‘What do you mean you can’t come now? It’s Zoe!’ Morag shouted into the phone. ‘She might be gone again this afternoon. Yes, of course I’ll make her stay. All right, son, love you, bye, bye.’
Morag put down the phone with a flourish and pulled up another chair in front of Zoe. ‘So, my darling, tell us everything!’
There was a sudden silence as even baby Liam looked at her, awaiting a response. Zoe felt like a scrawny girl again. ‘I, I don’t know where to start. Mum and Dad are fine. I’ve been living in London and working mainly as an accountant, but then Willie got sick…’
Morag squeezed Zoe’s knee. ‘I’m so sorry, pet, that must have been very sad for you and your mum.’
Zoe nodded. ‘He didn’t even remember Mum at the very end. And he had changed so much. But then he left me the lease on the cabin, and I decided to make some changes in my life. So… I’ve left my job and come up here to live.’
After a short, stunned silence, Fiona and Morag whooped with delight. ‘Oh, Zoe love, that’s wonderful news! Businesses always need accountants, and of course you can stay here, you can bunk in with Fi and Liam, unless you fancy sharing with our Jamie?’ Morag said, giving her a sly glance.
‘Mum! Stop! Zoe might have a boyfriend,’ said Fiona to her mum before focusing her laser eyes on Zoe. ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
Zoe blushed. ‘No. But—’
‘That settles it then!’ exclaimed Morag, getting up as Liam began to wail. ‘I need to tell everyone the good news. Oh, and the cake. Let me get the cake.’
‘But, but…’
Morag stopped. ‘Yes, love?’
‘I appreciate the offer to stay, I do, but—’
On cue, her potential roomie Liam screamed the kind of high-pitched baby cry that would wake even Sleeping Beauty.
‘I’m going to be living in the cabin.’
3
Two hours later, Zoe left the post office in a daze. Part cake coma, part emotional overload. Her life at a desk in an office seemed to belong to a completely different person. Morag and Fiona had been dismayed and worried that Zoe intended to live in what they could only describe as ‘a great big heap of firewood’ and tried their best to dissuade her. And with every new customer brought out the back to see Zoe, the same questions and statements were issued. Sadness for her great-uncle. How was her mum? Did she have a boyfriend? She couldn’t possibly stay at the cabin, wasn’t she beautiful, oh, and did she have a boyfriend?
Zoe felt a twinge of guilt she had lied so shamelessly to everyone about the state of the cabin. She was banking on the fact that none of them had been up there in years. According to Zoe’s telling, the cabin just needed a rag rug and some pewter plates and she’d be the Laura Ingalls-Wilder of Kinloch. Morag, keen to find any way that Jamie could be involved, had volunteered him for the job of chimney sweep and had press-ganged him into going around later that afternoon.
Now she needed wood for the Rayburn. Getting it going meant she could cook and keep herself warm. Morag had said there was a labourer chopping wood in the back courtyard of the castle, and suggested Zoe see if he might be able to sort her out.
* * *
The castle loomed over the small village, its granite walls touching the sky and casting a domineering shadow over the nearby buildings. She brought out her phone to take some snaps for Instagram and made her way to the back of the castle, the ‘tradesman’s entrance’ as Morag described it. It was the more human back door, where for hundreds of years servants came to and fro, along with the animals, delivery carts, wood, and everything else needed to maintain the front of the house in opulent splendour.
As she walked down the narrow street next to the high wall, she could see the opening up ahead. The gates had long gone but the cobbles of the courtyard remained, gently spilling out to meet tarmac and double yellow lines. The sound of wood splitting echoed towards her and she rounded the corner with a spring and a smile before stopping dead.
The courtyard was old and utilitarian. Part car park, part workshop. A muddy truck, bearing a coat of arms, was parked haphazardly next to a pile of logs. The courtyard looked like a place for dumping things for dealing with later or never. But it was also a place where the heavens had opened and flung out a god. To the side of the courtyard, facing away from her was Thor’s better proportioned brother. Thor got the hammer, but this guy got an axe. He was splitting wood with ease and precision, his movements effortless and exact, a fusion of man, metal and wood.
