Read One Day (A Valentine Short Story) for Free Online

was no one else around and the loch glistened in the winter sun.
    It’s hard to explain what a highland view does to me. How just sitting by the water of a placid loch, surrounded by the rugged beauty of the Cairngorms, instilled a peace in me that I couldn’t find anywhere else. I’d discovered this peace in the last few days and found I was becoming slightly addicted to it.
    “There’s nothing like it, is there?” Liam said.
    I glanced at him. “Like what?”
    “The peace you find in places like this.”
    I stared at him, slightly awed. “I was just thinking that exact same thing.”
    He studied me a moment as I studied him, and my chest began to constrict with the kind of emotion I was not prepared to feel toward a man I’d met less than twenty-four hours ago.
    “Tell me about your family. Those three older brothers of yours,” he said, taking a bite of his sandwich.
    Strangely, unnervingly, I found I wanted to tell him anything he wanted to know. “I have three big brothers and an older sister. My mum died after she gave birth to me.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
    I gave him a sad smile. “Hence all the swearing. My brothers pretty much brought me up because Dad kind of gave up all responsibility to us after mum died. My oldest brother, Grant, is more like my dad. He’s a lawyer.” I smiled fondly. “He’s kind of got a stick up his bum. I tease him all the time, drives him nuts.”
    Liam smiled at me. “I bet he adores you.”
    I shrugged because I knew Grant loved me. It was just that Scottish men weren’t very comfortable expressing those kinds of emotions. Or at least, my brothers weren’t. With the exception of Johnny. “And then there’s Douglas. He was a professional football player. Never has to work again. Invested his money, made the right choices, is forever lecturing me about my lack of direction and passion. I know it’s because he worries but one of these days I’m going to knee that man in the goolies just to shut him up.”
    He winced. “For his sake, don’t.”
    “And then there’s Johnny. A total hippy. Believes in auras and spirituality and destiny and all that rubbish. Invested money into a software program when he was twenty, and now lives off the rather bounteous fruits of that non-labor, travelling all over the world, taking beautiful photographs he sells to magazines.”
    “Your siblings are successful.”
    “Just a bit.” I shrugged, that lead weight in my stomach returning any time I thought about it. I felt like an utter failure in comparison.
    “And your sister?”
    The lead weight grew heavier. “Well Heather is ruthless, ambitious and beautiful. She had an affair with her best friend’s husband who also happens to be the CFO of a telecommunications company. He left his wife for Heather, married her, and when she refused to get pregnant for fear of ruining her figure, he agreed to adopt children and hire a nanny.”
    Liam was quiet a moment. “You don’t get along with her?”
    “That friend I told you about…” I glanced up at him, squinting against the sun, “The one that shagged my boyfriend…”
    Sympathy darkened his eyes. “Not a friend. Heather?”
    I nodded and looked back out over the loch, searching for that peace. “She was always horrible to me growing up. Tearing me down about the way I looked, about my accomplishments at school. Starting fights with me. I mean hair pulling, nail scratching, vicious fights.” I shuddered remembering them. “She made me tough, I’ll give her that.” And then I uttered something I’d never said out loud to anyone before. “She hates me because she thinks I killed our mum.”
    “Jesus,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Surely not?”
    “She told me. When I asked her why she slept with him, with my boyfriend, she told me it was revenge.”
    “That’s fucked up.”
    I laughed humorlessly. “Tell me about it.”
    “No, I mean… she has issues.”
    This time I laughed for real. “Yeah, she