Deborah Crombie - Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James 09 - Now May You Weep

arranged it with Tim so that I can ring her every day.”

“Will she be all right with Tim?”

“I think so, yes. For the time being.”

“Hazel—”

“There’s your train.” Hazel stood as the diesel locomotive came into view, braking for the station. “Don’t worry, Gemma. I’ll ring you. You go home, look after Toby, and Kit. And, Gemma”—Hazel hugged her quickly, then kissed her cheek—“thank you. You’ve been a good friend.”

“Mummy, are you still angry with Callum?” Chrissy had pulled a stool up to the kitchen doorway and perched where she could watch her mother cooking. It was her favorite position, Alison realized, when she had something she wanted to discuss.

Alison turned the sausage in the pan and checked the potatoes before she answered, giving herself time to think.

“No, baby,” she said slowly. “I don’t suppose I am.”

She’d heard from Mrs. Witherspoon—who’d heard it from Janet MacGillivray—that Callum had been released from hospital, but he hadn’t rung her.

“And it wasn’t Callum’s fault that Donald was killed?”

asked Chrissy, her small face intent.

“No.” Alison answered this one more easily. “It didn’t have anything to do with Callum at all.”

Chrissy nodded once, as if settling something in her mind. She watched Alison in silence for a few minutes, but Alison knew her daughter well enough to guess she had more to say.

“Does that mean I can take riding lessons, after all?”

“Christine Grant, do ye never think of anything but the horses?” Alison said, half laughing, half exasperated.

“Sometimes.” The corners of Chrissy’s mouth turned up. “Especially when I’m hungry. So can I, Mummy, please? Callum said we wouldn’t have to pay.”

“We’ll not be accepting charity from Callum MacGillivray,” snapped Alison, singeing her finger on the pan. “And ye know we can’t afford—” The sight of her daughter’s face brought her to a halt—the disappointment quickly marshaled, the round, gray eyes suddenly expressionless. Was her pride worth that high a price? Alison wondered. “Well,” she said slowly, “maybe we could accept a wee discount, from a friend.”

“Are you and Callum friends, then?” asked Chrissy, with a hopeful note.

“Aye. I suppose we might be. But, mind you, baby, don’t be expecting anything more. Callum and me, we’re . . . well, we’re as different as chalk and cheese.”

“It’s okay, Mummy.” Chrissy’s serene smile held an unnerving hint of satisfaction.

The long, flat miles between Cambridge and London slipped away, as they had so often in the past, Kincaid thought as he watched the landscape recede in his rearview mirror. He had brought Tess with him when he’d picked Kit up at Nathan’s, and now, after an ecstatic reunion, both boy and dog were quiet.

Glancing into the backseat, he saw Tess stretched out full length, breathing the short, whuffly breaths of doggy

dreams. In the front, Kit sat back with his eyes closed, but Kincaid didn’t think he was sleeping. They hadn’t yet had a chance to talk, although Nathan had rung Kincaid from his office and related his own discussion with Kit.

Opening his eyes, Kit said suddenly, “Are Tim and Hazel going to get a divorce?”

Kincaid had given Kit and Nathan a sketchy version of the events in Scotland, but Kit had obviously read between the lines. “I don’t know, Kit. I suspect things are going to be difficult for them, and sometimes . . . sometimes things don’t work out even when people want them to.”

“What about Holly? Will she stay with Hazel?”

“I think that’s most likely, yes,” Kincaid said uneasily.

He hadn’t really thought about how Hazel’s situation would affect Kit, but he saw now that it was another prop gone in the structure of Kit’s existence. “Kit, we won’t lose Hazel and Holly, no matter how things work out.”

Kit looked at him, accusation in his blue eyes. “You can’t promise it.”

“No.” What Kit wanted, Kincaid realized, was a guarantee against fate, and he couldn’t give it. Kit had been buffeted by life, thrown like a football from one family to another, from one possible future to another, with no power to choose anything for himself.

Kincaid thought back to his conversation with Nathan.

Nathan had tactfully suggested that Kit be allowed to decide whether or not to have the DNA testing, and although Kincaid had disagreed at the time, now he began to wonder if Nathan had had a point.

No promise in the world could give Kit the sense of security he so desperately needed . . . but what if Kit felt he had a say in his own destiny?

Nathan was right. Kit was old enough to make his

wishes clear, with or without a DNA test. They didn’t need proof to be a family, and it occurred to Kincaid that perhaps he was the one who had required a stamp of approval. Did he honestly think he would love Kit any more if he knew their genetic codes were a match? Or was it that he thought Kit would love him more? Was he still trying to prove something to Ian McClellan, with Kit as the means?

The idea made him grimace. If that was the case, perhaps it was not Kit who needed to grow up and be sensible. He looked at his son and saw all the things that made him who he was, and he knew that there was nothing a bit of saliva could change. “Kit,” he said, “we need to talk.”

At Tomintoul, Hazel went into the village shop and bought the best two flower bunches on offer. They were a bit past their prime, but they would suit her purpose.

She drove on, up into the Braes, then down into the hollow of Chapeltown, beside the Crombie burn. The small churchyard of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor was deserted, but Hazel found the markers easily enough.

Will Urquhart lay beside his mother, in the shade of a rowan. After laying a bouquet beneath each headstone, she sat on a stone bench in the sun, her eyes closed, until she felt as if she were bleached down to her bones.

Then she left the car in the car park beyond the church and, taking only her bag from the boot, began to climb the track. The sun rose higher, stripping away the shadows, melting the last lingering patches of snow. By the time she reached Carnmore, she was sweating.

Taking the keys Heather had given her from her pocket, she unlocked the door to the house. Slowly, she walked through the place, assessing the damage and the assets. The structure seemed sound, other than a few

warped floorboards beneath the broken windows. Her parents had left some of the old furniture—pieces she now realized might have belonged to Livvy Urquhart.

She found that the memories of her childhood in the house had become entwined with her dreams of Livvy, and that she didn’t really mind.

Eventually, she came back out into the sun and sat on a boulder by the distillery gate, weighing her choices.

Curlews called in the distance, and once, as she looked up, she thought she saw the outline of a falcon skimming high above.

Donald would have wanted her to keep Benvulin as it was; he had seen her as an anchor against the tide of the future. But Donald was gone, and she could no more bring him back than she could resurrect the woman she had pretended to be in the years of her marriage. Who was she now, and where did she belong?

It seemed almost certain her marriage was damaged beyond repair, and she—how could she go back to counseling others, when she had been unable to help herself?

She looked around her, at the house and the weathered but still-solid buildings of the distillery. It was a hard life in the Braes, an isolated life, one that left its mark for good or ill. But it was her heritage, and her daughter’s.

Could she bring Holly here? Could she subject them both to the unknown?

There was a way, if she had the courage. She could sell her shares in Benvulin to