The fog lay so thick upon the harborside streets of Stromness, Ben had to use his electronic key fob to locate his car outside their inn. The alarm chirped ten feet away, startling him and no doubt waking half of Orkney from its pre-dawn slumber.

“Let me drive,” Evan whispered.

Ben didn’t argue. He was still sleepy after waking at quarter past four to say his long obligatory prayer, in case there was no time later today.

Remembering he needed to eat before his fast began—for the last time this year, yay!—he pulled a protein bar from his coat pocket.

“You won’t need those,” Evan said. “Mum’ll have breakfast ready long before sunrise.”

“Not on my account, I hope. I don’t want to be a burden.”

“I guarantee my mother wants to impress you even more than you want to impress her.”

Slowly and silently, they drove into what Ben assumed was the countryside, given the sudden lack of street lamps. Mist meandered in through the car’s windows, which Evan had lowered so he could hear oncoming traffic, since their headlights illuminated only a few feet ahead of them. As they climbed the long hill away from Stromness, the fog thinned enough for Ben to see a roadside fence, and beyond it, scattered dark shapes that might have been cows.

“Almost there,” Evan said as he swung the car onto a dirt path.

Before Ben could wonder what almost meant in these parts, a golden light appeared through the mist. Evan pulled up next to a long, squat building, then laughed at the white-and-blue painted sign in front of them:

Prodigal Son Parking Only

Ben and Evan entered through a side door into a mudroom scattered with foot-wiping rugs atop scuffed gray linoleum. They were instantly greeted by a pair of short-haired collie dogs—one of which was missing a back leg yet seemed as agile as its partner—along with the scent of breakfast. Ben’s stomach growled in yearning.

“Evan!” a woman whisper-shouted as she hurried in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her denim apron. She gave her son a hug and kiss, then turned to Ben. “And you’ll be Ben, will you no’?”

“I will be. I mean, I am.” He shook her warm, callused hand. “Happy to meet you.”

“Come but, come but.” She beckoned them to follow her past a long wooden table back into the kitchen. “Magnus is oot gaen the sheep their silage, and the boys are still in their beds. Helga kept them up past one o’clock making like she was about to calf. Never did, though. False alarm.”

“She’s probably waiting for the wedding.” Evan made a beeline for the coffee maker. “Ben, will you have some?”

“Yes, please, with loads of milk.” He eyed the closest frying pan, which held what looked like a cross between a pancake and a—well, a cake. “What is that? It smells incredible.”

She pointed her spatula at her son. “You’ve not been making Fatty Cutties for him? What sort of boyfriend do you call theesael?”

“The sort who doesn’t want to commit murder-by-carbs.” He handed Ben a full mug, took a long sip of his own, then gave a sigh of ecstasy. “Mum, I’ve missed your coffee.”

“Did the Dramamine work this time?” she asked him, shifting three enormous sausages onto a serving plate.

“I managed to make it to dry land before spewing, so…I guess?”

“It was a rough ride, Mrs. Hol—erm, Mrs. Muir.” Ben mentally kicked himself for nearly using her ex-husband’s surname.

“Call me Linda or I’ll be calling you Mr. Reid.” She broke a pair of eggs over the frying pan that had held the sausages. “Evan, your sister said her flight to Kirkwall yesterday was a nightmare, so whoever got your plane ticket had a tarf time of it too.”

“You had a plane ticket?” Ben turned to Evan. “If you get seasick, then why didn’t we fly?” The infamous Pentland Firth separating Orkney from the Scottish mainland had been even more treacherous than Ben had expected.

“He bought it months ago,” Linda said, “but by the time he decided to bring you, the flight was booked up, thanks to the eclipse.”

“You should’ve flown,” Ben told Evan. “I could’ve taken the ferry and met you here.”

“Would you have done that in my place?”

“Of course not,” Ben said, “but I’ve got higher standards for my own chivalry.”

“Ooh-hoo-hoo!” Linda grinned. “I see why you fancy him, son.”

Over breakfast, she regaled them with the latest wedding challenges. Ben made what he hoped were helpful suggestions in between murmuring, “Yum” and “OhmyGodthisisamazing” after every third bite of food.

