Rescuelander

by Samantha Liddell

  “Oh, you dive now, that’s great, so do I. We will have to go diving together one day soon,” Jim said.

  Before I could answer, Scott stepped in. “Jim, can I get you a drink before lunch?”

  Why was Scott being so nice to my ex-fling, who I had once been so incredibly in love with before he broke my heart. I decided to find out.

  “Sure, just a beer will do fine,” Jim answered.

  I got to my feet. “Would you excuse me for a bit, Jim, I just need to ask Scott something.” I left Polly and Leah on the couch to entertain Jim for a bit—a bit of an awkward situation for the three of them, come to think of it, but I needed answers—and I followed Scott into the kitchen. “Scott, what, why, how is this happening? More to the point, why did you invite him in for Christmas Eve lunch?” I asked, sounding very put out.

  “Letticia, it’s Christmas Eve, a time to welcome and share the Christmas spirit with everyone, plus he’s your ex-boyfriend—”

  “Fling,” I corrected him.

  Scott continued. “Okay, your fling from Manchester, and one, he doesn’t stand a chance because he isn’t Scottish and doesn’t wear a kilt—

  “That’s two things,” I corrected him, but Scott ignored me and carried on.

  “—and two, he is your ex-boy… I mean fling, and it may actually result in some entertainment for the day. As you can see, I am not threated by him one little bit,” Scott teased.

  I grabbed the nearest tea towel and dipped the end of it in water, twisting it around before slapping Scott on the behind.

  “Hey, what was that for?” he asked, holding on to his amazingly toned buttocks.

  “That was for inviting my ex-boyfriend for Christmas Eve lunch without consulting with me, just for the benefit of having a few laughs at my expense,” I replied.

  Scott hugged me. “Aye, don’t you mean fling? But yes, when you put it that way, I guess I deserved that slap on the arse.”

  “Yes, you did indeed deserve it,” I said as I walked away and made my way back over to Jim with his beer, then proceeded to give him the biggest and friendliest welcome hug to Swans Cottage. If Scott wanted to play, let’s play, then.

  Jim had yet to be in Swans Cottage for more than five minutes, and already he was confused about what on earth was going on. “Well that was a very cold then hot welcome by you,” he said.

  “Ah, yes, well I did learn from the best all those years ago, Jim,” I said in a mocking tone.

  During the days when Jim and I were dating, he was always so very hot, then so very cold towards me. I was so in love with him when he was being hot towards me, but he could very quickly turn cold. I couldn’t keep up, never knew what I was to him. He knew he had me wrapped around his little finger. The heart wants what the heart wants, though, and back then my heart so deeply wanted to be with Jim.

  Oh, how the tables had turned today, though. It only took him eleven years, but he eventually came crawling back to me. Shame it was too little too late. I was taken now, by another man, a man who was the same temperature towards me day in and day out. I always knew where I stood with Scott and his affection for me, and the appropriate outfit to put on for his temperature towards me. Which in this case was a swimsuit—Scott was hot for me always, a steady temperature. With Jim, on the other hand, it was a very unpredictable temperature. I could be in a swimsuit, then seconds later I would need to pull on a full-length ski suit, topped with a puffer jacket, beanie, gloves, woollen socks, and boots to protect me from the coldness he all of a sudden projected towards me. He really was a hard guy to read, which just made the challenge of getting him even more enticing. I am, after all, always up for a challenge.

  Scott was now busy welcoming other guests arriving for our Christmas Eve lunch, which left me talking to Jim alone. He still had that same charm that had caught my eye all those years back, and I could feel myself being pulled back into Team Jim. Not in a sexual way at all, but just in an admiring way. There was something about him that made me want to be around him. Maybe it was that English charm, which by the way was very attractive, but as Scott said, nothing could come between my Scottish obsession.

