“I don’t know. I’m a bit busy, as you can see.”
The woman smiled, but clearly she wished for me to leave now. Although there was no way for me to know for sure, Cooper’s stranger was, once again, very much on my mind.
Chapter 4
The Inn Near Conall Castle
Present Day
Overnight flights are meant to be slept on but, try as I might to explain this concept to Cooper, he had none of it. While he still operated with the same inexhaustible amount of energy he had aboard the flight, the full effects of jet lag crashed down on me hard, making me ill-tempered.
“Mr. Perdie, there’s no way this is where I’m supposed to stay. I know you said it was an inn, but there’s no sign or anything. It’s in the middle of nowhere. Why on earth would an inn set up here?”
I fumbled with the GPS system with one hand, holding my phone to my ear with the other. While Perdie read aloud the coordinates, I frowned down at the navigation screen in frustration. “Yes, that’s exactly where I am but this…this just can’t be it.”
“Mom, look!”
His voice, loud, high, and demanding sounded as pleasing to my tired ears as an out of tune oboe. “Coop,” I snapped a little too harshly. “What have I told you about when I’m on the phone? You have to wait until I’m finished.”
“But…” his voice quivered but he continued, determined to be heard. “There’s a man at the door. He’s wav…waving.” His voice broke completely as he finished and my heart with it.
I hurried off the phone with Mr. Perdie, mumbling something along the lines of, “Never mind, I’ll call you later,” before making haste to apologize. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m just exhausted. No sleep turns me into a scary troll.”
“A very scary troll,” he said.
Although he wasn’t ready to smile at me, I knew I’d been forgiven. “Now, what’s this about a man? I don’t see anybody.” Again, I thought to myself. It worried me that twice in the course of twenty-four hours Cooper had seen someone I hadn’t. Although, I wasn’t sure which one of us I should be worried for—him for his overactive imagination or myself for my horrifying lack of observational skills. I guess we would find out soon enough.
Cooper threw his hands up in exasperation. “Well, that’s because he went back inside.” He waved real big and then,” he pulled his hand toward his chest, demonstrating the man’s hand motion, “he wants us to come inside, too.”
After putting the car back in drive long enough so that I could turn off the main road and park in front of the inn, I turned off the engine. “Alright. I’ll take your word for it. Let’s leave our bags here, just in case, okay?”
Unbuckling his seat belt, he nodded before reaching to open the car door, popping the handle with his fingers and then kicking it open the rest of the way with his feet. Once outside, he slammed the door as hard as he could, which was just hard enough to close the door back properly.
Anxious to greet the man who’d waved to him, Cooper knocked on the front door before I reached his side. As I neared him, the door swung open, revealing an ancient-looking man who for a moment, however brief, looked so grumpy that I could scarcely imagine that this was the man Cooper thought had waved us inside.
Much to my astonishment, the stranger’s face altered completely in the next second, transforming with a smile so large and warm that the vast contrast to how he appeared only a moment ago would have unsettled me in most cases, but the old man now appeared so welcoming that both Cooper and I couldn’t help but smile in return.
He extended a large, bony hand and Cooper reached out confidently to grasp it firmly—perhaps the one good thing my father had taught him.
“Why, good morning, lad. We’ve been expecting ye. I am Jerry. I believe that me wife has prepared some brunch for ye both. Why doona ye come in?” The man looked up at me and smiled before returning his attention to Cooper. “And who might this lovely lass standing behind ye be?”
Cooper reached his left hand behind him, extending it in my direction so that I would take it, effectively presenting me to the man. When he wished to be, Coop had it in him to be quite the little gentleman.
“This is my Mom.”
The man, Jerry, stepped forward. I moved to extend my own hand, but instead he clasped me on the shoulder, ushering us inside. “Aye, I reckoned she was, though she looks young enough to be yer sister. What is yer name, laddie, and how old are ye?”
Continuing to move down the hall in the direction Jerry indicated, Cooper occasionally glanced behind him so that he could look at Jerry as he spoke. “Cooper and I’m four years old, but not really four because I’ll be five very soon.”
“Ach, I’d have guessed ye a fair deal older than that, laddie.”