Ben could see a lot of Linda in Evan. She was stunning in a way that inspired confidence rather than intimidated. They had the same afternoon-sky-blue eyes that crinkled to slits when they smiled. Her close-cropped hair was even lighter than her son’s, though Ben wasn’t sure if she was born with that shade or if it was gracefully aging to flaxen white.

Soon Evan’s teenage brothers, Thorfinn and Sigur, shuffled into the kitchen, heavy-lidded and yawning. If the names alone hadn’t made Ben feel in a different country, the accents would have done, as the two lads muttered and mumbled their way to coffee.

“They’ll be a peedie bit friendlier after their caffeine,” Linda told Ben. Then she glanced at her watch. “Time to finish the eclipse cake. Folk’ll be here at eight.”

“Can I help with anything?” Ben offered.

“Thanks, but no, you sit and swadge, then Evan’ll show you aboot.” She took their plates and headed for the sink.

Ben leaned over to whisper, “How do I swadge?”

“Just chill and digest,” Evan whispered back.

“Ah.” He sipped his coffee and examined the room around him. The house lay low to the ground, no doubt to cut a minimal profile against the Orkney winds. The ceiling looked about seven feet high, with thick wooden beams that reduced the effective height another several inches.

“Aye-aye, lads.” The eighteen-year-old Thorfinn sat down across from them, clanging his plate against the table. “Let’s talk blackening.”

“The blackest ever.” Sigur, who was fifteen but looked almost a twin to his brother, joined them with his own overflowing plate. “We’re doing pure treacle. Ordered it in bulk online and watered it down yesterday. Got buckets of it.”

“Been saving chicken feathers for six months,” Thorfinn added with a grin. “That Sooth boy won’t know what hit him.”

Ben had never witnessed a blackening in person, but he’d seen pics and videos by a few of his mum’s clients. The traditional ritual humiliation of the wedding couple was still common throughout northern Scotland. “You’re only blackening the groom?”

“That’s usually how it’s done in Orkney,” Evan said.

“I thought the whole idea was to put the couple through hell together, to kinda cement the bond between them.” Ben shrugged. “I mean, if you need a reason other than the joy of torturing your big sister.”

“Well…” Evan turned to his brothers. “We could do.”

Thorfinn’s eyes lit up. “We should do.”

“We will!” Sigur pounded the table and hooted. “There’s more than enough treacle for two.”

Evan gasped and pointed to a faint square glowing on the wall. “Sunrise.” He jumped up from the table. “Ben, come and see before it’s away.”

They hurried out the door they’d entered, leaving their jackets and Evan’s family behind.

The moment he stepped outside, Ben forgot about the damp, chilly air, for before him lay a vision the likes of which he’d seen only in Hollywood films.

“Oh,” he whispered, and even that tiny noise seemed a blaring klaxon in the face of such serenity.

The green, sheep-spotted fields sloped down toward the mist-shrouded bay, which seemed made of clouds instead of water. As the sun rose over the not-so-distant island of Hoy, its rays were condensed into a golden spotlight by the thick purple cloud above it.

“Don’t blink,” Evan said. “It’ll be gone in a moment.”

Ben held his breath, and before his lungs could even think of aching, the sun disappeared into the cloud bank. Still, it was now light enough to provide his first real glimpse of Orkney. “How could you stand living somewhere so beautiful? How’d you ever get anything done?”

“You get used to it, sort of. Also, moments like that are rare, especially this time of year.” Evan smiled wistfully. “May is incredible, and in June and July it never gets completely dark. The night sky turns periwinkle, and people stay up late, sit outside, and just…” His eyes went distant, then he swallowed and looked at Ben. “I’d love to bring you back so you can see for yourself.”

Now Ben’s lungs were aching. “I’d love it too.” He moved in for a kiss.

A low groan emanated from the barn to his left.

Evan chuckled. “The kye’ll be wanting oot now the sun’s up. Let me ask Mum where they’re to go.” He brushed his lips over Ben’s before heading back to the house.