He was shirtless, wearing faded trousers and brown leather work boots that looked so used he must sleep in them. His body appeared chiselled from golden marble, with not an ounce of fat to hide his perfection. Zoe watched, mesmerised, as he casually swung the axe down, his muscles moving in exquisite harmony. She stared at the expanse of his back and arms, a body created by work outdoors, not pumped up in a city gym. His hair, wavy and wild, skeins of dark honey and gold, almost grazing his shoulders. She felt dizzy, discombobulated, a ringing sounded in her ears as her unconscious mind and hormones roared into life. She shook her head, confused by her reaction to the sight in front of her.
He bent over to pick up another log and Zoe’s eyes slid down to the peachy perfection of his backside. She breathed faster, her jaw slack, her mouth dry and heart pounding. He might have had a face like a dog’s dinner but she didn’t care. She would just worship his back, and arms, and bum, and – oh no. It was happening again. Not now!
In stressful social situations, Zoe’s default reaction was to laugh. The more inappropriate the situation, the more hysterical she became. Zoe was the child who cackled like a hyena at funerals, who wet herself when her elderly neighbour was carted off in an ambulance with a broken arm. It was embarrassing, uncontrollable and socially unacceptable. The sight of the most incredible man (back half) she had ever seen started out as hyperventilation, then careered out of control into a screeching car crash of a laugh.
The god turned around, still holding the axe. Zoe had a glimpse of a ten pack of abs before she doubled over, one hand clapped to her mouth trying to disguise the hysteria as a coughing fit.
He put down the axe and pulled on a faded plaid shirt, slowly and deliberately doing up the buttons from the top to the bottom. It was a striptease in reverse but Zoe had never seen anything so erotic before. She had to get control of herself. She needed this guy’s wood.
I need this guy’s wood… she thought, compressing her lips together so tightly her hysteria had no other exit than her nose. She snorted so hard her eyes watered from the pain, then the fake cough to cover it up made her throat raw.
Still, Thor’s brother patiently waited.
‘I’m so sorry!’ she gasped. ‘Something caught in my throat!’
Get it together! she inwardly screamed as she straightened up, brought herself back under some semblance of control, and looked at the stranger.
As her eyes met his, a jolt of electricity shot through her. He had the eyes of a wolf, the ice blue of a glacier, rimmed with grey, striations of silver shooting out from bottomless black irises. They held her as the rest of the world dropped away. She took in the pure maleness of him; his features strong and powerful, a slight bump on his nose from being broken, full lips, high cheekbones, all set in the bronzed face of someone who lived his life under the open skies. His hair was a golden shaggy mess and had clearly not seen a brush for years, yet Zoe wanted to reach up, run her hands through it and bring his mouth crushing down on hers. What is happening to me? Speak to him!
‘Er, hi, erm… Morag who runs the post office said you might be able to sort me out? I mean, I need some wo—fuel for my Rayburn. I’m Zoe by the way,’ she trilled manically, thrusting forward her hand as if to shake his.
He didn’t move. She faltered and dropped her arm, chewing nervously at her bottom lip. God, she had done it this time. Or was he a deaf-mute?
‘I know who you are,’ said the man-bear. ‘You’re the wildlife expert.’
Zoe shut her
eyes. Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, GROUND OPEN NOW! She sighed, opened her eyes and faced him down.
‘Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot last night. I was scared and you were, er, something. Now, as you can see, I’m here to stay for at least the next thirty years before I give my home back to your boss, so please can I just buy some wood, then I can get out of your hair.’
Zoe could have sworn a glint of humour flashed across his face as she spoke, but then the lights went out.
‘No.’
‘Er, what?’
‘No, you cannot buy any of the estate’s wood.’
‘What? Why not?’
‘Because I say so.’
‘What if someone in the village wants some?’
‘They can buy as much as they like.’
‘Then I’d like to buy some for Morag.’
He smirked. ‘Nice try, but still no. And don’t come back in ten minutes wearing a wig and a moustache, you’re unforgettable.’
