Scotlander, page 8
Not that someone as beautiful as Gabe couldn’t make a scar look sexy. But after the airport fiasco? Actual amnesia was their most likely path to true love.
The car began to slow down and, when it turned on to an earth track, conversation, mercifully, turned to what lay ahead.
Chapter Nine
Finn had turned into a bamstick. There was no other way to explain it. How else could he explain his involvement in this shambolic, cockamamie, class-A taking of the Michael?
Saying that, he had to hand it to Orla. Of all of the bonkers schemes she’d come up with through the years, this one definitely took the cake.
His dad would—
He cut the thought short. What his dad thought didn’t matter any more.
The fact that Finn had come running when Orla had cried wolf for the umpteenth time did.
When would he learn? He’d walked away once, twice, then a half dozen other times, and every time he came back it made leaving again that much harder.
His eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror and snagged with Willa’s. Her dark eyes were catching the light of the moon, giving her an air of wisdom beyond her years. Her expression, however, was impossible to read. Evil, murderous, #MeToo thoughts no doubt.
She was probably composing a mental letter of complaint about him. Which was fair enough. He’d write it himself given half a chance. How the hell his hand had got stuck in her—
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Trust him to accidentally cop a feel of the first woman in he-didn’t-know-how-long to catch his eye.
Anyway, whether or not he fancied her was a moot point. She was taken and lived in LA.
With any luck, when Orla heard about it, she’d send him back to Inverness and he could get on with his life, pretending this whole debacle had never happened.
He bumped through the first of many potholes begging to be tended to. Maybe one of them would jolt his brain back into proper functioning order. Then he could do what he’d intended to do in the first place: send all these good people home.
Chapter Ten
Willa forced herself to look away. Again. Staring into Finn’s North Sea eyes kept making her forget how much she wanted to dislike him.
As steady and kind as he appeared, there was definitely something he was withholding from them. A wariness she couldn’t put her finger on.
He was probably a serial killer. Only murderers pulled off busy roads and on to deserted creepy ones like this.
She thought of the lonely stretch of highway leading to the dirt track she’d grown up at the end of and dismissed the thought instantly. That was different. American serial killers were always missing a tooth or had a haunting minor-chord cackle or . . . uh oh . . . were desperately good-looking and liked to start cults.
‘Ooof!’ Rosa bounced off the bench seat as the Defender crashed through yet another puddle. ‘Bumpy!’
‘I’m sure potholes are just the start of the authentic experience,’ laughed Jeff, protectively cupping one of his mammoth hands over his wife’s head after his own head conked the metal roof frame for the third time.
‘It certainly smells authentic,’ Jennifer said, waving her hand in front of her nose. ‘What is that?’
No one else knew.
Willa did.
It was freshly tilled soil after a light rain. It was pine needles and sap. And something else earthy and floral she couldn’t quite identify. But she knew the source. It was exactly what Finlay smelt like. She’d breathed him in like oxygen when he’d talked her down from her out-of-character panic attack. Taken in each scent, breath by breath, as if she were inhaling an aura of peace and calm that she could carry round with her like a balm. And then she remembered he was a judgemental know-it-all who was plotting mass murder and just like that she was cured of finding his personal man scent to her liking.
An energetic hush fell over them as the headlights illuminated two large stone pillars, then the vehicle pulled to a stop in front of a handful of large rocks. When he switched the light off, there was complete darkness.
‘Are these the standing stones?’ Rosa clapped her hands in excitement.
‘Looks more like where you’re supposed to park.’
‘Where’s the castle?’
‘Are we going to get candles?’
‘Should we wake up Gabriel?’
‘The paramedic said he should rest.’
‘What if he misses out on something . . . like the redcoats attacking? It’d be a shame for him to die so quickly after arriving.’
‘No one’s going to attack us. This isn’t Jacobite paintball.’
Comments and questions streamed from the guests as Willa watched Finlay climb out of the jeep and come round the back to open the door for them.
