Secret Garden. Cathryn Parry
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him use for his meetings. He was just about to open the door and reassure his mom when Mack blocked him with a hand.
“Look, I didn’t want to have to tell you this,” Mack said, “but...you probably have to go to a funeral this weekend.”
“What? Whose?”
While Mack just mouthed, I’m sorry, the door opened and his mother said in her loud twang, “Honey, I came as soon as I heard.”
Colin groaned inwardly. “What happened?” he asked in as calm a voice as he could manage.
His mom crossed her arms and looked at him. But instead of being upset, she seemed strangely pleased. “Your grandmother called me.”
“Mimi?” Colin asked, his heart pumping harder. “What’s wrong?”
“With our people? Nothing!” Her eyes widened at the thought of that. Then her mouth turned down. “Your other grandmother called,” she said coolly. “The one in Scotland.”
Colin’s pulse slowed.
He hadn’t heard from his father’s family since he was a kid. Then, suddenly, when he turned pro a few years back, his grandmother—Jessie—had sent him a note through his website. Leonard had told Colin, but Colin had informed him that he wasn’t interested. He’d pushed that part of his life out of his head as if it had never existed. He’d figured it would freak Daisie Lee out if he started up any kind of relationship there, and that was the last thing he wanted.
Colin steadied his nerves and entered the conference room, where Leonard sat in a rumpled suit, a bunch of papers likely showing Colin’s reduced financial circumstances spread before him.
Leonard stood clumsily, his face perspiring from the lack of air-conditioning.
“Colin,” Daisie Lee said, following him inside, “there’s good news, too. You’re getting an inheritance—a sizable inheritance—and all you have to do is show up for it.”
Colin stared. He felt as if life was moving in slow motion. Nobody in his father’s family had money, as far as he knew. Then again, he’d been just a kid when he last saw them. Eight years old. “Whose funeral is it?” he asked. “Is it Jamie’s?”
His grandparents would be elderly now. Colin hadn’t heard from his grandfather once since the divorce. He still remembered that Jamie had stood by Colin’s father when he left them. Colin would never forget that day.
Daisie Lee waved her hand. “No. And I don’t blame you for not wanting to see those people but you’ll just have to endure it. They offered to let you stay at their house. That ugly little crofter’s cottage.”
“That ugly little crofter’s cottage” had been heaven to Colin once—if only because he got to see Rhiannon when he went there. He closed his eyes at the memory.
So if Jessie and Jamie were both still alive, that meant...
Colin took off his cap. Stared into Daisie Lee’s eyes, which were bright with animation. “Are you telling me that my father died?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “He had a heart attack. That’s why Jessie called me.”
He couldn’t focus. His vision seemed to be swimming and he blinked hard to clear it. Somehow he remained stubbornly on his feet.
“No,” he said. Mack and Leonard were staring at him, so he sat. “I’m not going to his funeral.”
“Colin, there’s a million-dollar inheritance.”
Colin closed his eyes. He felt sick. He hadn’t wanted to think about any of this stuff from his childhood. It was easier to pretend that it didn’t exist. He sure as hell didn’t want his father’s money.
“I’m a tour pro,” he said. “Last year I grossed almost that much myself.”
There was silence in the room. Leonard cleared his throat, but Colin caught Mack giving him a look. Don’t fight it, the look said. Just go, and take the money.
“I know my tour card’s at risk,” Colin bit out. “But I still don’t want anything from him.”
“Oh, Colin,” Daisie Lee whispered. She seemed sad, and that tore him up inside, the way it always had.
Gritting his teeth, he walked to the end of the room and grabbed a paper cup, pouring a drink from the watercooler. Somebody in the hall outside came over to wave and smile at him through the conference room window, but he just couldn’t muster up that old, carefree Colin attitude to wave back at them.
He was all tapped out. Didn’t care about keeping up his cool. When it came to the subject of his father, nothing was light, and never would be.
His hand shook as he raised the cup to his lips. For so long he’d thought that someday he’d bump into his father at a tournament, maybe. Show him that he’d been wrong. Rub it in, even.
It had been a secret, stupid desire, something he’d never shared with anybody, or even really dared to admit to himself, because it was petty. And it was sad, too, because a part of him really had wanted his dad to say he’d made a mistake. That he did love Colin.
Now it was too late.
My father is dead.
Colin heard a choking sound, and he was shocked to realize that came from him. He pressed his palm to his forehead. He didn’t want to feel this.
His mother came over to him and gingerly put her hand on his shoulder. “Colin, honey, I know it’s hard. What he did to us when he left...well.” She shook her head, collecting herself, and pushed the screen of her phone toward him. “Look. The most important thing now is that we need to be practical. If you lose your tour card—”
He turned to her, suddenly furious. “I will not lose my tour card.”
“Of course you won’t, Colin. I know. The inheritance is... Think of it as a contingency plan.”
He turned and stared out the window. “Then tell Jessie to mail me the check.”
“I did, but she said you need to be there, for lawyers and signatures and whatever else. Then she mentioned Mr. Sage, Jamie’s employer. Colin, I looked him up on the internet. Do you remember the family?”
Colin shook his head, ignoring her outstretched hand, cradling the phone. He didn’t like that she was getting so excited about this. For too long, Daisie Lee had cried over the divorce, and Colin, even as young as he was, had been the one who’d had to lift her spirits.
“Don’t frown, Colin. Surely you remember the MacDowall family that lived in the castle? Rhiannon, the little girl? She was so sweet to you. The two of you were so close back then.”
Of course he hadn’t forgotten her. Rhiannon had been the one great thing about that place. The best thing, actually.
But then, Rhiannon had never written to him the way she’d promised. Colin couldn’t help thinking that he’d done something wrong, because he’d believed her when she said that she would write him.
She’d seen everything that had happened, though—had heard what his father had said to him, and Colin had always figured that in the end, it had affected her decision to keep in touch.
“Rhiannon’s mother,” Daisie Lee continued, “was a Sage. The Sages of Scotland—you’ve heard of them? They own that big shampoo and cosmetics empire?”
Daisie Lee didn’t wait for his reaction. She just kept talking, an excited look on her face. “Colin, they’re now about the wealthiest people in Scotland. Can you believe it?”
“I really don’t care about that,” he said coldly. Because he didn’t.
“Their company is called Sage Family Products. Here, I looked it up. They sponsor professional athletes.”