Highland Heart

by Emma Baird

  “Have you asked him?” Jack said, plonking a full-to-the-brim mug of coffee in front of her and his girlfriend. He’d added a cute stencil to the top, a leaf floating on the foam.

  “He should have told me!” she said. “It’s a biggie, isn’t it? ‘I am married’, or ‘I was married but now I’m divorced.’ And even if he is divorced, it is still worth mentioning.”

  “Totally!” Gaby cried, backing her up. “Why do men not tell you things so then you...”

  “Second-guess their every move because you haven’t asked outright, make up your own reasons for them and then get upset about it?” Jack sipped his coffee and pretended innocence. Gaby had made all sorts of assumptions about Jack before they got together—the main one that he was hung up on his ex because he held on to a painting of her. The real reason? He’d painted it. He was proud of it. End of.

  “Oh, you!” she said, mock-slapping him on the knee. “It’s a fair question, though, Katya. Why not ask Zac outright? If he turns out to be a lying toe-rag, we’ll all hate him and find you someone else. Won’t we, Jack?”

  Jack looked as if he’d rather have teeth drawn than do any more Gaby-imposed matchmaking, but he nodded anyway.

  “Back to the Oban ceilidh trip, then!” Gaby said. “Do we invite Zac or don’t we? Remember, this is a serious cheer-up Gaby mission. If my best friend comes along with a lovely man in tow, my cheeriness levels will skyrocket.”

  Katya reached for the last remaining bit of shortbread, promising herself she would get up as soon as it was light the next day and run around the loch twice to compensate.

  “Can I think about it?” she said. “I haven’t decided if I like or trust him enough yet.”

  “Of course,” Gaby replied, her expression too earnest. Whether Katya liked it or not, she suspected an invitation would wing its way to Zac, anyway. After that, it was up to Katya to decide if she wanted to take advantage or not.

  CHAPTER 22

  Outside Zac’s house, Katya stopped in front of Lois and Angeline’s huge silver Land Rover that hogged half the pavement and a good bit of the road.

  A tourist or someone from out of town driving far too fast down a narrow road... Weren’t the best candidates witches one and two? She bent down to inspect the bull bar for stray spots of blood or fur. Nothing, but who was to say they hadn’t wiped it clean afterwards?

  “What are you doing?” Zac inquiry was mild. She stood up too quickly, the move bringing her so close to him she felt his breath tickling her cheek. His fingers brushed her arm. And even if it wasn’t bare, the touch burned. Physical attraction overrode many logical objections to a person. It made your body scream, I do not care in the slightest. Even when plenty of gigantic reasons said she should.

  “I thought I’d dropped something.”

  He crouched to the ground, inspecting the tarmac. “What was it?”

  “Nothing. I found it. Anyway, did you hear what happened last night?”

  He got up again, shaking his head. When Katya told him, he murmured, “Poor Gaby,” but there was no substance behind it. Not an animal lover, then. Though to be fair, Katya wouldn’t have counted herself or Gaby as cat lovers this time last year. A lot could change.

  He rocked on his heels—a man steeling himself to say something. Katya got in first.

  “What might have happened last night if your Fairy Godmothers hadn’t turned up?”

  “After the quiz ended, I would have done my best to persuade you I’m an okay guy.”

  He said it straight up—no banter, no flirting, no over-the-top cocky confidence.

  “Maybe I might have been persuaded,” she replied, thrilled that his eyes lit up when she said it.

  He started to say something else but the door opened, Lois on the threshold, her outfit as outlandish as ever. She wore a golden-yellow fur—Katya hoped it was fake—gilet over skin-tight jeans, a peony pink cashmere jumper, and blingy jangly earrings which definitely weren’t fake.

  “Katya! How lovely to see you. Are you coming in? We adored what you wrote about Zac’s new venture. You made the whole business come alive! I’ll make you a coffee,” she sang out, voice too loud for its surroundings, as usual. “Zac’s got a proper cafetière and a bag of the ground beans too, so none of that ghastly instant stuff.”

  Jamal, owner of the general store and seller of vast quantities of instant coffee, scowled from his position outside the shop where he swept the doorway and set out the newspaper display.

