Her Scottish Mistake (A Perfect Escape)

by Michele De Winton

  “You did. And I was grateful for that, still am. But the press always need something to write about. If you let them make it be you, they will.”

  It was obvious when he said it like that. “And here I was thinking I was living my life, pushing myself to be the character they wanted, to be the Scottish hero, when all along I should have left it up to you.”

  Hamish laughed. “And how would that have turned out? Jesus, we would have both been in an early grave if you’d left it up to me. You know I know what you’ve done for me, right? That I’ll never be able to repay you even half of it?”

  “You would if you stopped being such a twat with money.”

  “Oy. Here I am, laying out my emotional best for you and you call me a twat.” But Blaine could hear the laughter not far away from Hamish’s voice. His shoulders finally released and he fell back against the cushions of the sofa, letting the warm Thailand sun stream through the window on his face.

  “So what’s the deal with snake girl?”

  “There is no deal.”

  “You sure about that? Stephanie just sent me a clip of her doing her snake thing to the horde of press. Impressive.”

  “She was, wasn’t she?” A piece of Blaine’s heart cracked and fell into the pile of deadweight churning in his stomach.

  “There it is.”

  “There what is?”

  “The lilt in your voice that says there’s still something there. You’ll have to sit down with Stephanie and work something out first, get the timing right so she looks like the hero, but I reckon she’ll be okay with you going after snake girl.”

  Blaine’s head just about exploded.

  “Come on, if it doesn’t work out, too bad. But you don’t have to worry about me for a change. I’m on the wagon. I’ve got a job, for now. So do it. Take the risk, but because it’s something you want, not something you think you should do.”

  “Okay, who are you and what have you done with Hamish?”

  “Suck it up man. Go after her.”

  “Yeah, right. Because that’s going to be so easy.”

  He could almost hear his brother shrugging on the other end of the phone. “Or don’t go after her, but don’t come running to me all heartbroken and pathetic. You’ll drive me to drink. Again.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Blaine felt the sinking feeling settling in his stomach with everything else as he hung up but made himself stay sitting while his head caught up with what his brother had said. He was free from Stephanie, free from the mess his brother had landed him in. He should feel lighter. Hell, he should be fucking levitating, but he wasn’t sure he knew what to do with the freedom after all this time. And? And the only person he could imagine sharing his new found liberty with had just told him to get the hell out of her life. Period. It was easy for his brother to tell him to go after her; he hadn’t seen the cold look she’d given him when she’d delivered her final tirade to the press. He’d already done enough to Janie Milan; she deserved better.

  …

  The next week was a blur of avoiding reporters on cold Scottish streets and PR meetings trying to rein in the damage the tabloids had tried to rain down on his career. But Janie had been pretty close when she picked that there might be a silver lining in her outburst. He had been scheduled to appear at a rescue animal shelter and the writers on The Highlander’s Cure had written in a new scene with him and an adder. It was meaty too, something he should have been looking forward to working on. Yet every morning when his eyelids flickered open the first thing he did was roll over to check in with the woman next to him. Only there was no woman. No Janie. No warm body, no bright laugh, no golden eyes gazing at him as if they could see right into the depths of his soul and didn’t find it wanting.

  Because that’s what she’d done of course. For the first time, someone other than his brother had taken him at face value. Hadn’t wanted anything else from him other than his conversation and companionship.

  His thoughts strayed to the way she’d made his body sing as well as his mind. Okay, so it wasn’t all quite as PG-rated as conversation and companionship, but everything they’d had together had been tangible, tasteable, real.

  He pulled up her blog on his phone and scanned through her recent posts. Rereading her words, he could hear her voice. Feel her gaze on his body. And then when he shut off the screen, the emptiness of his house echoed around him. It was quiet. Too quiet in his life without her. “Shit, man. You need to stop this,” he said out loud to try to break the crushing silence.

