Page 13 of The Boathouse by the Loch (The Scottish Highlands #4)

‘I haven’t told anybody this – not friends, not family.

It’s just been between Marcus and me.’ Jake thought of Marcus’s fiancée, Lydia.

‘Whether he has said anything to anybody else, I’m not certain.

’ Jake continued before he could change his mind.

‘It was a skiing accident, but obviously you know that.’

‘It was in the newspapers and splashed all over the news,’ Faye affirmed.

‘Yes, the press always makes a big deal out of a wealthy family tragedy. Guess they think you can’t have wealth and happiness, but you can, Faye.’ He paused. ‘It was just a stupid, stupid accident.’

‘Jake – tell me what happened up there on the ski slopes.’

He took a deep breath, trying to stave off a panic attack as he recalled the events of the previous Christmas. ‘Marcus always goaded Eleanor to join us on the slopes. She never really liked skiing; it was never her thing – know what I mean?’

‘Not really. I’ve never set foot on a ski slope in my life,’ Faye commented.

Jake sighed. He wasn’t surprised in the least at Faye’s comment. Skiing was an expensive pastime. The destinations were expensive, the ski passes, the cost of the gear to go skiing .

‘Marcus wouldn’t let up until she came with us.

I always joined in for my own selfish reasons because I wanted her to come.

It just wouldn’t be the same without her.

’ Jake closed his eyes thinking back to that day.

‘Every Christmas at The Lake House was the same rigmarole; we teased, she relented, and the three of us skied.’

Faye said, ‘I see.’

‘But last year was different. She was adamant that she wasn’t going. I knew that it probably marked the end of our traditional afternoon Christmas Day ski, once she missed one, but I was in total agreement; there was no way I wanted her to ski.’ Jake spoke softly. ‘Not in her condition.’

‘… condition?’ Faye prompted.

The words she was pregnant caught painfully in his throat. ‘I was going to be a father.’

‘Oh, Jake. I had no idea.’

‘Nobody knew. It was our secret. Telling her parents was to be our Christmas present to William and Grace – a grandchild, you see; their first grandchild. Marcus didn’t know, and still doesn’t, that he was going to be an uncle.

’ Jake closed his eyes at the painful memory of such a joyous occasion cruelly dashed.

‘So, what made her change her mind?’ Faye ventured.

Marcus. Jake opened his eyes. ‘I’d already told Marcus to back off; Ellie was not coming with us, and that was final.

Of course, he didn’t know the reason, and being Marcus, he wouldn’t let it go.

I just wish we’d told him. I found out afterwards what he had been whispering to her that evening at the dinner table.

He told her that we had skied off-piste when she wasn’t with us and that this time, we’d take her. ’

‘Off-piste? What does that mean, exactly?’ Faye asked, interrupting Jake before he could explain what had happened next .

‘Oh, right.’ Jake had momentarily forgotten that he was talking to a non-skier. ‘Basically ski pistes are ski slopes that have been prepared for skiing.’

‘Prepared – how?’ Faye asked.

‘Well, there’s trail poles each side which mark out the route to take down the slopes.

Then the slopes are prepared with something called grooming machines that smooth the surface of the snow for skiing the next day.

And of course there’s the full-time ski patrol up there too who look after piste safety as well as the markers, and they are on hand in case of an emergency. ’

‘I think I’m getting the picture,’ said Faye. ‘So presumably if you ski off-piste, the slopes are not prepared, which makes skiing harder. There’s no trail markers to identify the route down, and you’re unlikely to have ski patrols either on hand if something goes wrong.’

‘Unfortunately, you’ve hit the nail on the head.’ Jake sighed heavily. ‘There’s lots of reasons it’s not advisable.’

‘So, why do you do it?’

‘I have to say it’s something Marcus and I have only done a handful of times, and with a qualified guide who knows the terrain and is aware of avalanche risks.’

‘So you were with a qualified guide when you all went skiing off-piste?’

