“What’s a braid?”
I raised an eyebrow. Did her mom not braid her hair?
“It’s a pleat,” Thane answered.
Her expression cleared, and I realized we’d hit on a cultural misunderstanding. Scots called braids pleats, just like they called polish varnish and ken was know. I filed that away. “I can pleat your hair later. A fishtail is such a cute look.”
“It doesn’t sound cute.” She wrinkled her nose, making me laugh.
“Don’t think of it as a fishtail … think of it more like a mermaid tail.”
“I love mermaids!” Eilidh gasped, her eyes round with excitement.
Oh my God, she was so cute I could die.
“Lucy,” she panted around her food, “Lucy tried to pleat my hair once, but she said it was too curly.”
Before I could say that I’d have no problem mastering her wild curls, a thick tension fell over the table.
Then I realized why.
Lucy.
Did she mean Lucy Wainwright?
Shit.
And why was a starlet offering to braid Eilidh’s hair and not her mother?
“Dad said we’re not allowed to talk about Lucy, Eilidh. You’re so stupid,” Lewis snapped, his cheeks reddening with frustration.
Eilidh’s face crumpled.
“Lewis, I didn’t say that, and don’t speak to your sister that way.” Thane glared angrily at his son.
Lewis looked like someone had slapped him. “But you said—”
“You misunderstood me.” Thane sighed wearily. “The point is, you never speak to each other like that. Okay?”
Seeing tears brighten in Eilidh’s face, I hurried to distract her. “I can pleat your hair for school tomorrow.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
I nodded, smiling.
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” Lewis reminded me sullenly, his eyes to his food.
His dad watched him with a pained, worried expression.
Jeez. What was going on here?
“Right. Well, I can pleat Eilidh’s hair anytime.”
“Tomorrow?” She bounced impatiently in her seat. “I want a mermaid’s tail!”
“Sure. It’s a plan,” I promised, and then nudged Lewis’s elbow. “So school, huh? What grade are you in?”
He looked up at me, his cheeks still red from his dad’s earlier admonishment. “Grade?”
“Primary class,” Robyn offered.
“I just started primary three.”
I didn’t know what that meant. “Just started?”
“School just started back this week,” Thane replied.
“Oh, right. So … primary three. That makes you … eight, nine?” I guessed by his height.
His eyes lit up. “Seven.”
“You’re tall for seven. Must get that from your dad and uncle, huh?”
Lewis looked pleased and nodded.
Grinning, I turned to Eilidh. “And what primary class are you in?”
“Five!” She splayed the fingers of her right hand.
Her brother giggled. “Not age, Eils. Class. She’s in primary one. It was her first-ever week at school.”
“Wow. Big week for you then?”
She nodded rapidly around a mouthful.
Seriously. So freaking cute.
“She got Ms. Hansen, and she’s the best teacher.” Lewis grimaced. “I got Mrs. Welsh.”
“You don’t like Mrs. Welsh?”
He wrinkled his nose. “She’s grumpy and doesn’t like the boys and she picks on you if you don’t know the answer to something. And she smells.”
Thane sighed heavily. Looking at him, I could tell he wanted to reprimand Lewis for insulting his teacher, but after the moment they just had, he was probably reluctant to pile it on.
“Does she really smell, or are you just saying that because you don’t like her?”
He thought about this. “Well, Connor said she smells.”
“Who’s Connor?”
“One of my friends.”
“So … because Connor said Mrs. Welsh smells, you all say it now?”
He nodded.
“Is it true?”
He shrugged. “Not really. But the other stuff is.”
“Okay. Well, it sucks that Mrs. Welsh is impatient and grumpy, but we shouldn’t really say mean stuff about people if it’s not true, right?”
Lewis considered this. “So I should stop saying she smells?”
“Yeah. It would be the right thing to do. The kind thing.”
“But I can say she’s mean? Because that’s true.”
Trying not to laugh, I replied diplomatically, “That’s fine if it’s true, and it’s always good to be honest, especially if someone is picking on you, no matter what age they are. But I always say it’s best to fight unkindness with kindness. So anytime you come across someone in life who isn’t very nice to you, it does no good to come down to their level and be unkind in return. And sometimes, when you’re kind to someone who hasn’t been kind to you, you change their attitude, and they stop being mean to you. Yeah?”
I was shocked by how attentive this seven-year-old boy was, but Lewis was hanging on to my every word and seemed to process it. Finally, he nodded and said, “Okay.”
It was only then that I realized the table was quiet. Looking up, I found my three adult companions staring at me: Thane in gratitude, Lachlan in surprise, and my sister with an expression that veered between pride and melancholy.
The melancholy gutted me.
“Finished!” Eilidh yelled, breaking the moment. She had ketchup all over her cheeks.
I grinned, grateful for the cutie. “Did you eat any of it or just get it all over your face?”
Joy glittered in her eyes, and she slapped her little hands down on the table and cackled. Her loud, hilarious giggling was so infectious, she made us all burst into laughter.
It was a pity her magic didn’t last.
A while later, Thane and his cute kids left with the promise that I’d pop by in the morning to braid Eilidh’s hair. Jet lag had hit me, and Robyn sensed I was fading.
“Let me help with the dishes,” I offered for the thousandth time as she and Lachlan tidied up.
“We have a dishwasher,” Robyn repeated. “You look exhausted. Go to bed.”
My eyelids were drooping, so I followed her order and stumbled upstairs. I barely remembered changing into pjs and getting into bed.
It would be hours later when an electronic sound filtered into my unconsciousness, and I forced open my heavy eyes, blinking against the light flooding into the room. It took me a minute to remember where I was.
Groaning as soft daylight illuminated the bedroom, I rolled over in the super comfortable guest bed and fumbled for my phone on the side table. The screen lit up—six o’clock in the morning.
The blackout blinds were on an automatic timer.
For six o’clock in the morning.
“We’ll need to do something about that,” I muttered grumpily as I shoved myself into a sitting position. It was then I registered the email notification banner on my phone.
All I saw was the word Austin and a wave of nausea rose in my gut.
No, no, how could he have this email?