Thistle Down

by Sherrie Hansen

  Chapter 1

  Rose Wilson turned away from the wind that whistled across Loch Awe in a futile attempt to keep her hair from being blown into a tangled knot.

  Something nipped at her ankle and she reached down to swat it away. Pesky midgies. 

  Ouch! Her hand scratched against the thorny stem of a thistle. One more thing. As if the sticky wicket she’d gotten herself into hadn’t already worked her into enough of a dither. She glanced up at the lofty spires of St. Conan’s Kirk. If she were at all religious, she might think God was trying to tell her something.

  Where could he be? It had been nigh on three years since she’d stood waiting, and waiting, and waiting at Robert’s and her favorite restaurant. When he never showed up, she’d been angry – thought he’d gotten too busy at work, forgotten she was waiting, or, worse yet, remembered and blown her off.

  How could she have known he was dead?

  Here she was again. So it was a kirk and not a restaurant. A man she didn’t know all that well instead of her husband. The emotions felt the same. She was peeved. So peeved she could almost forget what it was like to feel abandoned, to hurt so badly she could barely keep her head about her.

  She took a deep breath and tried to relax. Would she ever get over being scared that something horrible had happened every time someone was a wee bit tardy?

  He was almost an hour later than he’d said he’d be. She peeked through the hedge and tried to see round the bend that led to the village.  

  What were the odds that two men she was supposed to meet would die en route to their rendezvous point? She paced up and down the path that led to the kirk, squelching her nervous energy only long enough to look at a bee dipping into a rhody that was a lovely shade of lavender. And then, she was back at it, scanning the roadside for Digby’s car, checking the time on her mobile every few seconds, and imagining the worst. 

  She’d been waiting for an hour – plenty long enough for Digby to get there even if he’d been temporarily detained at work, gotten a speeding ticket, or stopped by the mini-mart to buy her flowers. Besides, the man had a mobile.

  She clicked hers open and pressed the green button twice. Still no answer.

  Where could he be? And why now? Was it because she’d been too intimate with him? Not intimate enough?

  “Excuse me, ma’am.”

  She blinked and looked in the direction of the voice, but the sun was in her eyes, and all she could see was a soft sheen of light backlighting the silhouette of a very tall man. Too tall to be Digby. She raised her hand to her eyes to shade the light but the sun was still blinding, clinging to his head like a halo.

  “Forgive me,” the man said, just as she saw his collar, the white square gleaming brightly between the black, and thought, shouldn’t it be me saying that?

  “Sorry to intrude,” he continued. “I couldn’t help noticing that you seem to be looking for someone.”

  So much for her and Dig having the place to themselves. Of course, as of this moment, there wasn’t a “them” anyway, so it mattered little if they had privacy. Besides, she had been going to tell him that they couldn’t do it again, that it was too soon, that what had happened shouldn’t have. Not yet. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to be alone with him, to do something. She probably did, eventually. Just not so much, or quite so fast.

  “I’m waiting for a friend,” she said.

  “You’ve still plenty of time,” he said. “Worship doesn’t begin for another half hour.”

  The sun wasn’t in his eyes, but behind him, illuminating her face. She knew, even without being able to see his eyes, that he could read hers perfectly.

  “I didn’t realize...”

  “We’ve a small but active congregation,” the man said, extending his hand. “Ian MacCraig. St. Conan’s pastor.” He nodded at a stone cottage with windows rimmed in tiny stones. It was mostly overgrown with creepers. She had assumed it was unoccupied.

  She gave her hand, took his, and was surprised by his warmth. “Rose Wilson.” Her hands had been perpetually cold ever since Robert had died. The only reason she’d come to meet Digby in the first place was to get warm. But holding hands with Digby didn’t even compare to the heat this man radiated.

  “I’m not from Lochawe. Just up for the day from Glasgow.”

  She turned just enough to get the sun out of her eyes and looked up into his face. And started to melt. Warm times ten. Honest, intelligent eyes, longish hair the color of butterscotch. Wide shoulders perfect for shielding a companion. A genuine, concerned smile tinged with the slightest whisper of what? Guilt? Her mind flipped back a page. Forgive him for what? For startling her? For intruding on her reverie? For being concerned enough to acknowledge her presence? To see if she was in need of someone to talk to?

