Long Shot

Chapter 23

To say Jen’s heart sank would have been an insult to gravity. The great muscle in her chest that had been treating her so well over the past two weeks plummeted with cheetah speed.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Sue hurrying over, frantically waving her arms to get Jen’s attention. Though it killed her, she held up a finger to the mayor and headed around Shea’s tent, away from the athletics field, and into the parking lot.

“I’m in northern New Hampshire, Tim, working on some personal stuff. There’s no way I can get back by tonight.”

“Not tonight. This afternoon. And if you hit the road in the next hour, it should be plenty of time. Umberto Rollins goes off at eight and the thing is a giant clusterfuck. You need to come back to fix it, or we’ll lose one of our biggest clients. And I might have to reconsider you for a partnership.”

She sank onto the bumper of some stranger’s car.

“What’s happened?”

“I’ll tell you what’s happened. Rollins’s assistant went to the site first thing this morning to check on setup for tonight’s event. I thought you two were on the same page, that you were on board with what they wanted.”

Jen gasped as a flash of red crossed her eyes. “I was. I mean, I am.” She ground fingers into her eyelids. “Gretchen.”

“Damn straight it was Gretchen. Changed pretty much everything they didn’t want changed.”

Save for her mother, Jen didn’t think she’d ever been this furious with anyone. “I didn’t pass the buck,” she told her boss. “I’ve been keeping in touch with her, checking up on her almost daily.”

“I know you didn’t pass the buck. You did what good managers do; you managed. But now it’s on your head to fix.” He was an excellent businessman, a hard-ass when he needed to be, and her idol for a very long time. When she’d first met him, she’d had visions about the kind of worker she wanted to be and the heights she needed to reach.

His voice dipped low. “It’s bigger than just the setup. Rollins said he’s being courted by Morris Events, and he’s threatened to walk if you personally don’t come back and fix this.”

The very first thing that came to her mind was: Did anyone die? Was this really that serious?

This world that Bauer described—the frantic city business life she’d been living for six years in which life or death seemed to hang on table seating or napkin selection or the guest list—had felt so distant while she’d been here in the mountains, even though it was a world she’d hunted with fervor, and then purposely built up all around her. Suddenly she was dunked back into it, and it felt bracing and unwelcome.

“I understand,” she heard herself say, but it sounded so far away.

“And it goes without saying you need to fire Gretchen.”

Why can’t you just fire her now? Jen nearly asked, then realized that Tim was entirely correct. This was Jen’s mistake, Jen’s assistant, and it was her responsibility.

The little phone felt like a brick in her hand.

Leith’s voice streamed out from the PA system. “Ladies and gentlemen, despite what has happened here today, these talented athletes are at your disposal. The throwing events will go on.”

Enthusiastic applause followed. Some people who had started to fold up their blankets now snapped them out again. The light tone to Leith’s voice was bittersweet, because his excitement was the people’s, and even though he’d soon be gone from Gleann, the town would carry on without him. It would carry on without her, too.

She was exceedingly proud of what she’d done here—despite the cow disaster. It had started out as a favor—a bit of a concession, done out of a sense of responsibility and the desire to pay people back who deserved it. But it had since turned into much, much more—a large, warm presence in her heart, and she wasn’t even talking about Leith. She couldn’t give it a name, didn’t know where it fit into her bigger life, but she knew she wasn’t quite ready to walk out on it yet.

There had to be a way for her to straighten things out with Rollins remotely and stay in Gleann for the afternoon.

“Jen?” Tim demanded.

Her head dropped, her eyes closing tightly. On the back of her eyelids was imprinted the image of her mom throwing her college applications in the trash and dumping coffee grounds over them. Telling her there was no way she could afford to send Jen to college, not knowing how much Jen had secretly saved herself. Sneering as Jen lugged her sole suitcase out the front door for the last time. Saying to her, You’ll be back. You’re just wasting your time. The world is made so people like us fail. You’ll see. You think you’re different, but you’re not. You’ll end up right where I am someday.

Jen was so close to snatching the gold ring. She could not fail. She would not get fired. That was something that happened to her mother, not her. If she stayed in Gleann and got knocked back a notch in her upward climb, what would that say about her? Would that put her on the path to failure? Would staying here, in the very place she’d left ten years ago in order to begin that climb, start the transformation into someone who settled for the small instead of going for the big?

She broke out in an icy sweat. Oh, God, she felt sick. So conflicted. So unsure.

“Jen. Are you there?”

There was so much more she needed to do here. But her future—the big, bright one she’d been striving for—glowed from a city six hours to the south.

