“Thank you.” Jen desperately tried to keep a handle on her voice.
“Hey, you,” Leith replied. “Quite the morning.”
She knew he was trying to pull a smile from her, but it wouldn’t work. Not now. Her mind was racing.
Loughlin adjusted his pants as he turned and started to hobble back across his field. His insurance company would be getting a call from Sue McCurdy’s office, that was for sure.
“You okay?” she asked Leith as he pressed his butt and lower back against the pole and stood half bent, hands on his thighs.
“Oh, sure. I’m Atlas, baby.”
She’d never allowed any man to call her baby. He was mostly joking, but there was an easy warmth in his expression, and it didn’t rankle her at all. In fact, it gave her a little island of peace in all this.
“Any reason why the competition can’t go on?” he asked.
She looked around. Everyone was safe . . . but everything else was a disaster. The heritage tent—the tables, books, and photos, and all the kilts for display and sale were strewn everywhere. Shea and a bunch of men in shorts and cleats were burrowing under the remains of her tent and mourning the sad, sad death of some fine bottles of whiskey. Strings of fairy lights made a minefield of the lawn, and most of the tables in the eating area had been overturned or splintered. The athletics field—thank you, Spirit of Mr. MacDougall—was untouched. There really wasn’t any reason the guys couldn’t get to throw around the big stuff.
“No,” she told Leith with a great sigh. “Keep it going. For the love of God, we’ve got to give these people something to do today.”
Duncan came back with the shovels, passing them out, and Leith gave instructions on where to dig, how far down to go. Jen wandered away from the noise and pulled out her phone.
That early on a Saturday, it would be a miracle if her tent contact would be available. He wasn’t. She left a frantic message, knowing there was very little he could do, being that he was located close to New York, but it was worth a try. In the meantime she could help the kilt makers and heritage people dig out their wares. Rolling up her sleeves, she waded into their tent and helped pull out some tartans and books from the dirt. Many were unsalvageable, stamped with massive hoofprints.
Aimee and Ainsley came over. “What can we do?” her sister asked.
Jen could hear Shea swearing up a colorful storm just as a lot of other locals and attendees were starting to mill about. She told her sister and niece, “You guys stay here and help the heritage people. Too much broken glass over by Shea. Don’t want Ainsley to get hurt. I’ll go to her.”
By the looks of it, Shea didn’t really need the help. Pretty much every rugby player had come over to sift through the broken tent and salvage what bottles were whole and unbroken. Whenever they found one, they raised it above their heads and bellowed like a pirate finding treasure. Hot Rugby Guy was still there, but instead of staring at Shea or attempting to flirt with her as some of the others were hopelessly doing, he was helping to methodically pick through the debris.
Someone tapped Jen’s shoulder. She turned to find Chris holding his fiddle case under one arm. He looked pissed.
“We can’t play today.”
“What?”
He sneered at the dirt, kicked a chunk with his sneaker. “This morning the sheriff took Scott in for questioning about the Loughlin barn fire.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth. Neither she nor Leith had had the chance to tell Olsen last night about Scott’s potato chip hat, but when the sheriff’s office had called her last week to inquire about what she’d seen in the back of the barn that first day, she’d told them about the items. Maybe Olsen had seen it last night and had put two and two together on his own. If Scott had caused the fire, he’d called himself out on stage.
“So unless you can find another drummer in the next couple of hours . . .” Chris said.
Fuck. She bit at the curse and it tasted nasty. “Maybe you can play solo? The crowd loved you last night. You were undeniably the star.”
He paled. “I don’t know. I’ve never done that. I sort of need the other guys.”
“Please. I’m begging you.”
“Let me think about it.” He wandered off, already looking like that answer would be no.
Great. Absolutely great.
For the next half hour, Jen picked glass out of the grass. Her phone rang. Jogging away from the noise, anxious to hear what solution the tent company had for her, she picked up the call without checking to see who it was.
