by Sarah Morgan
“That text is nothing to do with the weather. It’s a code.” Posy scooped up her shirt and her socks. “We used it when we were teenagers and didn’t want our parents to know about what we were doing. It means she’s in trouble.”
“Trouble?” Luke frowned and sat up. “What sort of trouble?”
“I don’t know yet.” Posy tugged on her socks, glanced in the mirror and recoiled. “I look as if I’ve been caught in a howling gale.” She scraped her fingers through her hair and then gave up and scooped it up in a ponytail.
Luke leaned back against the pillows. “I think you look like someone who just had great sex. Three times. I was about to make it four times, but—”
Her phone pinged again and this time Posy grabbed it herself, trying not to think about the fourth time that wasn’t going to happen now.
“She’s at the airport. Not JFK, our local airport.” She felt a flash of concern. “Why is she at the airport?”
“Because flying is the normal way to travel from the US?”
“She’s not due home for another week. And usually she—” She broke off and stared at her phone in shock as she noticed the time. “It’s half past three! How can it be half past three?”
“I don’t know. I can’t honestly say I was thinking about the passage of time. Seeing you naked impairs my ability to think about anything much.”
“I’m going to need some fancy excuses to explain away this one. And still more excuses for going to pick up my sister.” Posy leaned down and kissed him, feeling a tug of regret. “I don’t know how long this is going to take. You should probably—”
He cupped her face in his hands, kissing her until she was dizzy.
The kick of desire almost had her sliding back into bed with him.
She groaned. “Can’t. Mustn’t. I need to—” She pulled away, then changed her mind and crushed her mouth to his again. It was a full minute before she found the willpower to step back. “I’d tell you to stay right where you are, but this might take a while.” She slid out of his arms for a second time and glanced around the room. Where were her jeans? She didn’t even remember Luke taking them off, but she’d ended up naked, so it must have happened at some point.
“This isn’t an elaborate excuse to leave my bed?”
She found her jeans on the floor by the sofa. “It’s my bed, so no. And I don’t play those games. If I wanted you out of my bed, I’d say get out of my bed.”
“I know. It’s one of the many things I like about you. I’ll go back downstairs and work, but bang on my door when you’re back.” He hesitated. “And if you need anything—if she’s in trouble and there’s some way I can help—call me.”
“Thanks.” Touched by the offer of support, she finished dressing, grabbed her coat and car keys, and gave him a last sorrowful look. “This was fun.”
He gave a half smile. “Go. I’ll keep Bonnie company. And drive carefully.”
Posy picked her way down the icy steps that led from her hayloft, then sprinted to her car. Thoughts about Luke mingled with concern for her sister.
What was wrong with Beth?
Why was she home a week early?
She did the airport run in record time and spotted Beth immediately. She was standing alone outside the arrivals door, looking forlorn. There was no sign of Jason or the kids.
Posy couldn’t remember a time when Beth had come home on her own.
What was going on?
She swerved into a space and leaned on her horn. Beth carried on staring into space.
Posy sprang from the car and sprinted across to her, checking quickly for airport police. They took a dim view of people abandoning their vehicles.
“Hey, Beth!” She was only a few strides away from her sister when Beth finally noticed her.
“Posy! You came.”
Posy had never seen such relief in anyone’s face before. “Of course I came.” She glanced behind her sister. “Did they lose your bags? Where’s your luggage?”
“This is it.” Beth slung her medium-sized bag over her shoulder.
“But you always travel with at least two suitcases.”
“Don’t start. Can we go? I’m freezing.” She swayed slightly and Posy decided that questions could wait until later.
Her sister was obviously tired, and also right about the air temperature. An icy wind blew in front of the terminal building, discouraging people from lingering.
She ushered Beth to the car. The airport was busy and the driver in the car behind her was revving his engine and hovering, waiting for her to vacate her space. He leaned on his horn and she resisted the temptation to make a rude gesture. “And a Merry Christmas to you, too, Mr. Scrooge. A Merry Christmas to one and all.” It was supposed to be the season of goodwill, but mostly it seemed to be the season of impatience.
She slid back into the driver’s seat and waited while Beth settled in next to her.
Posy turned the heating up. “Your call was a surprise. We weren’t expecting you for another week.”
“Thanks for coming at short notice. Were you in the middle of something?”
“As it happens, I was in bed with a tall, dark, handsome man having the best sex of my life. But I forgive you.”
Beth laughed. “You’re so funny.”
What did it say about her life that her sister assumed she’d made a joke?
Was her life really so boring and predictable that it was impossible for her family to envisage her ever having an active sex life?
“Actually, I really was—”
“Feeding the chickens. I know. You don’t have to sex up your life for me. I happen to know there are no tall, dark, handsome strangers in Glensay.” Beth yawned. “I’m relieved you weren’t out on a rescue. I was worried you might be. You’re a great sister.”
“I know. I’m the best.” Maybe this wasn’t the right moment to mention Luke anyway. Posy wanted Beth to do the talking. “Everything okay?”