  Scott was so confident in this that he didn’t need to keep an eye on his Sassenach, who was chatting to her ex-fling with a Pimm’s in hand. A Pimm’s mixed with a Letticia was an unpredictable mix, but Scott knew when it came down to it, though, I only had eyes for him. So, this left Scott being the hostess with the mostest and working the crowd, making sure he talked to everyone and wished everyone a Merry Christmas, unlike me, who was so drawn in by Jim after all these years. We were deep in conversation, talking about the good old days. Even Scott’s parents, who had arrived late, came over to say hello, but I was so fixated on Jim I hardly acknowledge them. They knew their soon-to-be daughter-in-law pretty well by now, however, and took no offense. Instead they decided to leave me to it with my old English fling and caught sight of my parents on the other side of the room and went to chat to them.

  We had been talking for a good hour before Jim brought something up that caught me by surprise. “So, Letticia, I was actually in Australia for work when I heard about your car accident, and that you were in a coma. I did come to visit you while you were in hospital, apparently you woke up not long after I left. I gave you a necklace that day and put it around your neck ever so carefully. The chain was made out of sterling silver and had been blessed by some Australian elders. They told me to give it to someone you once loved who was lost in their mind and needed to return home safely. The funny thing was, when I received this necklace, I had no idea who they were intending me to give it to, nor did I know you were even in the hospital in a coma to start with.”

  I interrupted him at this point. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, then how did you find out I was in that very hospital in a coma?”

  “Well this is going to sound really silly, but I had a dream that you were in that very hospital in a coma. You were yelling and yelling for me to come to you. It was like you were pulling me into your dream, like you wanted me to know,” Jim said.

  I was confused and in shock, didn’t know what to say or do.

  Jim carried on. “So the next morning, I rung the hospital, and sure enough, I found out you were indeed in the hospital in a coma. I decided I needed to go and see you, and that for some reason the blessed necklace I had received was meant for you. So I placed the necklace around your neck, and the next thing I know, you woke up the following morning.”

  I was silent for the next minute or two. So here I was with answers to my journal, and now the necklace I had found around my neck the morning I woke up from my coma, and both items had come from reality, and not from my dreams at all. This was making my dream a whole lot less complicated, yet it was making it so much more complicated at the same time. My head was starting to spin.

  “Sorry, Jim, will you excuse me for a second, I just need to get a drink of water,” I said. “In fact, I might need another glass of Pimm’s, come to think of it.” I laughed.

  “I can get it for you, you sit down,” Jim offered as he put a hand on my knee.

  I refused his offer. “No, no, that’s quite all right, I need to get up and stretch my legs for a bit anyway.” It was more like I needed to get up on my own and clear my mind, work out what on earth just happened here, as well as remove his hand from my knee, which in all honesty felt rather nice. Still, of course, nothing for Scott to worry about.

  After I poured myself a glass of water, okay, I mean a glass of Pimm’s, I decided I needed a break from talking to Jim, and really needed to find my Scott instead. I scanned the room but was not able to locate him. I searched every room of Swans Cottage for him, but he was still nowhere to be found. By the time I reentered the living room, which was filled with our friends and family, I decided I was very much over searching for Scott, so instead stood in the middle of the room and yelled his name out several times. “Scott. Scott! Scott? Scoooottttttttt!”

  Each time I got louder and
louder, and people looked at me as if I had lost my mind, or had one too many drinks, but no, I had just lost my man. And as planned, Scott came to me.

  He walked through the front door. “What is it, Letticia, are you okay?” he asked, sounding very concerned.

  “Yes of course I am okay, I just couldn’t find you, that’s all, so I decided to yell for you instead.”

  “Well I was only out on the veranda talking to Gus from work, you obviously didn’t look very hard,” he joked, with all eyes upon us now.

  “Well no, I didn’t think to look out there, and anyway, I was tired of looking for you, so just yelled out for you instead.”

  Scott looked around the room at everyone who was now staring at us. There goes the free entertainment Scott was talking about.

  “Lunch will be ready shortly,” Scott announced to everyone, trying to dilute the awkwardness in the room. He then pulled me aside and whispered into my ear. “What was that all about?”