“Jen.” Slight New York accent with a strong twinge of desperation and disappointment. She knew that voice like the sound of her own alarm clock.
“Tim, hi. Listen, can I call you back in, say, an hour?” Even that timeline was being hopeful.
Her boss cleared his throat. A different phone rang in the background and she recognized the tone as that from the Bauer Events office. “I really don’t think you have an hour,” he said. “The vacation’s over a few days early. I need you back in New York. This afternoon.”
Chapter
23
To say Jen’s heart sank would have been an insult to gravity. The great muscle in her chest that had been treating her so well over the past two weeks plummeted with cheetah speed.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Sue hurrying over, frantically waving her arms to get Jen’s attention. Though it killed her, she held up a finger to the mayor and headed around Shea’s tent, away from the athletics field, and into the parking lot.
“I’m in northern New Hampshire, Tim, working on some personal stuff. There’s no way I can get back by tonight.”
“Not tonight. This afternoon. And if you hit the road in the next hour, it should be plenty of time. Umberto Rollins goes off at eight and the thing is a giant clusterfuck. You need to come back to fix it, or we’ll lose one of our biggest clients. And I might have to reconsider you for a partnership.”
She sank onto the bumper of some stranger’s car.
“What’s happened?”
“I’ll tell you what’s happened. Rollins’s assistant went to the site first thing this morning to check on setup for tonight’s event. I thought you two were on the same page, that you were on board with what they wanted.”
Jen gasped as a flash of red crossed her eyes. “I was. I mean, I am.” She ground fingers into her eyelids. “Gretchen.”
“Damn straight it was Gretchen. Changed pretty much everything they didn’t want changed.”
Save for her mother, Jen didn’t think she’d ever been this furious with anyone. “I didn’t pass the buck,” she told her boss. “I’ve been keeping in touch with her, checking up on her almost daily.”
“I know you didn’t pass the buck. You did what good managers do; you managed. But now it’s on your head to fix.” He was an excellent businessman, a hard-ass when he needed to be, and her idol for a very long time. When she’d first met him, she’d had visions about the kind of worker she wanted to be and the heights she needed to reach.
His voice dipped low. “It’s bigger than just the setup. Rollins said he’s being courted by Morris Events, and he’s threatened to walk if you personally don’t come back and fix this.”
The very first thing that came to her mind was: Did anyone die? Was this really that serious?
This world that Bauer described—the frantic city business life she’d been living for six years in which life or death seemed to hang on table seating or napkin selection or the guest list—had felt so distant while she’d been here in the mountains, even though it was a world she’d hunted with fervor, and then purposely built up all around her. Suddenly she was dunked back into it, and it felt bracing and unwelcome.
“I understand,” she heard herself say, but it sounded so far away.
“And it goes without saying you need to fire Gretchen.”
Why can’t you just fire her now? Jen nearly asked, then realized that Tim was entirely correct. This was Jen’s mist
ake, Jen’s assistant, and it was her responsibility.
The little phone felt like a brick in her hand.
Leith’s voice streamed out from the PA system. “Ladies and gentlemen, despite what has happened here today, these talented athletes are at your disposal. The throwing events will go on.”
Enthusiastic applause followed. Some people who had started to fold up their blankets now snapped them out again. The light tone to Leith’s voice was bittersweet, because his excitement was the people’s, and even though he’d soon be gone from Gleann, the town would carry on without him. It would carry on without her, too.
She was exceedingly proud of what she’d done here—despite the cow disaster. It had started out as a favor—a bit of a concession, done out of a sense of responsibility and the desire to pay people back who deserved it. But it had since turned into much, much more—a large, warm presence in her heart, and she wasn’t even talking about Leith. She couldn’t give it a name, didn’t know where it fit into her bigger life, but she knew she wasn’t quite ready to walk out on it yet.
There had to be a way for her to straighten things out with Rollins remotely and stay in Gleann for the afternoon.
