Rescuelander

by Samantha Liddell

  “Lass’ and lads, I am pleased to announce that this year’s Christmas tree for Swans Cottage has been found. Now, Scott, if you would so kindly take the pleasure in swinging that axe right through the base of its truck, then lift it up onto your well-toned Scottish shoulders, and carry it home while I watch in admiration, it would be greatly appreciated.”

  The audience clapped and cheered. Not because the perfect Christmas tree had been found, but because the search for one was finally over. This clan really did need to pick their game up on the whole Christmas spirit thing. Nothing a bit of Christmas carols and Christmas decorating couldn’t fix. Actually, come to think of it, I may need extra help from some trusted eggnog and whiskey in order to get everyone feeling festive and in the spirit. They were proving to be a hard audience to please.

  Scott arrived back at Swans Cottage carrying the perfect Christmas tree and looking even more the Scottish warrior he was. In fact, he was looking more like a Scottish Christmas warrior with a Christmas tree in hand.

  I had the huge box of Christmas decorations and lights already out of the storage cupboard. Swans Cottage was about to get lit up. First, though, I poured everyone a glass of whiskey or eggnog, and hot chocolate for Polly and Leah. It was 3:00 p.m., not too early for a Christmas drink by my standards. I didn’t care what the adults drank, I just needed everybody to take off their sensible pants and put on their Christmas party pants.

  Just then I heard a car pull up in the driveway. My nerves were still a little on edge when it came to cars in the driveway, and when I looked out the kitchen window, I saw that dreaded van. My heart stopped for a minute, but luckily started beating again once I saw who got out of it. James and Sophie had finally returned, and they had something in the back of the van they were struggling to pull out. After a few more pulls, it came sliding out. These two had gone Christmas tree hunting and brought back a tree for Swans cottage also, by the looks of it. It was not quite up to our tree’s standard, they obviously did not do the Christmas tree test on it, but I allowed that little factor to slide because unlike the rest of the clan, these two looked like they were in the Christmas spirit.

  We decided to put their tree out on the veranda. Swans Cottage was blessed with two Christmas trees this year. You can never have too many Christmas trees, after all.

  After two or three—or more like four—hours of decorating and putting up the Christmas lights inside and outside of Swans Cottage, it was now complete. Scott did the honours and switched on the main power switch, and within seconds, Swans Cottage was lit up like it was a Christmas tree itself. It was so bright that people had to shield their eyes while they adjusted to the lights presented in front of them. Polly, Leah, and I on the other hand, were excited and overjoyed with what we had just created, and our eyes didn’t need adjusting to such a sight. The three of us danced around the garden as a fresh coat of snow fell and covered the ground. This Christmas was going to be our very first white winter Christmas, unlike our Christmases back home in Australia, which were scorching hot and you had to spend the majority of the day either in the pool or in the air conditioning.

  Scott had started to finally find his Christmas spirit and had helped decorate Swans Cottage from start to finish, as did my parents. Brysen, Bonnie, Sophie, and James, however, sat inside next to the fire, chatting to one another and eating Christmas mince pies and drinking whiskey—as you do at their age. How very boring. I would much rather be getting my Christmas on while creating our very own North Pole village or winter wonderland. We had elves, Santas, reindeers, and sleighs all throughout the garden, lit up. It really was a magical sight.

  “Where on earth did you find all these things, and where on earth did you store it all?” Scott asked, amazed at my Christmas selection.

  “Oh I have my very own Christmas cupboard, Scott, didn’t you know that? My collection gets bigger year by year, just to warn you,” I teased.

  “Aye, thank goodness it only comes around once a year, then.” Scott laughed.

  “Oh, you love it, deep down I know you do,” I teased, and Scott answered with a wink.

  Polly and Leah were starting to yawn and get sleepy, it had been a big day for them. Scott picked up Polly and I picked up Leah, and we took them inside and got them ready for bed. We tucked them in and gave them both a good night kiss. They were out within seconds of their heads reaching their pillows.