Ben watched him walk away with a newly relaxed posture. For once Evan wasn’t scanning his surroundings, cataloging every detail and preparing for attack. It must have felt unnatural to let his guard down, to not see everyone around him as a potential terrorist, to have no calculation more complex than which field to put a cow into.

Evan returned in a moment—carrying their coats, to Ben’s relief. They went into the small barn, which was warm with animal heat and smelled of straw and dung, an oddly pleasant combination.

Ben stood back as Evan clipped a tether onto the halter of the closest cow. “I thought this was a sheep farm.”

“It is. Sheep are away in the hills.” Evan unlatched the stall door and led out the placid black-and-white beast. “These are house kye, just for the family’s milk.”

Ben followed Evan and the cow out to the nearest pasture, keeping his distance so as not to get trampled. They repeated the process with two more cows. Ben even got to lead one on his own, which made him feel as accomplished as surviving his first week of Krav Maga classes.

“Helga’s to stay inside,” Evan said as they approached the last stall. “She could be calving any time noo.”

They leaned on the stall door to observe the pregnant heifer, who half-heartedly stamped her feet and gave them a sleepy regard.

“They have beautiful eyes,” Ben said, then felt stupid at sounding like a shallow city boy.

But Evan just nodded and said, “It’s the long lashes.” Then he pulled out his phone. “My sister’ll be leaving Kirkwall soon. I’d best warn her about the blackening.”

“That’s kind of you.”

“I believe in informed consent. Also loyalty.” He thumbed in a text message. “Justine and I may have grown up here, but being born in London and having a surname like Hollister means we’ve never been considered true Orcadians.” He winked at Ben. “Us Sooth folk stick together.”

After a moment, Evan’s phone dinged. He looked at the screen, then laughed and showed it to Ben:

Evan: OK if we blacken you along with Darren?

Justine: Fuck yeah equality!!!

It seemed to Evan that by eight o’clock, the entire Orkney Mainland had gathered on the Muir farm. All the big families—the Fletts, Linklaters, Cloustons, Rendells, Firths—and the small ones, too, were keen to take part in the two-for-one celebration of the sun’s eclipse and his sister’s impending nuptials.

When Evan’s neighbors inquired about his job, he would relate a brief and boring architectural anecdote, then change the subject to local controversies he knew they wanted to pleep about. He caught up on the stoat epidemic decimating Orkney wildlife, as well as the growing number of passengers belched onto the island by giant cruiseliners. And, of course, there was the age-old analysis of auction mart prices.

“A hundred fifty pence per kilo for a prime Texel?” Evan asked his neighbor Cameron, who raised the pedigree sheep along with Limousin beef cattle. “I can remember when they’d sell for twice that.”

“Prices have been falling three straight year,” Cameron said. “And there’s a straw shortage doon Sooth, so bedding’s got more expensive as well.”

Evan’s stepfather, Magnus, pointed to the nearby byre. “A long winter comes, and there’ll be nothing for the kye to sleep on. We’ll be weaving them blankets oot of their own hair.”

Evan chuckled with them, but it was clear that while farming had never been an easy lifestyle, it was only getting tougher to make a living. Money was especially tight now, thanks to last year’s small crop of lambs after an historically crap winter. This past winter, while warmer, had been just as wet and dim, which meant the Muir farm needed a higher than usual survival rate just to break even.

When Cameron went to congratulate Justine and Darren, Evan finally had a moment alone with his stepfather.

“How are things here?” he asked Magnus. “Financially, I mean.”

“Well enough.” Magnus scratched at his gray-and-black beard with weathered fingers. “Prices, they go up and doon, you ken? We’ve got all this farm-planning software, which helps us save a few pence here and there, but in the end it’s all aboot minding on that the good times never last, and neither do bad times.”

If Ben were here, he’d tell Evan, “Now I know where you get your stoicism.” But his partner had long since been rescued from farm talk by the Milfords, a Bahá’í couple from Kent who were pure chuffed to meet “a real Persian.” Currently he and the Milfords were helping Justine distribute eclipse glasses, warning each guest, “Wear these or go blind.”

“You’ve got a night lamber hired for next month?” Evan asked Magnus.