‘No.’

‘Why not, if that’s what you’d done in the past?’

‘Well, here’s the thing. We had no intention of skiing off-piste that time.

I don’t know what made Marcus say that because it wasn’t true; we had never skied off-piste before in Scotland.

’ The poor snowfall usually meant there were no thrills to be had skiing off-piste in the Cairngorms. How ironic that the conditions had been ripe for some adventurous skiing that year.

It suddenly occurred to Jake that perhaps Marcus had seen the weather forecast and had realised that the heavy snowfall forecast that day could mean some serious skiing.

Was it possible that rather than trying to persuade Ellie to go, Marcus had in fact been trying, for his own selfish reasons, to do the exact opposite; to dissuade his sister from joining them on the ski slopes and spoiling the fun?

Jake remembered asking Marcus what he had told Ellie to change her mind, furious with him for refusing to let the matter rest and allow her to remain behind just that once.

‘You would have thought it was the last thing he should have said to try and persuade her to go,’ Jake was thinking aloud. Why hadn’t he realised that before?

‘Maybe she found the excitement of it appealing?’ Faye ventured a guess.

‘No way. She always stuck to the same route, the same mountain pass, because that’s where she felt safest.’ The more Jake thought about it, the more it rang true that Marcus would not have wanted her with them.

It wasn’t his fault she had inexplicably turned up despite Marcus’s warning that they were not intending to take their usual route down.

‘But that’s all water under the bridge now, isn’t it, Jake?’ Faye said gently. ‘Something persuaded her to go.’

‘She went shopping,’ said Jake.

‘Why do you think she changed her mind?’

‘I wish I knew. She just turned up, decked out in her ski stuff.’ Jake turned his head and stared out of the bedroom window towards the roofline of his house. ‘I guess she was pulling one last surprise.’

‘Surprise?’ Faye repeated down the phone .

‘It was, like, a game we used to play.’ Jake paused, not sure whether he should be telling Faye something so personal, so private about their relationship.

Still, Eleanor wouldn’t mind – not anymore.

‘Eleanor liked pulling pranks. Well, in fairness, we both used to do it, to each other.’ Jake paused. ‘In the beginning.’

‘In the beginning?’

In the beginning , thought Jake, we were just kids . Jake couldn’t quite believe how young they had been when they made the biggest commitment of their adult lives – they were just in their teens when they promised one another they would marry.

Had they been young and foolish? Maybe. After all, Eleanor had floated the idea of giving up going to university to study interior design in order to marry him.

Jake had refused to hear of it. She hadn’t needed to do that, although he’d been afraid that if she went off to college, he’d risk losing her to a new way of life – a new love, perhaps.

But that hadn’t happened. They had been young and in love.

They’d known each other long enough to know they were perfect for each other.

Jake tried not to think about how much he missed Faye, how much he wished she was in the room with him instead of in London, on the end of the phone. He wondered if she was sitting on her bed in nothing but a towel, not long out of the shower, her skin still glistening with drops of water.

‘For god’s sake!’

‘Jake, is everything okay?’

He put his hand to his mouth. He hadn’t meant to admonish himself out loud for thinking about Faye like that.

He rubbed his temple, wishing that the particular memory of Faye hadn’t come to mind.

He’d stayed over, babysitting Natty. He’d slept on the couch in the lounge and had accidentally seen Faye on the landing upstairs, exiting the shower room in nothing but a small white towel.

There he was, trying to have a conversation about Eleanor, and all he could think of was Faye, semi-naked. Jake shook his head and focused on the rooftop of The Lake House through the attic window, his thoughts turning again to the previous Christmas.

‘In the beginning,’ Jake remembered, ‘when we were first married, Eleanor was determined that we weren’t going to turn into some boring couple who were just comfortable in each other’s company.

She used to say that just because we’d done something very grown-up and got married, it didn’t mean we had to suddenly be all grown-up and sensible.

