“I totally won that day,” she murmured.

He laughed. “Not how I remember it.”

She waved a hand in front of his face. “Your mind is muddied by all the other girls you brought here to throw rocks. I only have that one day, and it’s still crystal clear.” She tapped her temple with two fingers. “I kicked your ass.”

Stepping off the bridge, she turned into the park. Still exactly how she remembered it, with the gravel path following the stream, circling around the gazebo where bands had sometimes played on summer nights, and ending at the playground near the edge of the trees. There was, however, one big addition.

“Hold on . . . what is this?” She left the path and crossed the grass. Behind her, Leith groaned.

In the center of the open space, a caber—an implement thrown during the Highland Games made of a tree trunk carved into a round pole nineteen or so feet long—had been tilted onto two iron cradles, displayed for all to see. For people to set up their picnic blankets around, for kids to slam into when playing Freeze Tag. A little plaque nailed to a post declared Leith MacDougall, Gleann Highland Games All-Around Champion.

The first time Aunt Bev had taken her to the Highland Games and Jen had watched these huge men throwing the cabers, she’d laughed and hadn’t understood the point. Then she’d met Leith and had gone to the games the subsequent years with him and his father, where Mr. MacDougall had explained the rules of throwing a caber. The athlete held the narrower end of the caber while balancing the rest straight up in the air, then he took off on a run, flipped the giant pole end over end, and hoped the thing landed at twelve o’clock in relation to his body. Once she understood the heavy athletics’ rules and history, she’d loved them.

“Where’d they get the caber?” she asked.

When she turned around, Leith was staring off into the trees, face all scrunched up and looking supremely—gloriously—uncomfortable. So something did faze him, and it was this kind of attention.

“It was mine,” he said, looking everywhere but at Jen. “Well, it was Da’s. When I stopped competing I didn’t know what to do with it, and Chris took it and gave it to Mayor Sue. She had this built.”

“Well, I can understand that,” she said in mock seriousness. “I mean, the huge billboard out on 6 wasn’t nearly enough.”

“You can stop now.”

“Do people come here to, like, lay flowers and stuff?”

“No, really. Stop.” He was desperately trying not to smile, and failing, which pleased her immensely. Because behind his eyes she saw something else—some old pain she couldn’t begin to name. She remembered what he’d admitted last night: that he felt bad, every day, for leaving Gleann. But there was more to it; she could tell. He fought it, glossed over it, and she realized she was dying to know what it was. Dying to help him through it.

She walked down the length of the caber, trailing fingers over the wood, then came back on the other side. Leith ambled toward her with those mountains for shoulders and tree trunks for legs, all set against the delicate, lovely backdrop of Gleann. She was struck by how strongly he’d become part of this landscape. His father, too. The two MacDougall men, as big a part of Gleann as Loughlin’s orange cattle or Kathleen’s horrid cafe decor. And, from what Jen remembered, completely inseparable.

With a hard pang, she realized she missed Mr. MacDougall greatly. During the games, he’d given colorful, delightful commentary on the competitors and their form, and in between, he’d woven in stories from back home in Scotland. Later, she and Leith would sit with him on his front porch, turning the stiff pages of his old photo albums, listening to tales of his best throwing days in Fort William, near where he’d grown up.

Those photos had been her first true exposure to a culture that wasn’t American. She’d been enraptured. She’d been enthralled by Mr. MacDougall’s accent, dulled by decades spent in his new country.

“All kidding aside,” she told Leith, “you should be proud.”

“I am. I really am. But my wins were just the Gleann games, so small compared to others all over the country. And in the amateur division, not even pro. I don’t know why they make such a big deal out of it.”

She looked at him, astounded. “It’s not small to them. It’s their world. And you’re a huge part of it. You and your dad.” She spread her hands wide on the wood. “You’re theirs.”

And you were once mine.

The thought was so potent, so powerful, she feared she’d said it out loud. The look on Leith’s face said maybe she had. Or that he shared the same thought.

He placed his palms on the outside of her hands, his thumbs grazing her pinkies. The pinch of his eyebrows worried her.

“What is it?” She pressed closer, the caber the only thing separating their bodies.

“It’s just”—he looked up, right into her eyes—“when you say things like that, I’m even more conflicted about leaving.”

She gave him a tiny, close-lipped smile of apology. “That’s not what I meant to do.”

“I know. The thoughts are already there. Some things just bring them to the surface.”

They stood there in near silence, the only sounds the gentle splash of the stream and a single car negotiating the curve up from the small glen where Leith’s childhood house used to be. Thinking about that house, and the two men who used to live there, made her think of something. A crazy-good idea.

“I’m about to ask you to do something,” she said. “Something for the games.”

He was already shaking his head, his words overlapping hers. “I’m not throwing.”

She showed him her palms. “I get that. I mean, I don’t really get it, but I understand you don’t want to compete. Instead . . . would you consider being my athletic director?”

Stepping back, his hands slid off the caber. He didn’t look spooked, just surprised.

He took out that blue handkerchief—the one that reminded her so much of his dad—and wiped his hands even though they weren’t dirty. “I wasn’t planning on being in Gleann that weekend. The job in Connecticut has the potential to be huge; I may have to work.”

“It’s one day, Leith. Well, two if you count the opening party the night before. Just one day to give back to Gleann before you head out for good. Come on. Please. I need the help. I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to the athletic events, and with so many other changes I want to make, I’m sure I’ll be needed elsewhere.”

He slowly turned his head, scanning Gleann from one corner to the next, his longer hair curling around his ears. It might have been the sexiest he’d ever looked to her.

“There’s this buddy of mine, Duncan Ferguson. We used to throw together, and he’s still really active in the circuit. He lives just across the lake in Westbury. He might even have already signed up to compete here anyway. I’m sure he could help you out.”

“But—”

“I can’t give my promise, Jen.” There was such earnestness in his voice, such belief in his expression. “I make promises, I keep them. I wouldn’t want to say I’d do it and then let everyone down.” He glanced toward town, then back to her. “And I wouldn’t want to let you down.”

She could have prepped for a week straight on how that one sentence would make her feel, and she still would have stammered. She still would have felt the stumble of her heart. “I understand.”

He nodded once, in that way men learned in some sort of existential Guy School. “I’ll get you Duncan’s number.”

“Thanks.”

That word closed a chapter in their conversation. With a tap to the caber, he wandered off toward the playground equipment. The ladder and slide and play structure were faded and weathered. Exactly how she remembered them, but sadder. When he changed subjects and asked, “Hey, do you remember the last time we were here?” she wasn’t a bit surprised.