Page 59 of Surprises on the Scottish Isle

Tara wasn’t complaining, but she’d been expecting his daughter. He was supposed to fetch her after school because she was staying with him for the weekend.

‘Where’s Bonnie?’ she asked, looking past him into the courtyard.

‘Plaguing Cook for some cake,’ Cal said. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘I haven’t got long, but I wanted to ask whether you’d mind not mentioning anything to Bonnie about us. Me and you.’ He looked shifty, and Tara immediately suspected something fishy was going on.

She didn’t say anything, waiting for him to elaborate.

‘She’s not taking the move to Portree well and I don’t want to give her anything more to worry about. Can she get to know you better, before we tell her that we are…?’

‘What?’

‘Dating.’

‘Is that what we’re doing?’

‘If you want. We’ve not talked about it and I completely understand if you don’t want a relationship with me, after what I did. If I could turn the clock back, I would.’

Tara placed a hand on his arm and smiled into his eyes. ‘No, you wouldn’t – because you wouldn’t have Bonnie. You told me that yourself.’

‘But all those wasted years…’

She shrugged and dropped her hand. ‘Who says we would have stayed together?’

‘True,’ he conceded.

‘Let’s take this one step at a time, shall we? And of course I won’t say anything to Bonnie.’

‘Thank you. Ah, talk of the devil. Here she is!’

Bonnie bounced into the studio, all pigtails and knobbly knees. ‘Dad, you said I can help Tara. Did you mean it?’ She turned to Tara. ‘Can I?’

‘Absolutely! I’m going to show you how to make incy wincy plates. And if we’ve got time, cups and saucers.’

Bonnie squealed and leapt up and down. ‘I want to be a doll’s house maker when I grow up,’ she declared.

Cal laughed. ‘I thought you wanted to be a felt picture maker?’

‘I can do both, can’t I?’

‘You can do whatever you want to do, be whatever you want to be,’ her father said, and the love in Cal’s eyes brought tears to Tara’s.

‘Come on, you,’ she said to the little girl. ‘I’ve got to make a whole load of these before teatime.’

‘Is Tara having tea with us?’ Bonnie asked Cal.

‘If she’d like.’

Bonnie pleaded with her, ‘Please say yes. Dad can be so boring.’

‘Thanks!’ Cal pulled a face.

‘Sometimes he falls asleep in the chair. And he snores.’

‘Does he now?’ Tara smirked.

‘I do not.’

She smiled at him over Bonnie’s head and mouthed. ‘You do.’

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