The True Love Travels Series Box Set

by Poppy Pennington-Smith

  “But your laptop works?”

  “Yes, but without the internet all it’s good for is word processing. My books are heavily researched. Before I start writing, I spend weeks making sure everything is as accurate as possible. Locations. Forensics... all of it.” Her expression softened as she said, “You should know, you’ve been reading them.”

  “Of course.” Max did know; after Rachel went to bed last night, he stayed up until the early hours of the morning finishing the second book in the series. Aside from the gripping and unusual plots that she crafted, he was blown away by the fact that Rachel had no official police background or knowledge.

  Rachel made a frustrated grunting sound and shoved her fist at the wall. If Max had punched a wall, it would have left a hole. Rachel’s hand didn’t even make a dent, but the gesture surprised him. “I’m sorry,” she said, taking a deep breath in through her nose. “Just... never mind.”

  She turned and walked through to the kitchen. Max heard her putting the kettle on the stove and opening the coffee jar. Beside him, Brandi tilted her head sideways as if to say, Aren’t you going to go talk to her?

  Max nodded. “Yep. Okay. Come on then.”

  Ducking into the kitchen, he stopped in the doorway and watched while Rachel angrily tipped two teaspoons of instant coffee into a large mug.

  “Hey.” He walked up behind her and took the mug from her hands. “This stuff won’t help.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened in disbelief. Clearly, she thought he was about to take away her one solace – caffeine.

  Max turned and opened one of the drawers next to the stove. “This will help.” He handed her a simple black bag full of expensive Peruvian coffee beans – his biggest weakness – and watched her weigh it up and down in her hands. “My secret stash.”

  “Wow. So, you’re a coffee connoisseur? You’ve hidden that very well.”

  Max nodded towards the worktop and Rachel noticed a coffee grinder that she hadn’t really paid any attention to up to now. “You know how to make fresh coffee?”

  “They have a coffee grinder but no Wi-Fi?” Rachel laughed sarcastically.

  “I brought it with me.” Max switched it on and took the coffee beans back from her. “But I’d been saving it for an emergency situation.” She was watching him closely, as if she was trying to figure out whether he was being sympathetic or making fun of her. He felt a slow heat start to rise in his chest. Max looked away and concentrated on tipping the beans into the grinder. “Boil the water? This will help. I promise.”

  While they waited for the coffee to percolate, Max sat down and tried to relax his posture. After years of having to be stoic and unreadable, being standoffish had become part of his personality and, without the wine they’d shared the previous evening, he was finding it hard to remember how easy it had felt to just sit and talk. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “I thought it was just youngsters who were addicted to the internet?”

  Rachel had looped her fingers together and was sitting with her hands resting on the table. “Are you interviewing me, Detective?” There was that head-tilt again, but this time it was accompanied by the same smile she’d given him last night.

  “I think it’s called making conversation. I’m a bit out of practise but a friend’s been helping me...”

  “A friend, huh?” Rachel smiled and tucked her blonde curls behind her ear. Up until yesterday, Max had refused to let himself think too much about Rachel’s appearance. He’d put those feelings into a box in his brain and sealed the lid tightly shut; Rachel French was a client and that was all he needed to think about. But this morning, her smile took him back to the food and the firelight, and it knocked him completely off-guard. He had woken with the resolve to go back to being standoffish, but it was as if, every time they spoke, Rachel chipped another chunk of ice from his frosty exterior.

  Rachel flicked the cafetière with her index finger. When she looked up, she sighed. “I was just starting to get my ideas together. The book was really taking shape. And now...” She lifted her hands and laughed. “Now, I have no internet. Without it, all of my brilliant ideas mean nothing because I can’t research them. If I can’t research, I can’t start writing. And if I can’t write–”

  “Okay.” Max ducked to meet her eyes. “We’ll think of something. Okay?”

  Rachel nodded. Her eyes were watery, and she wiped them with the back of her hand. “Sorry. I’m tired. I didn’t sleep very well.”

