Mums and Mayhem Page 4

  But now that Isla and I were in Scotland, I wondered what my parents’ Sunday dinners were like. Did they sit down at all? The idea of that tradition dying away made me sad.

  Isla squeezed our father tight and then let go. “I can’t wait to show you Fi’s flower shop. It’s so pretty, and I want you to meet my—”

  I stepped forward and hugged them too. I made it just in time to stop Isla from telling our parents about her boyfriend Seth, a medical school dropout with a gambling problem. Seth MacGregor was working on the gambling problem; going back to school … not so much. He’d gotten a job as a janitor at the school in the village. It was a good job with reliable hours, but I knew it wouldn’t be the kind of career my parents would want their youngest daughter’s significant other to have.

  My mother hugged me, and she smelled just like the farm, even after traveling across the ocean. I thought the smell of the open field, fresh-baked bread, and drying hay must have been infused into her very pores. There was no other explanation for why the smell would still be on her.

  “It’s good to see you,” I said, and was surprised when tears pricked the back of my eyes. Anytime I spoke to my mother on phone and brought up Uncle Ian, she deftly changed the subject. It was to the point I had stopped calling and answering calls because I was so hurt that she wouldn’t talk to me about him. Now they were here. I wished I knew why.

  “Let’s go in the cottage,” I said. “I made some tea, and my friend Presha sent over some of her world-famous scones.”

  “Oh my, yes,” my father said. “As desperately as the Americans try, you cannot find a well-made scone back in the States. There must be something in the British air to make them just right.”

  “These will knock your socks off, then,” I said.

  My parents stepped into the cottage, and I bit my lip as they looked around. In the months I had lived there, I had made some changes. I’d given away some of Uncle Ian’s things I didn’t need, filled the room with flowers, and bought my own living room furniture in Aberdeen that was more my style. It was less bulky than the large leather pieces he’d had. My selections made the tiny space feel twice as big. However, some things were still the same. Baird MacCallister’s painting still hung over the mantel, and my godfather’s medals remained on display.

  “The cottage is as charming as ever,” my mother said. “I can’t remember the last time we were here. Can you, Stephen?”

  My father walked over to the mantel and picked up one of Uncle Ian’s medals. “It must be five years, at least. It’s a damn shame we didn’t make the time to visit Ian more often.” He pressed his mouth closed in a tight line.

  There was an awkward moment while we all waited to see if my father was going to cry. Dad never cried. Even when a tractor ran over his foot and broke it, he didn’t cry.

  “Meow!” Ivanhoe saved the day as he sauntered in from the one bedroom in the back of the cottage.

  “Who is this?” my mother asked, and bent down to pet the cat’s head. We gave a collective sigh of relief that the cat had interrupted the emotion heavy in the air.

  The Scottish Fold leaned into the caress.

  “Ivanhoe,” I said. “I thought I told you I got a cat. I adopted him not long after I moved here.”

  She frowned and straightened up. “I suppose you did. The farm has been so busy that it’s hard to remember everything. Your father is making a name for himself in the farmers’ markets back home.” She paused and looked at both Isla and me in turn. “He could use help.”

  I shifted my feet, and Isla looked at the floor. Although neither of us had come right out and said we didn’t want to run the farm, we had given every indication with our life choices. It appeared our mother was stilling holding on to the hope that we would come around.

  “You know that we aren’t getting any younger,” Mom added in an effort to hit her point home. We all knew what she was getting at. My mother was a pro at laying guilt on thick.

  “Then hire some help,” Isla said. “I mean, if the farm is doing well, you can afford it, right? I bet there are a couple high school kids who could use the part-time work.”

  Mom patted her hair and frowned.

  My little sister had always been immune to our mother’s guilt while I suffered from it. I thought it was the luxury of being the youngest. There were many times growing up that I’d envied her ability to ignore Mom’s thinly veiled hints.

  Mom wasn’t done with trying to convince us to move back home. I knew that.