  Better get them inside before Lois made any other gaffs. “Yes please,” she said, “and perhaps you could tell me what makes you and Angeline so fond of visiting Zac here in Lochalshie. I’m dying to know.”

  Lois flashed her a smile. If it was supposed to make her look innocent and straightforward, it was wide of the mark.

  Inside, the house looked far tidier than her last visit—all dirty dishes and mugs cleared away, surfaces gleaming with polish, the laminated floors dust-free, the carpets freshly vacuumed and the place reeking with the clash of plug-in air fresheners and expensive perfumes. Katya stifled back a cough and then sneezed ferociously, anyway; her nose had always been over-sensitive to chemical pong.

  “Bless you, darling! This piece,” Lois waved a sheet of paper in the air—a printout of an article Katya had written about Zac’s new business. “The Sunday Times want to run it in their travel section at some point. And a few specialist food websites have been in touch wanting more detail and some pictures. Marvellous work.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I hadn’t realised when I wrote the article that you planned to use it as a press release?”

  Zac handed her a coffee. Papers on the coffee table caught her eye—a council logo at the top and the words ‘planning application’ there too. Zac spotted her noticing it. He sighed, his eyes flashing first to Lois and then back to Katya.

  Creepy, Katya thought, two people inspecting me so thoroughly, waiting for me to work out...

  Angeline, so far absent, wandered down the staircase that dominated the open-plan house, her outfit as outlandish as the one her business partner wore—a garishly patterned silk wrap, too thin for Scotland in the winter, worn with a pair of fluffy mules. The straight-out-of-bed hair stuck out in tufts at all angles while her eye make-up seeped into each tiny line around her eyes. Seediness personified.

  “What time are we meeting that council officer at the Royal George, Lo-ee-lo?” she asked, stopping at the bottom of the stairs to reach her arms above her and stretch, a move that afforded Katya a glimpse of too much bony chest.

  “Katya!” Angeline blinked a moment later. “Didn’t see you there. How splendid.”

  Things began to stack up. Hammerstone Hotels and their new direction—glamping holidays? Hotels that offered more than sumptuous luxury to the modern, demanding customer? Zac, the man setting up an online business and building relationships with local food suppliers. The as-yet non-existent pop-up food business he promised was not a threat to local business.

  Katya stood up, folding her arms and adopting her best glare, directing it at the man who’d only admitted to a stupid pop-up van.

  “Git,” she mouthed at him. A wasted gesture. He’d decided the floor was terrifically interesting to study. Lois took her seat and sipped coffee, while Angeline leant against the door frame to the kitchen area, both of them watching her.

  “Hammerstone Hotels have bought the Royal George—the other, not-so-popular hotel in Lochalshie,” Katya said, ticking off the points on her fingers. “They plan to turn it into a boutique hotel—whatever that is—specialising in food, retreats, blah, blah, blah. Zac here is your man on the ground and has been busy pretending to the locals he’s here to help them.”

  “He is!”

  “I am!”

  She couldn’t make out whose indignant cry came first.

  “Katya!” Once more, Zac was in front of her, taking her hands.

  “Reinvigorating the Royal George will help Lochalshie, I promise.” Hot hands
gripped hers while wide-spaced big blue eyes fixed on her face. “There will be jobs there and the Royal George’s mission statement is to buy food that comes from a 50-mile radius, so all the local farmers and producers will benefit. Hundreds of people will flock to Lochalshie. They’ll spend money in the general store, they’ll pop into the pharmacy, they’ll...”

  “And the Lochside Welcome?” she snapped. It was the question all the locals would ask.

  “Won’t have anything to fear!” Lois got to her feet, putting a hand on her shoulder. She and Zac had boxed her in. Katya resisted the temptation to shove her elbows back, one thrusting into Lois’s torso and the other into Zac’s.

  “The locals are so loyal,” Angeline added. “And we’re planning boot camps at the George too, so no doubt they’ll get the escapees—the people who can’t cope with a week of hardcore exercise and not much food.”

  Scorn at the idea.

