“Come here,” he says. “I want to show you a part of the house you’ve never seen.”
We walk inside the double doors, and he drops our luggage in the foyer, taking my hand and leading me up the stairs all the way to the third floor and into his office.
“What are you doing?” I question as he runs his hand along the wall.
When he stops moving, he casts his eyes to me and, with a smile, gives the wall a push.
“Are you kidding me?” I laugh in surprise when it’s revealed that a portion of the wall is a hidden spring-loaded partition that opens up to a secret spiral staircase.
“Come on.”
I follow him up the narrow stairs, and when we reach the top, there’s another door that he opens. My eyes widen in amazement when I step out onto the rooftop, exposing a panoramic view of all of Galashiels. Declan reaches out for me, knowing my fear of heights, and walks me to the wall’s edge.
“You see that river?” he asks as he points out.
“Yes.”
“That’s the River Tweed. It divides Galashiels from Abbottsford. And you see that castle-like estate down there?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Sir Walter Scott’s home.”
“The poet?”
“Yes.”
“That’s no home,” I note as I look at the majestic estate that’s nestled down below from where Declan’s estate sits perched high on this hill. “That’s a palace!”
He chuckles. “It’s a museum now. There’s also a quaint restaurant that’s known for their shortcakes in there.”
We walk the border of the rooftop, and I look down to the grounds below, admiring all the colorful blooms that are coming to life as the weather warms. The past couple months of spring have done wonders, exposing more pebbled creeks that stream down various hills. There are too many flowers to count, along with a few stone benches—some that rest under trees and some that are out in the open. From up here, I can see the grassy paths that lead from one garden nook to the next, to the next, and to the next. A part of me feels like I’m cheating myself of the wanderlust of exploring and getting lost in the maze down there.
My very own Wonderland.
“It’s stunning, isn’t it?”
“It’s breathtaking,” I say and then turn to face him, pressing my body against his with my arms wrapped around his waist. “I never thought anything like this could exist in this world.”
“I feel the same when I look at you.”
We stand here, on the rooftop of our own personal castle, and wrap ourselves around each other. Declan cradles my head to his chest as he plants kisses down on me. We hug; it’s all we need to do in this moment of much-needed peace, and finally, I can breathe. The weight of the world’s afflictions are becoming less and less suffocating as I continue to move along this path Declan is providing me. Of course a part of me still aches for my dad and for my brother, but that’s a sadness I’ll have to brave for the rest of my life. There’s simply no cure for heartbreaks that surpass unfathomable agony. Some wounds run so deep that there’s no possibility of healing. But here, with Declan, I’m hoping one day the pain will become more tolerable.
“I was thinking about something on the plane ride here,” Declan says, breaking the silence between us. “We should go to The Water Lily.”
I smile when I think about Isla. Staying with her when I was at my ultimate lowest, thinking Declan had died at the hands of Pike, was probably the best place I could’ve wound up. We had so many great conversations, and I realize now that I know so much about his grandmother when he’s never really spoken to her.
“Isla has a beautiful heart,” I tell him. “I miss her.”
“Why do you think she never said anything to me? She has a photo of me in her room and she knows who I am.”
I see the little boy lost deep within his eyes as I look him. “Maybe she was scared. Maybe she didn’t know what to say.”
“Maybe,” he responds. “How about we pay her a visit tomorrow? Let’s take the rest of the day for us.” He leans down and kisses me before saying, “Take a walk with me.”
We head back down the hidden staircase and then down to main floor of the house. Walking through the atrium, we make our way outside.
“Everything looks so different than it did when we left a couple months ago,” I say as we stroll aimlessly through the flowers.
We make our way up a stone pathway that runs alongside the clinker grotto and then wander along another grassy path, weaving through trees and stepping over a narrow babbling brook. I look down at the house, and laugh to myself when I see the huge gaps that still remain in the now-flowering bushes that rim around the exterior wall.
“What’s so funny?”
“I still can’t believe you ripped out all the purple bushes,” I tell him, and when he looks down to the house to see the gaps, he shrugs. “My darling hates purple,” he says nonchalantly and continues to walk.