One More for Christmas

Had she made a mistake returning to Scotland?

She’d come here to build a relationship with her granddaughter and rebuild her relationship with her daughters. She badly wanted to bridge the gap, but how? It seemed that in order to achieve that closeness that Ella clearly wanted, and which she also wanted, she was going to have to think about things she didn’t want to think about and talk about things she didn’t want to talk about. Why did Ella want to know about her father when he’d been gone from her life before she was even born?

Gayle had been six months pregnant, and Samantha had been just seven months old.

She’d trained herself not to think about that time. It was all too upsetting, and she’d learned that emotion clouded the brain and stopped you focusing on the important things like surviving. Talking just wasted time that was precious when you were raising two children alone.

She’d never been the gossipy type. Instead she preferred to examine her problems and either solve them or learn to live with them.

And as for talking about their father—

Maybe it had been a mistake coming back here. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to make her relationship with her daughters worse, not better.

Why had she mentioned that she’d visited Scotland on her honeymoon? That was a detail that had inevitably attracted the attention of romantic Ella.

Truthfully, she hadn’t expected it to be this difficult. She’d thought she’d be a

ble to handle it, the way she handled everything in her life. Nothing defeated her.

And yet here she was with shaking hands and a sick feeling in her stomach simply because her daughter had asked about her honeymoon and wanted details of her father.

The years had fallen away, along with all the layers of defenses she’d carefully constructed over time.

Did she remember her honeymoon? Oh yes, she remembered it. Every moment. She’d been flying high, and still at the point in her life where she hadn’t realized that flying high simply made the fall harder when it came.

She’d paid a price for naivety, and optimism.

Feeling fragile, she removed her scarf, and then her coat and handed them to Kirstie, who was hovering near the entrance. The young woman was trying hard to compose her features into a pattern that looked friendly and welcoming, and instead she looked like someone with severe toothache. Gayle wondered what was making her so miserable and opened her mouth to talk to her about finding her power and using it, but her heart wasn’t in it. Right now she wasn’t sure she could access her own power, let alone help anyone else find theirs.

She needed to sit down. She needed a moment on her own to pull herself together and rediscover her own strength.

She walked into the dining room, where she and Tab had eaten toast together earlier that morning.

Now a fire blazed, and silver gleamed against dark green linen. It took her right back to that first morning of her honeymoon. Ray had been awake before her and had been sitting by the fire with a coffee and a newspaper. For a brief, disturbing moment Gayle could see his face. The confidence of his smile. The flash of perfect teeth. The crinkling at the corners of his eyes.

Usually her memories were fuzzy and indistinct, but this one was sharp and so real it unsteadied her.

A wave of dizziness barreled into her, and she swayed. She reached out to steady herself and found herself clasping someone’s hand.

“There. Come and sit down.” It was the woman from the night before. Brodie McIntyre’s mother. What was her name? She never forgot a name, but this morning her mind wasn’t behaving the way it usually did. She was trying to focus on the moment, but her mind kept dragging her back to the past.

Gayle wanted to reject her help, but she didn’t dare. Without someone to hold on to her, she had a feeling she’d end up on the floor and that would be even more embarrassing. “Thank you. I’m feeling just a little—”

“Wobbly? Jet lag does that for you.”

“Yes.” Jet lag and visions of dead people. And unsettling exchanges with her daughter.

“And you were up early and playing with your little granddaughter. That burns energy. She’s a lively one. You need food and a hot drink, and then you’ll feel more yourself.”

“Thank you.” Gayle accepted the help gratefully, something she hadn’t done for several decades.

She could hear Ella’s voice outside in the hallway, presumably talking to Kirstie, and she was grateful that her sharp-eyed daughter hadn’t witnessed this particular episode or the questions would never end.

“Drink some coffee, warm yourself in front of the fire, and I’ll be right back. I’m Mary, by the way. I don’t think we were properly introduced last night.”

Mary. That was it.

“I’m Gayle.”