’ Jake smiled at that. ‘So, she used to get up to things …’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Sometimes …’ Jake smiled at the memory, ‘Sometimes she’d ring up my secretary and book an appointment, pretending to be a business client, just so she could see me during the day.

It was my own fault. I’d joked that if she wanted to see me during the day, she’d have to book an appointment.

I remember I was meant to have a business lunch.

There I was, sitting at a table in a restaurant, thinking I had some important new business client, and my wife turns up instead, saying she missed me and just had to see me, even though I’d only left for work three hours earlier!

God, I was stunned. Then I started to feel faintly amused, and then I was laughing, great whoops of laughter in the middle of a top London restaurant where the business elite were quietly conducting important power lunches. ’

Jake remembered that those lunch dates had become a regular occurrence. They were not always power lunches. Jake enjoyed the packed lunches she’d bring along with her in the nice weather, so that they could sit in one of the London parks together.

‘I swear my secretary was in on it.’ Eleanor’s appointments for lunch always coincided with the free spots in his calendar when he wasn’t having meetings or business lunches with real clients.

Jake laughed at the absurdity of it all.

‘I remember pulling one or two surprises on her, but they were never quite as amusing or inventive as hers. She was always the creative one in the family.’ Jake’s smile faded. ‘Then it happened.’ He fell silent.

‘What happened, Jake?’

‘We turned into that boring couple who were just comfortable in each other’s company.

You see, we changed, we matured, and the time for childish games had passed.

’ Jake thought about the trips to London, the visits to Harley Street because they were having problems conceiving the child he’d thought they both so desperately wanted.

Then there was the time they’d spent in America while he was following new American contracts.

How Eleanor had loathed America. How much she had missed England, missed London.

Jake recalled those regular trips to Harley Street, and how unhappy Eleanor had been when the time had come to leave London and return to America.

Jake had begun to see a picture emerging of what the future held for them both, and that picture was beginning to look an awful lot like Eleanor’s parents: William working in different countries, and Grace choosing to stay in London – together but apart, married but separated.

What kind of future was that? And what did that mean for their children?

Jake had made the decision not to return to America and to remain based in London. He wished he’d listened to Eleanor again when she’d told him she did not want to spend Christmas at The Lake House .

He breathed a heavy sigh, telling Faye, ‘I should have listened to her when I had the chance. She wanted to stay in London, just the two of us, last Christmas. We’d been trying for so long, and all I wanted to do was tell everyone the news, but in hindsight I realise now that Eleanor needed time.

She hadn’t had a chance to forge her own career, which I know she desperately wanted after university.

My job at the Ross Corporation came first – always had.

I’d told her we’d figure it out. But what I could see in our future was that I’d continue working wherever in the world the company needed me, and she would eventually stop travelling with me.

Which meant we’d end up leading separate lives, with her in London, where I’m sure she wanted to open a shop. ’

‘But what about when you had children?’

‘I hadn’t really considered the implications until she got pregnant, because after years of trying, it was as though it would never happen. Then I guess I thought until they started school, we could still lead that life, living and working away.’

‘But things changed.’

‘Yes, Faye, they did. I stopped travelling, and she started to focus on what she wanted to do.’

‘Opening a shop?’

‘Interior design, that was her thing. But then it happened.’

‘What happened – the accident?’

‘No, Eleanor falling pregnant. God, you should have seen me.’ Jake remembered walking out on the balcony of their penthouse suite in London, when he’d found out, and literally shouting from the rooftops that they were having a baby.

Eleanor wasn’t with him. She’d taken herself off to bed.

Jake had convinced himself she was just tired, and emotional, after the incredible news they’d been waiting so long to hear .

But he wasn’t blind. He’d known what was going on; just when he’d decided to stay in London permanently, and she’d finally be able to focus on herself, her career, she’d fallen pregnant. He just wished he’d talked to her. And now he would never be able to.