Page 12 of His for the Holiday

“Is it okay to leave them by themselves?” He frowned as he watched the kids disappear into the house. “Emery will kill me if I lose one of them.”

“As she should,” I said. “They’ll be fine, though. Winnie will make sure they keep track of Sawyer and they’ll find us as soon as they realize they need tokens for the rides.”

Hawk’s chin dropped in a curt nod and he slid his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. Together, we sat down at a nearby table to drink our cider, but his gaze was taking in the carnival rides and stalls and mine was anywhere but on him.

As I’d expected, it didn’t take the kids long to realize they needed those tokens, and Winnie was back beside me in a flash. “Mam! We need⁠—”

She cut herself off when I handed over a little baggie of tokens I’d bought beside the cider truck. “Thanks, Mam!”

“You’re welcome, lass. Be safe and don’t lose Sawyer!” I called after her when she took off again, meeting up with the boys about halfway between us and the rides.

They spun and skipped away together, and I felt Hawk’s eyes on me as I watched them run off. “She looks so damn much like you did at that age.”

“Except for the hair.” I smiled, watching her curly ponytail bounce behind her head as they ran. “She got that from her dad.”

“Yeah. I gathered.” He paused for a beat. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I dragged in a breath through my nostrils, finally turning back to look at him. Surprised to find interest flickering in his eyes as he stared at me intently, I found myself speaking even though I hadn’t planned to.

“Not really, but I know you’re curious, so I’ll talk about myself for a while if you’ll tell me about you when we’re done with me.”

“Deal,” he said easily. “Where is he? The dad, I mean. Emery told me you’re divorced?”

“Yep. As of this week, it’s official.”

His dark eyebrows shot up. “This week?”

“Don’t look so surprised,” I said. “It took us some time to get there. We’ve been separated for over a year, but the divorce got uglier than it needed to.”

He grimaced. “I’m sorry, Sutton. Really. Emery told me a little bit about what happened and he sounds like a real dick.”

“He is,” I agreed, staring into those dreamy blue eyes and spilling my secrets without even meaning to. “My dad always hated him. So much that he never even came to visit us. Mom came every so often, but Dad refused. He said being in Calen’s company made him feel sick. I just wish I’d realized it sooner that he was right, you know?”

“I’ve heard that love is blind,” he said. “I’d imagine that’s even more true when you’re in a foreign country surrounded by the romance of the rolling hills and castles.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Scotland can be a pretty romantic place. It’s got a certain magic to it for sure.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “It really does, right? I’ve been a few times on business and there’s just something about it. What I really want to know is how you ended up there, though. I don’t remember you ever even talking about wanting to go.”

“It’s not like I used to tell you everything,” I said, but we both knew that was a lie. “I didn’t really want to go, though. I mean, I wanted to when it became an option, but it’s not like I was on some kind of mission to get there.”

“How did it happen, then?” he asked, surprising me again when he even leaned forward a little bit.

I smiled as I thought back to where it had all begun. Despite how things had ended for me there, my time in Scotland had been some of the best of my life. I still loved the country—even if I wished I could go back and unmeet the Scot I’d married.

“After graduation, I took a trip with a few of my sorority sisters from college. One of them had a cousin in Edinburgh who was going out of town and she said we could come stay in her house, so we just went.”

Hawk’s eyes widened. “You were in a sorority?”

I nodded, scoffing down the laughter that wanted to bubble up within me. “Out of everything I just told you, that’s what stuck?”

He shrugged, a grin playing on his lips as he stared back at me. “I just never knew you were the type.”

“Why? Because I was the nerdy girl in high school? People change, you know. Especially once they really start spreading their wings.”

“You did that, then?” he asked. “You spread your wings?”

I chuckled. “Took risks and everything, if you’d believe it, but anyway. I went on this trip with my friends, met Calen in a pub in Edinburgh and essentially just never came home.”