  “Pizza and chocolate cake will be like a red flag to a bull.”

  She chortled. Katya didn’t. Nothing convinced her so far. Hammerstone Hotels had tons of resources at their fingertips, advertising budgets and everything else that could make a hotel in the middle of nowhere succeed. Succeed—and drive out tiny little businesses that didn’t have tons of money to spend on marketing.

  Was the Lochside Welcome’s status as top vegan pizza producer in Scotland and location of a toilet Caitlin Cartier once parked her pert posterior on enough?

  Katya had had enough. “I’m off. Good luck with the hotel. I hope it fails and you tossers go back to London where you belong.”

  It wasn’t her finest line, but the tension she’d been holding since Angeline asked what time they were to meet the council planning officer left her body with the softest pfft. She got to the front door before Zac reached her.

  “Katya, please! I promise we’re not here to decimate local businesses. We can co-exist. The Lochside Welcome can cater for the locals and people doing day trips. It’s a great place for lunch and overnight stays. We’re doing something completely different. I’m sorry I wasn’t upfront with you from the start.”

  “He is!” someone offered from the background.

  Zac rolled his eyes. “They’re too much, I know.”

  He took her hand again, gripping her fingers so tightly her rings dug into the skin. She snatched it away. Hint taken, he backed off, holding his hands out in supplication. “Sorry, sorry! But this is true, I promise.”

  He dropped his voice, leaning closer to murmur the words in her ear. “I don’t want to do anything that makes you dislike me, Katya. You’re amazing.”

  In their short time together, Katya had grown used to Dexter. Hyperbole didn’t excite her. A guy who came out with ‘You’re amazing’ did not guarantee she roll over puppy-style, tummy in the air begging to be stroked. She let the seconds tick by. Zac did too, wise enough to keep silent. Blue eyes met hers. She blinked first.

  “You three will tell the villagers what you are up to and reassure everyone that it won’t harm the village businesses?” she asked, raising her voice so the two witches would hear her. “No bullshit about how you’re just here to source online suppliers or stupid pop-ups?”

  “Yes.”

  Another shout through from the living room. “All in good time. We’ve got community meetings planned to do so.”

  “Are we okay?” Zac whispered.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Katya said. “Goodbye.”

  As she walked past the Lochside Welcome, gales of laughter sounded as the door opened and another smoker let themselves out the door. Saturday evenings were always busy—even in November.

  Nobody would laugh when they heard about the plans for the Royal George. Katya hurried past so no one would catch sight of her coming out of Zac’s. Her head whirled with it all, and despite the temptation to stomp to Gaby’s house and pour it all out, she held back.

  What was she to do about the Oban trip? When Gaby had asked, Katya thought Zac’s secret was his marital or otherwise status. The Royal George business made the situation more complicated. Did she really want to take him along, knowing what she did—her an unwilling co-conspirator in the plans for the hotel?

  As she mulled it over the following day, her phone rang. Zac. Could she come to the Royal George on Wednesday? When Katya asked why, he said he wanted to show her what they were doing there so she could see for herself the plans were no threat to Lochalshie.

  “And there is a pop-up van, I promise. The van was always part of my plans. They’re delivering it then. Please, please, pretty-please? I’ll throw in free food and drink too. I need someone to try my food and tell me if it’s okay.”

  Persuasion, Katya thought, when it was so persistent and delivered in an attractive package, made him difficult to resist. And she’d tried. Where was the harm?

  “Okay—but I want you to tell me the truth. Why you ended up here and everything else. I think you’ve still got stuff to tell me. About your personal life.”

  She heard the pause. Someone who’d worked out what she knew.

  “Yes, Katya. I’ll tell you everything. Promise.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Now Dexter was back in the States, Courtney invited him for Thanksgiving—determined they celebrate this, the most of American of holidays, in style.

  Style meant money—and Courtney had little of it. She’d phoned Dexter two days before listing all the dishes she intended to make and ending with, “Hey, can you pick up the groceries, hon?”