  Max reached forward and pressed down on the top of the cafetière. He watched as the coffee grounds were pushed to the bottom, trapped beneath the silver disc. Then he poured them each a mug and handed Rachel the sugar. He wanted to ask why she hadn’t slept. He wanted to ask if it was because of him, and he almost felt as if she was waiting for him to ask. But he couldn’t.

  For a moment, Rachel didn’t speak either. She just tipped milk and a teaspoon of sugar into her mug, breathed in the fresh coffee smell, then took a large sip. She was wearing a white cardigan. It brought out the blue of her eyes and the silver of the pendant that hung around her neck. Slowly, she tucked her leg up so that her foot was balanced on the seat of her chair and her knee was beneath her chin.

  Max chewed the corner of his lip and noticed himself touch the scar on his eyebrow. Quickly, he put his hand back down. “If we can fix your phone, will that help?”

  Rachel took her phone out of her pocket and put it onto the table. “It’s not ideal, but yes, I have an okay signal. I could probably access most of what I need on there.”

  “Okay, so let’s drive into town and see if there’s a place that can fix it.”

  “Am I allowed close to civilisation?” Rachel’s eyes had brightened. Up to now, he’d told her they should stay at the cottage or in wide open countryside away from other people.

  “You’re not. But I can’t leave you here alone, so you can come for the drive and wait in the car while I track down a phone shop. We can pick up some supplies too – we’re running low.”

  “Sounds exhilarating.” Rachel looked at him over the rim of her coffee cup and smiled – the smile that dimpled her cheek and made his breath catch in his chest.

  How he wished she’d stop smiling like that.

  17

  Rachel

  The drive to Fort Kyle was long and picturesque.

  Rachel spent most of it staring out of the window but as they started to near civilisation, she turned on the radio. Back in London, the radio was standard background noise in her apartment and, when she walked to the tube or the shops, she’d plug in her headphones and listen to either music or podcasts.

  Since arriving in Scotland, her ears had missed the noise. So, she skipped through the stations until she found one playing loud eighties music and turned it up.

  In the driver’s seat, Max started tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

  “Oh, so you’re an eighties fan, huh?” Rachel grinned at him.

  Max looked at his fingers and stopped moving them.

  The song that had been playing came to an end and Rachel shuffled excitedly as her favourite karaoke number started to play. “Ooh!” She turned the volume up even louder and started to sing along.

  For a moment, Max looked horrified. But then he started to laugh.

  “Come on, you must know the words,” she said in a sing-song voice.

  “I don’t sing.”

  “Everyone sings, just usually when no one is listening.” Rachel tugged his sleeve. “Come on, just one chorus.”

  Max shook his head. “Absolutely not. But you knock yourself out…”

  “All right then…” Rachel purposefully raised her voice, belting out a totally off-pitch version of the song that was playing. As the song ended, she turned the volume back down and breathed out. “Phew. That felt good.” She glanced at Max, who was still comically stoic beside her. “Singing is good for the soul. You should try it some time.” She leaned her head back, looking up through the skylight in the truck’s
roof.

  “You’re full of surprises, you know that?” Max was still watching the road ahead, but the expression on his face had softened.

  “I’m going to take that,” Rachel said resolutely, “as a compliment.”

  Max glanced at her and, she couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard him whisper, “It was.”

  Max parked the truck in a carpark behind a large old church and left Rachel with Brandi while he went in search of a phone store and a grocer’s. She watched his large, rectangular frame disappear down a small alleyway beside the church wall. When he was gone, a pang of anxiety settled in her chest.

  “Here girl.” She patted the driver’s seat and Brandi jumped willingly over the gearstick to settle in the spot Max had just vacated. Rachel reached out and let her fingers nestle in the thick fur around Brandi’s neck. “At least with you here, I feel a bit safer. In fact,” she said, smiling, “I might just have to write a dog into my next book. It’s about time Detective Ridley got himself a companion.”

