Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 109783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
The melancholic thought was stripped away as Kia and Keely asked if they could take Harley and Millie out in their strollers. We agreed, but Eilidh advised they bring Mills back if she was fussing.
As Robyn, Regan, and Thane insisted on cooking, everyone else kept them company, catching up on one another’s lives. We didn’t discuss anything too serious since most of the teens were still here, even though they didn’t appear to be listening to a word we said. They’d congregated over on the couch and now and then looked up from their individual devices to say something to each other.
There was a close call when Lewis nearly slipped up as Regan went to pour Callie a glass of wine. He’d instantly covered the glass and opened his mouth only to slam it shut. I’d smothered a smirk as he shot Callie a wide eyed “fuck” expression.
“I’m driving tomorrow.” Callie shrugged nonchalantly. “To Inverness to pick up a piece of equipment for the bakery. I can’t drink.”
No one was the wiser except the four people in the room who knew Callie was pregnant again.
The twins returned with Millie and Harley and the wee yin seemed perfectly content. Dinner was almost ready, so I set her up in a chair at the end of the table next to Harley’s high chair and me and Lewis fed our daughters their dinner before we ate.
We were just chatting among ourselves as Mac and Lachlan rose to help serve the food when Vivien wandered over to the table with Skye at her side. Her attention zeroed in on her parents in the kitchen. Vivien was precocious and extremely confident and always had been. Her boyfriend was a year older, went to college in Inverness, and they’d been dating for nine months. Lachlan hated him. Surprise, surprise. Skye was quieter, a little shyer and more reserved, though much to Mac’s chagrin, she also had a boyfriend. A boy in their year at Ardnoch High School who lived in Golspie.
“So … Skye and I had to do a family tree project for some stupid thing in English class,” Vivien announced.
Lachlan looked up from plating food. “And?”
“And … my brain hurt from trying to work out how we’re related. Skye and I are shocked, I tell you. Shocked. Perhaps even traumatized.”
Eilidh choked on her swallow of wine and I tried not to laugh.
Robyn narrowed her eyes on her daughter as she rounded the island with a plate of sides in each hand. “Why are you traumatized?”
“Eh, trying to explain to our teacher and the class how we’re related, for a start.” Vivien threw her hands up. “It is the first time in my life that I have ever acted less than cool.”
“You know”—Arran waved a fork at her, already digging into the food before everyone else—“calling yourself cool cancels out the cool.”
Brodan chuckled, nodding in agreement.
Vivien ignored both her uncles. “We had to tell our teacher we’d come back and explain it to her once you all explained it to us.”
“And you chose now?” Mac’s lips curled with suppressed laughter.
“Well, you’re all here, Pops.”
“You’ve been calling that man your grandfather since you could talk and you haven’t figured out you and Skye are more than cousins?” Lewis teased.
Everyone burst into laughter.
Vivien sighed heavily with the weariness of being cooler than everyone else in the room. “Aye, but how do you explain that? You try!”
“If Dad is Vivien’s grandfather,” Skye spoke up, “then how is Mum her aunt Arro?”
“Because I’m both,” Arro offered. “And I’m slightly worried that it’s taken you almost eighteen years to ask this. No offense, sweeties.”
I smothered a snort.
“Like, I’ve been calling you Aunt Robyn”—Skye directed her attention to Robyn—“but you’re actually like my sister?”
“Half sister.” Robyn frowned. “We’ve talked about this. Surely?” She placed more plates in front of folks and stood back, hands on her hips. “We cannot have gone eighteen years without addressing this.”
“Well, it is a bit incestuous,” Brodan joked.
Monroe shoved him and he gave a bark of laughter.
“It is?” Vivien and Skye asked in unison.
“Ha ha! You’re incestuous!” Brechin shouted comically from the living room, not even looking up from his Nintendo.
“If I am, you are too!” Vivien rolled her eyes drolly and gestured over her shoulder. “Worry less about my intelligence and more about the tool behind me.”
“I think it’s just so intertwined, no one ever talked about it,” Eredine said. “The relationship between you all, I mean.”
“Explain it from the start,” I inserted. “Maybe if we break it down, we can come up with a coherent explanation for your teacher.”
“Okay.” Vivien pointed to her mother. “Mum married Dad. Dad’s sister is Aunt Arro. Mum’s dad is Mac, and Mac married Aunt Arro. So … Mum is Skye’s half sister through her dad, but she’s also Skye’s aunt through Lachlan’s sibling relationship to Aunt Arro.”