  He had such a beautiful aura about him. So serene. So utterly masculine. She felt like she was in a dream, or starring in a film. She resisted the urge to pinch herself. The vicars she knew were old and gray – most, gone completely bald.  This one – Ian, wasn’t it? - didn’t fit any of the pastoral images she held in her mind.

  Pastor Ian’s eyes blinked wide open a split second before she felt a movement to her left. A stream of men streaked towards them, guns drawn. She could see them out of the corner of her eye. What the devil was going on?

  In the moment it took to comprehend that they were slowly being surrounded by armed constables, her mind, ever agile, jumped to the conclusion that Ian must be a convict, recently escaped. Oh - my – God. No doubt “Ian” had killed the real vicar while he slept. It would have been a simple matter from there to don the poor gent’s clothes. He was probably planning to take her as a hostage so he could escape across the border to England, make his exit on a ferry, and disappear on the mainland. It was the only explanation she could fathom.

  That was when she realized he was still holding her hand, smiling at her with all the sincerity in the world. The man certainly didn’t look like a convict. Perhaps he’d come to St. Conan’s for sanctuary.

  “Step away from the pastor.” A voice boomed through a megaphone.

  She looked at Ian and dropped his hand, fully expecting the constables to rush him once she’d safely backed away.

  Instead, two strong arms wrenched her from behind, pulled her hands behind her back and slapped on a set of cuffs.

  “What on earth?” she said, nearly toppling over from the shock of her capture.

  Ian looked even more apologetic that he had before, with a little relief mixed in. Forgive him for what? For this? Had he called the police on her?

  “I’ve done nothing wrong,” she cried. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but there must be some mistake. I’m Rosalie Wilson from Glasgow,” she tried to explain when she wasn’t struggling to stay on her feet, bucking this way and that as they pulled her over the rough terrain.

  “She had nothing to do with the actual theft,” the vicar was saying, following close at her side. “She was already gone when her man stole the artifacts.”

  Her man? Digby? What were they talking about? Digby wouldn’t...

  “You said she was on the tape,” the constable said.

  “The earlier part, when they were...” the vicar stammered.

  The man holding her cuffs snickered.

  Oh, God. They couldn’t have a tape of her and Digby. Could they?

  “Do you want us to call you a barrister?”

  “No,” she said, sure of that at least. If Robert’s solicitors ever found out, or his sons, or the press... 

  Oh, God. How mortifying! How could she have? She’d risked Robert’s good name, his reputation, and his millions, and for what? To feel a man’s touch for a mere five minutes?

  A man who appeared to be the ring leader of the hooligans who were herding her towards the car leaned against the vehicle with an amused expression on his face, and looked at her... her...  her breasts.   

  If she’d been blessed with the opportunity to ge
t her hands on Digby at that moment, they’d have had reason to arrest her.

  The little weasel! She certainly hadn’t meant to get intimate with him when she did, but not because she hadn’t trusted him. My God. She’d taken up with a common thief, a con man, a criminal.

  And the tape. How humiliating! Never in a million years had she ever dreamed... to have had her lowest moment recorded...  and seen by who knew how many people.

  The vicar rushed alongside her as the constable’s men whisked her to the car, with - oh, God - bars on the back windows. “Is there a family member, a friend you’d like me to call?”

  She felt her cheeks burning just imagining what the vicar must think of her. “There’s no one.” Which was a shame. She could certainly have used a hug and a little moral support about then. But she could hardly ring up her mum, or Kelly and Kevin, and tell them she’d been arrested, or that her new boyfriend had turned out to be a criminal, or that she’d been caught on some sort of tape, probably half-naked, her legs spread wide like some common hussy.

  “Will you come?” She turned to the vicar and watched as his cheeks flushed even redder.

  “I’ll get my auto and follow you to the station.”

  The constable shoved her shoulder into the car and nearly shut her foot in the door in his hurry to lock her in the cramped back seat.

  “Good thinking, assuming you’re planning to make a confession,” he sneered.  

   “I’ve done nothing wrong,” she said, knowing she had. But not what they thought. She hadn’t stolen a thing. What she had done was to throw her whole life down the crapper.

  Also from Second Wind Publishing

  by Sherrie Hansen

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  STORMY WEATHER… Stay tuned for the latest forecast!

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  Heaven only knows if their love was meant to be, or if they will always be on opposite sides of the merry-go-round, riding round and round, never catching up to the other.