Obviously not in a good way, she inwardly groaned. ‘But why won’t you let me buy any?’
He paused. ‘Because I’m not enabling your insanity any further. Have you ever spent a winter in the Highlands? Have you even considered what you need to do to the place? The first time you set a fire, whatever is currently nesting in the chimney will go up in flames taking you and the cabin with it. I’m not going to be the one who sold you the wood that killed you.’ He raised his massive, calloused hands, ticking off each point. ‘One, it doesn’t have electricity; two, plumbing; three, water; four, a phone line; five, mobile signal; or six, sewerage. Christ, it doesn’t even have a frigging door! You need to get back in that lovely little car of yours and go back home. You don’t belong here.’
You don’t belong here. Zoe’s throat constricted. This was the only place she had ever felt she truly belonged. Tears pricked at her eyes before anger replaced them.
‘How dare you! And who are you to decide what I do or don’t do? Lord of the bloody manor? I’m not taking orders about my life and my land from someone who looks like they sleep in a hedge. And you’re a fine one to talk about belonging. You don’t even sound Scottish!’
Thor’s brother shrugged, turned his back, picked up the axe and started chopping again.
Unbelievable! As he moved to pick up a new log from the pile, Zoe leapt forwards, grabbed the pieces he had just split and legged it out of the courtyard with a victorious yell. She was going to have his wood whether he liked it or not…
Rory watched her run out of the courtyard. He then buried the axe in the tree trunk he was splitting the logs on, walked over to a long, low building on the side of the courtyard and through the door. This was his workshop. He’d made it his kingdom and his world.
An old German Shepherd, asleep in a dog bed to one side, woke as he entered, getting up, tail wagging happily, to greet him. Rory walked to the large workbench in the centre of the room, scratching behind the dog’s ears. Lying on the bench was a large wooden door, almost finished. It was a door he was making for the cabin, the cabin he wanted for himself.
When Mad Willie left, Rory presumed it would revert back to the estate. No one in their right mind would want to live there. No one except him. He was used to hardship, to solitude, and now he craved it. He wanted isolation, he wanted freedom. But now this city girl had arrived and put a spanner in his works.
He knelt down. ‘Bandit, my friend, how about a W-A-L-K?’
Bandit nuzzled his head against Rory’s neck, then trotted to the door. Rory followed him out, striding to the estate’s 4x4 and opening the cab door for Bandit to bound in. The truck was powerful; built for the territory and capable of taking on any weather the Highlands could throw at it. The loathsome coat of arms of the MacGinleys was emblazoned on the bonnet and doors but nicely covered with a veneer of mud. Rory preferred it that way.
He negotiated the narrow streets around the castle with ease, driving out of Kinloch and along the road towards Inverness. A few miles out he cut left up a muddy track, to unload several bales of hay and feed for a tenant farmer’s Highland cattle and check the stream had not frozen over. It would soon be time to move them from the higher ground so they could be fed more easily and find better shelter. Once the cattle had been checked, Rory and Bandit left the truck and headed out onto the glen.
The landscape opened up before them; the undulating hills shrouded in mist, seamlessly merging into the slate grey sky. It was still and quiet, as if the world was holding its breath, poised on a knife edge of change, waiting to see which way to fall.
As his feet picked up the pace, he breathed in deeply through his nose; smelling the cold, damp peaty air, inhaling the wide-open space. He’d adopted the trick of nostril breathing from his army days. On exercise in Africa, he’d woken early one morning to find long distance runners passing by their camp. They were there, then they were gone. Light and lithe, a whisper through the landscape. The next morning, he got up earlier, and ran beside them for a few miles, puffing and panting as they hooted with laughter at the man who outweighed them all combined. Rory knew he was fit, but they were effortless. On day three he studied them. They only ever breathed through their noses, matching their respiration to their stride. By day four he had mastered it, and the runners rewarded his observation skills with high fives. He could see this had been the beginning of a lifelong interest in mastering his body and his mind; skills that helped in the darkest times of his life.