  We walked back into the sitting room, or more like Santa’s grotto, hand in hand. My parents were making a cup of tea to take to bed with them, and Brysen, Bonnie, James, and Sophie were still all huddled around the fireplace chatting.

  Scott went off to take a shower, and I decided my offline time had come to an end. I had done pretty well with it, and the benefits were huge. I got so much done without having the added distraction of my phone.

  I turned my phone on and let it do its thing as it was slowly switching back on. I went to the cupboard and grabbed a shortbread to snack on while I waited. The cupboard was still pretty full of cans of haggis, which I was surprised about, having a house full of Scottish people—actually, come to think of it, there were more Australians in the house than Scots. Maybe that was the reason.

  All of a sudden, my phone started beeping with texts coming through thick and fast. Well fancy that, I guess it’s true what they say, make yourself unavailable then everybody wants a bit of you. I scrolled through my inbox. They were actually mostly from Scott, so by the look of it, he did in fact reply to my texts, and had apologised for his cold behaviour the morning of our fight. There were other texts from family and friends wondering where Sophie and I were yesterday. But then an anonymous text came through. The name was not in my contact list, so just a number came up. It read: Hi, beautiful, how are you? I would love to catch up sometime before Christmas. Let me know when you are free x.

  How odd. Obviously it was a wrong-number text. I decided not to reply. I needed to fully focus on my children, Scott, and my parents for now. After all, Christmas was just around the corner. So much to do, so much to see, in such little time.

  Chapter Twenty

  Christmas Eve at Swans Cottage.

  * * *

  Finally Christmas Eve had arrived, so had the snow, and finally, so had everyone else’s Christmas spirit. They had all assured me they did always have the Christmas spirit, but mine just came out a whole lot earlier than everyone else’s. That was fine by me, we all got there in the end, that was the main thing. I always was first off the blocks with life in general.

  Scott and I were putting on a huge Christmas Eve lunch for all our clan and friends. It was snowing pretty hard outside, so it was going to have to be an indoor lunch. People who felt brave could always venture out on the veranda for prelunch drinks.

  My parents had taken Polly and Leah out to do some last-minute Christmas shopping in Edinburgh, and Brysen and Bonnie were with their band, performing Christmas carols at a local shopping mall. Sophie was around at James’ house, which left Scott and I at Swans Cottage preparing lunch for around twenty people. Scott had invited some of our friends also to join in with the festivities, as well as his own parents, who I had grown to love as much as my own.

  I was busy stuffing the turkey and was up to my elbows in cranberry stuffing. I then rubbed butter all over this poor turkey that had once been gobbling around some farm, minding its own business. Somehow, the sight of myself rubbing a turkey down with butter and ramming cranberry stuffing up its backside was turning Scott on.

  “You know, Letticia, you could be my turkey.”

  I glanced over at Scott, pausing with my hand shoved right up the turkey’s butt. What on earth does that even mean? Yuck? “Well if it means getting stuffing stuffed up my backside by you, I will pass. However, you are more than welcome to rub butter all over my back. It’s feeling rather sore, a good back massage would go down a treat right now.” I went back to attending to my turkey, giving it another coat of butter, but before I had finished, I felt Scott’s hands touch
my back. They were warm but damp, like they were covered in something, and I was pretty sure I knew what… “Scott, are you rubbing butter all over my back?”

  “Aye, that I am.”

  In a strange way, it felt amazing, and I let him continue for a bit, my own hands still inside the turkey. Eventually I pulled my hands out of the turkey’s behind and turned around to face Scott. I ran my hands covered in cranberry stuffing through Scott’s hair, and he continued to rub me down with butter as he lifted my top up. I was now standing in the kitchen with just my bra on and covered in butter, while Scott was covered in stuffing.

  “I’m feeling rather buttery, Scott.” I laughed.

  “Aye, I’m feeling very stuffingly,” Scott joked back.

  “I don’t think we can serve ourselves up for Christmas lunch, though,” I said.

