, I find him and one of his new stable hands still busy at work. The boy is scrubbing down one of the few mares we have here with a ball of hay in his hand. Caelan grins like a loon, wearing his kilt, boots and a surprisingly bright white shirt.
“Why are you looking so shifty?” I ask, walking to him and kissing his mouth.
He tastes like the horses and sweat. It’s a bit high in here tonight.
