Twenty-Nine
Colin, present day
He watched Cecilia sleep, her chest rising and falling in slow, even breaths. There was no green in the sky tonight, but that hadn’t stopped her from staying up too late, waiting and hoping for the northern lights to make an appearance.
Of course the hotel had installed an “aurora alarm” in the cabin, one that would be activated if the aurora borealis made an appearance.
Not that CeCe trusted that.
She’d said the first night as they’d lay bundled up in their robes, lying under the glass roof, “I’ve waited my whole life to see this. I’m not trusting it to technology.”
Colin smiled at the memory.
She’d been like a kid on Christmas morning the first time the sky had lit that otherworldly green and it had made his heart catch, that little slice of the Cecilia of the past, the one who appreciated the beauty of the world. The one who’d stared endlessly over the cliffs near his home, studying the ocean and trying to commit the sounds of the waves breaking against the rocks to memory. It had reminded him of the girl who’d been captivated by the small details in a stained glass window, the one who’d so appreciated the curls and different shades of color in Bo’s mane that she’d spent long hours sketching every minute point.
That had been the woman he’d fallen for.
The one with a zest for life and who’d been so freely giving with her love and affections. She hadn’t been like the other women in his life, always calculating which power play would gain them the most or throwing a temper tantrum when they didn’t get their way.
Cecilia had been different.
And it had been their downfall.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, carefully sliding free of the mattress while being sure to keep CeCe covered with the blankets.
A long overdue one that would probably involve an apology.
Och. He hated apologies. Giving them, that was.
Quietly, he stuffed his feet into his boots and shrugged into his parka. He grabbed his phone from the side table before slipping through the front door.
Then he dialed a number he knew by heart. One he’d blocked six years before.
The sun was just rising over the horizon but it was already close to eight in the morning. Of course, Finland didn’t get much sun this time a year, and it would already be setting by one in the afternoon so there wouldn’t be much of a chance to soak up its rays.
But none of this had anything to do with the call he needed to make.
Except to delay the inevitable.
“Fuck,” he muttered again and pressed the green button on the screen.
Colin had a moment’s regret when he realized it was two hours earlier in Scotland, but by then the phone was already ringing.
And ringing.
And ringing.
Then going to Ewan Campbell’s voicemail.
“Well, fuck.” He started to shove the phone back into his pocket but it started vibrating and one glance at the screen had his gut churning.
The arsehole was calling him back.
He glanced heavenward for one long moment before swiping his finger across the screen. This was what he wanted. Right?
Right.
He put the phone to his ear. “Aye?”
“You’re a stubborn fuck, aren’t ye?” Ewan said.
God that voice was his childhood, and the longing it set off in his heart was almost shocking. It wasn’t a surprise that he’d missed the friend he’d grown up with, the one he’d gone off to Oxford with, but what was shocking was the depth of that emotion.
They’d shared so much and Colin didn’t realize until he’d heard Ewan’s voice how empty he’d been the last few years.
“Aye,” he agreed. “I think I might have misunderstood a few things.”
“A few—” Ewan broke off then continued with a lowered voice. “A few things?” he whispered. “You misunderstood a whole hell of a lot, Colin. And then wouldn’t let me or CeCe explain. Do you even remember what you did to her? What you said?”
Colin sighed. “No. And she won’t tell me.”
“You’ve seen her?” he exploded. “After everything, she’s let you near her?” There was a female voice in the background, a muffled protest. “Sorry, baby,” Ewan said and the sound of rustling filled the airwaves.
“Is this a bad time?” Colin asked.
“It’s barely six in the morning,” Ewan retorted. “That’s never a good time. Especially when a couple is dealing with all the demands of a newborn.”
Ewan had a kid?
“You’re married?”
Ewan sighed. “Two years now. And my son is six weeks old.”
“I know,” Ewan agreed. “We’re getting old. Growing up.”
“I don’t know if that idiom can be applied to me,” he said. “Or not until recently, that is.”
A pause, then, “You’ve seen Cecilia?”
“We’re vacationing together.” He kept the explanation as simple as possible.
“So she trusts you.” Ewan bustled around in the background, turning on and off water as he filled a container. Probably for coffee. His friend had never been able to live without the caffeinated beverage.
“I don’t know that she trusts me.” Colin sighed and sank down onto the snowbank a few feet away from the cabin. “She’s waiting for me to hurt her again.”
“And you don’t want to hurt her?”
His spine went ramrod stiff. “What the fuck?”
Ewan spoke over the sounds of coffee percolating in the background. “Hurting Cecilia seems to be a pattern for you. She’s been happy and has a stable job. She’s made friends.”
“You’ve kept in touch with her.” His voice sounded dead, even to his own ears.
“Yes, Col. She needed someone to look after her.”
When you couldn’t, was the portion of his sentence that he left unsaid.
“I was in a fucked up place. Not an excuse,” he hurried to say when Ewan started to speak. “I made my first fuck up right, but I can’t fix the hurts of the second one without knowing what I did.”
Silence.
Dammit. He dropped his head to his knees, a long tense quiet the only response to his words. At this point, he was ready to beg.
“Please, Ewan. I need you to tell me.”
A long breath hissed through the speakers of his phone. “It’s not pretty because to truly understand what happened you have to know what your mother and sister did.” A pause. “And what you said to her when you found out.”
And there was that other shoe dropping, no, crunching down right onto his fucking heart.