Page 58 of Surprises on the Scottish Isle

It probably wouldn’t have mattered so much that Yvaine had also beenCal’ssecond if he’d been honest with her from the start, but Cal’s mum telling him that Yvaine probably knew he hadn’t loved her the way a man should love his wife – with all his heart – had made him re-evaluate their relationship.

And now here she was, second again, Lenn’s ex-wife having taken the number one slot.

But Lenn was in his mid-thirties, so it was inevitable there would have been other women before Yvaine.

His inner voice piped up,There wasn’t another woman before Tara.

Then it occurred to him that Mhairi asking him about Yvaine’s move to Portree wasn’t changing the subject at all. The conversation was still about him and Tara.

He had a feeling that the conversation, for him at least, wouldalwaysbe about him and Tara, because it always had been.

Chapter 17

When Cal arrived to pick up his daughter the following Friday, Bonnie gave him a quick hug, then scampered down the path and into the car. Cal made to follow her, but his ex-wife held him back.

‘You’re going to have to step up to the mark and look after Bonnie for a while,’ Yvaine announced.

‘Excuse me?’ It wasn’t a question as such, more of an expression of disbelief. ‘Are you accusing me ofnotstepping up to the mark?’ He checked that Bonnie was in the car and not within earshot.

‘Of course not.’

‘Good, because you’re the one who decided what “the mark” would be. Every other weekend and anytime between when you fancy a break from her.’

Yvaine flushed. ‘It’s not like that. You make it sound as though I dump her on you whenever the mood takes me.’

Cal glowered before dropping his eyes to the ground. Maybe he was being unfair, but she made it sound like he didn’t pull his weight where Bonnie was concerned. Which was totally untrue, of course, as he would have Bonnie all day, every day, if he could.

Yvaine’s stony expression softened a little. ‘She breaks up from school at the end of next week and my parents have to go to Aunty Jacqueline’s tomorrow because she’s not been well. They could be there a while,’ she explained, somewhat more reasonably.

Jacqueline was older than Yvaine’s mum by several years and had lost her husband recently, Cal recalled. Yvaine’s parents usually looked after Bonnie during the school holidays while Yvaine was at work, and although Cal helped with his daughter whenever possible, he knew how difficult she sometimes found it to juggle work and childcare.

‘Do you want me to have her every day?’ he asked. He hoped it wouldn’t be a problem, but even if it was, Cal would find a way around it because Yvaine and Bonnie would be moving into Lenn’s house in Portree soon, and Cal wanted to spend as much time as possible with his daughter before that happened.

He knew how upset she would be, and he intended to be there for her for as long as she needed him. With so many imminent changes to her life, he vowed to be the one constant she could rely on.

Yvaine said, ‘Not every day, because I’ve arranged to work part-time for the duration, but I want to supervise the renovations. Lenn has given me free rein to do what I like with the house.’

This last was announced with satisfaction, and Cal gritted his teeth. He knew he shouldn’t take it as a dig, but he couldn’t help it. When they were married, they’d lived in rented accommodation on the estate (hell, he still lived in rented accommodation on an estate, albeit a different one), and she’d always resented it. As long as he’d had a roof over his head and enough food on the table, where he lived hadn’t bothered him unduly. It had bothered Yvaine, though. She thought she deserved more, and perhaps she did.

‘So, you want me to look after Bonnie, not because you have to work, but because you want to choose whatever shade of white you’re going to paint the living room?’ He couldn’t resist biting back.

‘It’s a bit more involved than that.’ Yvaine pursed her lips. ‘We’re having an extension built on the back – a sunroom, if you must know – and we’re opening up the kitchen, dining and living room, so it will be one large family space.’

Cal bet Lenn wasn’t thrilled with that idea. Lenn didn’t strike him as a ‘family space’ kind of guy. He never appeared to be entirely at ease around Bonnie, which got Cal’s back up. Didn’t the man realise that Yvaine and Bonnie came as a package? Or was Lenn hoping that Cal would be willing to ‘step up to the mark’ more often so he could have Yvaine all to himself?

Even as he had those thoughts, Cal recognised that he might be reading more into the situation and Lenn’s feelings towards Bonnie than was warranted. He suspected he might feel this way about any chap Yvaine took up with.

As he returned to the car and an impatient Bonnie, he wondered how Yvaine would feel if he became romantically involved with someone. Would her nose be put out of joint at the thought of Bonnie spending time with another woman whilst she was being looked after by Cal?

Wait up…Ifhe became romantically involved? He already was. There was no doubt about it. Not after those kisses at the top of The Old Man of Storr. Or the kisses he and Tara had shared several times since. They’d been to the pub together for a drink and had taken another walk, this one along the shores of the loch, so not nearly as strenuous. And on both occasions, kissing had been involved.

Remembering them made Cal burn. Each time, he’d been forced to hold himself in check, scared to give in to his desire. If they made love, there would be no going back. And the reason he was scared was twofold. One, he didn’t want to risk his heart being broken again, although admittedly, the first time he’d had no one else to blame but himself; and two, he’d promised Bonnie that he wouldn’t have a girlfriend. A promise he feared he’d already broken. Which was why he needed to speak to Tara and warn her before she inadvertently mentioned anything to his daughter.

He’d have to take things nice and slow when it came to Bonnie and Tara. It was great that Bonnie liked her, so that was a good starting point. If he built on that, his daughter mightn’t object when he told her he and Tara were an item. All he had to do was to ensure Bonnie didn’t find out until then.

Tara laid out some white polymer clay and a selection of circular cutters ranging from 0.75 to 1.5 cm in diameter. She’d also laid out a thin acrylic block to use as a thickness guide, and a variety of tools to form the edges around the tiny plates she was about to make. Then she put out paints and fine-tipped brushes. All she needed now was for Bonnie to ‘give her a hand’.

What she got was Cal.

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