“Never better.” Beth giggled and tried in vain to fasten her seat belt.
Frowning, Posy took over. “Bethany McBride Butler, are you drunk?”
“No. It takes more than a few glasses of champagne to get me drunk.”
“A few?” Posy fastened her own seat belt, ignoring the repeated blare of the horn from the car behind her. “How many is ‘a few’?”
“I lost count. Who is going to turn down free champagne? You’d better get out of here before you become a victim of road rage. That guy behind looks as if he’s about to have a heart attack.”
“That’s what happens when you become emotionally attached to a parking space. You didn’t bring the children?”
“If I’d brought the children, would I be sitting here on my own now? You think I abandoned them in lost luggage? For once in my life, I traveled light. No kids. No bags.”
Posy proceeded with caution. “You decided to come home early for Christmas?”
“That’s right. And the airline upgraded me. I felt like Hannah. Do you have any idea how civilized it is?” Beth’s eyes were still closed. “Movies, reclining seat, a screen between me and the rest of the world, and people asking me whether they can get me anything. That never happens. I’m the one that gets things for other people and there is never a screen between me and anybody. For the first time in seven years, I used the bathroom without someone hammering on the door wanting my attention. I got to eat chocolate without having to share it.”
Posy deduced that there was more to Beth’s early arrival than a desire to spend quality time with her family. “Well, you’re sharing a bathroom with Hannah this Christmas, so you can expect a lot of hammering if you’re in there for too long.”
Beth didn’t open her eyes. “She’ll cancel. She always cancels. Dinner, Hannah? Sorry, I have to cancel. Spend the weekend? I’m overwhelmed with work. Visit your
nieces? Oh wait, sorry, can’t make it.”
Posy thought about the time their mother had spent in the kitchen. “If she cancels, I’ll kill her.”
“Maybe it would be better if she did cancel. At least I wouldn’t have to spend the whole time telling the kids to be quiet.”
“Why would you do that? It’s Christmas. Overexcited kids is part of the fun.”
“Hannah doesn’t like my girls.”
Posy was startled. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Ignore me. I don’t suppose there is any chance I could stay with you instead of being in the lodge?”
Posy thought about Luke. “No chance at all.”
“Thanks. I love you, too.”
“It’s nothing to do with not loving you, and everything to do with the fact that I live in the hayloft. It’s not exactly a family-friendly space. There’s only one bed and I’m in it.”
She didn’t bother adding that her bed had seen a lot of action lately.
“Hannah won’t be home until the last minute, so I’ll have the bathroom to myself for a while. I need my own bed,” Beth said. “And I’m going to sleep in the middle of it, alone. No more getting up to Ruby in the night while Jason snores next to me. No more broken nights. No more early mornings. For the next week, it’s all about me.”
Posy felt a flash of alarm. Beth was starting to sound like Hannah, and there was no way she was going to be able to handle two Hannahs over Christmas.
She pulled into the flow of traffic and headed out of the airport. The place was busy, but in a week’s time it would be busier still as more people arrived home for the holidays.
She waited until they were on a straight stretch of road to continue the conversation.
“What is going on, Beth?”
Beth shook her head. “I do not have to answer that.”
“You called me in the middle of the afternoon using a secret code we haven’t used since we were teenagers and begged for an airport extraction without Mom knowing. The least you can do is give me an explanation.”
“Can it wait? And can you slow down? I don’t feel so good.”
“That’s what happens when you consume your body weight in champagne.”
“If you’re going to be judgy, I’ll be forced to point out that the last time we used the secret code was on your seventeenth birthday when you drank so much you couldn’t walk home and I had to sneak you past Dad.”
Posy grinned. “I remember that. I’m not being judgy, but I am going to stop somewhere and pour black coffee into you. I can’t let Mom and Dad see you like this. And while I do that, you can tell me what’s going on.” They were now a distance from the airport and the road had narrowed. Snow lay in banks at the side of the road and Posy slowed her pace. The surface was icy and she wasn’t sure when it had last been gritted.
“I’ve left Jason—that’s what’s going on.”
Posy managed to stop herself swerving across the road. “For a moment there I thought you said you left Jason.”
“That’s what I said.”
“But you’re drunk, so you’re not yourself.”
“I don’t know who I am anymore. Am I Beth McBride, lipstick queen, or am I Beth Butler, wife and mother?”
Posy was starting to think this conversation was too complicated for the road conditions. “Can’t you be both?”
“Apparently not. According to Jason, I’m supposed to devote my life to the sheer pleasure that is motherhood. I used to be a highflier, but I crash-landed a long time ago and no one has noticed the wreckage.”
Okay, enough!
They were driving through a village and Posy checked her mirror and pulled sharply into a parking space while Beth clutched her seat for balance.
“Whatever you’re doing, could you do it less violently? My stomach just traveled around my body at supersonic speed. What are you doing?”
“I’m stopping to pour some coffee into my drunk sister so we can have a proper conversation.”
“I am not drunk. And I don’t want to stop here. It looks sad and miserable.” She peered out of the window. “Where are we?”
