This, whatever it is between us, wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I should be back at my flat, packing, making phone calls to Alan, our coach, making arrangements to meet with my brother Brigs when I get off the plane. I should be getting ready to return to my old life, the one I’d put on hold for six weeks.

Instead I’m lying helplessly in bed, lost in a woman I don’t know, wishing I could know her better.

What a bloody mess.

“You don’t want to know how I’m feeling,” I tell her.

“I thought as much,” she says, kissing me on the forehead. It works like a blast to my heart.

She gets up and goes into the washroom while I struggle to sit up. I need to wake the fuck up and push past this bullshit, or my last day with her is going to go to waste. When she comes back out, she hands me a glass of water and two ibuprofen.

“Take those, drink it all,” she says, and sits down on the couch across from the bed to watch me.

I do as she says, forcing it down while she looks on in concern.

“Tell me,” she says suddenly, pointing to the lion on my arm. “About the lion.”

My head jerks back in surprise which only makes the pain pound back in response. One eye scrunches up as I wince through it. “Now?”

She folds her arms. “I had to put you to bed last night. I think I’m owed an explanation.”

I frown at her. “I’m not sure my tattoo will answer your question. What is your question?”

“The lion,” she says. “When did you get it? What does it mean?”

“Why?” I ask her carefully.

“Because you’re always looking at it.”

My eyes widen and I’m hit with a wave of self-consciousness. “I am?” Fuck, I had never noticed.

“From time to time,” she says. “You may not be seeing it for what it is, but it’s one of the many places your eyes go.”

I exhale noisily. She’d sunken into my skin, just like the tattoo. I could open another page for her. I could give her another glimpse inside. She couldn’t throw it back in my face if I was leaving. The pages would just flutter to the ground.

“All right,” I say, holding out my forearm for her to see better, for me to remember. “This is Lionel. Not my dog. My lion. I got this tattoo when I was sixteen. I’d been living with the McGregors for a while by then, but…” I pause, wondering how I can explain such a thing to someone who has never gone through it. “When you grow up in a boy’s home, when you don’t have anyone to love you, to care for you, to think of you, then you cling to whatever is lovely in the world. Lionel was my stuffed animal, given to me as a birthday present. The very same day my mother gave me away.”

I reluctantly meet her eyes, but I’m surprised not to see any pity in them. She’s involved in my words, as if she’s living it as I had. I swallow hard and continue. “Lionel was what I truly loved and the only thing that loved me back. It was soft, you know, in a place that was very hard and very cold and very black. The lion gave me hope, even when everything seemed hopeless. Through many foster families who couldn’t…handle me. And sometimes, sometimes I couldn’t handle them. Finally the McGregors took me in, but…” I lick my lips. “Sometimes the good things have a hell of a time outweighing the bad. Demons follow you everywhere. All the time.” I tap the back of my head. “Mine are here, and they are dark and they are always looking for the weakness in me.”

You’re my weakness. You’ll bring them out again.

I close my eyes to those thoughts, pinching them together tight.

Kayla lays her hand on my arm, and I open them, taking in a deep breath.

“You don’t have to say any more,” she says. “I get it.”

I shake my head. “Nah. Nah, you don’t, and I’m glad you don’t.” I exhale sharply. “So, Lionel the Lion reminds me that there is good in the world. There’s always something worth holding on to. It’s just another word for hope, you know?”

She nods slowly. “I know.” She looks away briefly, her eyes awash with sadness. “Shit. Lachlan, you’re breaking my heart.”

I sit up straighter and put my hand on her chest. “No. There’s no breaking this thing.”

She looks up at me through her lashes, mouth twisted into a smile. “Let’s hope.”

Our eyes lock, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m leaning in, pressing her soft lips to mine, letting the feel of her, the taste of her, wash away the grime.

We kiss for a long time, a slow, lazy, desperate meeting of the mouths, and I find everything in my body stiffens, hot and tense.

But she pulls away, her dainty hand on my chest, and quickly runs her thumb over my brow. “I promised everyone we’d have lunch with them. We’re going to a winery.”

I frown, not wanting to see anyone but her and especially not wanting to go to a winery after last night.

She continues, reading my face. “Don’t worry, it’s not a wine tasting. Well, it is, but they’re already there, I think. I told them we’d meet them at the winery’s restaurant for lunch. It’s not far, and I heard it’s good food. Farm to table and all that.”

I groan and eye the alarm clock. It’s eleven o’clock. I can’t believe I even slept in that long. Usually I’m up at seven and raring to go.

She holds my hand and gives it a squeeze. “After lunch, I’m all yours. They all know. They don’t want to take you away from me.”

I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “They sound like good friends.”

“They know you make me happy.”

Her words are a fist to the gut, and they nearly leave me breathless.

I make you happy? I want to ask her, but I can’t. I don’t. I swallow her words down and pretend that they aren’t affecting me like a goddamn shot of vodka.

“Okay,” I tell her. “I’ll get ready.”

It’s not long before I’m dressed, Emily’s been fed and walked again, and Kayla and I are in her car driving to the winery. I have to admit, the day is absolutely brilliant, and the fresh country air is doing wonders to clear my head. I think the smog of San Francisco has started to clutter it up a little too much, and for a moment, my heart pangs for Edinburgh, with its quiet lanes and stone buildings and the slower pace of life.

I look over at Kayla as she drives, my hand at the back of her neck, my thumb rubbing against her skin. I could sit here for hours, as long as I can keep touching her. I wonder briefly, so briefly, just a flash, what she would think of Edinburgh if she could see it. Would she like Scotland? Would she see the country, the city that I see? Would she understand why its home?

But such thoughts are futile. They get pushed down into a locked box, and I stare out the window, watching sparrows dance in the blue sky and the endless curve of vineyards that stretch over the hills.

Soon we arrive at a winery composed of hay, rustic fences, and sprawling barns. One of the barns holds the restaurant, and we find my cousins and their women already sitting down, toasting each other with wine to something.

It makes me hold onto Kayla tighter. The four of them seem so tight-knit that I can’t imagine Kayla with them after I leave. Will she sit there, just happy to be on her own, happy for her friends, but forever the fifth wheel? Will she have someone else by her side, some other guy? One that she’s fucking, one that she maybe loves?

The thought of that nearly makes me sick. I have to stop, mid-stride, and throw my shoulders back to take in a deep breath.

“You okay?” Kayla asks, and I quickly nod, glad that no one else saw that.

“Just in time,” Bram says from the table, lifting his glass. “We were toasting to hangovers.”

“That seems about right,” I say, forcing brevity into my voice. I sit down and give them all a tight smile. My glass is filled with wine, but there’s also one with water, so I raise that. “Here’s to feeling like the dog’s bollocks,” I say.

“Here, here,” they all say. We all tap glasses, and I noticed that Bram is getting that sentimental look in his eyes that I don’t think anyone else ever notices except for me. I give him a sharp nod, not wanting to go down the schmaltzy road, then clink my glass with Kayla’s, who is also toasting with water.