His stepfather’s eyes rounded. “Aye, and he’s charging fifteen pound an hour this year. Worth it, though, to keep more lambs alive—not to mention keep your mum and your brothers and I from killing each other.”

Evan did the arithmetic in his head. With a twelve-hour shift for two straight weeks… “Ooft. I wish I could help.”

“You help plenty with the gathering.”

“That’s for a long weekend twice a year. But if I was your night lamber I could save you over two thousand pounds.”

“I’m sure your job and your football team would be thrilled for you to disappear for two weeks only to come back brain-dead fae sleep deprivation.”

“Dad, our farm is more important than football.”

“But not more important than your job.” Magnus gave him a knowing look. “See, you’ll not be arguing with me there.”

Evan wasn’t sure. After just a few hours in Orkney, the burdens of work seemed swept away on the relentless wind, each concern like a damp leaf stuck to his skin, now drying up and peeling off, one by one:

David Wallace proclaiming Scotland a “white firewall” against the “plague of immigrants” at last week’s BVP meeting…gone.

The Ukrainian landlady at St. Andrew’s in the Square giving a fake name for her tenant…forgotten.

The complete lack of matches for the fingerprints and hair fibers found in the white Outlander…reduced to background noise.

It was always like this, morphing back into his old self with these people, debating silage methods and the surest ways to prevent foot scald in lambs. It reminded Evan he’d once been a man who took words at face value instead of analyzing them for six different meanings. A man who didn’t look for threats round every corner.

Was this forthright Orcadian his real self, or was it just another persona? Did he even have a real self anymore?

“Of course if you ever change your mind, son,” Magnus said, “we’d love to have you back. Your old room’s ready for you.”

“Thorfinn took it.”

“Well, then Justine’s old room is ready for you.”

“Nah, that’s your and Mum’s office.”

“You ken what I mean.”

Evan did know what he meant—that no matter what, there’d always be a place for him here. It would never be too late to come home.

Sometimes he wondered whether that certainty was what had kept the madness at bay after Belfast. If he’d been “lucky” not to develop a debilitating case of PTSD, perhaps the luck lay right here in the damp Orkney soil, in the bleats and lows of the sheep and kye, in the foundation his family had given him.

And now that “right here” included Ben Reid.

“Hiya!” Ben handed Evan and Magnus the last two pairs of eclipse glasses. “This is beyond exciting, even if the sun’ll be only ninety-eight-percent covered. And this place is so amazing, I’m going to get sick of the word ‘amazing.’”

Magnus gave a laugh that made Evan glow inside. His stepfather had never been good at faking warmth toward folk he didn’t like.

They chatted for a few minutes before Magnus went off to discuss last-minute wedding details with Justine.

Ben edged closer to Evan. “Everyone here’s so nice, especially your family. I worried they’d be, you know…”

“Prejudiced?”

“Yes.” Ben slid a pair of eclipse glasses over his spectacles and waved a hand in front of his own face. “But I was the one prejudging them. I imagined all Orcadians to be big blond frosty Vikings.”

“Like me?”

“Sometimes you’re not so frosty,” Ben said with a smirk. “You might be the tallest man on the island, though.”

“Depends whether my father’s plane has landed yet. Also, most Orcadians aren’t as Norwegian as my mum’s family. My gran came here from Fredrikstad in 1956 for a music festival, fell in love with the island and my granddad, and basically never left.”

“That’s so romantic.” Ben took off his eclipse glasses. “May I kiss you here in front of everyone?”

Evan hesitated, remembering how he’d brought Fergus home a dozen times and they’d never so much as held hands. He knew of a few openly gay couples in Kirkwall, but they also refrained from public displays of affection. This was still Orkney, after all. “Yes, please.”

Ben kissed him quickly, then pulled back and put the dark glasses on again, smiling at the distant harbor. Evan resisted the urge to look behind him to see if anyone was watching.

Justine let out a whoop over by her solar telescope. “It’s staaaaarted!”

A queue quickly formed for a closeup view of the eclipse. First in line was Cameron’s wife, Ingrid.

She leaned over to squint into the eyepiece, a hand on her lower back. “Have you not got a cloud filter for this peedie thing?”