“Will I see you later today?” Tim was starting to get angry, and disappointment from her mentor felt like coffee grounds dumped over her dreams.

If she went back to New York, she’d let down Aimee and Sue and—oh God—Leith. She’d be leaving right in the middle of a crisis. But if she stayed, she’d be right back where she started, and that scared her more than anything.

She swallowed around a throat laced with needles. Pushing off the car, she gazed up at the games. At the mess.

“Apparently I am in demand as a stand-up,” came Leith’s chuckle over the PA, and Jen heard rousing, masculine shouts spring up from the athletes, “so here you go . . .”

She refused to crumple. This was a new beginning between her and Leith, she reminded herself. She’d agreed to give them another shot, and that would be relatively easy, what with him moving to Connecticut and her in the city. Look how well they’d done in their brief time in the city last week. They could exist outside of Gleann. Their magic wasn’t limited to this little valley. It had broken free from the links of the past.

But it didn’t mean he wouldn’t be pissed off that she was abandoning the one thing she’d come here purposely to do. She just had to believe he’d understand.

“Yes,” she told Tim, her voice dying. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

Sue had wandered over to Shea and stood frowning at the mess, her arms folded under those giant boobs wrapped in today’s T-shirt that proclaimed her love for the Isle of Skye. Tomorrow it would be back to the wide range of Syracuse wear, Jen thought numbly. Sue’s back was to her, so Jen skirted around, not ready to face her yet. Instead she headed for Aimee and Ainsley, who were helping the heritage people restack their books and rehang the kilts and scarves and such on the few unbroken racks. T and Lacey were also there, lending a hand.

“Check it out,” Ainsley said with a toothy grin as Jen came up. “Clan Hamilton. Wasn’t that who your Aunt Bev married?”

The Hamilton tartan was similar to MacDougall: lots of red, but a bit more blue and white.

“That’s great, McGee.” Jen’s mind was too thin to think of a witty descriptor.

Aimee stood up, brushing her hands free of dirt and grass. She eyed Jen perceptively. “What’s up?”

“Um . . .”

She idly noticed Leith and the guys had managed to get the fence posts into new holes, but the things were still listing.

“What is it?” Aimee’s voice crossed over into worry.

A buzzing and jangling from Jen’s pocket. The phone had become a fifth limb to her over the years, so why the feel and sound of it surprised her now was more than disconcerting.

Giving Aimee an apologetic look, she saw on the phone screen that it wasn’t her tent contact or Tim again. An unfamiliar number.

Oh God, what? she wanted to scream into it. “Yes?”

“Is this Jen Haverhurst?”

“It is.”

“This is Valley Transportation. I’m calling to tell you the bus you rented to bring in a—what is this? Oh, a bagpipe and drum band—from Mount Caleb has broken down on Route 6. The driver didn’t have your number.”

Great. Wonderful. Perfect. Exactly what today needed.

The pipe band from across the state should have been arriving right about now. She thought the grounds had been a little too quiet between the panic of a loose cow, a barking herding dog, and collapsing tents.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Jen demanded into the phone.

“Uh, well, all my other buses of that size are taken today, but a tow truck is on its way.”

Shit shit shit. “Unless a tow truck is going to tow that thing and everyone inside all the way to Gleann, that doesn’t do me or my musicians any good.”

She ended the call with numb fingers, then turned back around to see that Owen and Melissa had arrived, each shouldering two folding lawn chairs. They and Aimee were staring at Jen.

“What happened?” Aimee asked. Jen told them about the broken-down bus.

Even if she couldn’t stay, she could try to fix this one last thing. A Highland Games needed a pipe and drum band, damn it. “Owen, do you have a big car? Maybe a work truck?” The plumber nodded. “And friends who possibly own similar trucks?”

Owen slid his chairs to the ground. “I hear you and I’m on it. We’ll bring them in, then figure out how the hell to get them back later.”

“I’ll take the Suburban,” Melissa added, and the two of them marched back to the parking lot, phones at their ears.

Jen watched them go with a dull sense of satisfaction. The pipe band would get here, disjointed and very late, throwing off the whole day’s schedule, but what the hell, it wasn’t like the games she’d slaved over during the past two weeks hadn’t already been thrown into a lidless blender and spun on puree.

Aimee narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. “That’s not why you came over here. I know you. What’s going on?”

Jen braced herself, opened her mouth. She’d never told Aimee about the potential promotion because she hadn’t wanted her sister to feel like she was pulling Jen away from anything. She’d wanted Aimee, and Gleann, to feel important—because they were—but she had to bring it out now. She knew full well how it was going to sound, that she was dragging out an excuse to take off. To abandon Aimee for work again, at the worst possible time, when things between them were just starting to get better.