One by one he offered his hand to them until, at last, it was Willa’s turn. She half expected him to about face and run away, but the opposite happened. His expression softened into a gentle smile. ‘I hope that wasn’t too bumpy a ride for you.’
‘It was fine.’ Her ass would be bruised for days. But she wasn’t going to tell him that.
Just as she began to make a show of wanting to climb down without his help, a surreal squawking noise broke through the evening hush. She grabbed his shoulder. ‘What was that?’
He grinned and put a finger to his lips. ‘Just wait.’
She froze in place, unable (unwilling?) to release her grip on Finlay’s rather impressive musculature, while she and the other guests tried to figure out what and where the sound came from. (Stockholm Syndrome, and so soon!)
And then, as if someone had retuned an enormous celestial radio, the moon appeared from behind the clouds and at last Willa identified the sound. It was bagpipes.
To her surprise, the music was beautiful. It was also loud. Physically saturating her nervous system. As she grew accustomed to the music and began to fall into the melody, she closed her eyes, allowing her cell structure to succumb to the tug of another time and place. A lifestyle that was simpler to navigate. One where life largely existed between the rising and setting of the sun. She felt stupidly drawn to it. Stupid because it was, effectively, the life she’d left behind in Oregon.
‘You alright, there?’
She opened her eyes to see Finlay sending her a questioning look. For a minute she forgot she hated him and, releasing her vice grip on his shoulder, put her hand in his extended one. As their palms touched, pure, electric heat poured through her as he helped her down from the jeep. How could it not? Everything about this moment – the moonlight, the music, the giddy freedom of not having to come up with three segments on Top Celeb Crop Tops and, of course, the divinely gorgeous (murdery) Catalogue Kilt Man – was magical.
For the first time in forever she ached for this vacation to be what it was promising: a journey to somewhere she didn’t have to check her socials every five seconds, her cell phone every three, or worry about her weight/hair/manicures, etc for the rest of the time.
With each step towards the earth, she felt closer to a place where she could simply be.
The air smelt of woodsmoke, herbs and rich, loamy earth. There was a spiky tang of mystery cloaked around them, and, despite the night sky, she could also hear the sound of birdsong echo through the air.
It really did remind her of home. But with bagpipes.
A wave of nostalgia for something she hadn’t realised she’d missed crashed into her like a truck.
Her response must’ve been physical because she felt Finlay’s hand tighten its grip on hers. Her eyes shot to his and he looked as if he was about to say something, but before he could, two large spotlights flared to life, illuminating a teenage girl playing the bagpipes. She was in full Scottish regalia. Kilt, knee-high socks, a black felt hat with a white feather standing proud, an array of brooches and criss-cross belts and an impressively furry sporran.
Willa watched the girl intently, rapt by her focus and very open pleasure at playing—
What was that song? She closed her eyes again. It was probably a hallucination, or an earthquake, but the music seemed to travel through the ground and vibrate through her feet, up her legs and into her spine, rising like mercury in a thermometer right up into her very jet-lagged brain until she knew exactly what the song was.
‘Amazing Grace’.
And how sweet it sounded. She would’ve never taken herself for a bagpipe fan, but maybe it was one of those right-place-right-time things. Only when she realised some of her fellow travellers were whispering and pointing did she take in the bigger picture.
The piper was standing in front of a huge, vegetation rich, stone ruin. She’d seen it before. In a pencilled outline on the brochure. All of which meant . . . this was Balcraigie Castle.
Pieces of a puzzle she hadn’t had time to put together over the past few days began to fall into place.
Catalogue Kilt Man was real. And Balcraigie Castle was real. But neither of them had materialised in the form she’d anticipated.
Finn had come in a better-than-she-imagined/serial killer package. Confusing, but, for aesthetics alone, three points to Val.
The castle?
Nil points.
From this angle, it wasn’t so much a castle as a majestically formed pile of rocks. With windows.
She shot Finn an is that it? look.
His expression turned pained.
