The Knights Came Riding
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“Anyway you haven’t told me what you’re going to do in your retirement.
”He couldn’t admit that a very important reason for going overseas was to put distance between himself and his son so that, emotionally, both of them would be forced to stand on their own two feet. And it had to be real distance. Otherwise, it’d be too easy for one or the other to regress. And it was more than likely that he could be the one who regressed. Hell, he loved his son so very much. But for chrissake, he thought, it just isn’t natural for a thirty-four-year-old son, who has his own fl at, to have dinner at his father’s place three times a week and then always sleep over in his unchanged boy-hood bedroom.
Or to hear him say that he’d had enough of female chitchat and wanted to spend a few days riding the High Plains with his dad, because his dad was the only person who truly understood him. Also, for a long time he’d been determined to trace his roots, which meant that he’d be killing two birds with one stone.
“Well?” he heard Libby say.
“Sorry, Lib. I was daydreaming.” He offered a slow smile. “I’m going to trace my roots.”
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About the Book
Seumas McKinnon has just retired from an advertising job in Melbourne. He would be free to leave Australia, as a widower with no attachments—except for his son, Alasdair, a successful lawyer. Although they’re grown men, Seumas and Alasdair share a strong dependency that keeps Seumas stuck in a rut. He can’t meet anyone with Alasdair constantly around; even though he loves his son, he decides it’s time for some time apart.
Seumas heads to the Isle of Skye in Scot-land. He hopes to embrace his familial roots and learn some Gaelic along the way. The separation is initially hard on both of them, but soon, Seumas meets Morag, a lovely, charming woman whom he finds immediately attractive. They strike up a relationship, even though they both know Seumas plans to return to Australia. Back home, Alasdair meets someone, too—Annie O’Hare, a physiotherapist recently returned from Hong Kong. Initially she refuses to take him seriously.
Apart, father and son seem to thrive. Eventually, Seumas returns to Melbourne, happy to feel some emotional distance from his clingy son. Then a tragic and nearly fatal accident occurs that bonds the McKinnon boys more than ever before. Perhaps Seumas’s trip to Scotland was all in vain, or per-haps his absence gave him a chance to see the true importance of love and family.
About the Author
Following his retirement, Jim Nicolson spent two years on Scotland’s legendary Isle of Skye in order to trace his roots and learn Scottish Gaelic. He now lives in Melbourne, Australia. He has spent many years working with cattle and horses and is the author of Long Creek and A Very Different Girl.