  “Sorry, I just found out some very important information, and I wanted to share it with you straightaway. Can we go talk in private?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure, but not for long, I don’t want the turkey to burn. I need to take it out of the oven in a few minutes and let it rest before we serve it for lunch.”

  Scott had done an amazing job with Christmas Eve lunch. He managed to cook an entire Christmas lunch for all twenty guests and put up with my dramas at the same time. I did feel a little bad I wasn’t a bit more of a help, being a caterer and all, but Scott looked like he had everything under control from the get-go.

  We moved into our bedroom, the room my parents were staying in, and shut the door to talk in private. I started to explain my newfound information. “Scott, did you ever see Jim come to the hospital and visit me while I was in the coma?”

  “Well not that I know of, and if he had, I for one surely would have told you,” Scott said. He had a point there. Scott never kept anything from me.

  I continued. “Well Jim told me just moments before that he was the one that put the gold-and-silver chain necklace around my neck. He said it was blessed by some Australian elder who told him to pass it on to someone in need, someone that was lost in their mind and needed help returning. When he found out I was in a coma, he came to the conclusion that I was the one, the one the elders had intended the chain necklace to be given to.”

  “Aye, that all sounds a bit dodgy to me, Letticia. It’s obvious he still has feelings for you, that he is in love with you.”

  I giggled at that thought, sounding like a little schoolgirl giggling, just as they do when they find out the boy next to her who continues to pull her hair is actually in love with her. “What, Jim? Nooo way, I don’t think he was ever really in love with me, Scott,” I replied ever so confidently.

  “Aye, well if you say so. Anyway, I will have a chat with him later and see if I can find anything else out,” Scott said.

  Scott left to attend to the lunch; I followed to help him a few seconds later. I needed to just take a moment to regroup and compose myself again.

  By the time I had reentered the sitting room, people were starting to look a bit merrier and alive, thanks to my famous, secret eggnog recipe I had made. It was going down rather nicely with everyone. Scott pulled me aside and into the kitchen. “We have a problem. The oven was not turned up high enough, the turkey still has at least another hour left to cook. You need to go and do some entertaining with the guests and keep them busy.”

  “That I can do, Scott.”

  So Scott wanted entertainment? I delivered by starting up a game of charades. Now either I was a very good actor or, as people tend to like to describe me, I am very predictable. My first three attempts were guessed on the first go.

  “TV and book,” I started, and “Outlander” was yelled out before I had pretty much even moved a muscle. The next one was an object, and “Bagpipe!” once again called out within seconds. The third was a song; as soon as I did the action for song, someone called out “Skye Boat Song.” So in conclusion, I would have to say maybe I am a tad predictable, not in all areas of my life, though, I would like to think.

  I was not doing a very good job holding the audience’s attention, so decided to bring out the karaoke and put on some Christmas tunes instead. Now this was a hit; people loved it, and everyone was having a great old time.

  I popped my head into the kitchen. “How’s it all going in here?”

  “Aye, ETA is twenty minutes, I would say,” Scott said.

  Right, just enough time for a few more songs, then. As I went back into the sitting room, I found Jim up the front with the microphone in hand. “Letticia, would you ever so kindly come and join me?” he asked loudly over the microphone.

  I whispered, “Noooo, Jim, nooooo,” but it was too late; he had my hand and was pulling me up to sing beside him. “What song are we singing?”

  “What song? I can’t believe you are even asking what song, Letticia, only the best Christmas song ever.”

  He had yet to tell me what song that was when the music started playing and the words appeared on the screen to “All I Want for Christmas is You.” I was stuck between a rock and a hard place since I couldn’t make a scene and leave. I was fully committed to singing this song now, people were even swaying and clapping to the beat. And so I had to just go with it, and for the record, this was not the best Christmas song ever. The best Christmas song ever was “Walking in a Winter Wonderland,” but it looked like here I was, stuck singing Jim’s so-called “best Christmas song ever.” Just like all those years back, what Jim wanted, Jim got.