Before a dark, gnawing need to scream Take me back to the airport now! could set in, a delightfully plump, ruddy-cheeked woman in her mid-thirties appeared. She was hardy-looking in a way that suggested if someone asked her to make thirty blackbird pies by sunrise she’d smile and get on with it. She was wearing a dark blue version of the female guests’ dresses and was wiping her hands on a huge food-stained pinafore, her features wreathed in an open, happy smile. She was alight with positive energy.
‘Finlay! There you are! I’d thought for a wee while you’d absconded with our guests, you rascal!’
There was an edge to the comment. One usually reserved for family. (Or murderers.)
To her shock, Willa’s heart fell in on itself. Catalogue Kilt Man was married. Not that she wanted him for herself, but she had dreamt about him just enough to make letting go of her preconceived notion of him akin to detaching dog fur from Velcro.
A thought occurred. Maybe the reason this jolly soul looked like she could make pies was because she did make pies . . . out of Outlander superfans.
Before Willa could ask Finn if his wife was a cannibal, Gabe appeared, flopped an arm around her shoulders and murmured, ‘There you are, my luvvvvverrrrrr.’
It was then Willa realised she and Finn were still hand in hand. She’d been clinging to it as if her life had depended on it.
Crumb nuggets. Not only was she cheating on Gabe, she was cheating with Sweeney Todd. Wonderful. At least now she knew why he hadn’t been put off by her curves. (Had the boob grope been a tenderness test?)
She glanced across at Jeff to check whether or not he was wearing a dirk. They’d be able to defend themselves with Jeff on their side, right?
‘What’d I miss? Where are we?’ asked Gabe.
She answered ‘not much’ and ‘Balcraigie Castle’ at which he scanned the area, arched an are you kidding me? eyebrow at her and then, most likely courtesy of the painkillers, began to laugh.
‘Concha got us good, didn’t she, mija?’ He laughed and laughed and tugged her in close and gave her a kiss on the forehead, then pointed at the castle and laughed again. She supposed, if she let go of the whole room-service-and-hot-bath idea, it was funny. And to be fair, a more genuinely immersive lean into the olden days experience than she’d given the brochure credit for. Thread counts probably didn’t factor into accommodation guidelines back then. Or club sandwiches.
Shifting her weight so she could prop him up a bit better, she pressed her index finger to her lips and pointed towards the cheery woman.
‘Thank you, Shona,’ she was saying to the bagpiping teenager. ‘That was lovely.’ She clapped her hands to begin a well-deserved round of applause to which Jeff shouted, ‘Encore!’
Cheery woman ignored him and, to Shona, continued, ‘Dougie’ll whizz you back to the village, okay?’ She turned back to them, gave a surprisingly dainty demi-curtsey for a woman who was probably close to six feet tall, then beamed, ‘Well, hello, my lovelies. My name is Orla MacKenzie. I am your hostess here at the family seat, Balcraigie Castle.’ She shot a slightly crinkle-browed glance in Finn’s direction before turning her sunlit smile back on them. ‘May I be the first to welcome you to the Far-um.’
Far-um?
‘I thought we were on a farm,’ Jennifer whispered. ‘There was no way that road was leading to a proper castle. It explains the horse-poop smell.’
‘It’s cow muck,’ Fenella hissed back. ‘Trust me. Perfume of my childhood.’
Confirming Fenella’s claim, a cow mooed somewhere off in the darkness.
And then, as if to ensure Jennifer’s spirits weren’t dampened either, a horse whinnied.
They laughed and started an excited conversation about whether there was going to be horse riding or cattle rustling or both.
ChiChi hushed them both and tipped her head towards Orla who was glancing at her . . . was that a pocket watch? ‘You’re a wee bit later than we thought, but no bother. We’ll sort out your accommodation and then get a hot meal into you before you see to your jetlag and whatnot. Tomorrow’s going to be busy, so we need you well rested!’
Orla’s pure Scottish accent was like listening to a clear mountain brook wash through a sunlit glade. It cut through the cold, damp air and, against the odds, made Willa feel welcome. There was accommodation. A hot meal. And they would be attending to whatnot. How quickly her dream of a long hot bath and room service had been replaced with hopes of a roof and something – anything – warm to eat. Unless it was meat pie.