  “Aye, I think it’s time for a shower. Care to join me, my turkey Letticia? I do still need to stuff you, after all,” Scott joked.

  “Stuff me? Stuff me with what?” I asked even though I fully knew his intentions.

  “You shall see, follow me, Sassenach.”

  Before following him, I jammed the turkey in the oven and shut the oven door with my foot. When I caught up to Scott, I found him in the bathroom, turning the shower on and finding just the right temperature. “Do you care to join me?” he asked.

  “Well I can’t be looking like a buttery turkey when all our guests arrive later, so yeah, why not.”

  He pulled me in close to him and kissed me passionately and hard before leading me into the shower. The water was hot and melting the butter off my body. I watched it gracefully slide down my limbs and body until it reached my feet and went down the drain. Scott pushed me up against the shower wall and moved my hair to one side so had had access to my neck. He kissed my neck, I could feel his teeth and tongue come in contact with my skin as he covered every inch of it with his mouth. He then turned me around, so I was facing away from him, my face up against the shower wall.

  “Well are you ready for some of your own Christmas stuffing now, Sassenach?” he asked, not waiting for my answer, as he was already aware of what it was going to be. He slid himself in as the pressure of the hot water pounded our bodies, just as he was pounding mine. Scott’s Christmas spirit was well and truly alive. I turned around just in time to watch him cum. I loved watching him and seeing his expression. It was like at that very moment, nothing else mattered—all the stresses from his work forgotten, all unpaid bills and the worries of everyday life forgotten. He was inside me; he was where he was meant to be. A place that was only for him. This one little place that belonged to just him, and him only, where he could come and relax and know he was always welcome.

  Scott hopped out of the shower first, and I stayed in to wash my hair and double-check I had washed every last bit of butter off my body.

  As soon as I turned the shower off, the change of temperature hit me. Even with the log fire lit that heated the whole of Swans cottage, it was noticeable just how cold it really was once the heat of the shower water was no longer running down my body.

  I wiped the bathroom mirror with my hand so I could see my reflection. I saw my face looking straight back at me, a face that looked and felt lighter due to the sheer happiness I felt with life at this present time. A quote ran through my head at that moment: “You are the artist of your life, don’t give the paintbrush to anyone else.” I repeated the quote several more times. It really hit home with me. I painted the life I had wanted in my dream, I had control of the paintbrush, so once I was back in reality, I used that paintbrush to paint my dream that I’d had. And here I now was, living in Edinburgh in a cottage in the woods with my Scottish lover and my two children, and we had family all around us. I had finally reached my destination. I had arrived at the happiest time in my life.

  I had no intention of giving up my paintbrush yet, though. I still had much more living to do, and much more painting to do on my canvas of life, but I now had the people around me I wanted, and I would never be painted over, for they were a part of myself and made me truly happy.

  The kitchen was producing some mouth-watering smells as I walked down the hallway, freshly showered and butter-free. As I entered the kitchen in my black silk wrap-around nightgown, I found Scott in the kitchen also freshly showered, but he was at least dressed in a pair of jeans and a knitted Christmas jumper with a reindeer on the front. He’d topped off his outfit with a Santa hat.

  “Well, who’s not in the Christmas spirit now, Letticia?” he joked.

  “Well by the looks of it, me,” I replied.

  “Aye, that’s correct, that sexy little black number you have on is not at all Christmassy,” Scott teased.

  “Oh, very well, then,” I said, and left Scott to prepare the rest of the Christmas lunch on his own as I went and changed into my Christmas spirit outfit.

  I returned twenty minutes later wearing my very own Christmas knitted jumper with a snowman on the front. I’d teamed it up with a green mini shirt and red stockings. I reentered the kitchen to see Scott had it all under control, everything was in the oven cooking away nicely.

  “Well that’s more like it,” he said.

  “Yes, well I couldn’t have you looking more in the Christmas spirit than me, could I now?” I said.

