Page 72 of The Matchmaker
Another truck passes by, making the window frame vibrate, and knowing I can do nothing with the internet gone, I grab my rain jacket and leave the house, heading down the road toward the village.
Usually, the more I move away from the hotel site, the quieter the noises from it gets, but this time I hear different sounds, coming not from behind me, but from somewhere in the distance, and I make a sharp turn, heading through a field that will lead me to the western side of the forest.
It should be a fifteen-minute walk to the barn, but I do it in ten, running through the downpour, as the bad feeling gets worse and worse and worse. I’m soaked through by the time I get there, and I start sprinting when I see the large tire tracks drawing a dirty path from the road and down the trail, where a crashing noise sounds.
I feel like someone just punched me in the chest.
The barn is half-gone. One side of it has been demolished into nothing but rubble and dust. The ground around it is no better, muddy piles and haphazard holes where green grass once stood. A large machine lumbers about, moving slowly over the ruins,creatingthe ruins, and I move faster, almost through the clearing before I’m spotted.
“You can’t come in here,” a man yells, holding up a hand as if to physically stop me. “This is an active building site.”
“It’s not, it’s…you don’t own this land. I’m working in there.”
He frowns at that. “We cleared out all objects we found inside. You can pick them up down the road, but it’s been marked as abandoned and, from the looks of it, has been for a while.” He smiles then, like we’re joking. “Unless I’m about to be fired.”
He clears his throat when I just stare at him and starts flipping through his clipboard before showing me a map. One that shows this part of the forest. This property. Now owned by Glenmill.
“Well…” the man continues, when I just stand there. “If you just keep a good bit away there, you’re grand to stay for a bit.” He nods as if I’ve responded and heads back to what’s left of the barn, his boots squelching in the mud his team has created.
This is what Jack meant when he said I’d had my fun. Adam was right. He really was just playing with me before. He really was just…
“Katie.”
Callum stands a few feet behind me. He has his big orange construction jacket on, but it’s open, and doesn’t have a hood, so does little to protect him against the rain.
“Did you know?” I ask.
“No.” His expression is tight, almost furious. “I came down here as soon as I heard.”
“Bullshit.”
“I swear. Jack didn’t tell me he was doing this. He knows I would have stopped him. It’s because I—Katie.” He follows me as I stride past him, heading to the road. I need to get back to the village. I need to call everyone I know and get them down here.
“We had an argument when you left the other day,” Callum continues. “We’ve had to push back delivery by a couple of months and he’s panicking. That’s all this is. He’s lashing out and—”
“You knew what we were doing to the barn,” I interrupt, barely listening to him. “You said so yourself, you go through these woods every day. You were at the raffle. You knew what we were doing, and you told him.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did!” I tear my hand away when he goes to grab it and turn right, just as another excavator comes trundling around the corner. The driver flashes his lights when he sees me, but I hold my ground, clinging to my impromptu protest until Callum yanks me back, giving the machine plenty of space to get past me.
“What the hell are you doing?” he snaps.
“I am obviously having ameltdown.” I push the wet hair from my face, watching the digger disappear into the woods.
The rain is easing now, but I’m so drenched through it doesn’t matter.
“It’s just a barn,” Callum says, as if I’m about to chase after it or something. “That’s all it is. Just a barn. You can host the festival somewhere else.”
“There’s nowhere else with any space. That was the perfect spot. We spent weeks on it. We were ready.”
He steps toward me, hesitating when I send him a warning glance. “I already told—”
“I know what you told me,” I interrupt. That he didn’t have anything to do with it. That he didn’t know anything. But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because Gemma was right. She was right from the start. I should have waited a year and done it right. I mean, the hotel is still a giant hole in the ground. I had time. I had time, but I rushed into it. I rushed into it because I was upset, and I didn’tthink. And now I was hurt just like she warned me I would be.
“You want to know why it doesn’t matter if you want to see me?” I ask, repeating his words from yesterday. “Why it doesn’t matter if you knew about this or not? It’s because of your brother. Because he’s building a hotel down the road from my house, and I’m terrified my dog will be run over every time we go for a walk. Because he’s taken away half the land that used to be open to us. Because he’s knocked down my barn and he’s going to knock down my pub and then I’m going to hate you.”
“You don’t know that he’s going to—”
