Page 55 of Surprises on the Scottish Isle

All those wasted years, all that heartache. ‘How is he now?’

‘Better. He still has his down days, but that’s all they are – days.’

She had to ask. ‘Yvaine?’

Shame flared in his eyes. ‘After I broke up with you, I went off the rails a bit. It wasn’t serious, until it became very serious.’ He pulled a face. ‘But I wouldn’t be without Bonnie. She means everything to me.’

The honesty in his eyes made her heart melt, and the last remaining brick in the wall she’d built around it to keep all those broken pieces together, tumbled.

And that was when Tara kissed him.

It was only a brief flutter of her lips against his and she didn’t linger long enough for him to react before she was out of the car and running towards the boathouse. But when she opened the door and slipped inside, she couldn’t help glancing back.

Cal had a smile on his face.

Chapter 16

And so it began… Maybe Tara should have paused to consider what she was doing, but as it had been pointed out, both she and Cal were young (early thirtieswasstill young, wasn’t it?) and single. The connection they’d once had was still there. It was love on her part, and although she wasn’t sure he still loved her, he’d told her he wished he’d never let her go, so she clung to that, even though it might be foolish.

Tara also thought she must be mellowing as she grew older. What had once been black and white, now had more shades of grey than the waters of the loch on a rainy day.

And hadn’t she made enough mistakes of her own? Poor Dougie, he hadn’t deserved to have her for a wife. But the past was the past, and the future was there to be moulded into something bright and new, if only she dared.

Tara had found the courage to kiss Cal, however fleeting the kiss had been, and Cal appeared to have found the courage to ask her out.

It wasn’t a date, as such. More of an ‘I fancy taking a hike to The Old Man of Storr, would you like to join me?’ type of date.

Cal told her it was the most famous and busiest mountain on the island. Although they wouldn’t be going right to the top, because that would involve crampons, helmets and proper climbing equipment, the average walker could get to the base of it relatively easily and still enjoy fantastic views.

That had been Cal’s sales pitch.

However, if Tara had realised beforehand quite how high it was and quite how unfitshewas, she mightn’t have agreed to go with him.

The day had started easily enough, although getting up at four a.m. to be on the road by four thirty hadn’t beenthateasy.

‘Remind me, why the ungodly hour?’ she’d asked when she climbed into the passenger seat of his car, her eyes heavy with sleep and her limbs having not yet woken up properly.

‘Because it gets really busy. It’ll be better to get there early for the parking.’

Tara yawned. ‘I need a coffee.’

‘I’ve brought a flask. And some BLTs.’

‘What time did you get up?’ Tara was impressed, even if she did think Cal was off his rocker.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said, his eyes on the road.

‘Too excited?’ she teased.

‘Something like that.’

There wasn’t much more talk for the next half an hour or so, until Cal indicated left and drove onto the car parking area, and even then, Tara didn’t have a great deal to say. She was too busy just enjoying being with him.

They’d fallen back into the easy way they used to have with one another, an ease she’d once taken for granted, and hope flared inside her. Maybe they did have a future together after all.

But there wasn’t time to think about that now, because when they exited the car and began walking up a gravel track, Tara got her first proper look at where they were headed and groaned.

‘Are we going upthere?’ ‘Up there’ was a huge lump of bare rock turrets towering above them.

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