And that’s when Sue walked up. Jen looked at the phone in her hand. It was one hell of a stone, and she was about to kill two birds with it.

When she was done telling them everything, Aimee just went over to Ainsley, told her to kiss her aunt good-bye, then wordlessly steered her daughter somewhere out of sight.

“I’m sorry,” Jen told Sue, who’d been standing there with her head tilted and lemon-sour lips. Jen couldn’t remain under the weight of that look anymore, so she turned away.

She couldn’t put off telling Leith any longer. Knowing how fast word spread in this town, if she didn’t get over to the athletic field right now, she’d miss her chance.

Ropes of colorful flapping flags divided the onlookers from the big men in the interior field. The athletes had returned to ribbing each other and warming up after their brief landscaping-and-fence-repair interlude. Leith included.

He and Duncan were taking turns jumping up onto a high box. Leith claimed he wasn’t in shape, that he was out of practice and couldn’t do stuff like that anymore, but he looked better even than Duncan. The two stopped to share a laugh, Leith doubling over. As Jen neared, she could make out new lines of sweat trickling down the side of his face. He raised an arm to wipe one cheek against his short sleeve. It pulled the T-shirt free from his kilt, displaying a patch of hard skin. A patch she knew particularly well.

Duncan gave Leith a nudge and pointed to her. Leith’s powerful torso twisted, and when he saw her, he flashed that thrilling grin, the one that said Everything is right with the world.

He met her halfway across the field, his eyes bright. “What’s up? Wait, I know that look. Things aren’t perfect, but everything’ll be fine. No one here cares about the tents. The damn cow will have people talking for months. And I know Scott will probably go to jail and Chris’s band won’t play, but Chris just told me he’s gonna go on solo later this afternoon. The crowd’ll love him—” He stepped back, his face falling. “That’s not it, is it?”

Just rip off the Band-Aid, Haverhurst. The longer she stalled, the worse it was going to be.

She licked her lips, feeling the hot morning sun on the part of her hair. “I have to go.”

His eyebrows pinched together. “The pipe band truck thing? Yeah, I heard. T came over to flip that blue hair in front of one of the high school helpers and told him her parents had gone off on the rescue. You taking off to help them?”

“No. I’m . . . I have to go back to New York.”

Now his eyebrows formed one long strip as he lowered his chin. “Right. Tomorrow. When we said we’d drive south together.”

“I mean today.”

He just stared. And stared. “After the closing ceremonies?”

“No. Now.” She drew up her shoulders and held up her phone like it could magically provide proof. It might have been the wrong thing to do because he looked at the thing with immediate wariness. “My boss, my real boss, called. There’s an emergency back in New York. If I don’t get back tonight and fix it, I’ll lose a really big client and possibly the promotion I’ve wanted since the day I started working there. I need to leave as soon as possible.”

He wiped at the corners of his mouth with a forefinger and thumb. He took several breaths before finally getting out, “Now. You’re leaving now. Before the games even get going.”

She put her phone away and her hands felt terribly empty. “It’s my actual job, Leith. My real one. The one that pays the bills.”

Lips tight, he nodded. “I thought you had an assistant.”

“She’s the one who fucked everything up and now it’s on my head.”

“It’s Saturday. Can’t you fix it Monday? You know, during normal work hours?”

She breathed steadily through her nose. She’d expected this, she reminded herself. “I don’t work normal hours. Neither do you, as I recall.” As she stepped closer to him, he didn’t reach for her. “I’m not a superhero. I can’t be two places at once. I’ve been standing over there, wracking my brain trying to figure out how to do both, but I just can’t. I have to choose. And, yes, my heart is telling me to stay, but my brain and my duty are pulling me back to the city.”

Over Leith’s shoulder she glimpsed one of the athletes starting toward him, until Duncan stopped him with a hand to his chest.

Leith’s hands slid to his hips. “I was supposed to go back to Connecticut this weekend, you know.”

“Yes. I do know.”

“It was the only weekend Rory’s husband was going to be in town to approve my plans. She moved up my complete date by three weeks. I can’t really afford to be here either, but I am. I stayed. For them.” He nudged his chin at the pockets of people he’d grown up with, and many more he hadn’t. “For Da’s memory.”

“I understand what you’ve done,” she said. “What it took to make you stay. But really, what made you stay—your past, your roots—is the very same reason why I have to go. There were things you needed to do and finish here. There are things I need to do and finish there.”