Justine looked exasperated, as immune as ever to the bone-dry Orkney sarcasm.

Evan put on his eclipse glasses and peered at the sun, which hung low enough over the sea he didn’t need to crane his neck. Through the thinning clouds he could just make out the curve of the moon eating away at one edge of the glowing orb.

The sight gave him the sudden, spinning sensation of being on a tiny ball of rock in outer space. The precise astronomical alignment that allowed their tiny outpost to witness this event felt both highly unlikely and strangely inevitable.

Around twenty past nine, the clouds thinned further, draping the sun with a gauzy veil and chilling the air so Evan had to zip his jacket and put on his gloves. At half nine, ten minutes before mid-eclipse, the party’s conversation faded, leaving an eerie silence.

“The birds have stopped singing,” Ben whispered. “They think it’s twilight.”

Evan couldn’t blame the skylarks for not twittering, or the kye for ambling back to the fence near the byre. Everything felt wrong.

Because this was nothing like twilight. The light had dimmed, but the shadows were sharper and shorter than they would have been near dusk. Even the light’s color—shades of blue and gray rather than red and orange—seemed off.

Evan looked to the southwest, where the horizon held the bruise-purple hue of an approaching storm. But this was no storm, just the shadow of a hungry moon.

He rubbed his arms to smooth down the standing hairs. His pulse quickened with each minute, and he felt the urge to…what, run? Hide? Pray? He now understood why solar eclipses had terrified ancient people.

Yet even as his primordial lizard brain was cowering, the rest of his mind marveled at the beauty of it all—yes, even the beauty of his instinctive fear. Never before had terror come from such a harmless source. He was in the safest place in the world, with the people he loved most.

When Ben took his hand without a word, Evan’s view of the sun wavered, swimming in unshed tears. He looked down to see Ben’s cheeks already wet. So Evan blinked, releasing the tears so he could once again witness this imperfect, ineffable miracle.

Ben had never had such a day. After the mind-blowing eclipse, the party had come back to earth in the filthiest fashion, courtesy of the blackening. Justine and her fiancé, Darren, were doused in buckets of watered-down treacle, then covered in oats, flour, and chicken feathers. Because of the wind and the need to chase down their victims, Justine’s three brothers got splashed as well.

Then the wedding party clambered into the back of the Muirs’ old pickup truck so Evan could drive them to Kirkwall, aka “Toon,” so the couple could be cling-wrapped to a signpost and forced to drink more beer, per tradition.

Ben rode along in the cab, and while the drunken revelers chanted and whooped and used overturned buckets as bongos, he was busy swooning over the landscape. They drove between the Lochs of Stenness and Harray, stunning silver mirrors of the clouds above, then passed two neolithic stone circles as well as an ancient chambered cairn, all of which Evan promised they’d visit Sunday when there’d be fewer tourists. It blew Ben’s mind that Evan had grown up a few miles from 5,000-year-old archaeological marvels.

Orkney held a starkness unlike that of Scotland’s other remote areas. Whereas the landscapes of the Highlands and the Western Isles rose in rugged defiance, here the terrain seemed to hunker down, as though bracing for Mother Nature’s next round of punishment.

When Ben noticed his gaze tripping erratically over the low hills, he realized what he was seeking.

“Where are all the trees?” he asked Evan as they drove. “Do they not grow in Orkney because of the wind?”

“No, it’s because every five years on Saint Rognvald’s Eve we cut down all the saplings and set them alight at Skara Brae.”

“Why?”

“Well, we need something to burn all the brunettes upon.”

Ben smiled. “We are stubbornly flame-resistant.”

“Aye, that’s why your bones make such good accordions.”

Ben liked this even-smarter-arsed incarnation of Evan. He liked him a lot.

But Evan grew tense again at the wedding rehearsal, thanks to a row between his father and stepfather. They were meant to walk the bride down the aisle together, one on either side. When they each tried to crowd the other out by veering toward the middle, Justine declared that her mother would escort her and the two men could “bloody stuff it.”

“You didn’t tell me your dad was English,” Ben whispered now to Evan as they walked down the stone slab street from the church to the restaurant beneath their inn. Hugh was chatting to Justine and Darren several paces ahead of them.

