Keepsakes from the Cottage by the Loch (Loch Cameron #6)

Chapter 12

TWELVE

‘It was a long time ago.’ Ramsay shoved his hands into his pockets and stepped away from the table. ‘Anyway, I should get back to the lads.’

He turned and walked away. Tara and Emily exchanged glances.

‘Ramsay,’ Tara called after him, but he waved a hand dismissively at them both.

‘Have to get on,’ he called, over his shoulder.

‘Oh dear.’ Emily made a face at Tara. ‘I wouldn’t have read it aloud if I’d known. I’m so sorry if I made that awkward. I could sense some weird vibes between you, but I thought it was just maybe because you used to go to school together. I mean, that can be strange, can’t it?’

‘We did go to school together. Grew up together. We were engaged at one point.’ Tara sighed, and shook her head. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Oh, my goodness!’ Emily whispered. ‘I had no idea! I’m so sorry!’

‘It’s okay. You weren’t to know.’ Tara let out a long breath. ‘ He was my best friend,’ Tara continued, emotion making her hoarse. ‘We were… very close.’

Her hand went to her neck – the instinct guiding it there, to find the heart pendant necklace. Tara blinked back the tears that had sprung to her eyes. ‘Oh, wow. Sorry. It’s just really hard, seeing what he wrote.’

‘Love, I’m so sorry!’ Emily squeezed her hand. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

Tara glanced up at the building crew who were busying themselves back with the digger at the edge of the playground. She didn’t want to cry in front of them, or Ramsay, or Emily.

‘No. It’s okay. It’s just a bit weird, seeing him.’ Tara wiped at the corners of her eyes. ‘It’s been nice being back here, if I’m honest, sort of reconnecting to those nice memories of us as children. But I guess that just brought it home to me. All the pain of what happened. And I didn’t expect to see him. I met him out of the blue the other day, in the street. I haven’t worked out how to be around him yet.’

‘I can see that.’ Emily looked concerned.

‘He… Ramsay… he had a hard life at home. I don’t think I really understood, when we were kids. You know? I knew that he’d come to school with bruises sometimes, and that I never went to his house to play. But, you know how kids are. That was just sort of normal.’ She let out a long breath. Emily frowned, looking over at Ramsay at the other side of the playground. ‘Poor thing. Well, I suppose he’s a man, now. I wonder whether, in small communities like Loch Cameron, there’s something that happens where, on one hand, people care and are in each other’s business, like the crochet coven. And then on the other hand, there’s sometimes this kind of… unspoken agreement to look the other way about some things. It’s strange.’

‘I think you’re right. My parents always had him over as much as they could. They must have known. But nothing was ever said. Not to me, anyway. I mean, maybe it was spoken about in the village, among the community. I was too young to have known either way.’

‘You should ask your mum about it.’ Emily folded up the letters that she’d looked through and returned them to the canister. ‘It’s not like you’re a kid anymore.’

‘Yeah. I should.’ Tara let out a long sigh. ‘It’s just all a bit… raw still, seeing him again. I thought I would never see him again. It’s a long story.’

‘I can see that,’ Emily said, sympathetically. ‘I’m here if you want an ear, at any point, by the way. I know we’ve just met, but, you know. Teacher pinky promise, or something.’

‘Thanks.’ Tara allowed herself a small laugh. ‘That’s really nice of you, Emily.’

‘Of course. You’re going to do a stack of laminating in a minute, so I most definitely owe you.’ Emily winked.

‘Well, I still appreciate it. Can I keep these two? The letters?’ Tara asked: she didn’t want to let them go.

‘Of course.’ Emily let go of her hand and stood up. ‘Come on. Let’s go inside and have a cuppa and a biscuit. I feel like we earned it.’

‘All right. I’ll be there in a minute.’

Tara stood up, and looked back at the small, red brick building. At some point, she and Ramsay would have played on the spot where she currently stood. She knew – though she didn’t specifically remember the event – that she and Ramsay would have stood at the edge of the playground and watched their wishes being lowered into the ground.

She wondered what she had thought and felt at the time, but her mind was a blank. Clearly, at the time, the time capsule hadn’t felt like such a big deal.

Now, though, it seemed deeply symbolic. The fact that it had been unearthed just as she had come back to Loch Cameron, and right at the same time as Ramsay had reappeared in her life, was not lost on her. Tara wasn’t one to believe in signs from the universe, but this seemed overwhelming.

She had ended up fulfilling her wish: as a teacher, she at least hoped that she sometimes inspired and helped children. Had Ramsay gotten what he wanted too?

Tara swallowed the lump in her throat. That was a question that she didn’t know the answer to, and, if she was honest, she wasn’t ready to know.