Page 39 of Summer Escapes on the Scottish Isle (Coorie Castle Crafts #2)

Freya slid off the arm of the chair and sank to the floor by his feet. ‘I’m so sorry, Dad. I don’t mean to be sharp with you, but it’s been a bit of a shock. It’ll take a while for it to sink in.’ She laid her head on his lap. ‘We’ll get through this. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.’

‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to waste your life. I still don’t. Look at me, Freya.’

She lifted her head, her heart in tatters as she saw the tears running down his cheeks.

He said, ‘You can’t let me hold you back. You’ve been given a wonderful opportunity; you can’t give it up for me. I won’t let you.’

Of course she had to give it up. What else could she do? There was no other option. He was her father and she loved him, and that was that.

‘You silly, silly boy!’ Mack’s mother scolded as she handed him two warm fluffy towels. ‘Take those shorts off and I’ll put them in the wash.’

‘I haven’t got time for that. I’ve got to get to the quay.’

‘You won’t be going anywhere if you catch your death of cold.’

Mack rolled his eyes. ‘I’m used to getting wet. A drop of sea water isn’t going to kill me!’

Jean tutted. ‘Diving over the side into the loch might have.’

‘I’m a good swimmer,’ he replied, placing one towel on the kitchen chair to sit on and rubbing his hair with the other.

‘It was still a silly thing to do. Parkinson’s, you say?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And his daughter didn’t know anything about it?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘I can’t make up my mind whether he’s mad or a martyr. How did he think he’d get away with it?’

Mack shrugged. It had been a gutsy thing to do, even if the old fella hadn’t had a hope in hell of carrying it off. And Mack couldn’t help thinking that Vinnie was incredibly selfless.

‘It was sheer bad luck that he didn’t,’ he said.

‘Humph. She would have found out eventually.’

‘But maybe not for months.’

‘True. You just can’t tell with that disease,’ Jean said.

‘Maxine Morris’s brother has it, but you’d never guess unless you knew him, yet Mrs Semple who used be in my knitting club went downhill fast. Pneumonia killed her in the end, but don’t tell me that Parkinson’s didn’t have a lot to do with it.

’ She sighed loudly. ‘I’m guessing Freya won’t be going to New York now.

She can hardly take him with her – she’ll never be able to afford the medical bills.

It’s such a shame. He’s so proud of her.

Will he go to London to live, do you think? ’

‘She intends to stay here, in Duncoorie.’

Jean sighed again. ‘That might be for the best. Vinnie would hate London, and what with her job at the university and such, I get the impression she doesn’t have a lot of time.

He’s forever telling me how busy she is.

I suppose she could try to get carers in, for when she’s at work, but it wouldn’t be cheap.

Here, put this on.’ She handed Mack one of her dressing gowns.

He eyed it doubtfully. ‘I’ll give it a miss, thanks.’ It wouldn’t fit, for one thing, and for another, he’d look ridiculous. He’d be OK in the car for the short drive from her house to his.

She said, ‘The other option would be to try to organise care for him here, so she can go back to London. Personally, I wouldn’t, because you could have all and sundry in and out, and the list of things they won’t do is four times as long as what they will do .

Just ask Maxine, she’s forever complaining about them.

I’m sure they do their best, but…’ She trailed off, before adding, ‘It’s probably better if Freya stays here to look after him. ’

For Vinnie, maybe, but not for Freya. Her distress hadn’t been solely for her father.

Mack suspected some of it had been for herself.

She was devastated for Vinnie, but she was also crushed that her chance of going to New York was scuppered.

Not only that – she couldn’t return to her life in London either.

And what about her ceramics? He’d witnessed her quiet excitement as she’d worked, her satisfaction when she completed a piece.

Without a studio and a kiln of her own, she was going to struggle and his heart ached for her.

His mother gave him a knowing look. ‘How do you feel about Freya staying on Skye?’

Mack didn’t answer. He was too busy thinking about studios, kilns and what he could do to help the woman he loved.

Freya sat on her bed in the dark, a sliver of moon visible through the skylight.

She was weary to the bone, in both body and mind.

Her emotions were fractured: one second she was calm, the next she wanted to scream.

She’d managed to keep herself together for her father’s sake, but now that he was in bed and she was on her own, she let her tears fall once more.

She cried until her throat was sore and her head ached, but eventually she calmed, and when she did, she opened her laptop and did what she had to do.

The email she sent to Jocasta Black was the hardest thing she’d ever had to write. The second email to the chancellor of the college, tendering her resignation effective from today, was the next.

All the things she needed to do flitted through her mind, but she had trouble grasping them and pinning them down, and even more difficulty summoning the energy to actually do them. The main thing was to pack up her apartment and decide whether to keep the flat on.

Would she go back to London one day, after her dad—

A sob caught in her throat. She didn’t want to think about that. It would be years away, decades. Those years stretched ahead of her, the shape of them indistinct. She had to fill them in the only way she knew – she had to make her ceramics.

But what would she do for a studio? She could hardly expect to keep using Mack’s byre, and neither could she impose on Rob at the castle.

She would have to find somewhere to rent, somewhere either in Duncoorie or a short distance away.

But that was easier said than done. There weren’t many commercial properties around.

And she couldn’t pack up her studio in London until she had somewhere suitable for her wheel and kiln.

Dear God, this was going to be a logistical nightmare.

There was one thing she could do, though – she could start the ball rolling and look into how to go about having a stairlift installed, because before too long her poor old dad was going to need it.