  She pointed at the bedroom. “You sleep in there, Fiona?”

  I wrinkled my brow. “Yes, it’s my bedroom.”

  “Where is it that you sleep, Isla? The couch?”

  “I don’t live here. I have a little apartment over the laundromat in the village with my—”

  “Isla is renting from Raj Kapoor. You might remember him when you visited Uncle Ian in the past,” I said. I stopped her from telling them she lived with her boyfriend. My mother was a southern woman and very traditional when it came to that sort of thing. It would not go over well. However, I didn’t think she could get on Isla’s case about it too much, considering her own romantic history. Even so, I would much rather save that awkward conversation for another time, preferably just between the two of them when I wasn’t around.

  “I don’t know anyone by the name of Raj,” my father mused.

  “He also owns the Twisted Fox pub. It’s right next door to my flower shop. I’m sure we will go there quite a few times while you visit. Other than Presha’s Teas and the fish-and-chips stand at the docks, those are the only places to eat in the village.”

  Dad nodded. “I remember that. I’m surprised that after all this time, Bellewick has been able to stay as small and quaint as ever. I think Ian would have liked that. He liked the smallness of the place.”

  “My, Isla,” said my mother, who was not finished grilling my sister. “I do like your initiative to find work in Bellewick. There must not be many options, but do you think it’s wise to sign a lease when you don’t plan to be here very long?”

  “Oh,” Isla said. “I don’t plan to—”

  “Oh!” I cried. “The tea! Have a seat, and I’ll grab you those scones too.”

  “I can’t wait for the scones.” Dad rubbed his hands together. “I have been craving a proper Scottish scone since we purchased our plane tickets.”

  Isla shot me a look. I gave a subtle shake of my head and mouthed not now. I knew she needed to tell our parents her plans about staying in the village and eventually marrying Seth, whom she was preengaged to. Preengagement was a concept I found absolutely ridiculous, but I supposed, after what I’d gone through with my ex-finance, I was a little down on engagement as a rule.

  “You arrived at a good time,” I said as I set the tea and scones in front of them at my small table. “Bellewick is having a giant concert tomorrow afternoon, and the village expects over three thousand people to attend.”

  “Three thousand?” my father asked. “That’s bigger than the population of the village.”

  I nodded. “They are expecting a crowd from the city of Aberdeen and the surrounding villages too.”

  “What’s the concert for?” Mom asked.

  “A local celebrity,” I said. “Barley McFee. He’s a famous fiddle player who is coming to the village to play a Coming Home Concert.” I glanced at my dad. “He said he went to school with Uncle Ian and the two of them where friends, but when I asked him if he knew you, he said he didn’t know you.”

  “No,” Dad said. “I don’t know him. The name is vaguely familiar, but that could be from his music.” He took a huge bite out of his scone.

  “The concert is going to be amazing,” Isla gushed. “You’ll even be staying at the same guesthouse with Barley and the band. Maybe you will get to chat them up at breakfast. I always wanted to be in a traveling band. I think I’d look good onstage.”

  Isla would look good onstage and just about anywhere else. She was beautifu
l. However, just like all the Knox relatives we knew, she had no musical talent.

  Dad gulped from his teacup. “Why are we staying at the same guesthouse?”

  “It’s the only one in the village,” Isla said.

  “Won’t that be fun?” Mom asked. “We do love music.”

  My father, who wasn’t the most talkative of men to start, seemed to be extra quiet.

  I sipped my tea. “Dad, is everything all right?”

  He held out his teacup for a refill. “Everything is fine, Fiona. Completely fine.”

  That’s when I knew he was lying.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning, I arrived in the village early. I knew Bernice expected every member of the Merchant Society to pull their weight during the concert. I made a quick stop at my flower shop before I joined the rest of the society members in the concert area.

