Among the Heather (The Highlands, #2)

Why would housekeeping need to prop open the door?

“Walk … the letter didn’t have an address on it. The hotel said a courier service delivered it, but …” I pushed open my door without stepping inside and saw my clothes had been strewn everywhere. And sitting in an armchair facing the door, waiting for me, was someone I hadn’t seen in years. Understanding crashed over me, and I swayed with the immensity of it. “Walker … I know who’s been sending the letters.”

“Who?” he barked in my ear.

“Barbara Benny. Darren Menzie’s mum.”

“Who? How?”

“Because she’s in my hotel room.” I hung up the phone as I stepped into the suite. Somehow, deep down, I think I’d always known the letters were about what happened to Gil. What we’d done as boys. What I’d failed to stop Darren from doing. I must have moved the ice bucket because the hotel door clicked quietly shut behind me.





Thirty


ARIA





Lately, I’d been feeling restless. Not with my life in Scotland—I loved my life in Scotland, even more now that I was starting to have one outside of my job. But being without North for most of the week left me feeling a little unmoored. Like there was something I should be doing and wasn’t.

It manifested itself in ways such as wanting to be out of my office more and volunteering to drive to Inverness to drop off a contract renewal with the estate’s solicitors. It was pretty urgent, and Lachlan had intended to drive it over since it would be quicker than mailing it. But I’d offered instead. So that’s why, instead of ending the day driving ten minutes home, I was driving an hour toward the city before the solicitors’ office closed.

Feeling out of sorts was probably the reason I answered my mother’s call, twenty minutes from my destination. I’d been avoiding talking with Mamma as much as possible, making excuses to cut her off when she started asking about North or complaining about Allegra moving to the East Coast after the summer. Now I was trapped in a car with her musical accent filling the interior.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Mamma stated right away.

“I have not,” I lied. “I’ve just been busy.”

“Sì, sì, getting your papa to call in favors so you can be on the set of your new boyfriend’s film. A man I still have not met. Did you know he played a serial killer in his last movie?”

I rolled my eyes, my hands tightening around the wheel. “It was a TV show. And he’s not actually a serial killer, Mamma.”

“I know this. But it is a very dark part to play. What does this say about him?”

Oh, for God’s sake. “What does it say about Dad that he made a movie about an alien that was a serial killer? Or an assassin? You remember he made those, right?”

Mamma tsked. “I’m your mamma. I can be upset that I haven’t met this man. And he’s a Scot. Scots are earthy. Not sophisticated.”

“Untrue. And especially about North.” I tried not to let her irritate me. “Anyway, how are you?”

“Uh, well, one of my daughters would prefer to flee to the other side of the country than be near me, and the other fled across the ocean to start a life with a Scotsman.”

My agitation simmered. “One: Allegra is going to one of the best schools in the country, not fleeing you.” It’s not actually about you, Mother! “Two: I moved across the ocean to start a career for myself. North was just a happy bonus two years later.”

“And what of your papà? Me? Do you not want to be close to us?”

I wasn’t going down this road with her again. “You know that’s not true. You and Dad have your lives. We have ours. We make time for each other. That’s how families work.”

“Don’t condescend to me, Aria.” Mamma sniffed haughtily. “Anyway, I want to know more about this North person. For a start, what kind of name is North?”

“My mum told me I was named after the North Star because they knew I was all they would ever need … to find their way. That I’d brought them together on the right path. I was their true North.”

An ache squeezed my chest at the memory. “A beautiful name,” I replied huskily. “North is a beautiful name.”

“Hmm. You sound like you like him very much. If that is the case, you need to take better care of yourself, coccolona. I’ve been looking at his relationship history, and he has dated very beautiful women. The last was a pop star. Those pictures of you online, coccolona … you need to lose some weight. Did you not get the link I sent you about the diet plan my friend has used? She says it works wonders. I was thinking—”

“Stop!” I yelled, angrier, louder than I expected.

In fact, I hadn’t expected to say it at all. But the word exploded out of me.

Hurt that I hated she could inflict scored through.

“Aria!” Mamma snapped. “What is the matter with you?”

“What’s the matter with me?” I huffed. Finally, it seemed, I was at the end of my tether with my mother. “What’s the matter with you? North loves me. Loves me. And he loves my body. Unlike you, he loves me the way I am.”

“U-unlike me?”

“Yes.” Okay. So we were doing this. My hands shook around the steering wheel as I continued. “North has helped me gain back the confidence you helped take from me. Do you know that you’re partly the reason that I hated looking in the mirror for so long? That every comment you’ve made about my weight over the years has shredded my self-esteem, bit by bit? You’ve made me feel like I wasn’t lovable, that there was something wrong with me. You want to know why I avoid your calls, Mamma? Because who wants to put up with someone trying to change them all the time? Who has the heart that can bear that kind of hurt from their own mother? Am I not lovable to you as I am? Do I need to be fixed for you to love me?”

Silence greeted me at the end of the phone.

Then a sniffle and a quiet, “No, coccolona, of course not.”

“And that. Don’t call me that. Do you know what it’s like for your mother to give you a pet name that means cuddly? You call Allegra your treasure. And I’m cuddly. You might as well have named us ‘the daughter you’re proud of’ and ‘the fat one.’”

“Oh, Aria,” she whimpered. “You know that was not my intention. At all. You’re my coccolona because you were such a cuddly baby. That is all. I promise.”

“Somehow, after you disparaged my body and told me to lose weight to keep my man, I find that hard to believe.”

She said nothing for so long that I thought maybe she’d hung up. But suddenly she exhaled shakily. “Your papà was right. He tried to tell me. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was helping you to be happy. I just wanted you to be happy. But I put what makes me happy on you. I am a vain woman, tesoro. I know this of myself. It’s not something I am proud of, but I promised to always own who I am. I put my obsession with my body on you, and I am sorry. I never intended to make you feel unloved.”

Shocked at the apology, I was silent.

“Tesoro?”