Long Shot

Chapter 17

“Speaking of not answering questions, you still haven’t answered mine from last night.” Jen slid into the nook between the counter and the window overlooking Bleecker Street, marveling over the fact that Leith MacDougall was sitting at her tiny kitchen table, devouring a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats.

An impish look preceded his smart-ass comment. “Which question again? Was it: ‘Do you like that?’ or ‘More?’ Because the answer is ‘yes.’ To both.”

Though she acknowledged him with a smile, she clutched her coffee mug in both hands and tried to look as earnest as possible. “No, the one about why you aren’t staying in Gleann for the games. Or competing. The real reason. I know part of it, but I think there’s more. And I’m here to listen, if you want.”

He set down the cereal spoon so carefully it didn’t make a ripple in the milk. “You do know part of it. Because I showed it to you.”

She wanted to touch him but he’d gone shuttered, and he leaned so far back in his chair she couldn’t easily reach him. “Your dad. The house. You haven’t dealt with losing him yet, and going to the games, which was such a huge part of growing up—for both of you—would be too painful a reminder.”

He coughed. “Put like that, it seems so easy to fix.” The sun coming through the window turned his eyes the color of the whiskey they’d drunk last night.

“It’s not. I know it isn’t. But it’s something you have to do on your own. No one can make you get over losing the most important person in your life.” He nodded slowly, and she leaned over her mug. “But I can make you talk about the other reason you’re not competing.”

Narrowed, challenging eyes focused on her. The corners of his mouth drooped. “And what would that be?”

She’d thought about this for several days, ever since Olsen had told her about Leith’s final games. “You won the all-around three years in a row, coming on the heels of the best high school football season the valley had ever known and two state track championships. You’ve never not won anything your whole life. You said it yourself the other night at the Stone, that you’d never really been given a challenge. But then you didn’t win those final games, and then you stopped throwing.”

She’d never seen him so still. He looked into his bowl. “That was the last time Da saw me throw.”

“And I bet he loved it. I bet he cheered you the whole time. Didn’t you see that photo he had hung in your old room? Those last games where he looked proudest of all?”

Leith squeezed his eyes shut.

“You didn’t fail him,” she said. “You didn’t fail, period. Not winning doesn’t mean failing.”

Those whiskey eyes flew open. “Who said I thought that?”

“No one. No one had to. I know you, Mr. All-Star. I also know how Gleann worships you.” He winced. “I know it bothers you, but now I know it’s deeper than that. That it pressures you to not let them down. But since no one else will say it, it’s fallen on me to tell you that no one except you expects you to win everything.”

He opened his mouth and she sensed his protest. She held up a gentle hand.

“You think people love you because of the feats you’ve accomplished, but that’s just stupid. I’m sorry, but it is. They love you because you’re Leith, you’re impossible not to love, and you’re theirs. Do you think that if you go out on that field and throw shitty, Gleann will, I don’t know, erase you from memory or take down the caber monument and that billboard—”

“I want them to take those things down.”

“What I’m saying is, that because they are still up there, you feel responsible to uphold them, to keep them true. And because your dad taught you to throw, you think a bad day out will somehow sully his memory. Once upon a time you threw because you loved it.”

With a great inhale, his chest expanded. “You’re wrong. I’m fine with losing.”

See? she wanted to say. It’s either “losing” or “winning” with you. No in-between.

“Then prove it.” She pushed her mug away. “Throw in the games next weekend. One last time before you leave for good.”

He spread his palms over the table. “Can’t. I’ll be transporting a lot of big equipment down here and finally meeting with Hal Carriage to get his approval on his yard plans. It’s a big weekend for me. A lot rides on it.”

It was a good reason, one she could definitely relate to, and she nodded, her stomach suddenly pinching in hunger.

“Trying to fix me, too, Jen?” Suddenly he was smiling again, wiping away all that she’d just said. Just like he’d done with his father’s house: ignoring it, pushing it to the side.

She wadded up a napkin and threw it at him. He snatched it out of the air and tossed it back onto the table.

“I’m not afraid of failure.” He stood, taking her hand and drawing her to her feet and into his arms. Framing her face, he kissed her, and she couldn’t deny that he tasted like the warm sunshine filling her apartment.

“What I am afraid of,” he murmured during a break in the slow kiss, “is not seeing you naked again until after the games.”

So she fixed that and, two hours later, they left her apartment separately.

Jen had her hand on the gate latch, about to head up the flagstone path into the Thistle, when her phone chirped with a text message.

Back in Gleann tomorrow. Can’t wait to see u.

Like a schoolgirl, she read Leith’s words over and over again, hearing them in his voice. The drive back up north from the city had flown by, her little rental zooming over the highways on a warp speed that seemed fed by this crazy new energy zipping through her system.