  He dialed his brother’s number to get his head out of his arse. He complained about the weather and the press for a bit, but before he could really get going his brother cut him off. “I thought I told you not to call me when you were all heartbroken and pathetic.”

  “I’m not pathetic.”

  “How much of that peppermint ice cream is still in your freezer?”

  Blaine felt the smile trying its best to tug at his lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Bollocks you don’t. I saw that giant tub in there on the weekend. And I figure you only eat that crap when you don’t know your arse from your elbow. If your lady fans could see the pansy-arse softy you really are they’d be running away in droves. Probably to my house, given I’m the real man in our family. Och, man, you’re worse than a weepy chick flick on a rainy day.”

  Blaine snorted. “Well, fuck. My world exploded.”

  His brother’s voice softened. “It did, but it’s not all that bad. You’re not me. You can fix this. You just have to get your shit together before it’s too late.”

  “You think I can?”

  “Oh fuck off. Who are you and what have you done with my take-’em-by-the-bollocks brother? Come on, man. Give it a try or fall on your sword, but for fuck’s sake get over yourself, it’s embarrassing.” He rung off and Blaine looked at the phone in his hand. Go after Janie? Could he? Should he?

  First things first, he flicked through his contacts and dialed Stephanie’s number. Time to see what the future might hold.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There weren’t any more tears left to cry. Janie tried to squeeze a few out to check, but nope, her tear ducts were as dried up as a crocodile’s in a ditch during summer. She looked out the taxi window at the mess of Bangkok and shook her head to clear it. She was going to make the most of her last three days in Thailand even if it turned her into porridge.

  Porridge. The sigh came from somewhere deep and dark, with the scent of fermented sorrow. Of course Blaine had been too good to be true. And really, what had she been expecting? Apart from anything else, he lived on the other side of the planet. “I wanted him to be real,” she whispered. She heard her aunt Alexia’s voice in her head, if it tastes too good to be true, it’s probably got bacon in it. The laugh came before she could stop it. Blaine Galloway sure was a pound of fatty bacon—well, he was bad for the heart, anyway.

  She closed her eyes a moment trying to will away the image of the email she’d read this morning. A small piece of her had hoped that the photographs wouldn’t get back to Little Acre. Why would they? It was a British paper that had first published them. And Blaine was a Scottish TV name. Surely no one in Texas would care what he was doing, and even less, what his nobody of a nobody playmate was doing with him.

  She’d been wrong.

  Her brother had seen them and had emailed her. Whoever had invented the internet deserved to have their sister splashed all over it without her consent. The email had been curt, but at least it had been short. And thankfully her brother assured her that he would make damn sure that their pop didn’t get a chance to see anything online while there was a chance the images would be live.

  The world was busy; people would find other things to Google soon enough, she reminded herself. Blaine’s words of warning about the press misconstruing her might be right, but she couldn’t let herself get sick with worry about it. If she got slaughtered even more for standing up for herself, so be i
t; she had nothing to lose now.

  Pulling up her blog on her phone, she scanned the number of hits again, two hundred and twenty-six thousand and counting. But it wasn’t the hits that had stood out to her this morning. It was a comment, tucked between the scandalized and titillated barbs at the bottom of the page.

  Hey, sorry that the article kind of exploded like it did. But I could tell you weren’t going to do anything, and that would have been a waste. For you and me. This way we both win. I get my story, and you get one, too. This is your chance to do something. Make the money, live the dream, pet the snake, whatever. Next round of piña coladas is on me. Tina.

  Janie flopped back in her seat. Live the dream, pet the snake. Make the money. With the huge number of hits on her blog had come several offers from advertisers, just like Blaine had predicted. But the likelihood of her doing anything about them felt as far away as Texas at the moment.

  “You want to see holy shrine now? Most tourist lady by themselves want Khao San. Good bargains, shopping, other tourists to be with. But you want shrine. That’s good. Your trip will be blessed. I take you there now, no problem,” said the taxi driver.