He seemed to barely hear her. “I also stayed for you, remember.”

She started to fidget, shifting from foot to foot. “I know. I don’t want to go. I told you. I had to make a choice. But we’ll see each other next week, when you get to Connecticut. Then we’ll figure everything else out.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “You really aren’t seeing this? The similarities? How this looks to me? How it feels?”

“Similarities to—? Oh.” She closed her eyes. “Shit. I’m sorry. I really am.”

“I mean, I understand that what happened ten years ago was when we were kids, that you had legitimate reasons for not staying, but right over there”—he jabbed a finger toward the fairgrounds and his voice rose—“is where I told you how I felt, and then watched you walk away right after. And today I’m standing in almost the exact same spot, watching you leave again. After I told you exactly how I feel now. I fucking hate watching you walk away. I can’t change that reaction, and I won’t apologize for it.”

“You shouldn’t have to apologize. I should. And I am.”

“I’m not pissed off because you’re going after your dream. I told you I get you, and I do. What you told me in New York, about your mom and Iowa and coming here . . . it’s powerful stuff that I totally understand. But if we’re being honest, I’m pissed off because I sacrificed something big to be here for Gleann and for you, and you’re turning away. I’m scared for what this could mean to us, that this is a sign of things to come.”

His unspoken question: When will you sacrifice for me?

But she had, by pushing aside her larger goals for a time to be here in the first place. So in essence she already had sacrificed to be reunited with him. Why did she have to sacrifice more to keep his faith? It wasn’t fucking fair. The whole thing was all too convoluted and didn’t make any sense. This was supposed to end perfectly.

She reached up to take his face. He let her, but his reciprocal touch—light fingers at her waist—lacked his usual warmth.

“I told you we would try,” she said. “I meant it.”

“Don’t go,” he whispered, his frustration coming through loud and clear. His hands at her waist suddenly bit in.

“I have to,” she whispered back, then tried to step out of his arms. He held fast. “I’m so sorry.”

He kissed her, swift and light, like she’d already slipped away. Like it was their last time. Like he was saying good-bye. She forced herself to ignore the sense of foreboding it caused.

“Call me tomorrow from the road?” she said.

Leith did not look at her as he replied, “Why don’t you call me? Hopefully it’ll go better than the last long-distance phone call we had.”

Ouch. “It will.”

But he’d already turned, and right then she knew exactly what he’d meant about hating to watch her walk away. The sight of his stiff back and shoulders, and the heavy plod of his boots on the grass thundered through her body. It shouldn’t have made her worry that this might indeed be the last time she’d see him . . . but it did.

Numb, she walked to the edge of the field and lifted the flag rope without feeling its plastic snap at her skin. She wove her way through the crowd without sensing the other bodies. She’d gotten halfway across the parking lot before she realized she’d left the Hemmertex grounds and the new world of the Gleann Highland Games she’d helped create. Blinking into the sunshine, she knew she had to do what she’d always done: Go forward. Not back.

Doing so had just never hurt this much before.

As she opened the unlocked door to 738 Maple, her phone rang again, jangling her from thoughts of Leith. The little black thing she practically slept with, the inanimate object she usually clung to, she now wanted to chuck across the driveway, like the athletes did with those massive weights.

With a roll of her eyes that felt a little wet, she picked up the call from the guy who’d loaned her the tents as a return favor. Of course they couldn’t provide replacements within a timeframe that would do the Gleann Highland Games any good. And of course he wanted payment for any damages. That was to be expected; she’d demand the same thing if she were him.

Jen dug into her purse and pulled out her wallet. “After you come get the tents and inspect them, send me an itemized list of the damages, then charge them to my personal credit card.” She read off the series of numbers on the piece of plastic in her hand. “I don’t want you to charge Gleann a thing.”

Leith knew the AD was staring at him.

“What was that about?” Duncan asked, and when Leith didn’t answer, he added, “Everything okay with the athletic events?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Events are good.”

“Ah.” Duncan drew out the single word in a way that didn’t need explanation.

After a few long moments of pretending to examine the sheaves Duncan had brought for the toss, Leith finally turned back to see Jen moving slowly away through the gathering crowd. Past her sister who just watched her go. Past Mayor Sue, who shook her head. Even past Shea, whose mess of a tent was nearly cleaned up thanks to the swarm of rugby players. Though Jen walked with her head high, she clutched her giant purse to her chest and Leith knew she was protecting herself using that green leather piece of armor which held her mighty weapons: the laptop and her phone.