  Scott and I still had just under an hour until our guests were due to arrive. We decided to pour ourselves a drink to get the day started. I had a Pimm’s, of course, and Scott stuck to his whiskey. We sat on the couch together while Scott rubbed my aching feet from standing in the kitchen cooking for hours on end. In hindsight, I really should have been rubbing Scott’s feet, after all, he had done most of the work.

  My parents, along with Polly and Leah, were the first to arrive home, and a few minutes later, Brysen, Bonnie, James, and Sophie arrived. The King/Little clan were almost all here, we were just waiting for Scott’s parents and our friends to arrive now.

  The table was set in festive flare, it wasn’t tacky at all. I was not allowed to go for the tacky look, Scott told me, so we went all out, and the end result was so tasteful and classy, the queen would have been proud. Come to think of it, I should have sent an invite out to her. She probably would be in Scotland for Christmas, I was sure I had read somewhere that’s where she spends her Christmases.

  As my mind started to wander off down a royal path, the doorbell rang in the tune of “Jingle Bells,” which suddenly brought me back to reality, unfortunately.

  I was the closest to the door, so all eyes were upon me to open it. I, on the other hand, was still suffering from post-dramatic stress issues when it came to opening the front door, so didn’t move an inch. “Don’t look at me, I most certainly am not opening that door ever again, you never know what, or who, is on the other side,” I said very seriously so that people could see I was not joking one little bit. My post-dramatic stress wasn’t really that bad, I was just sitting on the couch cuddling Polly and Leah and had no intention of getting up.

  “Aye, I will get it, then,” Scott announced.

  I gave Scott a smile. “Thanks, darling.”

  Scott reached for the handle and opened the door. There was silence for a few seconds, which to me felt like a few minutes. Maybe there were more sticks on the doorstep again? We had not heard from James or Milla since our heroic escape.

  But the stick theory went out the window when I heard Scott say, “Jim, hi, what are you doing here?”

  It couldn’t be my Jim, surely? Maybe it was another Jim, like a Jim from Scott’s work, who had not been invited but heard about the lunch so decided to gate crash it. But that theory also went out the window once I heard Jim talk—it was the thickest Manchester accent I had ever heard. At that very moment, I knew it was indeed my Jim, the Jim that had been in my dream at Torwood Castle. Yet again my dreams were blending into my reality. I was still so confused on how I was able to do such a thing.

  This was no time to start to try to work it out, though, as Scott, being th
e kindhearted Scotsman he was, welcomed Jim in wholeheartedly, and what’s more, he even asked him to stay for lunch. Was Scott not the slightest bit jealous of Jim? Of course, I would be the first to admit he had nothing over Scott in the looks department, but nobody ever really did. Jim, though, was still a very good-looking man, and I was still very much attracted to him, for some reason. Not that I wanted him or anything, not like I had all those years back, not now I’m with Scott. But if it had been the other way around and one of Scott’s ex-flings turned up on the doorstep, I do not think I would have been the slightest bit as welcoming as Scott had been to Jim.

  Jim entered Swans Cottage with a confused look upon his face, trying to work out how on earth Scott knew him when he opened the door. I stayed on the couch, not sure whether to stand to welcome Jim with a hug or try to just blend in. Maybe he wouldn’t notice me if I didn’t move, think I was one of the many other Christmas ornaments placed around the house. I very well could have passed as one, dressed in my Christmas ensemble. That thought was over before I had even finished with it, as Jim turned around and saw me sitting there on the couch, as still as I could be, trying not to breath or blink.

  “Letticia, hey ya, gorgeous, so good to see you. Hope you don’t mind me popping over like this. I did text you the other day but didn’t get a reply, so wasn’t sure if you had a new number or not.”

  I was still trying to pretend to be a Christmas ornament, until I could no longer hold my breath and had to let out a huge gasp of air.

  “Are you okay, Letticia?” Jim asked, clearly concerned.

  “Oh yes, never better, sorry. I was just practicing holding my breath for when I go scuba diving next week.” I had never dived in my life, nor did I have any intention to do so anytime soon.