Secret Garden. Cathryn Parry

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       CHAPTER THREE

      TWO DAYS LATER, Colin sat beside Mack on the large, comfortable seats of Doc Masters’s private plane, and prepared for takeoff.

      Back in the conference room at Sunny Times Golf Academy, the plan had seemed simple. Fly in. Meet Jessie and Jamie. Go to the funeral and collect his check, then fly home.

      But now... Wednesday morning was when Doc needed to leave for his charity tournament, so Colin would be arriving four full days before Sunday’s funeral. That meant spending more time in his grandparents’ company than Colin wanted. To make matters worse, he’d finally sucked it up and emailed his grandmother. She’d responded immediately with the address of a restaurant where she wanted to meet at six o’clock local time, after he landed.

      He had no idea what he was going to say. Whatever happened, he was determined not to let it get to him. He wouldn’t care too much about it. Keep everything light.

      The flight attendant stopped by, bringing Colin a drink from the bar service. Colin drank it gratefully and, without asking, she promptly brought another one. He finished that one, too. Colin wasn’t a big drinker—he was an athlete first—but the comfortable, mellow glow that the alcohol gave him helped dull the edge of his anger. He was even able to tolerate Doc and his small, sarcastic digs.

      He didn’t even mind too much when Doc sprang on them that they were making a detour to Iceland to pick up somebody’s wife or girlfriend—this wasn’t exactly clear to Colin. All he knew was that it added more than an hour to their flight time.

      Then, once they did finally land in Scotland at the small Highland airport, there was a short delay before they could disembark. Something about their plane’s manifest needed to be straightened out before they could clear customs, and that made the delay that much longer.

      By the time the pilots finished the formalities, it was a few minutes past the time Colin was supposed to meet his grandparents.

      “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us to St. Andrews?” Doc Masters asked Colin as he reached for his bag.

      Colin would have given anything to head off to the famous golf course. But it wasn’t possible with his schedule, and frankly, he was glad to get a break from Doc. “Thanks, but if you don’t mind, I’ll just hook a ride back with you on Sunday night.”

      “I’m sorry about your father,” Doc’s wife said.

      Colin thought about being truthful, telling her that he hadn’t really known his father well, but what was the point? So he just nodded silently and went through the motions of grabbing his stuff and disembarking from the plane.

      Once out on the tarmac, standing beside their pile of luggage, Colin realized this was the first time he’d been on Scottish soil since he was eight. All he kept thinking about was the way he’d felt that day. He’d been just a little kid, and he’d been scared and upset and ashamed. His whole world had blown apart, and his grandparents had sided with his father against them.

      At least, that was what his mom had always said. To contact them and maybe find out otherwise had always seemed disloyal. So Colin had avoided it.

      Given the choice, he would still rather avoid it. No doubt about it, he didn’t see how this reunion could possibly be pleasant, for any of them. They had a lot of old, bad feelings to deal with.

      “Where to?” Mack asked.

      “I booked a hotel for us,” Colin said. “But first, I need to meet my grandparents at a restaurant in town.”

      “Okay. You mind if I tag along?”

      “Mind? Hell no.” Colin was just grateful that Mack was willing to be a buffer for him.

      Colin dug the address out of his wallet, and they flagged a cab. The driver was an old-timer and Mack shot the breeze with him, especially once the old-timer saw Colin’s golf clubs. Colin signed his autograph, but didn’t say much otherwise. It wasn’t like him, but he was starting to feel kind of distracted and crappy.

      Honestly, would he even recognize his grandparents? All those years with no contact had dulled his memory. Yes, his grandmother had tried to get in touch with him and maybe he shouldn’t have ignored her. But when he was young and vulnerable, he’d always thought that his grandparents could have picked up a phone or hopped on a plane to see him, and they hadn’t. So he was determined not to feel guilty if he couldn’t identify them right away.

      He and Mack finally found the restaurant—they were late because of the diversion and the holdup at the airport—and the server at the counter told them they’d missed Jamie and Jessie by a half hour.

      “They left me?” Colin asked, incredulous. “They couldn’t just eat dinner and wait an extra few minutes to see their grandson?”

      The server looked apologetic. She gave them a slip of paper that Jessie had left, with their home address and telephone number written in neat script.

      Colin’s forehead was throbbing. He knew he might be overreacting, but given their history, it was understandable. He stared at her address in disbelief. His grandmother expected him to stay with them, it appeared.

      Or maybe Daisie Lee had given her that impression. Colin hadn’t really talked with his grandmother about the sleeping arrangements—he’d just exchanged that one email about his estimated time of arrival, because frankly, it was all the contact he’d been able to take for the moment. He was filled with resentment, it seemed, and this wasn’t like him. He hated feeling this way.

      He was also sobering up.

      “Are you going to phone them?” Mack asked.

      “Not yet.” Colin needed to calm down first. He was a mellow guy, laid-back. That was his reputation. That was what kept him sane.

      “Let’s sit here, get a drink first,” Colin said. There was a pub attached to the restaurant, so they headed over to check it out. A three-person group was performing. Guitar, vocals, drums. Celtic music—they were pretty good.

      Colin and Mack found chairs at a table. Before Colin knew it, two local women gravitated toward them. Mack talked with them—Colin СКАЧАТЬ