Page 43 of Surprises on the Scottish Isle

‘I didn’t string you along.’

‘What else do you call it?’

‘Love. Ilovedyou.’

She noticed the past tense. ‘You couldn’t have loved me that much. You married Yvaine less than a year after you broke up with me.’ Her tone was scathing and bitter.

‘She was pregnant.’

Tara needed a second to process what he’d just said, so she sipped her whisky, stalling for time, her thoughts a jumbled mess. Eventually she asked, ‘Are you telling me you only married her because she was pregnant?’

His sigh came from deep within. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘Did you love her?’

Cal took a mouthful of his drink. ‘I cared for her, but I didn’t love her.’

‘Oh, Cal… Why did you marry her?’

‘I wanted to be a good father. I wanted to be there for my child.’

‘You didn’t have tomarryYvaine to be a good dad.’

‘You don’t understand.’ His tone implied that she couldn’t understand because she didn’t have kids, and she flinched. She didn’t have kids because she hadn’t wanted any withDougie.

She wished she’d realised that before she’d married him. It would have saved them both a lot of heartache. It was safe to say that both she and Cal had made mistakes.

‘I wanted to be there for my son or daughter all day every day, not just every other weekend, or when Yvaine needed a babysitter.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘But that’s exactly what I’ve ended up becoming.’ The look he gave her made her want to weep for him.

The man was hurting. Whether he’d loved Yvaine or not when they’d got married wasn’t the point now. His love for his daughter was.

‘I would like to say I’m sorry that I broke up with you,’ Cal continued, ‘but I’d be lying. Because if we hadn’t split up. I wouldn’t have Bonnie.’ He smiled, a sad little upturn at the sides of his mouth. ‘I am sorry I hurt you, though.’

Tara perched her backside on the arm of a battered leather chair, her legs unsteady. ‘I know you said we were too young, that long-distance relationships never work out, blah-di-blah, but if you loved me as much as you claim to, I don’t understand how you managed to move on so soon.’ It had taken Tara years to move on – if she ever had.

‘I was trying to forget you.’

‘Right there, see, that’s the difference between you and me. I didn’t want to forgetyou.’

His sigh drifted around the room. ‘We can’t do anything about the past. It’s the future we need to think about now. I don’t want any bad feeling between us, Tara.’

‘There won’t be.’ She straightened, squaring her shoulders. ‘We’re adults, we can put it behind us.’

‘Are you sure? Because when I spoke to you outside the pub—’

‘It was the shock. I never expected to see you again, and when I did it brought everything back.’

His eyes searched her face, and it took an effort not to show how raw that heartbreak still was.

She must have hidden it well because he said, ‘Salmon steak?’

‘Go on then, it’ll save me cooking.’

Seeing him in the kitchen, watching him dress the fish with garlic, lemon juice, chilli flakes and a teaspoon of honey, was bittersweet. She’d often watched him cook. He used to enjoy preparing food, and it seemed he still did.

‘Oi, don’t just stand there,’ he instructed. ‘There’s a salad to prepare, and you can cut a couple of slices of that olive bread.’ He pointed a spatula at a loaf-shaped paper bag next to a bowl of fruit. ‘The salad stuff is in the fridge.’

As she washed, chopped and sliced, it was hard to believe that more than ten years had passed since the last time they’d made a meal together. It seemed like yesterday. And a lifetime ago.

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