Highland Heart

by Emma Baird

  “Gotta go! See you soon.”

  She dashed from the van, hastily retrieving her coat and scarf from where they’d landed earlier, Zac’s cries of “Katya, wait!” unheeded.

  It was a close call, but she made it back to the flat just in time. Up came the burger and the chocolate, far less appetising second time round. Pale and shaky, she let herself out of the bathroom and flopped on her bed.

  You ought to know better—sensible Katya sounded stern. She was right. If someone who hadn’t eaten meat for years wolfed down a burger in record quick time on top of booze-laden chocolate, what did they expect? At least this time, she had not thrown up in front of the man she was with. Or a whole crowd of people either.

  Her phone bleeped. Zac. “Are you okay?” And then another. Madeline.

  “Thanks for that skincare guide you wrote. Blissful Beauty loved it. How are you, anyway?”

  The brandy must still be in her system. Otherwise, why type out a long and detailed reply where you told a super-professional, high-achieving woman you aspired to be the truth?

  “Sick. Compromised by something I know about that the villagers don’t.”

  “Seafood poisoning?” the reply asked. “It’s nasty.”

  “No, not that,” although even thinking about what had happened with Dexter in that fancy hotel made her nauseous once more. And because further explanation was needed, she ended up telling Madeline everything. Zac, who’d flirted with her from the outset. Zac, who hadn’t admitted to having been married until she pushed him on it. Zac, who hadn’t told the truth about what he planned. Zac, who...

  “...I find madly attractive, and I’m so flattered by the attention. I dated a workaholic previously who had no time for me, even though I still miss him like mad now, but I’m desperate to have a normal relationship where we live near each other, see each other all the time, go out together and all the other ordinary things.”

  “Tough call,” the reply came back, “but trust is mega important. You deserve an amazing guy—do you think Zac is the right one?”

  No, yes, no? Yes, yes, yes.

  She sent thanks for the advice, put her phone down and headed out for a walk, hoping the fresh air would clear her head. She met a tearful Gaby, bag in hand.

  “It’s not the same going into Jamal’s store,” she said, “now that I don’t need to buy any f-f-food for M-M-Mena.”

  Katya hugged her. Two white vans sailed past them. Katya recognised them as the ones that had been parked outside the Royal George earlier that morning. As both advertised their building and repair services on their sides, it must be blatantly obvious where they’d been and what they had been doing. Luckily, Gaby didn’t seem to notice them.

  “So... the Oban trip? Jack says we should set off as soon as Mhari finishes work on Friday—4 p.m. Is that okay?”

  The unasked question—and will Zac be coming?

  NSFW. The perfect match, according to the stars. Flatteringly persistent. Definitely about to be divorced. In the here and now. Hadn’t the universe given her enough signs? Time to move on.

  “Great,” she said. “I’ll ask Zac if he’s free.”

  The smile lit up Gaby’s face. Her best friend was ridiculously easy to please. “Fab. We’ll have a brilliant time, promise.”

  Watching her go, Katya took her phone out. She sent Zac a message, his acceptance of the invitation coming back flatteringly fast.

  “God, YES. I can’t wait to...”

  The rest of his reply made her blush to the roots of her hair. She’d set something in motion. Fingers crossed Zac proved to be worth it.

  CHAPTER 25

  When Friday arrived, the mini-bus turned up outside the flat just after quarter past four, beeping its horn. Katya and Mhari grabbed their rucksacks and headed out. Everyone else was there, Gaby waving enthusiastically from the front and Jolene making those meant to be discreet and never were gestures pointing behind her where Zac was.

  Katya sat down next to him, the mini-bus’s wide, velvet covered seats much more comfortable than those bus and coach journeys usually supplied. Stewart, armed with a huge cool-bag, passed out cans of lager. Zac took one and popped the tab, passing it to Katya. He didn’t take another one, to her relief. It would be a long enough night anyway.

  “What music do you want?” Jack asked, and seven different suggestions were offered and argued over. Gaby suggested a sing-along, which was met with derision, while Stewart argued for an obscure metal band no one had heard of. In the end, Jack tuned into Radio 1 and Scott Mills’ run-down of the charts.

  The pulse and beat of the dance tune at number thirty did funny things to Katya’s body—throbbing and pulsating music that originated in her solar plexus and spread throughout.

  “We won’t be dancing to these later,” she said, and Zac smiled. “No.” He shifted himself so he could move closer to her. She’d sat beside him so often now. Waiting for planes, on planes, in pubs, around dining tables and in meetings. Tonight, they’d dance together. A first. The night promised possibilities that made her shiver in anticipation.

  “How did the photos work out? Where will you be using them?”