  “No, no. Take me to the hotel for now. I don’t need to shop or pray anymore today. Thanks.” Janie wasn’t sure if she would ever go back to her blog. What was she going to write about that people would want to read? Her life as Blaine Galloway’s snake charmer was hardly something she wanted to dwell on. Closing her eyes, she thought back over the amazing places she’d seen that day.

  The Golden Buddha at Wat Pho, and the Grand Palace had been wow. Just. Wow. The image of the five and a half tons of solid gold Buddha would never leave her. The perfect tranquillity on the sculpture’s face; the candles and flowers and rich-smelling offerings spread on every surface; the quiet it inspired in the open-air temple, in direct contrast to the mad, noisy whirl of the rest of the complex.

  Bangkok was everything her guidebook and all the online forums had promised and more. Outside her window was the biggest mess of humanity she thought she’d ever seen. No. There was no need to think about it. It was definitely the biggest mess of humanity ever. On Bangkok’s notorious Khao San Road, men and women of every possible nationality mixed with the local street vendors, avidly bargaining, drinking, eating, and generally watching each other.

  There were two groups. The pasty tourists straight off the plane, wide-eyed and snapping up every “bargain” that came their way. And the tanned young “travelers” who had clearly been in Thailand a while and who were sprawled in the roadside bars, flirting with each other and mostly ignoring the melee that swirled around them.

  A smirk pulled at her lips. She was glad she wasn’t in the former group, and she didn’t see the point of being in the latter. Thailand had so much to offer and she wanted to see it all for herself, not what other tourists thought was the best place for a beer. But out of the mess of humanity and its detritus, she spotted a sign. It was old, but the cobra coiled around the writing was unmistakable. It was a wildlife sanctuary. A rescue spot for rare reptiles that had fallen afoul of humanity. “Hang on a minute.”

  The taxi driver looked in the mirror again and slowed.

  This was Thailand. Land of every kind of creature she could imagine. If she was going to be branded a snake charmer, why not go with it? But not in the sordid way the press had presented her. In the way she felt about it. She’d always wanted to share the excitement animals brought her, and she always compared them to characters in her mind. Just not in front of a live audience, but behind the pages of her blog she could do it. She could stop writing what she thought people wanted her to write about and just write her truth. People, politics, pariahs, and snakes. If the advertisers liked it and she made money, great. If not, never mind.

  This was what her mom had wanted her to do. To find her truth. To enjoy the world in all of its madness. To seek adventure in everything, whether it be in Little Acre or Thailand. “Can you take me there instead?” She pointed to the sign.

  The taxi driver’s face in the rearview mirror looked at her with raised eyebrows. “You wanna see snake? You crazy?”

  “I work with them. They don’t have to be dangerous if you know how to handle them. Heck, they’re much more afraid of us than we are of them.”

  It was as if the air around them had suddenly been infused with extra oxygen. She had nothing left to lose.

  “You know the stuff about snakes improving your sex life is just lies for tourists.”

  Janie burst out laughing. And the final part of her heartbroken shell cracked. The sorrow dissolved and in its place was only anger. Anger at the stupid men she’d let into her life. Anger at herself for allowing them in. And anger that she’d spent so much time thinking about them rather than working out what her own dreams were. Well not anymore.

  Two choices were in front of her: she could let her adventure of a lifetime be soured by McAsshat, or she could embrace all the experiences she’d had so far and build on them. Hell, maybe she would make something out of her blog at long last. “As long as you avoid the snake’s bite you’ll be fine. If you get bitten, keep the poison at bay as long as you can. But that’s the trick. It’s easy to curl up and die if the bite gets to your heart.”

  The taxi driver shook his head. “I thought you were smart lady, but you crazy.”

  “Apparently. Perhaps I’ve been bitten by one too many snakes. And now my heart is hardened.” Janie laughed again, but this time at herself. It was true—she was going to learn from this last heartbreak, not let it ruin her.

