“Someone’s got to power them through their workday.”
“And I am their friendly local dealer. Listen, let me know when you’ve made your decision. You know you’re always welcome home. For what it’s worth, my vote is that you stop worrying about being some man’s puppet, when this is clearly some cosmic coincidence. Go to Scotland, find you a fine-looking kilt-wearing specimen of a man. Then—”
“Put him on Instagram?”
“Nope, bring him back and make all the bitches jealous.”
“I heard you say a bad word, Mom!” I hear the rugrat named Wilder shout.
“What have I told you about listening to other people’s conversations?” Kennedy’s words are directed somewhere other than her phone handset.
“That if I’m gonna do it, I need to be smart enough not to let people know.”
“That is not what I said, Wilder James!”
“But I’ll bet it was the gist of it,” I offer with a cackling laugh.
“I can’t wait until you have kids,” she mutters ominously.
“Don’t hold your breath. I can barely look after a houseplant.”
“Holly, for the love of God, just take the job—say yes to the opportunity. What have you got to lose?”
I’m still pondering the answer to this question hours after we end our call.
12
Holly
Despite my reservation and the feeling that I should be heading in the opposite direction, a week later, I find myself on the first leg of a long train ride. I arrive in Edinburgh first and a train station that, but for the inclusion of a Burger King, looks like it was plucked from the set of a Harry Potter movie. Here, in this monument to Victorian architecture, I change trains and travel for another three and a half hours to Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland.
There’s a car waiting for me as I step out of the station into the grey late afternoon. An ageing, mud-splattered Land Rover, complete with a matching mud splattered driver. The driver is less on the old side, aged somewhere in his late twenties, I guess. Beside him sits a chunky-looking Labrador with a pink sparkly collar.
“You’ll be the new hire, then?” The man pushes back a tweed flat cap, the kind I associate with country squires and farmers, brushing his hand through a mess of reddish hair. He’s tall and built and pretty cute in a ruddy, outdoorsy kind of way. I mean, he’s no Alexander—wait, that’s supposed to be a good thing.
“How can you tell?” My answer sounds more like a teasing enquiry.
“How can I tell what?” he says, his accent rendering what more like whit.
“That I’m the new hire. I could be anyone?”
“Gertie, come away,” he mutters, trying to rescue me from the floof as she greets me with a lot of excitement and almost as much hair which floats through the air like the fluffy seeds from a dandelion.
“Well, hello there, Gertie.” I keep my patting to her head and my feet, and pristine sneakers, away from the reach of her slobbery snout.
“I suppose that’d be the pink suitcases?” The melodic lilt in his accent renders his answer a question, his smile widening as I greet his dog. “That and your accent.”
“Well, if you’re heading for Kilblair Castle, I’m your girl. If you’re thinking about kidnapping and murdering the obvious stranger, that girl will be along shortly.”
“Maybe I should be the one making sure you’re no’ the murderer?” His accent and that last word? A marriage made in melty girl-heaven. All the rolling r’s. “Now you’re smiling, I see that can’t be so.”
“Murderers don’t smile in Scotland?”
“Not the one’s dragging pink suitcases, I’d say. Here, let me take that.” He makes to grab the handle of the largest of my two suitcases.
“No, I’ve got it.” But it seems I don’t got it as he swings the thing out of my hand and into the back of the battered vehicle like it doesn’t weigh almost seventy pounds. One of the reasons I opted for a train rather than flying up here.
“Holly.” I thrust out my hand in anticipation as he slams the trunk closed.
“Cameron,” he replies, his warm hand meeting mine.
I breath an almost silent sigh of relief as I recognise his name as my designated pick up, confirmed yesterday by email.
“Nice to meet you, Cameron the not murderer.”
“In ye’ hop,” he instructs, pulling open the rear passenger door. For a minute, I think he’s talking to me. At least until the portly pooch barrels past me, almost making me spin. He catches my upper arm, righting me with a wry grin. “Ye’ can get in the back if you like, but you’ll have to wrestle with old Gert for space, and she moults like the devil.”
“Oh. Right.” I point ahead. “I’ll get in the front then, shall I?”
He’s still smiling as I pull on the door. “Driving, are ye?”
Argh! “I forgot,” I mutter. Stupid British cars with their steering wheel on the wrong side. You’d think I’d remember; it’s not like I’m fresh off the plane!