  “Fine—you looked beautiful. Look.”

  He took out his phone and brought the picture up, zooming in to frame her face.

  Goodness, it was... revealing. The picture expertly conveyed greed, gluttony, want, desire and more. The old marketing cliché, sex sells. She pinched her fingers together, shrinking the photo back so she could see him too. The message already loud and clear, doubled. In the picture, adoration shone from Zac’s eyes.

  “So, Lochalshie... Do you see yourself staying for a while?”

  Her ‘yes’ was hesitant, but when she said it, he squeezed her thigh. “Good. If you're here, living miles from anywhere will be much better.”

  Zac’s phone bleeped again, as it had been doing repeatedly ever since they’d pulled out of the village.

  “Do you need to answer that?” she asked, remembering Gaby’s point about phone calls he took in secrecy. He took it out of his pocket, glanced at it and shoved it back in.

  “No need. I’m on holiday as of now. Back to you and me and the end of this evening. What do you think will happen?”

  He’d dropped his voice but Katya sensed five people in front of them ear-wigging.

  “Depends on what kind of dancer you are,” she whispered back. “How a guy dances often tells a girl everything she needs to know.”

  “Aye, that’s true,” came a shout from the front. Mhari and her bionic ears. “Ask Jolene. She and Stewart first got together after the time we held a Valentine’s Day dance in the village hall.”

  Gaby turned in her seat so she could catch Katya’s eye and the two of them exchanged disbelieving stares. The question they always asked themselves: what did Jolene see in Stewart? Gaby had once speculated he must be dynamite in bed and they both pulled faces. Maybe she had been right all along.

  “I’m brilliant,” Zac said, grinning. “At dancing, that is.”

  Back to the hyper-confident flirty Zac, who made every sentence sound filthy. He let his forearm rest along her thigh. That hand burned red hot and reminded Katya of Psychic Josie’s daft flame ratings for compatibility. The heat was literal, then.

  By the time the bus arrived in Oban, everyone bar Jack as driver and the four-months-pregnant Jolene was tipsy. Katya and Zac hadn’t shared more than two cans, but the label revealed the alcohol content to be much higher than standard lager. And there had been a few too many toasts to Scotland which Katya, Gaby and Zac as incomers felt duty-bound to acknowledge.

  Jack parked the mini-bus in the town’s car park. As Jack had booked the restaurant for 6 p.m. and the ceilidh started an hour and a half later, they had no time to drop the bags off at the house. The group followed him to the restaurant on the town’s high street, its large front window looking out to the water. It was done out in different shades of blue with wooden panelling. A sign advertised it as Scotland’
s Best Fish and Chips three years in a row.

  “That was five years ago,” Zac pointed out, but the tang of chips and malt vinegar scented the air all around and the queue for takeaway snaked down the street and around the corner. The accolade must still count. Inside, the tourism people had reserved the party a long narrow table at the front. Dim lighting and candles added ambience, and a woman came forward to take their coats, expressing huge thanks to them for coming all this way.

  Zac took the seat opposite Katya, his knees knocking against hers. Candlelight added sharp planes to his face, turning him from attractive to knock-out gorgeous. Katya felt her groin tighten in response.

  “Anything to drink?” Another too-cheery waitress handed out menus, superfluous for most customers. Who needed choice in a fish and chip restaurant? Katya requested a diet coke at the same time as Zac asked for two bottles of white wine on the wine list, promising everyone it was an “out of the world variety that will blow your minds.”

  Food ordered, and to Katya’s astonishment the restaurant included a decent-sounding vegan option, Zac poured everyone drinks. He managed not to object when Stewart took the still half-full bottle from him and emptied it into a pint glass.

  “Cheers!” Gaby said, raising her glass. “Here’s to the memory of my wonderful little cat and ventures new in Oban.”

  “To Mena and adventures new in Oban!”

  Zac, Katya noticed, only joined in the bit about adventures.

  “Whatever form those adventures in Oban might take!” Gaby added. Everyone looked at Katya and Zac and echoed her words once more. Zac tapped his glass against hers and blew her a kiss, which got them a chorus of ‘aah’s.

  She was half-way through her food—the fish bit made from pressed tofu wrapped in nori seaweed sheets coated in beer batter, and convincing—when Zac’s foot touched her calf. He was busy talking to Jolene next to him about New Zealand and a holiday he had there years ago, but he’d somehow managed to remove his shoe and the foot edged its way up to her knee.

  Katya hadn’t realised her knees were an erogenous zone, but the foot-stroking made every nerve cell in her body quiver. She gulped down wine, suddenly unable to eat.

  “... yeah, we ended up in Hamilton at one point. Beautiful gardens there, as I remember...”