  Thinking about the lead detective in her series made Rachel smile. Detective Tom Ridley would find this kind of situation incredibly dull; he lived for grizzly, high-octane crimes. Not babysitting. Reaching up to her own eyebrow and tracing it with her index finger, she remembered Max’s scar.

  “Did something terrible happen? Is that why he quit as a detective?” Rachel asked Brandi. But Brandi simply nuzzled her wet nose at Rachel’s hand. “Fair enough. He’s your human, I don’t expect you to tell tales.”

  Settling back into the passenger seat, Rachel drummed her fingers on the dashboard. She looked out at the church. A stooped-over old lady was tottering down the path. Gingerly, she opened the gate and stepped out into the carpark. But just as she turned to close the gate behind her, somehow, she slipped.

  As if it was in slow-motion, Rachel watched the woman stumble, try to regain her footing, and then fall. Instinctively, Rachel sprang out of the car and ran over to her. “Ma’am, are you alright?” She bent down and put her hands gently on the woman’s shoulders.

  The woman looked dazed, but then shook her head and said in a broad Scottish accent, “Oh, yes dear. Thank you. I think I’m all right, but could you help me up?”

  Rachel tucked her hands under the woman’s arms and heaved her to her feet.

  “Oh, you’re a God-send. Thank you.”

  “No problem, I’m just glad you’re okay. Can I walk you to your car?”

  “Actually,” the woman glanced towards the alleyway that Max had headed down. “I need the bus stop. But I don’t want to be any trouble...”

  “Nonsense.” Rachel dashed back to the truck, cracked a window open for Brandi, and grabbed the keys. She pressed the key-fob three times, to be extra sure that Brandi was safely locked inside, then offered her arm to her new friend. “I’m Rachel,” she said.

  “Nice to meet you Rachel, I’m Hettie.”

  Slowly, Rachel walked Hettie to the bus stop. When they reached it, she settled her onto the bench and said, “Well, it was lovely to make your acquaintance, Hettie. I best be going.”

  “You’re English, aren’t you?” Hettie narrowed her eyes, as if it would help her concentrate on Rachel’s accent.

  “I am, yes.”

  “You picked a strange time to holiday. It’s mighty cold.” Hettie rubbed her gloved hands together and smiled. “Where are you staying?”

  Rachel looked back towards the truck. Hettie clearly wanted to talk, and usually Rachel would have offered to sit with her and wait for the bus. But if Max came back and found her gone, he would not be happy.

  “Sorry, Hettie. I have to get going.”

  “Of course, of course.” Hettie waved her away, smiling. “Thank you for your help.”

  Rachel returned the gesture, crossed the road, and made her way back towards the church. But as she exited the alleyway and saw Max’s silhouette beside the car, her skin prickled with nerves. Once again, she’d done precisely what he’d asked her not to.

  18

  Max

  Max felt like his heart was about to explode in his chest. It was thundering so fast he could barely think straight, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he was angry or scared.

  Brandi was sitting comically in the driver’s seat, looking straight out ahead through the windshield as if she was driving the truck. But Rachel was nowhere to be seen. The truck was locked. The keys were gone.

  The only thing that calmed him down was the fact that the window had been left open. A kidnapper wouldn’t think to crack a window for the dog. So, clearly, she’d been unable to fight the urge to go have a look around.

  Max thumped the side of the truck and growled to himself. The panic he felt was unnaturally strong, and it worried him. It was clouding his judgement. Instead of thinking calmly about which steps he should take to relocate her, he was fighting to ignore the voice in his head that was shouting, You can’t lose her, Max. You can’t lose her.

  He was leaning on the truck and trying to slow his breathing so that he could think when he saw her appear at the end of the alleyway. Relief washed over him, but then he shoved it back down and replaced it with anger.

  As she walked towards him, Rachel held up both hands and said softly, “Max, I can explain.”

