Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Yet family has inevitably brought me back, and avoiding my ex, Quinn McQuarrie, is proving impossible when he insists on digging up the past every time we meet.
Quinn is now a single dad, the local contractor, and the person the entire town is rooting for to get his happily ever after. The problem is, he wants me to be his HEA, and I just want to move on. When Quinn sees my plans to save the town’s volunteer lifeboat service as an opportunity to work together, I’m stuck with him. And, unfortunately, I soon realize there’s no denying that the chemistry we share has only grown more intense with the passing of time.
I know Quinn wants more than just a physical relationship, but it’s all I can promise with so much hurt and distrust between us.
However, when strange disturbances escalate to harassment, our lives are turned upside down, and Quinn proves he will do anything in his power to protect me. Even if it means losing each other before we ever get our second chance
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Prologue
Quinn
The Hebridean Islands, Scotland
October, This Year
The colorful row of buildings on Main Street grew more visible as the small ferry cut through the water toward Leth Sholas. Relief, as well as urgency, thrummed through me as I took in the coastal front of my hometown on the Isle of Glenvulin. The red-painted hotel and pub, the Fisherman’s Lantern, the blue-and-yellow home of the Leth Sholas Bakery & Tearoom. The harbor bustled with fishing crews.
But it was the pink-and-white building next to the bakery where my gaze fixed.
Macbeth’s Pages & Perks. Our local coffeehouse and bookstore. Now owned by Taran Macbeth.
The love of my fucking life.
The thought elicited a spearing pain under my sternum that I still wasn’t used to, my hands tightening around the railing as our boat bobbed across the water, drawing us nearer to home.
I was grateful the weather was calm enough to allow travel back to Leth Sholas—colloquially nicknamed Half-Light Harbor—leth sholas translated to half-light in English. Ramsay and I had driven from our current location on the Isle of Thistles, where we were assessing whether we wanted to take on the job of fixing mistakes made by another construction crew at the site of an upcoming whisky distillery and an adjoining hotel. The island’s real name was Isle of Scaris, but many decades ago a previous owner had planted an entire field of thistles in a boggy marshland beneath the bridge that connected it to the mainland. Wild thistles were the first thing you saw as you approached the island, so the nickname had stuck.
I co-owned the construction company alongside my business partner Ramsay McRae, and this job, if we took it, would mean living on Scaris four days a week. It was tough being away from home that much, for all of us. The compensation, however, meant I couldn’t say no without great thought. My crew would be glad for the work. I tended to take on jobs that were seasonal but paid well enough to cover my men financially for the entire year. Staying on Scaris would allow us to work faster, and I was confident we could finish in six weeks, but it would be risky considering winter weather was heading our way, which could complicate back-and-forth travel.
That’s where my mind should be. Weighing the pros and cons. Logistics, plans.
Yet all I could think of was Taran.
There were days I missed my kids so badly, it burned like indigestion. When their mum, my ex-wife Kiera, moved them to the mainland, to Oban, it destroyed me. I saw them every other weekend and we alternated holidays. Now my oldest, Heather, had left for university.
It was a gaping wound not having them here.
To then be away from Leth Sholas, from her …
Like the six-foot-four ninja he was, Ramsay McRae suddenly appeared at my side as the boat pulled into Leth Sholas’s harbor.
“I’ll say it again.” My friend’s voice was just loud enough to be heard over the water and the boat engine. “You have to live your life as normal. Last year you would have taken this job.”
I scowled. “Aye? Eoghan is still out there on bail. It might have been quiet for a while, but I still don’t trust him. How did you feel last year when Halston Cole sent that prick after Tierney? How would you have felt if you were forced to be away from her for four nights a week when all that shit was going down?” I referred to Ramsay’s girlfriend, the American owner of Leth Sholas Guest House, an old Victorian building that sat atop the hill above Main Street that we renovated last year.