She’d learned to hold her whiskey in Scotland. She’d learned to hold Maggie Armstrong there, too. The two of them kissed atop crags and tangled together during days so long the twilight never seemed to fully fade. And even after those escapades also gave way to adulthood, she still cherished the memories of building a wee stick fort for her niece, Abigail. It hadn’t been so long ago that she’d patrolled the perimeter of their imaginations playing the role of protector against the big bad wolf, played perhaps too convincingly by . . . Robert.

She sighed. There it was, suddenly, the moment of when the change had occurred shone crystal clear, though the events around that moment felt fractured. Perhaps crystal shards offered a more fitting allusion to that particular memory, both precious and sharp.

“Vic?” her father asked.

“Yes?”

“You’ve managed to sigh twice in the moment it took me to walk into the next room.” His voice was gentle as always, and she experienced a new wave of guilt for what she was about to do. Summer offered their only prolonged chance to connect these days, but he more than anyone in the world would understand the responsibility weighing on her shoulders.

“We’ve had a mix-up with the filming crew for Emma Volant’s movie.”

“What sort of a mix-up?”

Vic told him about the paperwork, the furniture removal, and James’s annoyance, leaving out only the part where a beautiful woman disarmed her in both the literal and figurative sense. She couldn’t let her mind wander back to Sophia LeBlanc’s imposing physical presence and cold indifference, or she’d never be able to maintain her focus.

“What do you think?” he asked, when she finished relaying the details.

She knew what she wanted to do, but she didn’t want to overplay her hand and show her bias, so she first laid out the key arguments for sending the film crew back to Hollywood empty-handed. “This is our busiest time. We have our summer schedule set. Many families have already planned visits to the area, and local business owners who depend on the tourism traffic would bear an undue burden if we suffered unexpected closures.”

“Certainly.”

“And yet those same businesses would likely benefit a great deal from the influx accompanying a large film crew. Many of them were scheduled to stay at B&Bs around the castle, and surely they would eat and shop at local businesses. The studio also promised to hire locals for things like lights and carpentry, not to mention the extras for the film. Those things would undoubtedly benefit both the economy and community morale.”

He made a slight noise of agreement.