  As I unlocked the door, I was hit with the lovely scent of flowers. I inhaled deeply. I was most at ease when I was around flowers. It had always been that way for me. When I was as young as four, I’d asked my parents if I could have a bit of earth on the farm to grow my own garden, just like Mary in The Secret Garden. They turned an old sandbox into a garden for me, and I planted daisies, dahlias, and lilies in that little garden. I sat for hours by the garden, nurturing it and pulling weeds. I was obsessed with making sure my beauties had enough soil, sunlight, and water. I checked on them every day before and after preschool.

  As I grew older, my parents gave me more and more area to grow flowers until caring for the flower gardens was my main job on the farm when I was a teenager. Most of what I learned about gardening had come from Uncle Ian. Every time I visited him in Scotland, we spent hours in the walled garden at Duncreigan. I didn’t know then that he was preparing me for my job as Keeper of the garden. I didn’t know I was the one who spent time with Uncle Ian in Scotland instead of Isla because I was his daughter. I wished I had known. For myself and for my godfather, but there was no hope for that now, at least in the way I would have wanted.

  Even earlier that morning before I came to the village, I had stopped by the garden like I always did to make sure everything was all right. I’d checked on the flowers, the menhir with the yellow climbing rose wrapped tightly around it. The fox was there with his blue eyes that reminded me so much of Uncle Ian’s and of my own. At times I believed they were the eyes of my uncle like Presha did. That it wasn’t just a wild animal that liked to hang around Duncreigan but my uncle who had come back in another form. Presha had told me the fox would stay with me in the garden until Uncle Ian felt I didn’t need to be watched over any longer.

  If that was true, I wondered if the fox would leave the garden soon. Over the last few months, I’d fallen into a comfortable life in Duncreigan and in Bellewick. I didn’t think I needed much watching over anymore. My sister Isla, on the other hand, could always use a little bit more supervision.

  It wasn’t yet eight in the morning when I left my shop. I would be back at ten to open up, and then Isla would watch the shop for most of the day while I helped out at the concert. At some point I planned to give her a break so she could enjoy a portion of the concert, but I did hope some visitors in the village here to see Barley McFee would wander down the street and buy a flower or two.

  I locked up the flower shop and walked down the street toward the village’s main entrance.

  I heard the commotion long before I saw it. There was a soft roar in the air from all the people, and some of the food trucks played Celtic music from their stereos as they waited for the concert to begin.

  People by the dozens were already arriving, and it was only eight in the morning and the concert was at two in the afternoon. They walked over the troll bridge carrying lawn chairs, coolers, and blankets. It was clear they were in this for the long haul. The food trucks were already up and running, and I saw Raj setting up his beverage stand for the day. At the moment, he was serving coffee, but in the afternoon it would turn to ale and beer.

  It was a very good thing Bernice had gotten permission from the village to close the main entrance into the village the night before. There was no way a car could have gotten through this crowd.

  Even though there was a lot of activity on the street, the stage was quiet. There was no sign of Barley, his manager, or the band. Looking at the stage, I thought about the argument Isla and I had witnessed yesterday between Owen the manager and Kenda the second fiddle. I hoped Barley and Kenda had been able to settle their differences so the concert could go off without a hitch. I knew that if anything went wrong, Bernice wouldn’t recover from it. She had so much riding on this concert’s success. When she started the Merchant Society of Bellewick, there had been many naysayers in the village. By tradition, Scots were individualistic people who didn’t hold much value in organizing. If the concert failed, it would be proof to those naysayers that the Merchant Society was a waste of time.

  I assumed Barley McFee was at the guesthouse, waiting to make his big return to Bellewick.

  “Now I feel a lot better about this day,” a deep male voice said behind me. “If I have to spend the next twelve hours here, at least it’s with you.”

  I smiled as I turned around and looked into Chief Inspector Neil Craig’s dark-blue eyes. “I didn’t expect to see you here this early.”