‘Finlay?’ Orla’s voice carried a note of apology in it. ‘You wouldn’t mind getting our guests’ bags into their stalls— rooms . . . ah ha ha ha . . . their rooms . . . for this’ – she threw her arms out wide again – ‘the world’s only truly immersive Jacobean experience.’
‘Stalls?’
‘Did she say stalls?’
‘Aren’t we staying in the castle?’
‘Claire stayed in the castle.’
‘Have you actually looked at that thing? There isn’t a roof!’
‘Jamie stayed with the horses. In a barn.’
‘Neighhhhhhhh, lassie,’ whinnied Jeff as he grabbed Rosa round the waist with a sexy grunt. ‘He stayed with Claire. Wheresoever she lay.’
Willa had been about to throw Gabe a playful would you get a load of the tantric sex couple? look but panicked he’d think she wanted to lay with him wherever he lay. Not that it would be a hardship. Who wouldn’t want to be bedded by a living, breathing, Latino version of the Vitruvian Man?
She could practically feel a version of herself raising her hand with a wince-smile and whispering, ‘Me’.
An imagine of Bryony, her replacement at work, popped into her head. If Bryony had found herself in this situation? She would have pounced on Gabe without a second’s thought.
She fancied Gabe, so . . . why the hesitation?
Again she pictured Bryony with her coltish long limbs and her pert, sassy confidence born of a life growing up in The Hills with a dad in The Biz and her plans to take over TiTs using the power of . . . erm . . . her tits. It was a perfectly believable scenario.
The fact Willa had opted to fantasise about someone she thought was fictional rather than the man she was pretty sure she was being set up with was telling.
Perfect wasn’t for the Willas of the world. This wasn’t her being all boo-hoo, poor me. This was fact. Perfect was for movie stars and prom queens and international human rights lawyers with glossy hair and enviable cheekbones.
A memory of Val gazing adoringly at her husband – a slightly chubby, balding, weirdy-beardy accountant with an obsession for barbecued pork – caught her up short. An acute reminder that perfect meant something different to everyone.
‘If you think I’m sleeping with Mr Ed, you’ve got another think—’ Rosa was saying.
‘Hush, now. We’re visitors from a far-off land, reliant on the kindness of strangers.’ Jeff cleared his throat and offered a grandiose bow to Orla. ‘Pray, dear hostess, are the mattresses stuffed with straw? Or is this a manger-type situation?’
Orla shot him a grateful smile. ‘We would, of course, love for you to be staying in the castle.’
Everyone’s eyes shot to the left where the pile of rocks formerly known as a castle stood proud of the landscape . . . the spotlights shining straight through the glassless windows and up to what would have been the roof, had there been one.
‘But this,’ announced Orla with a broad sweep of her arm towards another, lower stone building with a thatched roof, ‘is where you’ll be staying. The barn. Just like Jamie, but with a few more amenities than he was afforded.’ She gave another little curtsey bob. ‘We know many of you are obviously Claire fans, but as part of the experience, we thought it would be interesting to enjoy things from both their perspectives.’
Willa suppressed a snort. She’d worked in the world of showbiz long enough to know when a screw-up was being tactically repurposed as a triumph. And, for some reason, it made her warm to the experience. She looked round to see if she could get a reading on the situation from Finn, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Off sharpening the carving knives, no doubt.
Fenella sidled up to her and whispered, ‘I would’ve rather experienced things from Claire’s point of view after a thirty-hour trip. Wouldn’t you?’
Willa made a vague noise. She didn’t have a clue what Claire’s experience had been, but something told her admitting as much to this crowd would be a mistake.
Chapter Eleven
‘This way, please. Mind how you go.’
Using their phones to light the way, the group began trooping after Orla, who was brandishing a not entirely effective flame torch. She guided them through a passageway cut through the centre of the stone building. As a group, they fell quiet, less with giddy anticipation this time, and more with a shivery wariness. Were they being led to their doom?