Leith had returned to Connecticut to make sure his project was moving forward and to check out more locations for a permanent move of his business. It was an aspect of him she’d never witnessed before, this businessman who clearly knew what he was doing and whose love for the work transcended that knowledge. It made her exceedingly proud, and it endeared him to her even more.

Ugh, listen to her. Forget the flowery language. It made him hot as all hell.

For the second time, a very calm, very rational voice asked, How on earth do you expect to make this work with your jobs, your lives in different states, your separate lifestyles?

The first time it had happened was when they’d been lying naked, when he’d asked again if she wanted to try a relationship. Her immediate thought? Yes. Hell yes. The thought that came quickly afterward, however . . . So he moves to Connecticut. Still an hour by train, more with traffic if he drives in. She doesn’t own a car. She works insane hours, often at night, plenty on the weekends, nothing that would fit neatly into a train schedule. He works weekends during every season but winter. When could they possibly see each other? Would phone calls and occasional visits work? Could that ever be enough?

And then there was the possibility of her partnership within Bauer Events. The very real chance she could be sent to London. More distance, more time away.

Yet she and Leith were adults, not kids with a world of unknown spread out at their feet. They were more grounded now, more passionate and reasonable. Maybe it would work. So she’d agreed to try, and told him so, and prayed that it would be enough.

The Thistle’s front door opened and Ainsley bounced out, wearing a two-piece bathing suit covered in sequins over her flat chest. Denim shorts just barely covered her bottom and her flip-flops had even more sparkles on them. A beach towel swung over her shoulders.

“Hey, Aunt Jen.”

“And where are you going, Sparkly McGee?”

“T and Lacey are working at the pool and I wanted to go say hi.”

The local pool was still open? Ten years ago it had been nothing more than a concrete hole in the ground, and Jen doubted it had changed much in her absence. She pictured T and Lacey snapping gum behind the stainless steel counter of the snack stand.

It worried her that Ainsley was going to go see Owen and Melissa’s girls when it sounded like she’d invited herself. It worried her that her niece was attaching herself to older girls whose connection to her could very well snap at any moment.

Jen tousled a wave of Ainsley’s dark blond hair. “What happened to Bryan and his slingshot?”

Ainsley made a thoroughly confused face. “I’m not bringing Bryan to the pool.”

Jen smiled, though it felt forced. “How silly of me.”

Ainsley walked down the sidewalk, doing a little dance and snapping her fingers to some song Jen couldn’t hear.

“You’re back in town,” came Aimee’s voice from the front steps. “Looks like I’ll win that bet.”

Jen turned to her sister. “What bet?”

Aimee crossed her arms and wore an inscrutable expression. “Whether or not you’d come back again from New York. I knew you would. Vera wasn’t so sure.”

Jen pulled the gate shut and latched it behind her. “The trip to the city was worth it. Everything’s falling into place for the games.”

“Come on in and tell me about it.”

As they entered the kitchen, which was filled with the sweet scent of vanilla French toast batter, Jen told Aimee about Shea Montgomery’s whiskey tent and how Duncan had called earlier this morning to tell her more about the group of heavy athletes he’d rounded up at the last minute to compete this weekend. None of them were pros, but Jen didn’t care. There would be enthusiastic bodies on the field, throwing heavy weights around, and that’s all that mattered.

“There was a rumor that Chris’s band wasn’t going to play?” Aimee dipped slabs of white bread into the egg batter and set them to sizzling on the hot skillet.

Jen frowned. “Where’d you hear that? I may have teased him a bit, but I’m not about to turn them down. I love their sound, they’re local, Chris seems really excited. Man, he can play that fiddle, can’t he?”

Aimee shrugged. “It’s just what I heard. There was that fight over at their house a few months back, and then Chris moved out. The sheriff said there was trouble at his bandmates’ place two nights back; I thought maybe they’d broken up. Guess not, though.”

Jen vowed to look into it.

She turned in her chair and realized what was different about the Thistle. The plastic work drapes in the front sitting room had been taken down, and the new drywall was up and taped. The furniture was covered, the room ready for the paint cans stationed around the perimeter to be opened. The place would be finished by that weekend, just in time for the Scottish Society president to stay here.

“Wow,” Jen said, impressed. “Owen works fast.”

Aimee’s voice pitched low. “Only when he has to.”

Jen winced and turned back around, but said nothing. Sex had never been something the sisters talked about, not even in playful terms. Maybe because it had been such a big deal because of Frank’s constant cheating. Maybe because it had gotten Aimee into such trouble when she was younger.

Aimee set the butter and powdered sugar on the table. No syrup on French toast in this house—a little quirk Aunt Bev had taught them that they’d both carried through to adulthood.

