Page 12 of Finding the One (River Rain #7)

Find the One

Blake

H e’d put my bouquet in a bath of water in the basin.

Alasdair Wallace, the usually filthy, always rambunctious boy who’d turned into the bantering, life-consuming man, thought to put a bunch of pretty flowers in water.

My flowers.

The ones my sister gave to me.

This whole thing with him and me was crazy. Totally.

But I could not get that out of my head.

Because it was so damned sweet.

This, obviously, was my thought when we stopped at a door where the security latch was flipped so the door wouldn’t fully close.

But Dair still knocked and waited for his mother’s, “Come in,” before he pushed it and guided us in.

And there Kenna was.

When I got older, and menopause put an extra twenty pounds on me, I wanted to look like her.

Bright, summery shirtdress with a same-material tie belt and three-quarter sleeves, accompanied by lovely Chloé ballet flats in blush.

Her gorgeous hair was in a side pony. Her makeup was understated.

She’d given up contacts years ago, and now she wore cute, thin-framed, cat’s-eye glasses.

Okay, so her eyes were a bit puffy, as they would be.

But she was standing, back straight, totally put together, staring out the window, sipping tea when we arrived.

She turned to us.

And I wondered what the hell was wrong with Bally.

This woman was everything.

“Och, Blake,” she greeted me with a small smile, setting aside her teacup in its saucer and holding both hands out to me.

I went to her, set my own cup aside and took her hands.

“Ye did beautifully yesterday, me bonny lass,” she said.

Proof.

She’d always been so kind to me.

“Thanks, Kenna,” I replied.

Okay.

Now what?

God, this was hard.

“How are you hanging in there?” I decided to ask on a squeeze of hands.

“Och, ye ken,” she said, letting me go and turning to her son.

Boy, did I ken .

I watched as Dair bent to kiss his mother’s cheek and I got pissed at how warm watching it made my belly feel.

So when his eyes came to me after he straightened, his lips twitched, like they always did when he caught me glaring at him. Like he thought it was funny that I thought he was insufferable, even when he wasn’t being that at all.

“Help yourselves to food,” Kenna invited with a vague wave toward a veritable breakfast smorgasbord laid out on her coffee table. “Who kens when Davina will rouse herself.”

“We already had croissants so Blake could soak up the bottle and a half of vodka she consumed last night,” Dair said, even as he was refilling both of our coffee cups.

“It wasn’t a bottle and a half of vodka,” I rejoined. “It was a martini. An espresso martini, so it was mostly espresso.”

He brought my coffee to me, stopped close, and replied, “I know my way around a cocktail shaker, lass. It’s mostly vodka and Kahlua. And you didnae have one, you had four.”

“The first one didn’t count. Rix spilled half of it.”

His gray-blue eyes twinkled as he took a sip of coffee.

Lord, he was intolerable.

Though him saving my bouquet wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to think about that when he was vexing me.

I decided to cease conversing and drink more coffee.

“Then relax as we wait for Davina,” Kenna bid. “But dinnae let the food go cold.”

I’d scarfed down two migraine tablets and two Tylenol, cupping water from the bathroom faucet to do so, but one could say my stomach was still queasy, even with the croissant. So I sat on the couch, set my coffee aside and took a plate to fill it.

Dair sat down close to me and did the same, which meant he got in the way of what I was doing.

However, this didn’t last long because he started to pile my plate with stuff that he was closer to, like bacon, some fried potatoes and fruit.

Since this seemed like a good system, I piled his with scrambled eggs and a biscuit.

“Jam?” I asked with the spoon hovering over the little pot.

“No marmalade?” he asked back.

“Your choice appears to be strawberry jam or strawberry jam,” I informed him.

He shot me another of his unendurable grins. “Then I’ll have strawberry jam.”

I dolloped a healthy portion on his plate then scraped an even healthier portion of butter there.

“Lassie after my beating heart,” he muttered when I shoved the butter knife back in the butter.

I stilled.

He sat back and started slathering butter on his biscuit.

I felt something funny, looked up and saw Kenna watching us.

She had an odd expression on her face, considering the circumstances.

She looked…

Happy.

“Has Dad been in touch?” Dair inquired around a mouthful of biscuit.

The happy vanished.

Oh my God!

What was he thinking?

He should ease into it.

I elbowed him.

He turned to me. “What?”

I lowered my voice and my chin and looked at him under my lashes. “Ease into it, why don’t you?”

Kenna sank gracefully into one of the two armchairs across from us. “We’re honest with each other in the Wallace family.”

I inwardly cringed while she outwardly grimaced.

“Or, the three of us are,” she amended.