  He folded his arms. His jaw was tense and twitching. “Go ahead.”

  “An old lady fell, near the church. I helped her up and walked her to her bus.”

  Max narrowed his eyes. He still couldn’t believe she’d been so reckless.

  Rachel tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled sheepishly. Max swallowed hard and tried to ignore the electric pulse that was twitching beneath his skin. “I really am sorry.”

  “Okay. All right. Let’s just go.” He opened the passenger door, closed it tightly behind her, then tossed his shopping bags into the back.

  For a while, neither of them spoke; Max was quietly seething, and Rachel seemed to understand that he needed a few minutes to calm down. Eventually, though, she angled herself towards him and asked, “Did you find a phone store? Did they fix it?”

  “I’m afraid not.” He was gripping the steering wheel tightly and noticed that his knuckles were whitening with the pressure.

  “No store?”

  “Yes. But it’s not particularly well kitted-out. The owner said they’d need to send it off to be repaired and that it could take weeks, if it’s even possible. It could just need a new battery, but it could be something else. A hardware issue.”

  “Okay...” Rachel breathed out and closed her eyes as if she was trying very hard not to panic. “Okay. So, could we just go back and buy a new one? I don’t care what it is, as long as it has access to the internet.”

  “I asked about that. They don’t keep stock, just display models. They said we’d be better off buying one online. It’d be quicker.”

  Rachel shook her head in disbelief. “What kind of phone shop doesn’t sell or fix phones?!” Then she steadied her breath and said, “Okay. Pass me yours and I’ll order one now.”

  Max breathed in and braced himself, then very quickly said, “My phone doesn’t connect to the internet. I don’t trust it. Never have. It texts and calls, but that’s it.”

  Rachel’s expression turned from disbelief to frustration. She laughed, but it wasn’t a joyful laugh.

  “Rachel–”

  “Thank you for trying.” She pulled her coat tighter around her waist and turned away from him so that she was looking out of the window.

  For the entire journey back to the cottage, Rachel sat in silence. At first, Max tried to think of something that might kick-start a conversation. But conversation wasn’t really his forte at the best of times, so in the end he simply settled into his own thoughts and concentrated on the road.

  As they neared the cottage, rain started to come down hard and fast. The wipers were struggling to keep the windshield clear and Max squinted at the road as the sky darkened around them. Beside him, Rachel shuffled uncomfortably. She
was gripping the edges of her seat.

  “You okay?”

  “I don’t like driving in the rain,” she said softly.

  “Not far now,” he replied.

  A few minutes later, they pulled up outside the cottage and Max turned off the engine. He was about to apologise for being a technology-dinosaur but, before he had the chance, Rachel opened the door and bolted out of the truck towards the cottage.

  When he joined her beneath the porch, she was struggling to catch her breath.

  Max quickly unlocked the door and told her to wait in the hallway while he, as always, checked the property. Confident everything was as they’d left it, he ushered Rachel inside and told her he’d put the kettle on. She seemed oddly shaky, and he had the feeling that something more was going on than simply the phone issue.

  While he made tea, she disappeared for a while. When she returned, she was wearing the most casual outfit he’d seen her in so far – joggers and a pale pink sweater. She was towel-drying her hair and stopped beside the kitchen table.

  Max pushed a mug towards her and she smiled thinly. She looked awfully pale.

  Rachel raised the mug to her lips, blowing across the top of it to cool its contents. Slowly, she sipped at her drink. Then she brushed her fingers through her damp hair and looked up at him.

  “I told you that my mother died... she was walking home in the rain when she was hit by a car. The driver didn’t stop. They got out to look but thought it was an animal. They couldn’t see through the rain. Ever since then, whenever I’m driving in the rain, I see shapes. Shadows. It’s…” Rachel’s voice trembled, and she stopped talking.

  Max felt a deep, painful twinge in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. If they had been sitting down, he might have reached out and put his hand on Rachel’s. But he was standing, so he just stood awkwardly beside her.