  “No, Courtney. I’ve got work to do. No, Courtney, I already hand over a decent chunk of money every month. Can’t you budget right and find greenbacks that’ll pay for all this instead of asking me again? No, Courtney, I can’t take any time off for Thanksgiving anyway...”

  He said none of it, handing over the list to his temporary marketing assistant, asking her to order all the food from Whole Foods and get it delivered to his sister’s house. She raised her eyebrows. “How many people are you feeding? And I hate pumpkin pie, by the way. You can skip ordering that.”

  Dexter’s new assistant, aka his niece Flower. He’d persuaded Courtney that interning at Blissful Beauty would work wonders for her. Not that Courtney’s opinions swayed Flower. As soon as he’d mentioned it, Flower had jumped on the opportunity and glared at her mother as if daring her to object. She didn’t.

  Flower made an enthusiastic intern, even if she needed close supervision. She’d been desperate to help with the management of Blissful Beauty’s social media accounts—a non-stop deluge of updates and comments the full-time PR team of ten struggled to stay on top of. Her first response to someone who dared to say, “Hey, that glow serum is, like, not that great...” had been along the lines of “Die, bitch die.” It had taken all of Dexter’s considerable persuasion skills to convince Blissful Beauty to keep her on. And Flower that she wasn’t yet ready for social media management.

  Flower worshipped the ground Caitlin walked on. She’d spent much of her first day in his office whipping out a compact mirror every few minutes to check her make-up was perfect. If your hero was famous for her beauty and skincare company, it stood to reason you looked flawless when you met her. When Caitlin came into Dexter’s office, she spotted Flower hovering in the background right away and threw her arms around his niece.

  “Hey you! I’m super stoked you’ve joined the team.” When she stepped back, Dexter noticed Flower trembling. Caitlin peered closely at her.

  “Is that my sequin stars you’re wearing?”

  Blissful Beauty’s latest release was a set of reusable silver stars you could stick on your cheekbones. A smart product choice, as they were perfect for Instagram posts.

  When Flower nodded, Caitlin flung her arms around her once more and ordered Dexter to take their picture. Uploaded onto the social media account, the likes flooded in and Flower found herself followed by people in their thousands. It was, she told Dexter later, “the best, no Uncle Dexter really, the best” day of her life.

  Food
ordered, Flower sat back. “So, is Caitlin gonna come for Thanksgiving?”

  If she did, would that replace their initial meeting as the best day of Flower’s life?

  “Nope,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the imagery the graphic design team had pulled together for the South Korean launch. “You watch her show. You know what she and her family do at Thanksgiving.”

  True. The day before Thanksgiving, the Cartier clan piled into their ginormous vehicles and drove to the hills where they owned a large, sprawling villa complete with a basketball court, swimming pool, outdoor bar, indoor cinema and endless rooms. Mom, step-dad, sisters, husbands, boyfriends, kids and various hangers-on congregated and drama—often manufactured for the cameras—ensued. Last year, Caitlin had pushed one of her drunk brothers-in-law into the pool. He couldn’t swim.

  “Still,” Flower said. “It would be awesome, huh? Have you ever gone to hers for Thanksgiving?”

  When he’d first started working for her, he had, although he and the other Blissful Beauty employees weren’t filmed, considered too dull for the show. He’d found the experience... weird. Just as people tended to be smaller in real life when you met them in the flesh, so too did that villa. The whole place felt plastic-y like a film set. If he pushed a wall with the tip of his fingers would it fall down?

  “No.”

  If he told Flower, she’d hint like mad for him to wangle her an invitation. Knowing Caitlin, she’d say yes straight away and it would suck his niece into the crazy Cartier morass. She was too young for it. Dexter still found the constant scrutiny the Cartiers attracted challenging.

  Take those photos that had appeared online and were then splashed all over the magazines.

  How did people live like that all the time? He told himself Katya wouldn’t have seen them. As far as he knew she didn’t subscribe to any of the celebrity gossip sites. Or read the trashy magazines, because they offended her feminist principles thanks to their obsession with women’s appearances. Still, a friend of hers might and have pointed them out to her. And much as he couldn’t bear to hurt her it wasn’t his concern anymore, was it?