  She was bigger than this. Blaine was just a guy, and the press either had no idea where she was or didn’t care anymore. Now that she didn’t care what they said about her, it didn’t matter anyway.

  Images of her pop, her brothers, her aunt Alexia, everyone in town flashed in front of her, a transparent overlay to the erratic mix of Bangkok out the taxi window. Back home everything was going to be the same. Her pop’s tractor shop would still be there. The expectations that she would run it and look after Pop were still there. Janie put a hand to her chest, the feeling of being suffocated creeping over her skin. Everything was the same, but she wasn’t.

  “You still want to go to see snakes?”

  “I still do. All of them. All the snakes and all the mad things. I want to see it all,” she said to the taxi driver.

  She was bigger than Little Acres. Bigger than some TV celebrity. Janie wasn’t sure whether writing the blog was going to make a difference, but she was going to make some changes in her attitude to life anyway. And they were going to start now.

  Chapter Fifteen

  What the hell was he thinking?

  Blaine almost started up the rental car again to back the hell away. But he made himself take his hands off the steering wheel and look at the scene in front of him instead. The flat expanse of Little Acre rolled out all around him. It was just as Janie had described. Beet fields forever and an assortment of buildings scattered around in groups.

  It had taken almost a week to sort things out with Stephanie, but now here he was. Texas. Right in the very heart of it. He got out of the car and walked a short distance. There were tractors out in the fields, smoke coming from a couple of chimneys, an elderly woman not far from him out in her garden on hands and knees, pulling weeds and running small hands over the leaves of her vegetables.

  Most of the buildings needed a fresh coat of paint. But they exuded comfort, of being lived in well, and for a long time. This was a place of families, of old traditions, of community. He could already tell that everything Janie had told him was true. A cold hand of sorrow squeezed his heart, as it always did when he thought about what might have been if the accident hadn’t claimed his parents. But he shook it off. Now was about the future—his future.

  He got to the main street, what there was of it. Counting, there were a dozen shops at most. But there was a nice town square at the end of the street. An ancient tree dripping verdant green leaves in the cent
er, a willow perhaps, with a bunch of seating beneath it and two men playing chess on one of the benches. It was like stepping back in time.

  Blaine almost turned back toward the car, then stopped himself. He had to make this right. He owed it to Janie, to himself, to their future. To a future he wanted to build with her. Because when she’d gone and he was left stuck in his room, hiding out from the press, he’d realized just what a right pile of moldy month-old haggis leftovers he’d been. Especially when the next morning’s article about him had been mostly from an interview with Stephanie, detailing how Blaine had tried to make her have his snake love child. Complete drivel of course. Drivel that was banished to the third page while some other schmuck got splashed on the front page getting his love life torn apart.

  Fame was so fleeting; it could be gone tomorrow. He needed to be bigger than that. Bigger than tabloid stories about his reputation. Bigger than pandering to people like Stephanie. Bigger than being a TV star who everyone only cared about when he took his shirt off. And the key to that, he realized, was to stop caring what everyone thought quite so much. There were plenty of celebrities who faced off with the press and gave them candid comments about their life. Like Janie. But then they backed off. Lived their life well away from the cameras. The way she’d faced up to the press had been amazing. The way she’d smiled, the way she’d looked at him, the way she’d taken everything he’d thrown at her and come out swinging. The way she experienced life was amazing.

  He wanted her in his life. Needed her. If he was honest with himself, he wanted to be more like her. He needed to be more like her if he was going to take himself seriously. That was what had come to him after talking to his brother. What he’d felt for Janie hadn’t just been about the romance of the place. Whether he’d be able to rekindle it and see where it led them was a different matter.

  He kept strolling down the main street, looking for a sign of where Janie might live. Tractor shop, that’s what he needed to find, right? A woman with a baby came to her front door and peered through the screen. What about children? Blaine looked at the child. Maybe? He wanted a future with someone now. And if he could want a partner, perhaps in time he could want a child? One porch-step at a time, Romeo.