“A place where no one knows us. A place where the fact that you’re drunk won’t have reached Mom by breakfast.”
“I want to go home. I need cheering up and this place looks depressing.” Beth’s voice wavered. “Can’t we go to the Glensay Inn? It’s tradition. Lunch in the café, dinner at the pub. I want to sit by a cozy log fire and chat about everything under the sun like we did in the old days. I want to see Geoff and everyone I know.”
Posy didn’t want to chat about everything under the sun. She wanted to chat about why her sister was home early, and on her own. And she didn’t want to see Geoff or anyone else she knew. She hadn’t been back to the Glensay Inn since she’d kissed Luke in public. She wasn’t ready to deal with the fallout.
Still, she was going to have to brave the locals at some point, so it might as well be with her sister by her side.
As anticipated, she walked into the welcoming warmth of the pub to cheers and catcalls. There were at least five members of the mountain rescue team leaning on the bar, and the way they grinned at her told her that word had spread as efficiently as ever.
Maybe kissing Luke in public hadn’t been such a good idea. On the other hand, it was nothing compared to what they’d been doing in private.
Thinking about it made her smile.
Beth smiled, too, although for different reasons. “I didn’t expect this kind of reception. It’s good to be home. You’re lucky to live here, doing what you love among all these people who care about you.”
And gossip about you. And wink at you. And tease you until you’re ready to punch them.
“Sit down.” Braving it out, Posy bundled her sister to the same table she and Luke had sat at a few nights earlier.
The smell of wood smoke mingled with the oaky notes of whiskey. Turned out it was tasting night at the inn, and the local distillery had brought bottles for the locals to try and hopefully buy.
Posy had already bought a bottle for her dad. Not the most imaginative gift, but she knew he’d like it.
“They have a Christmas tree!” Beth sank into a chair and gazed at the shimmer of lights on the tree. “I love Christmas.”
It was Geoff’s night off and his son, Aidan, strolled over from the bar. “Good to see you home, Beth.” He bent and kissed her on the cheek. He had an unruly mop of dark hair and was famous locally for having won a haggis eating competition at the local Highland games. “How are the kids?”
Tears bloomed in Beth’s eyes. “They’re great. They’re not with me right now, and I’m already missing them, which makes no sense because—”
“We’ll have strong coffee, please, Aidan.” Posy was wishing she’d stopped at the soulless roadside café instead.
“I’d like wine,” Beth said. “A very large glass of chilled white. Maybe a sauvignon blanc. Or do you think we should be extravagant and order champagne?”
“No champagne and no white, chilled or otherwise.” Posy peeled off her coat. She couldn’t remember ever seeing her sister like this before. “Coffee. Strong. Large. And something to eat.”
Aidan waited. “I could bring you a menu, but there’s not much point, since you already know what’s on it.”
“Isn’t that great?” Beth gave a wavering smile. “We don’t even have to look at the menu. I love the tree, by the way. Tell Geoff the only thing that’s missing is mistletoe.”
“Your sister seemed to do all right without it the other night.” Aidan winked at Posy, who kept her expression deadpan.
“We’ll have two burgers, thanks, Aidan.”
“Coming right up.” He looked at Beth. “And you don’t eat tomato, is that right?”
“That’s right. Oh, Aidan—” she st
ood up and flung her arms round him “—I love that you know that about me, and I love being home.”
Aidan looked nervous as he patted her on the back. He had a cute lopsided smile that ensured he was never short of female company. “Right. Well, customer satisfaction is important to us, so that’s great. Always good to see you, Beth.” He retreated to the kitchen, no doubt to tell someone that strange things were happening to the McBride sisters.
Beth plopped back into her chair. “Don’t you love the fact that everyone knows everything about you?”
“No. It drives me insane.” Posy was starting to wish she’d ordered something other than coffee. Would it be hypocritical for her to order a beer while she poured coffee down her sister?
“What did he mean about you doing all right without mistletoe?”
“No idea.” She watched as Rory Wilson, the training officer for the team, detached himself from the others and strolled across to her. He greeted Beth warmly and then slapped Posy on the shoulder. “I hear you’ve discovered America.”
“Very funny. I’m catching up with my long-lost sister, Rory, so I’ll see you at training next week.”
“I hope you have the energy to attend.”
Definitely a mistake to kiss Luke in the Glensay Inn.
She didn’t want gossip to spoil what they had. On the other hand, she wasn’t sure exactly what they did have. Was it just sex for Luke? Or was it more than sex? Was it going somewhere, or nowhere?
“I have plenty of energy. And you can tell the guys to calm it down because I’m getting annoyed, and I’m dangerous when I’m annoyed. Also, Bonnie tends to bite people who irritate me.”
“We’re happy for you. It’s past time you met someone.” He rejoined the group at the bar and Beth focused on her.
“You met someone?”
Posy leaned forward. “Tell me about Jason. What’s he done?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t travel without two suitcases for no reason. There must have been something.”
“Nothing. That’s why I left.”