He stopped, and turned to see how far they had walked, winding his fingers into Bandit’s fur.
‘What should I do, Bandit?’
Bandit’s warm body pushed against his leg. Old memories clung to his skin. They tightened and itched.
His childhood had been nasty, brutish and short. The only moment of colour had come one summer, when his parents brought him to Kinloch and left him to his own devices. He’d set off the first morning to explore, armed with sandwiches and his grandfather’s walking stick. Coming from Edinburgh, the mountains of his homeland were always set behind the grey stone of the city. Now he was immersed in nature. When the sun was high in the sky, he found the cabin and Willie. It was the first time in his life he’d ever felt like he belonged. In those two short months, Willie had been more of a father to him than his own, and each day had been full of discovery and fascination. Willie taught him how to set a fire, stalk a deer, and run naked into the loch roaring like a lion.
And now, after over twenty years, he was back. Some responsibilities couldn’t be put off forever. Joining the military had been the ultimate escape from a domineering father. But when his father died, he had to come home; first to Edinburgh, and now here. He owed it to his mother to take care of her, but couldn’t live with her in the small flat forever. He wanted to be like Willie. To live in the cabin, free of materialism, complications, stress, and other people. Three months ago when they returned to Kinloch, he’d gone straight to the cabin, finding it derelict and abandoned. He’d cleared out the rotting furniture, leaving only the table and a couple of chairs, and had started making a new door and new window frames. By Christmas he had wanted to be in.
But first, he had to get this Zoe person out.
Last night it had been a surprise to see a car by the edge of the road by the track, and a shock to see the cabin occupied by someone other than him. Someone drunk, but still sober enough to be a dead shot with a can of baked beans. In daylight she was even more chaotic. Tall, with gangly limbs, an unruly mass of bright red curls, and freckles thrown haphazardly across her face. She looked like a firework mid-explosion, every part of her shooting out, defying gravity and coherence. Despite not having any wood, she was full of fire, he’d give her that. But the fire would go out. She’d be just like all the other city people with bagpipes for brains. The fantasy of life in the Scottish Highlands wouldn’t last when they realised Starbucks wasn’t at the end of the road, and they couldn’t get quinoa at the corner shop. He needed to hasten her inevitable departure but didn’t kn
ow how.
Rory looked at the pale grey sky, then at his watch.
‘Time to go, buddy. Any ideas of how to get shot of crazy lady?’
Bandit tilted his head to one side, then set off, tail wagging, down the side of the glen. ‘Race you!’ yelled Rory.
They thundered down the mountain, whooping and barking. It was always a foregone conclusion who would win, even though Bandit was getting older, but he waited patiently for Rory to catch up every few hundred yards. They were soon back at the truck, and Rory recovered, leaning on the gate to the field with the Highland cattle. He practically knew them by name. They were such placid animals. They were clustered around the new bale of hay inside the gate, tearing mouthfuls off, their hot breath condensing in the cold air.
Had she really thought bears lived in the Highlands? He shook his head. She’d probably think these cattle were woolly mammoths. He looked down the track towards the main road. The cabin wasn’t far from here. Maybe the cattle needed a change of scene?
The lack of mobile signal and electricity at the cabin meant Zoe needed to stay in town. Fortunately there was a small library attached to the community centre off the high street. It had three computer terminals, a printer, and signs in VERY large letters informing the older generation that help was always on hand. Zoe sank gratefully into a plastic chair and opened up her portal to all the knowledge she would ever need. Within five minutes, her phone and extra battery packs were on charge, she knew where to buy wood locally, how to fix and use a Rayburn, and had a plan for the lack of a front door.
Accountancy may not have been her dream career but she was the queen of spreadsheets, the empress of organisation, and within an hour had drawn up a battle plan for the cabin. She placed bids on a back boiler to fit her Rayburn that would provide the cabin with a supply of hot water. There was only one available that was the right model, and it looked even older than the castle. She only hoped if she won it, it worked.
Highland Games: sparkling, sexy and utterly unputdownable - the romantic comedy of the year! (The Kinloch Series) Page 3