Page 20 of Two Hit Wonder

Not that it mattered. Maeve had said no. That was the end of it.

Wasn't it?

Chapter Eight

The Inverness train station was not designed for six children, and the six children were certainly not designed for the Inverness train station.

"Hamish, get down from there. Isla, stop licking the window. Robbie, I can see you and I will count to three."

Glinna's voice carried the particular tone of a mother who had long ago accepted that she was herding cats and had simply decided to be louder than the chaos. Maeve stood beside her, clutching a rucksack and a guitar case and wondering, not for the first time, what the hell she was doing.

"You'll be fine," Glinna said, as if reading her mind. She shifted Charity to her other hip. The baby grabbed a fistful of her mother's hair and began chewing on it with the dedication of someone who had found their life's purpose.

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to. You've got that look."

"What look?"

"The one that says you're about to bolt." Glinna extracted her hair from Charity's mouth with practiced ease. "Hamish, I said down. Now."

Hamish, who had climbed onto a luggage trolley and was pretending to be a pirate, ignored her completely.

Maeve watched the departure board flicker. Her train was on time. Mere minutes until it arrived. Mere minutes until she got on it and left Scotland for the first time in fifteen years. Mere minutes to change her mind. "This is a terrible idea," she said.

"You've said that."

"It bears repeating."

"It really doesn't." Glinna turned to face her properly, which was impressive given that she was also keeping one eye on the twins, who had discovered an abandoned coffee cup and were debating whether to drink from it. "Don't you dare. That's disgusting, and you know it."

The twins looked guilty and put the cup down.

"Look," Glinna said, turning back to Maeve. "You've been hiding in that cottage for years. And I love you, and it's been good for you, but at some point hiding stops being recovery and starts being just… hiding."

"I like hiding."

"I know you do. But maybe this is the test you need. Go down there, see what it feels like, figure out what you actually want." Glinna's voice softened. "You might hate it. You might get there and realize that you were right all along, that your life is in Scotland, and come straight back. But at least you'll know. At least you'll have chosen it properly, instead of just… defaulting to it because you were scared."

Maeve didn't have an answer to that. She stared at the departure board instead, watching the minutes tick down.

"Besides," Glinna added, "Neil and I talked about it. Once the cottage renovation is done, if you want to buy it, it's yours. We'll work out a price that's fair. So think of this as earning your deposit."

Her own cottage. The light inside her burned a little more brightly. Not that she let it show. "I'm not doing this for the money."

"Are you not?" Glinna handed Charity a box of raisins, which the child promptly exploded over the platform.

Maeve hesitated. She thought about the cottage. Stone walls, slate roof, the view of the hills that she'd looked at every morning for fifteen years. The garden that Eejit kept destroying. The quiet that wrapped around her like armor.

Owning it would be different. Owning it would mean it was truly hers, not borrowed, not temporary. A place she'd chosen rather than a place she'd fled to.

"Maybe a bit for the money," she admitted. "If I decide to do it."

Glinna smiled. "There's nothing wrong with that. Money's useful. And you deserve to have something that's properly yours. And there’s nothing wrong with not doing it at all, as long as you’ve given it a try."

"Mummy, Robbie’s being weird again," one of the twins reported.

Glinna sighed. "Robbie is always being weird. That's his personality."