“You knew I was born in London,” Evan said.

“I figured that was because your dad worked there. He did, right?”

“He did. He does.”

Ben noticed Evan’s pace was slowing the closer they got to the restaurant. “You don’t talk about him much.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Where he’s from,” Ben said. “What he does for a living. Why he and your mum broke up.”

Evan shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “He was born in Bradford, in Yorkshire. He’s got a very demanding government job, which also answers your third question.”

Now Ben was the one slowing down. Was Hugh Hollister a spook? If Ben was allowed to know, surely Evan would have told him.

They reached the restaurant and were seated at a table in the crowded dining room, where visitors were still buzzing over the eclipse. The two fathers sat at either end of the table, rival heads of a fractured family.

Once they’d ordered their meals, Darren placed two identical russet-colored gift bags upon the table. “I read online about an old Orkney wedding tradition called ‘speiring night.’”

Justine grinned at her fiancé. “I told him I’d never heard of it, but he insisted.”

“Anyway,” Darren said, “supposedly back in the day, when a man wanted to marry a woman, he’d bring a bottle of fine whisky to her da and ask for her hand. If her father said yes, they’d have a few drams whilst making arrangements.”

Evan snorted. “A peedie bit patriarchal, no?”

“That’s what I said!” Justine gave her brother a cross-table fist bump, then glared at her dad and stepdad. “Don’t either of you tell him no, by the way. I already paid for this wedding, and it’s too late to get deposits back.”

Ben laughed, but his mirth faded when he saw the two men’s faces as Darren handed them their bags.

“I come from Dufftown,” Darren continued, “which is where they make The Balvenie whisky. Hugh, I got you the 30 because it was bottled the same year Justine was born.”

Justine grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”

“And for you, Magnus, I chose the Single Barrel 25, since that was closest to the number of years you’ve known her.”

“Aww.” Linda smiled at her future son-in-law across the table. “That’s pure sweet of you, laddie.”

“Aye, cheers.” Magnus examined the bottle’s label. “Of course, if you’d gaen us whiskies based on hoo many year we spent raising her, I’d have won by a mile.” He laughed at his joke, but he was the only one.

Ben rubbed the back of his neck to stop the prickling sensation. Maybe he was lucky that his parents lived several time zones apart.

“True,” Hugh said, “but fortunately it’s not only age that determines a whisky’s quality, but also the environment.”

Magnus shot him a dark look. “Whit thee sayen?”

“I’m saying it’s a very thoughtful gift.” Hugh turned to Justine’s fiancé. “Thank you, Darren. This is one of my favorites.”

“How wonderful!” Justine’s voice pitched high and tight. “I’m sure both bottles are wonderful. Equally wonderful.”

“Yes,” Evan said emphatically. “Wonderful and…different. But also wonderful.” His face mirrored his sister’s wince.

Ben squeezed his partner’s hand under the table and thought of a change in topic. “Evan delivered a calf today.”

“Oh yes!” Linda beamed past Ben at her son. “Hugh, you would’ve been awful proud of the way he took charge of the situation.”

Evan blushed a bit. “Technically Helga delivered the calf. I only helped.”

“He’s being modest,” Ben said. “He was up past his elbow in that cow, turning her baby’s leg the right way round so the shoulder didn’t catch on the way out.”

“Oh.” Darren looked slightly ill. “Wish I’d ordered the salmon instead of the beef.”

Magnus raised his nearly empty wine glass toward Evan. “I taught him everything he knows,” he said, looking straight at Mr. Hollister.

Hugh’s steel-gray gaze remained unwavering and unimpressed. “I’m sure he frequently deploys his knowledge of livestock within his chosen field, so to speak.”

“I raised him to make an honest living,” Magnus said.

Everyone at the table tensed—except for Darren, who just looked bewildered. Ben guessed he didn’t know about Evan’s job.

“So, Ben,” Linda said quickly, laying a hand on his arm, “it’ll surely feel strange to be a mere spectator at a wedding, aye?”

“Yes.” He nodded vigorously, as if his waggling head could singlehandedly dispel the table’s friction. “I’m happy to help if needed. Like a doctor does when someone on an aeroplane has a medical emergency.”