Jen changed the subject. “Oh, I have other good news.” And she told Aimee all about Bobbie and the craft convention now set for March. Jen had called Bobbie on her way back from New York to tell her everything, and Jen could have sworn the older woman had gotten a little choked up. The thing was a go, and Jen couldn’t have been more excited for her and for Gleann.

Aimee’s spatula, piled with three slices of French toast, stopped halfway to Jen’s plate. “All those people coming for it will need places to stay.”

Jen grinned. “Exactly. They’ll need lots of things. I was going to talk to Sue about it later, after our games meeting. Lodging, food, transportation—”

“Let me do it.”

The French toast plopped onto Jen’s plate and she looked up from it into her sister’s face.

“I want to do that,” Aimee said. “I want to talk to Mayor Sue about bringing in or starting those kinds of businesses.”

“But—”

“No ‘buts,’ Jen. I’ll be here long after you’re gone. I’m the one who could see that kind of thing through. I’m the one who wants to open up more B&Bs.”

Jen felt horrible for thinking it, but . . . Aimee? A business owner of something other than the Thistle, which had been practically gift wrapped for her? “You do?”

Aimee straightened. “I do. I want to own something that’s mine, that I created. I know how to run one B&B. I want to create another from my own vision.”

Jen had never seen her sister look so sure, so confident. She opened her mouth but shock prevented anything from coming out.

Aimee rolled her eyes and sat. “I know that look. The one that thinks I can’t do anything for myself.”

“Please forgive me,” Jen said, keeping calm and maintaining direct eye contact, “but experience is proof.”

“I told you I’d prove it to you, that what happened with the burst pipe and Owen wasn’t really me. That I’ve changed, that I’m a different person. This is it. My chance. Give it to me.”

Jen sat back and folded her napkin. Folded it again. “Honestly, it’s not my thing to grant or take away. I just thought that I could—”

“What? Do everything?”

Now Aimee was starting to sound like Mom. “Wait a minute. You called me here, remember?”

Aimee’s voice gentled, her eyes closing for a long blink. “I did. For the games. I know it’s in your nature; I should have seen this. But you swoop in, pick out all these other peripheral things that you think need fixing, and then take them on yourself, because you think you have all the answers.”

“Maybe I like to help. Maybe I like to see good things grow out of bad things, or out of other good things.”

The sigh Aimee let out was large enough for two people, and she lifted glistening eyes and a sad smile to the ceiling. “I know you do. I know you do.”

Was that . . . envy?

Jen started to pick at her French toast. Aunt Bev’s recipe, but somehow better because Aimee had made it, here in the kitchen that was now her own.

“Shouldn’t you be focusing on keeping the Thistle up and running,” Jen asked, “before even thinking about opening up something else?”

Aimee gave the kitchen a sweeping, loving look. “I have dreams now, too, you know.”

They ate in silence for a bit, their forks clattering on the porcelain, as Jen turned over and over in her mind all the ideas she’d had during that long drive up from New York. All the potential changes that could be made to make the town more conducive for events and tourism and marketing . . .

“I know things,” Jen said, unable to keep silent. “I know people. Let me—”

“Thank you.” Aimee set down her fork rather deliberately. “And I will probably take you up on that, too.”

Jen couldn’t deny the itch that burned just underneath her skin, that feeling of starting something and not seeing it through. Not applying her ideas, not giving input. It was like leaving dirty dishes in the sink from now until the end of time, and it made her dig her fingernails into her palms.

Then Aimee’s kind hand curled over hers. And suddenly Jen felt it: that feeling of being cared for, of being mothered. Of actually being the younger sister, and not having to act like the older one. This wasn’t a gradual role reversal over the course of years, but a turn on a dime, one that had her tripping over her own choices and actions.

“You can’t take on everything,” Aimee said. “I know you like to tell yourself that, but you can’t.” She gave a little shake of her head. “I actually have no doubt that if I hadn’t said anything today, you would’ve found a way to live and work in New York and also take on Gleann’s transformation single-handedly.”

Jen just sat there because she couldn’t deny that truth. The thought of working with Gleann to turn it around to attract potential events, and then assist in putting on those events . . . it was incredibly exciting. And it shocked the hell out of her because it was something she’d never before considered. In her mind, bigger had always been better.

Aimee released her hand and rose. “You’re my biggest influence, Jen. You always have been. You teach me, even when you aren’t here, even when you don’t know it. You saved my life.”

Holy shit.

“But don’t you get it?” Aimee continued. “Everything you’ve ever done is to get out from under Mom’s shadow. Hers is dark and horrible, and I totally get that. But you throw a shadow over me, too, sis. It’s a good shadow—it’s always protected and directed me—but it’s time I cast it aside.”