  Scott came out of the kitchen to announce lunch was finally ready, but instead found Jim and I entraining everyone with our singing. I caught Scott’s eye; I couldn’t work out if he was okay with this or not. He had no expression on his face at all. Once the song finished, he switched the karaoke machine off at the wall and announced lunch was ready, and once again, everyone cheered.

  My mum whispered into my ear, “Thank goodness for that, I was about to resort to going back to my room for some mac and cheese soon.”

  I looked at mum suspiciously but decided not to ask questions. The adults’ table was set beautifully, and we had to bring in another table to push up against it to fit everyone around. The kids’ table that was set for Polly and Leah and a few of our friends’ children was set up just beside the main adult table.

  I was the last to be seated while I helped Scott bring out all the food. I found the last vacant seat next to Sophie on one side, and my mum on the other side, and planted my bottom there. I shook out my napkin and placed it on my lap, ready to dig into this delightful-looking feast that was before my very own eyes. Not only was my mouth excited but my eyes were too. As I glanced up from my plate of food, I searched around the table for Scott to give him a “you did well” kinda of a signal. When I located him, though, he was at the far end of the table sitting beside Jim.

  “Hells bells,” I randomly blurted out, catching the attention of the people sitting down at my end of the table. “Hells bells, this um… this looks great,” I quickly said to recover. Scott and Jim sitting next to each other? This could go either way. Well as the saying goes, only time will tell.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Walking in a Winter Wonderland

  * * *

  Christmas Eve lunch, or should I sat Christmas Eve early dinner by the time we had actually served it, was a feast to remember. Family and friends chatted and laughed around the table, while Christmas bonbons were getting pulled and cracked, and party hats placed on heads and jokes being read out. It really was a joyful and merry time.

  Christmas pudding and custard was only moments away, so I took the chance to ask my mum about my great-aunt Sally McKnight.

  “I keep meaning to ask you, Mum, I somehow have this journal in my possession. I was told by a lovely Scottish B&B host, who I now consider a very dear friend called Mrs Wilson, that the journal I have was the one she actually had given
to her friend Sally McKnight who lives in Australia.”

  I was now up to goodness knows how many Pimm’s at this stage, so I was not the clearest in explaining the whole situation to my mum. After having to clarify what I had just said several times, my mum was now finally on the same page as me. I did have to go and find my journal and bring it back to the table at one point, which Mum immediately recognised.

  “Ah yes, my aunt Sally regifted that journal to me. She said she no longer had a need for it, her travelling days were well and truly over now that she had settled down and was happily married.”

  What a thing to say? There is never a time not to want, or have the need, to travel, just because you are happily married.

  Mum continued. “So she passed the journal on to me in the hope that I would fill the pages up.”

  I looked at Mum, knowing all too well she never did. “So why didn’t you, then?”

  “Well I too had no need to travel, I was happy right where I was. I was far too busy anyway with being a mum and bringing you up, along with my gardening and bowls, and my gnomes, of course. Plus I too was happily married. I was doing a clear-out one day while you were in the hospital, I had to keep my mind busy, so I cleaned the house from top to bottom while you were in that coma. Anyway, I came across that journal,” Mum explained as she pointed to the journal I was now holding in my hands. “I decided after everything you had been through, maybe you were the one to fill those empty pages up. So on one of the visits to the hospital, I sat down beside you, held your hand, read out the quote inside, and said this is for you, dear. Do as you please with it. I placed it in your bag and have not seen it since, well until now, anyway.”

  Tears were welling up in my eyes. I turned to Scott, and both he and Jim were staring at me now, unaware of why I was all of a sudden so emotional, but both had concerned looks upon their faces. I grabbed a napkin and wiped my tears away.

  “Well, Mum, you will be pleased to know the pages are indeed full,” I said as I flicked open the journal to show her.