Their meals came then, delivered by a waitress who Ben guessed was a schoolyard nemesis of Justine’s, based on their catty exchanges.

Evan nudged Ben and whispered, “I thought you weren’t allowed to work on holy days like Naw-Rúz.”

“Mum and I discussed it. Helping those in need is always the highest calling.”

“Good. I’ll be needing your help just to survive the next twenty-four hours.” He pulled a small envelope from his inside coat pocket and slipped it into Ben’s hand. “Sorry if this is cheesy. I didn’t know how else to commemorate the occasion.”

Ben opened the envelope and pulled out a greeting card. “Oh my God, it’s in Persian.”

“Supposedly it says ‘Naw-Rúz Mubarak—Happy New Year.’ And some other stuff.”

“I love it.” He wanted to blurt out And I love you, but not in front of everyone. “Thank you.”

Of course Evan’s mum wanted to see the card, which was then passed around the table for everyone to admire, since apparently there was no such thing as privacy on this island.

The card was but a brief respite from the barbs flying from either end of the table. Evan and Justine chided their fathers with pleas to “keep things civil” and “save the blood feud for the reception when everyone can take part, heh.” As the family’s outsiders, Ben and Darren tried to lighten the conversation with talk of who might be the next Top Gear host now that Jeremy Clarkson had been sacked.

“So I was reading this week’s Orcadian,” Hugh said, folding his napkin at the end of the main course. “There’s apparently been a spate of vandalism on the West Mainland. And by ‘spate,’ I mean two cases. Tell me, Magnus, however do you sleep at night amidst such a crime wave?”

Justine sighed. “Dad…”

“You’re just jealous,” Magnus said, emphasizing the last word, “because we’ve not been touched by the ills of civilization.”

Justine clutched her steak knife. “Dad!” she said to Magnus between gritted teeth.

“If you mean ills like major hospitals and decent broadband connection,” Hugh said, “then I suppose you’re right.”

Magnus snorted. “It takes a sick mind to look doon on a community for being peaceful.”

Hugh raised an eyebrow. “A mind stays healthy with daily stimulation by new and interesting things. How long before dementia sets in when a brain’s fiercest challenge is whether to store silage in bales or piles?”

“Stop it!” Justine lurched to her feet, knocking against the table. Her wine glass tipped over, spilling its ruby contents over her half-eaten sirloin. “I don’t want either of you at my wedding. You can both go and-and-and jump in the harbor instead. I hope you sink like stones!” She stalked off, pressing her cloth napkin to her face.

“Sit, lads. I’ve got this,” Linda told Evan and Darren, who were getting up to follow Justine. “She’ll be in the ladies’, anyway.”

Evan’s two fathers glowered at each other for a long, silent moment. Ben’s mind went blank, his once-endless well of small talk now dry.

Hugh slid back his chair. “I need a smoke. I’ll be in the beer garden if anyone needs me.”

“We won’t,” Magnus muttered.

Ben saw Evan staring after his dad. “Go to him,” he whispered.

“You’ll be all right?” Evan asked.

“It’s literally my job to calm people down before weddings.”

Evan managed a tiny smile. “Thanks,” he said, then hurried after his father.

“So.” Ben turned back to a simmering Magnus and a shell-shocked Darren. “Tell me, Magnus, how did you and Linda first meet? Did you know each other before she moved south?”

“Och aye.” A lopsided grin spread across Magnus’s face. Despite the fighting, it warmed Ben’s heart that this tough old farmer was still besotted with his bride. “We met in primary school. We weren’t friends, really—you ken how boys and girls are at that age. But by the time we were teenagers…” He blushed and rubbed his jaw. “Things changed.”

Ben sent a curious glance at Darren, who looked less comfortable than ever. Evan had made it sound as though Linda and Magnus had started a brand-new relationship after the breakup with Hugh—which had allegedly occurred because of the latter’s demanding job. Had Ben accidentally unearthed a family secret?

“Sounds like a lovely story.” Ben lifted the wine bottle and emptied it into Magnus’s glass. “Tell me more.”