Rory sighed. Not this again. ‘Dad married you, didn’t he?’
‘And she’ll also have William’s faulty genetics. A kind man I grant you, but not right in the head. And she’s living in that hovel? I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing. She doesn’t belong here. The land belongs to the estate.’
Rory let out a whoosh of air, releasing the pressure valve before he exploded at his mother. ‘Mother, my mood is nothing to do with Zoe. I met with the bank manager and Alastair McCarthy today. The situation is serious.’
His mother stepped gracefully out of her chair and glided to the door. He moved out of her way and she passed through, patting his arm. He followed her into the kitchen and watched as she filled the kettle and switched it on.
‘Darling, they’re bank managers and lawyers. We’ve been here many times before. I have complete faith in you. The plans Colquhoun Asset Management have proposed are exciting, aren’t they?’
She measured out tea leaves into a china teapot. Rory raised his hands, pushing his fists into his temples. ‘Lucy is not the answer to our problems, Mum.’
The kettle came to the boil and Barbara switched it off. She pulled his arms away from his head and stared him down. ‘Lucy and her family’s company are precisely the answer to our problems. The sooner you set this in motion, the sooner we can leave this wretched place and get back to our lives in Edinburgh. The last thing anyone needs is a cheap little distraction veering you off course.’ She dropped his hands and poured the boiling water into the teapot. ‘Why don’t you leave her to me?’
‘Mum, no! Don’t do anything. I’ve given her enough grief. She’ll find out soon enough how hard winter is. She’ll leave. They always leave.’
‘Now, dear, you can’t compare this woman to Lucy.’
‘Her name is Zoe, Mother.’
Barbara fluttered her hand as if the name was irrelevant. ‘Whatever her name is, she’s not cut from the same cloth. Lucy is sophisticated, classy, socially adept, wealthy… The right kind of girl for you.’
‘And she left. Remember?’
Barbara pointed a manicured finger at Rory. ‘That was your doing, not hers. You didn’t make the effort.’ She squeezed the side of his arm, her voice softening. ‘Darling. You didn’t fight hard enough for her. I spoke to her the other day and she’s not dating. You need to visit her, make an effort, tidy yourself up a bit.’
‘Mother.’ Rory’s tone would have stopped a train, but Barbara was relentless and unbowed. She poured out a cup of tea.
‘And whatever you do, don’t get caught up in a web spun by that woman. She’s a bad sort, a troublemaker.’
‘Mother. I have no intention of being caught by Zoe, or anyone else for that matter. My priority right now is trying to keep a roof over our heads. And besides, she hates me.’
‘Whatever do you mean? She’s the type that’s always throwing themselves at men in a very unseemly manner.’
‘Rest assured, the only things she throws at me are tins of baked beans.’ He walked out of the room before his mother could take the astonished look off her face and reply.
8
Zoe’s plans for a quiet afternoon were ruined in the nicest possible way by the arrival of Fiona. She had left her car by the road and walked down the track to the cabin. She had a bag over her shoulder and was brandishing a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers.
‘Housewarming gifts,’ she told Zoe as she stepped up onto the deck. ‘Flowers for the house, and wine for you.’
Zoe hugged her tightly. ‘Bless you, sweetheart, you don’t know how much I need this right now. Do you want a glass?’
Fiona put her hand on the top of the bottle. ‘No, save it for you. Duncan’s coming home later today so I can’t stay long. Mum’s got Liam so I could come and see how you’re getting on.’
‘Come in. I’ll put the kettle on.’ Zoe pushed open the door and invited her in.
‘Oh, Zoe, it’s lovely. That Rayburn doesn’t half kick out some heat. I love your tent. And the fairy lights – it’s like something out of Narnia.’
Zoe put the kettle on to boil as Fiona walked around the cabin.
‘Hang on, what’s in the cage? Holy mother of god. Is that a rat?’
‘Shhh… he’s sleeping,’ whispered Zoe.
‘Why have you got a rat?’ Fiona whispered back.
‘It’s a long story, but he’s extremely cute and well trained. He’s called Basil.’