That goddamn phone.

If she was so affected by her choice, if she questioned it so much—and she did; her excuses weren’t fooling him—why the hell wasn’t she staying? There were a million more things he’d wanted to say to her, but knew it would’ve done no good, and they might have sprung more from frustration than true reason. She didn’t respond well to that. And besides, he’d made his argument.

She’d forgotten that he knew her, that he’d glimpsed what her life was like back in New York, what sort of world she’d built up around herself. Maybe the threads of that world had loosened since she’d come back to New Hampshire, but once she crossed the bridge back into Manhattan, she’d be swallowed so fast by those jaws of fast-talking, fast-moving events that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, that she wouldn’t even realize she’d shut him out again.

He didn’t know if his heart could take that. Not twice.

He wasn’t looking for a woman to stay back at home while he went out and worked to bring home the paycheck. Hell no. No, Jen was smart and driven and it wasn’t his place to change that. Those were just two of the reasons why he loved her. He loved her for who she was, but he was worried about who she was striving, or even pretending, to be. Doing something to escape pain and heartache wasn’t the same as doing something because it spoke to your heart.

He wanted to be assured she wouldn’t disappear again. But most of all, he just wanted her.

You want her because she was right, boy. Women usually are.

Ah, Da. Leith could hear the old man’s chuckle, the same low, secretive laugh that always came out when he used to talk about his beloved wife. Leith closed his eyes and bowed his head. In the distance, beneath everything else, Chris struck some warm-up notes on his fiddle. Though unamplified, the song still traveled, and Leith wondered if he was hallucinating, because it was Da’s favorite folk tune, the one he used to play over and over on the wobbly record player.

Right about what? Leigh almost asked. But he knew.

I know, I know, came Da’s ethereal, accented voice. The last time you competed you threw like shite in front of me. I get it. But if you really think that ever mattered to me or to anyone else, you’re a fool. You’re also not a father yet. These things are almost impossible to explain to a man who isn’t.

“It does matter,” Leith mumbled. “It matters to me.”

“Huh?” Duncan asked, looking up from his clipboard with a frown.

Leith gave him an awkward smile and shook his head. Duncan ambled away with the clipboard to go check on the high school volunteers.

She was right, Da whispered in Leith’s ear, what she said to you about failure and what’s holding you back. Failure’s only in your mind. To so many others, it’s success.

Jesus. Leith couldn’t breathe. His head snapped up and he scanned the crowd again, but Jen’s dark hair and white dress were long gone.

Boy. Just get in there and throw already. You cleaned out my house. Now clean out your own head.

And just like what had happened in the music tent last night, some people shifted on the other side of the flags—a dad trying to wrangle his five wild kids—and there was Da, sitting on the edge of the scrappy lawn chair, pipe between his teeth, cap on, walking cane upright between his knees. He nodded once. Leith blinked twice. When two of the kids started wrestling, the image was obliterated.

Leith whirled toward the center of the field, where Duncan was mingling with some of the competitors. A few handshakes were going around, a few friendly challenges.

A Braemar stone sat all lonesome off to one side. Twenty-two pounds of black rock calling Leith’s name. With a purpose he hadn’t felt in at least four years, he stomped over to the stone. Picked it up. Rolled it between his hands. Warm and smooth, a little bit of home in his palms.

He could hear the murmurs starting, the building roar of the crowd, his name spoken in several voices he recognized and just as many he didn’t. The sound followed him like he approached a waterfall, building and building the farther into the field he walked. Out of the corner of his eye he could see people hurrying over to the field, beckoned by family members or strangers. A few whistles and scattered applause filled the air.

“Do it, Dougall!” someone yelled.

But that wasn’t why he took his place behind the trig, got his feet set into position. Wide. Steady. No, this didn’t have to do with them. This was for the man and the woman who weren’t even here. And for himself.

“What’re you doing, Dougall?” Duncan this time, loud and clear, for all to hear.

Leith swung out his left arm, finding his balance, assuming the form Da had taught him. He raised the Braemar stone and tucked it between his chin and shoulder. A few deep breaths. A crouch. Then he launched that sucker up and into the field, not really caring where it landed. That wasn’t the point.

All of Gleann seemed to erupt in cheers.

He walked away from the trig. Duncan’s round face was split by a massive grin, that missing tooth making an appearance. His huge arms were thrown out wide and he was laughing. “What the hell are you doing?”

Leith stomped over and snatched Duncan’s clipboard from his hands. “What’s it look like?” Leith scrawled his name at the bottom of the list of competitors. “I’m fucking throwing.”