  Craig was a broad-shouldered, six-feet-five-inch-tall man with a full dark-auburn beard. On this occasion he wore jeans, a button-down shirt, and a sport jacket. I knew under that jacket he had his badge and gun. It took all my strength not to wrap my arms around him and give him a giant hug. Craig gave the very best hugs.

  He smiled down at me. “You can trust that Bernice Brennan has been texting me nonstop these last few days and told me where to be and how many constables to bring with me. If this concert doesn’t go well, the woman is going to snap.”

  I chuckled. “I was just thinking the same thing. And I don’t know why she would ask you to be here. There’s always Kipling.”

  Kipling stood a few yards away from us next to the larger-than-life unicorn statue near the village arch. The unicorn stood on its hind legs, and his front hooves were in the air as if ready to strike. Kipling looked far less fearsome as he stood next to the statue in his navy-blue volunteer-police-chief uniform that was covered with brass buttons and gold medals, all of which meant nothing at all.

  “Kipling is not adequate security for an event this size. Not when a big star is coming to Bellewick, and I’m looking forward to the concert myself. It was a nice excuse to spend some time with my favorite florist, too.”

  I blushed. “You like fiddle music?” I asked, surprised. This was the first I had heard of it.

  “I’m Scottish, aren’t I?” He feigned offense.

  I laughed. “You very much are. You might be the most Scottish Scot I have ever met.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”

  “You should, because that’s how it was meant.” I smiled up at him. “I’ll be here for the concert, of course. Bernice is not going to let me escape that. ‘Every member of the Merchant Society has to pull his or her own weight,’” I said, quoting Bernice. She had said that more than once over the last several weeks. “The whole village is coming, and I think that’s more because everyone wants to see what it’s like to have three thousand people in one place. And my parents …”

  “They arrived safely, then?” Craig asked, studying me.

  I nodded. “Last evening. I haven’t seen them this morning. They are staying at Thistle House.”

  “Will I get to meet them?” He searched my face.

  “Umm …”

  He arched his brow. “You don’t want me to meet them?”

  “It’s not that. I do want you to meet, but I think it would be better for me to get some answers from them before I introduce them to my new boyfriend. Mom and Dad are going to be suspicious of you.” I swallowed. “I was with my ex-fiancé for a very long time. They’ll b
e surprised I’m dating again. I’m surprised, actually.”

  He smiled. “You couldn’t resist me.”

  “That’s part of it.” I winked.

  He laughed at my honest answer, and I reveled in the sound of his deep-throated chuckle as the unease I had felt the day before dissipated just a little.

  “When you say you want to get answers before you introduce me to your parents, you mean about Ian,” he said. Craig was the only person I’d told about my birth. I had told him months ago, right after I found out. I’d had to tell someone, and he was the person I trusted most to keep this secret for me. Isla would be crushed if she ever learned I’d told him before her, but I trusted him, and he was objective about it. Isla would not be objective about us being half sisters since she wasn’t objective about most things.

  “Right, and I think telling them, especially my mom, that I have a new boyfriend will just distract her. She very much wants Isla and me to move back to the States and take over the family farm.”

  “Are you considering that?” he asked in a careful voice.

  “No, of course not. The garden would die if I went away for that long.” I lowered my voice. “You know that as the Keeper of the garden I have to be the one to tend it. I can’t abandon it.”

  Craig knew all about my garden and the role I had with it as well. Early on, when I first moved to Scotland, he had been there when the garden helped me solve a murder. I had found a dead man in the garden on the very day I arrived in Scotland. Through the visions it gave me, the garden helped Craig and me solve the murder. Craig had even been present when I got the vision.

  He cocked his head. “Is that the only reason you wish to stay? Out of duty to the garden?”

  “Well, there’s my flower shop too,” I teased.

  Craig made a face.

  “And I have grown very partial to the scones.”

  Craig scoffed.

  “And you,” I finally said. “You know I don’t want to leave you.”

  “I’m glad that I play second fiddle to the garden and the flower shop.”