Fiona looked dubiously at her. ‘Jeez, you won’t bring him tomorrow for Sunday lunch, will you? Mum hates rats. They give her the heebie-jeebies.’
Zoe grinned and spoke normally again. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’ll keep him here. Although I think I’m going to have to buy him a friend for when I’m out. I don’t have any milk. Is that okay?’
‘I’m happy with whatever you’ve got. You know, I should have brought you some chairs as a housewarming gift, you’ve only got one and I don’t think it could support my post-baby weight.’
‘That chair couldn’t support Liam’s weight, I think it’s only good for kindling now. I’ve got some in storage I’ll bring up when I’ve finished the roof.’
The kettle boiled and Zoe poured water into two mugs. ‘We can sit on the deck, sorry I’m not more set up for visitors.’
Fiona waved her hand as if it was nothing. ‘Zoe, you’re doing grand.’
She took the big bag off her shoulder and emptied papers, files, and plastic envelopes full of receipts onto the table as Zoe finished making the tea.
‘I forgot to say I’ve brought my accounts for you. I know it’s not a big job, but Mum’s spoken to Chantelle who runs the posh dress shop, and Sally who runs the cafe, and they say you can do their accounts. There’s bound to be more work for you in the area. Mum just hasn’t got around to bending everyone’s ears yet. Oh, and as well as cash you get free haircuts for life from me.’
Zoe smiled and indicated her hair, currently making a bid for freedom from an unruly bun. ‘Good luck with this mop. Seriously, Fi, I really appreciate it. It’s going to cost me so much more than I thought to make this place a real home and my savings aren’t going to cut it.’
The two women walked out to the deck and sat on the top of the steps, cradling hot mugs of tea in their hands. The sun was setting over a clear sky. Looking down the slope to the loch, lost in their memories, it was a few minutes before anyone spoke.
‘Look at us, thinking about the past like we’re two old biddies. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us,’ Fiona scolded. ‘And you’re young, free and single. What I wouldn’t give to be where you are now.’
‘Seriously? You’d rather be in this cabin on your own than have Duncan and Liam?’
Fiona let out a peal of laughter. ‘God no, I can’t think of anything worse than dating at my age and living somewhere I have to pee in a shed and can’t have a shower. Dunc’s the man of my dreams anyway. And you think the weather is always this nice? It’s normally sheeting it down twenty-four seven. Nah, I was just trying to make you feel better.’
Zoe smiled. ‘I think you’ll always make me feel better.’
‘And I doubt you’ll be single for long. Mum’s on a mission to marry you off to our Jamie.’
Zoe blushed. ‘Fi, he’s a handsome man, but I’ll always see the eight-year-old I knew all those years ago. He’s like a younger brother.’
Fiona snorted. ‘He’s still that eight-year-old! Liam’s more mature than he is. Mum’s just desperate to get him out from under her feet, although the moment he does leave she’ll immediately want him back. You’re far too nice for him anyway. I’m on the hunt for a total cow bag so I can inflict him on them and ruin both their lives.’
Zoe giggled and they clinked their mugs of tea together. They lapsed into a companionable silence and watched the sun disappear behind the hills beyond the loch and the first stars twinkling above them. Fiona shivered. ‘Full moon, and it’s going to be a cold one too. Better bank the Rayburn well tonight.’
Zoe glan
ced sideways. ‘Now who’s sounding like an old biddy?’
* * *
By the time Fiona set off home, the moon was ascending in the night sky. Zoe made herself some food and brought Basil out to run around whilst she gingerly sat on the last chair standing and made sense of Fiona’s books. She soon realised it wasn’t going to take her long. Fiona was organised and her business was simple. Zoe wanted to get them done that evening and take them back tomorrow when she went for lunch. She wanted to show Fiona and her family how much she appreciated everything they were doing for her.
By eleven they were done, she had it all on a USB stick and the papers filed neatly away. She was ready for a good night’s sleep. She brushed her teeth, banked the Rayburn, gave Basil a kiss and crawled into her sleeping bag ready for oblivion.
