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Just thinking about the interaction with Lachlan today outside the barn has me frowning in the small twin bed in the guestroom I’m occupying, and even hours later, after a full day of work and fruitless attempts at conversation with my would-be grandmother at dinner—I’m still flustered when I think about it. I have never been the type of person to let someone get the best of me, and I can’t for the life of me determine why it’sLachlanwho seems to have found all the right buttons to press to make me mute with irritation. I don’t even reallyknowthe guy. Especially since he’s done his best to makehimself scarce since that day outside Loch Land. Not that I’ve beenlookingfor him or anything.

I saw him again later coming out of the house, not missing the smirk he shot at me when he took in my frazzled state after I’d finally managed to complete the chores I’d volunteered for. He silently regarded my wild hair, which had turned frizzy after all my sweating, a maddening quirk of his brow that was loaded with all the thinly veiled insults I just knew he wanted to give. I still can’t decide if him striding past me without a word was a better or worse outcome.

Better, I tell myself.Definitely better.

I don’t know why I can’t sleep tonight; I could blame the slightly uncomfortable mattress that feels like it hasn’t hosted a body in years, or the racing thoughts pinging around my skull surrounding my precarious family situation, or even the dick of a farmhand I have to actively not think of—but strangely, the most predominant thing that keeps me from closing my eyes is the all-encompassing feeling of failure. It’s been a week now, seven whole days, and I’m not one step closer to learning anything about my dad that I didn’t know before.

There have been moments when Finlay has started talking about his son, but every instance earns him a sharp glare from his wife, and he is always quick to fall silent after. It’s so frustrating that I don’t even knowwhythey won’t talk about him. Even more so that I had every opportunity to ask my dad when he was alive and yet never did simply because I was afraid of that sad look he got whenever he mentioned his home in Scotland.

What could have possibly happened to make Rhona want to forget she had a son?

After several more minutes of tossing and turning, I can’t take itanymore. I swing my feet over the side of the bed, moving to the window to get some air. I try the latch, but it doesn’t budge. I notice when I lean closer that the thing is rusted with age—probably hasn’t been opened in years. Great. I grab for it again and pull with all my might, doing nothing but working myself up into a warmer state as exertion floods through my limbs.

“Fucking hell,” I mutter, glaring at the window.

Can nothing go my way this week?

I rattle the window like a toddler having a tantrum, but quietly, still not wanting to wake anyone with my bout of insomnia. I can’t imagine how ridiculous I must look right now. I’m sure Lachlan would love to make fun of me for it. I throw up my hands after a few seconds with a frustrated huff, craving water now that I’ve worked myself into a sweat—maybe even alcohol if I can properly raid the cabinets. I shove my feet into my worn slippers and grab my robe from the old wooden rocking chair in the corner, wrapping it tightly around myself.

I’m still muttering obscenities at the window that hasn’t really done anything wrong but is the perfect victim of my misplaced ire, and when I start to shuffle out of my room, I hear a softclickfollowed by an eerie creak, and when I turn back, the window is cracked open slightly, the two panes parted down the middle and pushed outward as chilled air starts to make its way in.

Huh.

I move to the window once more, finding the latch just as rusted and stiff as it was before, but now it’s pulled all the way back. I stare at it for a moment, my sleep-deprived brain thrown for a loop, finally shaking my head and rationalizing that I must have loosened it with all the frantic tugging. Maybe the universe just decided to throw mea bone. I let the cold air wash over me, breathing it in deep and letting it refresh my mind.

Okay, I think.Drink. Then bed.

I pull the window closed but don’t latch it so as not to risk it getting stuck again, quietly making my way down the stairs. The last thing I need is to wake up Rhona and have to face her while she’s tired when she already barely tolerates me.

I’m only a few steps from the kitchen when I hear the voices, momentarily frozen by the hushed tones coming from the open doorway. Almost like my thoughts of my grandmother manifested her presence.

“—been nothing but cold to the lass since she arrived, Rhonnie. She’s your blood!”

“She’s not a MacKay,” I hear mygrandmothersay. “Not really. Duncan gave her the name, but that doesn’t make her ours.”

Something squeezes in my chest, wrapping around my heart like a vise, and I know I should back away, that this is a conversation I don’t want to hear, but I can’t seem to make my feet move.

“Are you willing to push away the only part of our Duncan we have left over something so foolish, love? We lost our boy.” Finlay’s voice is low and mournful. “We don’t want to lose her too.”

I can’t help it; I take that final step that allows me to peer around the doorframe and into the dimly lit kitchen—enough light from the small lamp in the corner to see the harshness in Rhona’s features when she answers, “Aye, we lost our boy. We lost Duncan the day he walked out of this house, and I’m not interested in anything he left behind.”

Finlay shakes his head, opening his mouth to say more but seeming to think better of it as he stalks toward the back door to escapeto the screened-in porch just beyond. Rhona stands resolutely by the counter, a hard set to her jaw and pure, unadulterated anger in her eyes that tells me she meant every word.

The crushing grief swells up in me all at once—grief for my father, for this family, forme—and I feel it piling up inside my chest like water, filling my lungs like I’m drowning. The pounding in my head is a living, throbbing thing, and I struggle to take in air, the feelings in my chest needing to get out, to gosomewhere—needing toescape, and I—

The crashing sound of glass breaking startles all three of us, a small pile of shards now on the floor where the remnants of a cup lay in pieces, seeming to have fallen from the counter of its own will. I can’t help the quiet gasp that escapes me, and I don’t miss the way Rhona’s head swivels to meet the sound, her eyes so like mine connecting with my gaze and holding it. Her lips part, genuine surprise in her features, but no remorse, I note. Her eyes flick from the broken cup back to me, her mouth closing as she seems to lose the battle of finding something to say for herself. Maybe thereisnothing to say for herself. Not in her mind.

And I realize all at once what a mistake this was.

I turn on my heel and rush back up the stairs, gulping in lungfuls of air as I stare at the small, cold room that I’m realizing has nothing for me. It takes me only a second to begin packing my things, to start throwing on clothes. In the entire twenty minutes it takes me to do so, no one comes after me up those stairs.

Not even when I walk out the front door.

It’s silly to be here, and I know that. As dangerous as the cove is supposed to be during the day, I can only imagine it’s more so at night.I can practically hear Lachlan’s voice in my head telling me how stupid I am, and it’s strange how a flicker of disappointment rushes through me at the thought of him, but for what, I can’t even pinpoint. I clutch my father’s urn in my hands as I watch the gentle lapping of the waves, knowing that I have to do this, regardless of who owns the land or how stupid it might be.

“I’m sorry,” I say to the air, imagining that maybe my dad is listening. “I tried. I really did.” I take a deep breath in through my nostrils, trying to quell the urge to cry. I can feel the traitorous prickling in my eyes, and I wipe away the lone offender on the back of my hand. “I wish you had told me more,” I tell my dad. “I wish I had asked more questions.” I tilt my head back to the sky, blinking rapidly. “I wish you hadn’t left mealone.”

The sky is clear and brightly lit with twinkling stars, and sitting in the quiet, I can feel the beauty of this place, and I wonder for the umpteenth time what would have caused my dad to leave it. There’s a buzzing energy here, like a presence you can almost touch—almost as if the land itself is listening to my sad little soliloquy.