“Jen?” Tim demanded.
Her head dropped, her eyes closing tightly. On the back of her eyelids was imprinted the image of her mom throwing her college applications in the trash and dumping coffee grounds over them. Telling her there was no way she could afford to send Jen to college, not knowing how much Jen had secretly saved herself. Sneering as Jen lugged her sole suitcase out the front door for the last time. Saying to her, You’ll be back. You’re just wasting your time. The world is made so people like us fail. You’ll see. You think you’re different, but you’re not. You’ll end up right where I am someday.
Jen was so close to snatching the gold ring. She could not fail. She would not get fired. That was something that happened to her mother, not her. If she stayed in Gleann and got knocked back a notch in her upward climb, what would that say about her? Would that put her on the path to failure? Would staying here, in the very place she’d left ten years ago in order to begin that climb, start the transformation into someone who settled for the small instead of going for the big?
She broke out in an icy sweat. Oh, God, she felt sick. So conflicted. So unsure.
“Jen. Are you there?”
There was so much more she needed to do here. But her future—the big, bright one she’d been striving for—glowed from a city six hours to the south.
“Will I see you later today?” Tim was starting to get angry, and disappointment from her mentor felt like coffee grounds dumped over her dreams.
If she went back to New York, she’d let down Aimee and Sue and—oh God—Leith. She’d be leaving right in the middle of a crisis. But if she stayed, she’d be right back where she started, and that scared her more than anything.
She swallowed around a throat laced with needles. Pushing off the car, she gazed up at the games. At the mess.
“Apparently I am in demand as a stand-up,” came Leith’s chuckle over the PA, and Jen heard rousing, masculine shouts spring up from the athletes, “so here you go . . .”
She refused to crumple. This was a new beginning between her and Leith, she reminded herself. She’d agreed to give them another shot, and that would be relatively easy, what with him moving to Connecticut and her in the city. Look how well they’d done in their brief time in the city last week. They could exist outside of Gleann. Their magic wasn’t limited to this little valley. It had broken free from the links of the past.
But it didn’t mean he wouldn’t be pissed off that she was abandoning the one thing she’d come here purposely to do. She just had to believe he’d understand.
“Yes,” she told Tim, her voice dying. “Yes, I’ll be there.”
* * *
Sue had wandered over to Shea and stood frowning at the mess, her arms folded under those giant boobs wrapped in today’s T-shirt that proclaimed her love for the Isle of Skye. Tomorrow it would be back to the wide range of Syracuse wear, Jen thought numbly. Sue’s back was to her, so Jen skirted around, not ready to face her yet. Instead she headed for Aimee and Ainsley, who were helping the heritage people restack their books and rehang the kilts and scarves and such on the few unbroken racks. T and Lacey were also there, lending a hand.
“Check it out,” Ainsley said with a toothy grin as Jen came up. “Clan Hamilton. Wasn’t that who your Aunt Bev married?”
The Hamilton tartan was similar to MacDougall: lots of red, but a bit more blue and white.
“That’s great, McGee.” Jen’s mind was too thin to think of a witty descriptor.
Aimee stood up, brushing her hands free of dirt and grass. She eyed Jen perceptively. “What’s up?”
“Um . . .”
She idly noticed Leith and the guys had managed to get the fence posts into new holes, but the things were still listing.
“What is it?” Aimee’s voice crossed over into worry.
A buzzing and jangling from Jen’s pocket. The phone had become a fifth limb to her over the years, so why the feel and sound of it surprised her now was more than disconcerting.
Giving Aimee an apologetic look, she saw on the phone screen that it wasn’t her tent contact or Tim again. An unfamiliar number.
Oh God, what? she wanted to scream into it. “Yes?”
“Is this Jen Haverhurst?”
“It is.”
“This is Valley Transportation. I’m calling to tell you the bus you rented to bring in a—what is this? Oh, a bagpipe and drum band—from Mount Caleb has broken down on Route 6. The driver didn’t have your number.”