Oblivion did not come. She slept fitfully, tossing and turning. For hours she hovered, restless and agitated, on the edge of true sleep. She endlessly replayed Rory walking off, her spreadsheets, the warning from Fiona about the cold night, the Rayburn, and her parents. All her anxieties, confusions and fears stirred into an alphabet soup of sleep, as dreams morphed into waking thoughts, then back to dreams again.
Each time she rolled over, she would be awake enough to see the time, groaning as the hours limped by. By five o’clock she’d had enough. Her brain hurt and she wanted this night filed in the past. She got up, stretched, put on her coat and went outside onto the porch.
The moon was still high in the sky and the world was lit up before her, full of brilliant whites, deep blacks and shadowy greys. The light from the moon and the stars danced on the loch and shimmered across the frosty ground. She exhaled, watching her breath condensing out in front of her. It was indeed the first hard frost of the year. Winter was on its way.
She thought about Willie, spending his adult life here, watching the seasons unfolding, year after year. He took life in his stride, never fearing what winter might bring. Zoe had only ever known summer here, now she was about to meet its colder sister.
A memory came of one of her first nights in the cabin. She had missed home, was worried about her mother, and had woken herself calling out in her sleep. Willie had made a watery hot chocolate, poured it into a battered tartan thermos flask, and told her they were going to wake up the sun. Standing now, in the ice-still air, the memory seemed frozen in time, as if the adventure was about to unfold again. And all she needed to do was turn, and her great-uncle would be standing there beside her. She squared her shoulders. She would wake the sun once more and drink to his memory.
Ten minutes later, she was prepared with warm clothes, hot chocolate, her phone and a torch for good measure. Basil was sleeping so she let him be. She also didn’t want to lose him so far from home. As she stepped off the porch onto the ground, her boots crunched on the frozen grass. The world was still, and sounds that would have been lost in the day were now audible. She could hear a dog barking in the distance, the sound of her trousers as they rubbed together with each step, and her breathing. She turned the torch on as she walked along the track to the road between the tall trees. However somehow that made everything scarier; the tiny point of light bobbing in front of her amplifying the blackness all around. She turned it off and let her eyes open to the shadows and subtleties of the night.
Crossing the road and leaving the tree line behind, the moon guided her way. It was utterly unchanged, the heather undulating on either side of her. The moon was just as bright above her, the path just as clear. She knew exactly where to go. As the path became steeper, she felt a stab in her heart and a memory in her palm remembering Willie holding her hand and leading her on. The cold air burned her lungs and stung the end of her nose. She paused a few times to blow it and catch her breath, but didn’t look back. She wanted to save the view as the reward for her climb.
As a child she thought the walk went on all night, but now, after an hour of striding uphill, the path levelled off and she saw a dark shape growing out of the side of the glen in front of her. It was an abandoned bothy; a one-room house even smaller and more basic than the cabin. There was no glass in the one window, the roof was a bog and the whole place smelled damp and alive. As a child, she had refused to go further than the rotten door and Willie had laughed, laying an old blanket on a tussock outside, facing the view, and bringing out the thermos flask. They had sat together, drinking their hot chocolate whilst the world became lighter and opened out below them.
Zoe turned from the bothy to the view, finally getting to see just how high she had climbed. She sucked in a breath. It was as if she were suspended between heaven and earth. The glittering, undulating shape of the loch far below, the stars so close above she imagined she could reach out and pluck one out of the sky.
‘You’re the queen of the world,’ Willie had told her. Despite being small and having big worries, seeing the landscape stretched out before her made things seem more manageable. She stood, taking everything in as her breathing quietened, feeling again like the queen of the world; a tiny figure in the landscape but able to hold it all within her vision.
Zoe sighed, exhaling a plume of mist to be lit up by the moonlight. She missed Willie and she missed her parents. Her heart swelled with love and she raised her eyes to the stars, sending out a prayer of thanks to her great-uncle for a new beginning in life, and a prayer of gratitude that her parents were still alive to see it.