“I’m so sorry, Kenna,” I said, feeling stupid, because that was lame, but it was all I had.

“Dear, ye have nothing to be sorry for,” she replied.

The door opened on her words, and Davina strutted in, long, dark hair wild, last night’s makeup smeared (she needed a good setting spray), wearing men’s boxer shorts and an oversized T-shirt.

I wanted to be the kind of woman who was confident enough to wander the halls of a hotel (even short halls, like the ones at this hotel) in boxer shorts and an oversized tee, but alas, I was not.

I felt weird just being barefoot, even if Dair was too, and now, so was Davina.

“Thank the Lord, coffee and food,” she said before she came forward and all but fell on the coffee table.

We all watched as she piled as much food on her plate as both Dair and I had on ours, combined, and sat in the other armchair with the coffee cup tucked between her knees and the plate close to her face.

She looked to me after she noshed on some bacon. “I hate ye. How are ye glamorous after last night?” and she munched more bacon.

“I had a tote bag filled with anything a bride or bridesmaid might need,” I explained.

“I could pack for Scotland in the Olympics, and it’s all across the hall, and I dinnae look like you.”

You didn’t wake up next to a hot, ex-professional rugby player , I thought but did not say.

“We’re all invited to Ned’s tonight for dinner,” Dair announced. “Blake is cooking.”

One would think he couldn’t get more unbearable, but apparently, he could.

“Ye cook?” Davi asked through some potatoes.

“It’s a hobby,” I said self-consciously.

“What are we having?” Davi questioned while shoving a torn-off piece of biscuit in her mouth.

I trained a pointed look at Dair.

“Ye can’t go wrong with steak,” he suggested through a playful smile that was playful because he read my pointed look and decided to mistake it.

I turned back to the others. “Whatever it is, it’ll be vegetarian.”

Davina burst out laughing.

Kenna managed a miniscule, but authentic, smile.

His tone was vastly different when he asked, “You’re not going home, Mum?”

She sipped tea then stated, “I took some time to think, and I dinnae see why my holiday in The States should be curtailed due to your father’s actions.”

“Go, Mum,” Davi encouraged.

Kenna checked her slim, gold watch and shared, “And he’ll be here in ten minutes.”

Davi gagged.

Dair growled, “The fuck he will.”

I pressed my lips together and sunk deep into the corner of the couch.

Kenna ignored both her children and said, “I can imagine ye understand why I’ll be filing for divorce when I return home.”

“Aye, we can understand it,” Davi replied. “But, Mum, why is Dad coming here?”

“So he can get his things, of course.” Another sweep of her hand and we all looked at the large suitcase sitting neatly by the door.

“And I can share with him that he’ll need to stay in the flat in Edinburgh and make an appointment with me to come and get his things from the house.

Also, so my two children can say what ye wish to say to him. ”

“I can tell him he can go fuck himself and I’m on your side in a text,” Davi declared.

“Darling, he’s your father, and you’ll eventually get over this,” Kenna returned.

“Aye? Ye think?” Davi asked sarcastically, then answered herself. “I dinnae.”

“And ye wanted Blake here for this trauma…why?” Dair asked, and his tone made my attention dart to him.

Yes.

He was ticked at his mother if him scowling ferociously at her was any indication.

“Mostly so I could ascertain she was well after all that happened last night,” Kenna answered.

“And partly so he’ll behave himself, which he wouldn’t do if she wasn’t around,” Dair tacked on.

Kenna’s shoulders stiffened in affront. “I’m not using Blake as a shield.”

“But ye ken he’s gonna show, full of bluster, and act the dick to save face,” Dair kept at her. “And with Blake here, he’ll temper that, get his shite and go.”

“Honestly, Alasdair, I have no idea what your father will do,” Kenna said coldly.

“I never could quite understand the way he behaved. Sadly, I loved him. No, I adored him. And even knowing it’s over, I still do.

So, although many things he did were things I did not like, I stayed with him. Not anymore.”

I unburied myself from the side of the sofa to wrap my fingers around Dair’s muscled knee.

He looked to me.

“Even if I was here as a shield, which I’m not,” I said softly, “I wouldn’t mind.”

“This is your trauma, along with all of ours,” he returned. “We dinnae need to add to it.”

“This is Kenna’s trauma, Dair. I know you feel it. And so does Davina. But what you feel is not the same at all,” I replied. “Not even close.”

He pulled breath in through his nose, and when he released it, he nodded and seemed less tense.

This, unfortunately, communicated loads to me. That he listened. That he processed what he heard. That he understood. That he wasn’t obstinate and had the ability to stand down. Even in an emotionally volatile situation.