Great. Wonderful. Perfect. Exactly what today needed.
The pipe band from across the state should have been arriving right about now. She thought the grounds had been a little too quiet between the panic of a loose cow, a barking herding dog, and collapsing tents.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Jen demanded into the phone.
“Uh, well, all my other buses of that size are taken today, but a tow truck is on its way.”
Shit shit shit. “Unless a tow truck is going to tow that thing and everyone inside all the way to Gleann, that doesn’t do me or my musicians any good.”
She ended the call with numb fingers, then turned back around to see that Owen and Melissa had arrived, each shouldering two folding lawn chairs. They and Aimee were staring at Jen.
“What happened?” Aimee asked. Jen told them about the broken-down bus.
Even if she couldn’t stay, she could try to fix this one last thing. A Highland Games needed a pipe and drum band, damn it. “Owen, do you have a big car? Maybe a work truck?” The plumber nodded. “And friends who possibly own similar trucks?”
Owen slid his chairs to the ground. “I hear you and I’m on it. We’ll bring them in, then figure out how the hell to get them back later.”
“I’ll take the Suburban,” Melissa added, and the two of them marched back to the parking lot, phones at their ears.
Jen watched them go with a dull sense of satisfaction. The pipe band would get here, disjointed and very late, throwing off the whole day’s schedule, but what the hell, it wasn’t like the games she’d slaved over during the past two weeks hadn’t already been thrown into a lidless blender and spun on puree.
Aimee narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. “That’s not why you came over here. I know you. What’s going on?”
Jen braced herself, opened her mouth. She’d never told Aimee about the potential promotion because she hadn’t wanted her sister to feel like she was pulling Jen away from anything. She’d wanted Aimee, and Gleann, to feel important—because they were—but she had to bring it out now. She knew full well how it was going to sound, that she was dragging out an excuse to take off. To abandon Aimee for work again, at the worst possible time, when things between them were just starting to get better.
And that’s when Sue walked up. Jen looked at the
phone in her hand. It was one hell of a stone, and she was about to kill two birds with it.
When she was done telling them everything, Aimee just went over to Ainsley, told her to kiss her aunt good-bye, then wordlessly steered her daughter somewhere out of sight.
“I’m sorry,” Jen told Sue, who’d been standing there with her head tilted and lemon-sour lips. Jen couldn’t remain under the weight of that look anymore, so she turned away.
She couldn’t put off telling Leith any longer. Knowing how fast word spread in this town, if she didn’t get over to the athletic field right now, she’d miss her chance.
Ropes of colorful flapping flags divided the onlookers from the big men in the interior field. The athletes had returned to ribbing each other and warming up after their brief landscaping-and-fence-repair interlude. Leith included.
He and Duncan were taking turns jumping up onto a high box. Leith claimed he wasn’t in shape, that he was out of practice and couldn’t do stuff like that anymore, but he looked better even than Duncan. The two stopped to share a laugh, Leith doubling over. As Jen neared, she could make out new lines of sweat trickling down the side of his face. He raised an arm to wipe one cheek against his short sleeve. It pulled the T-shirt free from his kilt, displaying a patch of hard skin. A patch she knew particularly well.
Duncan gave Leith a nudge and pointed to her. Leith’s powerful torso twisted, and when he saw her, he flashed that thrilling grin, the one that said Everything is right with the world.
He met her halfway across the field, his eyes bright. “What’s up? Wait, I know that look. Things aren’t perfect, but everything’ll be fine. No one here cares about the tents. The damn cow will have people talking for months. And I know Scott will probably go to jail and Chris’s band won’t play, but Chris just told me he’s gonna go on solo later this afternoon. The crowd’ll love him—” He stepped back, his face falling. “That’s not it, is it?”
Just rip off the Band-Aid, Haverhurst. The longer she stalled, the worse it was going to be.
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