She walked the last few steps to the bothy. Before she allowed herself the hot chocolate, she would take a peek to see if it really was as harmless as Willie had told her. It was exactly the same; dark and completely lifeless. She put her bag on the ground and took out her torch, pushing tentatively at the old wooden door which swung inwards. It was pitch black, and she shone the beam onto the far wall, highlighting bright green ferns growing out of the cracks. She crossed the threshold and flicked the torch to the right-hand wall. There was an open fireplace, empty and blackened with old soot. Clearly no one had lived here for a very long time.
She took a big, confident step further in, her torch moving along the back wall, then tripped over something large on the floor. She cried out, throwing up her arms to cushion the fall, the torch flying out of her hands, smashing against the wall and breaking, plunging the bothy into darkness.
Suddenly a figure was above her, pressing her to the ground, one hand around her neck. She couldn’t breathe, a loud barking filled her ears and panic shot through her. She frantically tried to tear the vice-like grip from her throat, her legs tried to free themselves from the weight above.
Zoe saw stars. This was it. She was going to die.
9
As soon as the nightmare had started, it stopped. The hand let go of her neck, the weight moved away, and she was licked all over.
‘Bandit! Heel!’
The licking stopped and she brought her hands to her face, rolling to the side, wheezing and coughing.
‘Oh god, Zoe, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?’ Large, trembling hands stroked her hair. She heard Bandit whining. ‘Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay. It’s only me, it’s Rory.’
Zoe felt a total disconnection. She could feel his hand on her hair but was detached, as if watching a scene being played out on stage. Everything was unreal, not of this world.
‘Talk to me, Zoe. Are you okay? What are you doing here?’
Slowly she drifted back into her body and took her hands away, staring dully at the dark wall and the rectangle of moonlight from the open door. Rory removed his hand from her hair.
‘I came to wake up the sun,’ she replied.
There was a long pause.
‘I feel like we need hot chocolate,’ said Rory.
‘What?’
‘I don’t think you can wake up the sun without hot chocolate.’
Zoe slowly pushed herself up into a seated position and turned to face him. ‘Did you know Willie— oh my god, you’re naked!’
Only a square of light from the window and the opening of the door il
luminated the inside of the bothy, but they cast a silvery glow over the marble perfection of Rory. He was completely unfazed.
‘It would appear so.’
He was sitting cross-legged, his hands resting on his knees. His hair was almost white in the moonlight, waves of ancient light framing his powerful face. Shadows brought his cheekbones into starker definition, the bump on his nose, his full lips. His grey eyes were glowing. Zoe had never seen such perfection before. He was made by mountains, forged by fire, washed by the oceans and blessed by the gods. She ran her peripheral vision down the ridges in his chest to the darkness between his legs. She knew she had milliseconds to memorise this image before normal social rules compelled her to look away. She couldn’t let him know how he made her feel. She put one hand over her face and stretched out the other, the palm facing upwards towards him. ‘Jesus Christ! Put some clothes on, I’ve had enough trauma for one night.’
Bandit barked in agreement.
She heard a movement and peeked as Rory turned away to tug a shirt over his head.
Oh, my fricking god! He’s going to have to stand up to put his trousers on, and then I’ll get to see everything.
Rory turned back to her and she shut her fingers. ‘No peeking now,’ he rumbled.
‘I have no intention of seeing any more than I already have, thank you very much,’ replied Zoe as primly as she could. Dammit! ‘It may be some poor fool’s fantasy to be murdered in the middle of nowhere by a redneck-mutant-hobbit but it’s certainly not mine. I’ve seen enough of you to last a lifetime, and if I fancy a repeat performance, I’ll go to a mountain famous for rockfalls and avalanches and start yodelling.’
‘You can stop talking now. There’s only so much one man’s ego can take.’
Zoe shut up, listening to the sounds of him moving about.
‘You can open your eyes now. It’s safe.’ He was standing, unfortunately fully clothed, an old backpack on his shoulder with a bedroll and blankets slung underneath. Bandit stood by his side, tail wagging. Rory extended a hand to help her off the floor but she scrabbled backwards to avoid any contact with him. He moved it towards the door. ‘After you.’
Highland Games: sparkling, sexy and utterly unputdownable - the romantic comedy of the year! (The Kinloch Series) Page 8
