By the time Jen’s belly was distended with perfect hash browns and homemade bread slathered with honey, Leith must have introduced—or reintroduced—her to half the town.
Sue McCurdy and her breakfast companion watched all the exchanges, and as Jen rose to leave, Sue’s friend gave Jen a slow nod that might have actually bordered on approval.
Chapter
8
Jen and Leith left the Kafe together, exiting into a brilliant morning. Sun sparkled through the thick tree boughs that draped themselves over the main street, their massive trunks tucked behind the old buildings. Jen squinted, imagining the storefronts filled with merchandise, their signs lit, and tourists ambling up and down the sidewalks. It filled her with such purpose, with such hope, that she smiled.
Leith stood next to her at the corner, hands in his back pockets. An unspoken, comfortable companionship laced them together. She tried to recall feeling this way ten years ago, but they’d been different people then, all nerves and excitement, completely oblivious to anything beyond that day, that moment.
A car slowly rolled past; the driver, a man with two children whom Leith had introduced her to, honked politely and called out a farewell, adding a “Good luck with the games” to Jen. She’d been here three days now and no one had wished her that.
Then it hit her, what Leith had just done.
She turned to him. “Thank you.”
He shrugged and threw her a sideways grin. “Not exactly the first date I’d have normally picked, but the eggs were good.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She touched him without thinking, her fingers sliding around the firm warmth of his forearm. There was power under that skin, as well as a generosity and a kind soul that she’d thought she understood, but really had only just begun to uncover. It made her heart hurt, to wonder about the man he’d become, to think about what she’d once given up.
Regret was the ugliest feeling in the world.
He winked, gently tugging his arm from her grip. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” He started to cross the street in loping strides. “If they start to see you as the Jen that knows this place, that cares about it, and not just a big-city girl swooping in to shake up their town and then leave, they’ll listen. They may not push back so hard. And they’ll definitely come to the games to see what you’ve done, when so many of them haven’t gone in years.”
“Who was the woman sitting with Sue?”
“Vera Kirkpatrick. Town council. She was watching you the whole time.”
“Thank you,” she said again, which was answered by yet another one of his shrugs. She couldn’t decide if he really was denying his actions, or if he honestly thought they were no big deal.
The Kafe door pinged across the street and she watched Aimee and Ainsley exit and head in the opposite direction, toward the Thistle.
“You raised her right, little sis.” Behind her, so close, Leith’s voice had gone deep and soft. “The years here have been good to Aimee. You can see that, right?”
Her sister and niece disappeared around the two-pump gas station, their heads bent together, talking.
“Yes,” Jen replied. “But—” She cut herself off. She understood what he was saying with a few carefully placed words: that Aimee was an adult and could take care of herself. But Jen also knew Aimee forward and back. With that woman, there was a wild tornado inside, constantly trying to get out. And when it busted free, take cover.
Jen drew a deep, deep breath, loving the scent of this place, how she could almost smell the nearby lake between the breezes. If she remembered correctly, the central park was just over that little stone footbridge spanning the creek, beyond those thick hedgerows. She pointed. “Does the park still look the same?”
“Uh.” His small laugh sounded strangely uncomfortable. “Yeah. Sorta.”
Well, now she had to look. “You coming?”
He twisted to glance back at his truck, taking up half the small parking lot just behind the Kafe. “Don’t you have, you know, work to do?” He gestured to the bulge of her phone in her pocket. The thing was, for once, blissfully silent.
“Let me think.” And she did. The best events captured the perfect atmosphere and reflected the host’s personality and vision. Sure, so far she’d reorganized what she could, balanced the budget, and made new plans to present to the city council, but there was still something missing. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Crossing the footbridge was like crossing over a line in time. Leith’s feet dragged. They both stopped to gaze over the side to where they’d once had a contest to see who could land the most number of pebbles on that flat, wide rock twenty feet out.
“I totally won that day,” she murmured.
He laughed. “Not how I remember it.”
She waved a hand in front of his face. “Your mind is muddied by all the other girls you brought here to throw rocks. I only have that one day, and it’s still crystal clear.” She tapped her temple with two fingers. “I kicked your ass.”
Stepping off the bridge, she turned into the park. Still exactly how she remembered it, with the gravel path following the stream, circling around the gazebo where bands had sometimes played on summer nights, and ending at the playground near the edge of the trees. There was, however, one big addition.
“Hold on . . . what is this?” She left the path and crossed the grass. Behind her, Leith groaned.
In the center of the open space, a caber—an implement thrown during the Highland Games made of a tree trunk carved into a round pole nineteen or so feet long—had been tilted onto two iron cradles, displayed for all to see. For people to set up their picnic blankets around, for kids to slam into when playing Freeze Tag. A little plaque nailed to a post declared Leith MacDougall, Gleann Highland Games All-Around Champion.
The first time Aunt Bev had taken her to the Highland Games and Jen had watched these huge men throwing the cabers, she’d laughed and hadn’t understood the point. Then she’d met Leith and had gone to the games the subsequent years with him and his father, where Mr. MacDougall had explained the rules of throwing a caber. The athlete held the narrower end of the caber while balancing the rest straight up in the air, then he took off on a run, flipped the giant pole end over end, and hoped the thing landed at twelve o’clock in relation to his body. Once she understood the heavy athletics’ rules and history, she’d loved them.
“Where’d they get the caber?” she asked.
When she turned around, Leith was staring off into the trees, face all scrunched up and looking supremely—gloriously—uncomfortable. So something did faze him, and it was this kind of attention.
“It was mine,” he said, looking everywhere but at Jen. “Well, it was Da’s. When I stopped competing I didn’t know what to do with it, and Chris took it and gave it to Mayor Sue. She had this built.”
“Well, I can understand that,” she said in mock seriousness. “I mean, the huge billboard out on 6 wasn’t nearly enough.”
“You can stop now.”
“Do people come here to, like, lay flowers and stuff?”
“No, really. Stop.” He was desperately trying not to smile, and failing, which pleased her immensely. Because behind his eyes she saw something else—some old pain she couldn’t begin to name. She remembered what he’d admitted last night: that he felt bad, every day, for leaving Gleann. But there was more to it; she could tell. He fought it, glossed over it, and she realized she was dying to know what it was. Dying to help him through it.