  He leant back, and the foot landed on her lap, the heel pushing at her crotch. Then, the toes ended up there, and she opened her legs. Zac had remarkable toe dexterity, all of them wriggling independently and pushing at the seam of her jeans so it rubbed up against the sweet spot.

  “... and we did a wine tour of Blenheim. That’s where I picked up a taste for this stuff.” He shoogled his glass and turned his head to look at Katya.

  “What do you think, Katya? Delicious, isn’t it?”

  “Fantastic!” she said, her voice squeaky, which prompted Jolene to ask her if she was all right.

  “Anything wrong, Katya?” Zac chimed in, straight-faced and his upper body still as his foot continued its miraculous movement. Unbelievable. If he didn’t stop soon, she would...

  The urgent telepathic message she signalled, stop it, stop it, it’s too nice, didn’t work. The toes kept going and seconds later, she dropped her head, groaned as quietly as she could, slapping her hand over her mouth and turning it into a not very convincing cough.

  Once again, everyone looked at her. “Are you okay?” Gaby called from her end of the table where she and Jack appeared to be locked in a battle of who ate whose remaining chips.

  “Fine, fine,” she said. “Food went down the wrong way.”

  Zac reached for her glass, smirk in place. “Here, take a mouthful of this. Climax in a bottle, I reckon.”

  Not safe for work indeed.

  Stewart, now on his second pint of the stuff, nodded. “Too right. I dinnae usually like wine, but this is no’ bad at all.”

  The food finished and the restaurant owner waving aside contributions to the bill even though the wine had been the priciest one on the list, Jack said they needed to get to the ceilidh, which was taking place in the town hall on Dunollie Road.

  Outside, the night had turned bitterly cold. Katya dropped back and Zac joined her.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” she asked, “and thanks a bundle for embarrassing me in public.”

  He huddled in closer to her. “Oh, it’s a public-school trick. I was at a mixed-sex boarding school and they closely supervised us all the time so you had to come up with sneaky ways to do things.”

  He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Wait till you find out what I can do with my tongue.”

  Lord. She took his hand in hers, enjoying the roughness of it and imagining how his fingers and palms might feel rubbing over the more delicate bits of her. Whatever the sleeping arrangements were in the house Jack had booked, she hoped there was an out-of-the-way bedroom they could claim once the dance was over.

  Ahead of them, the rest of the party had reached the town hall. Light flooded out the front, picking out plenty of people coming and going, and pipes sounded. Inside, the woman at the front desk waved them through without paying once again and pointed at the stairs.

  The place heaved and the band, all dressed in kilts, was just visible on the stage over the top of heads crammed together. The air reeked of alcohol, perfume and sweat. A woman, also in a kilt, barked instructions that were only just audible above the whiny nasal drone of pipes. Gaby had promised Katya pipes were an acquired taste, but when you got it the sound sent shivers down your spine. Katya resisted the impulse to plug her fingers in her ears. She was yet to be convinced.

  At last the dance they’d stumbled upon ended and people moved from the main floor to the sides. She was shoved back against Zac, and his hands burrowed under her top, warm, rough skin scratchy against her waist. She wriggled her hand behind him about to sneakily undo his zip and return the favour he’d done her earlier, when the music started up again.

  “Eight-some reel,” Jack said. “We’ll find a stray body to make up the eight.”

  And that was that. Katya whirled everyone in the set round and regretted the beers, the wine and the too-big portion of chips. When Stewart—who proved to be an amazing dancer and once more Gaby and she exchanged stares at that—was flung too hard across the room by Jolene and fell flat on his face in the middle of someone else’s eight-some, hysteria ensued.

  Dance followed dance. None of them complicated, but with so many about turns, romping up and down and circling around, Katya ended up hopelessly muddled. Gaby threw herself enthusiastically into each new dance, getting every step wrong and falling over. Mhari—sensible woman—sat most of the dances out, too entranced by whatever was on her phone.

  Zac managed each dance flawlessly. He glided through them, never mixing up left or right and steering her to ensure she didn’t go too wrong.

  At least the energetic moves detoxed her. By the end of the evening, she was stone cold sober once more and knackered.

  “Right,” Jack said. “Let’s see what the house is like. I hope it’s got plenty of bedrooms.” Gaby held a hand up, the first two fingers crossed.

  “Let’s bag the biggest one,” Zac whispered in her ear. “This house better have great sound-proofing otherwise your friends won't get much sleep.”

  Katya stifled her inner old lady—the one who begged, I just want to collapse on a bed and sleep for a week.

  The streets were busy, the ceilidh attendees heading back to their homes and too-loud conversations all around them. The Edwardian townhouse, Jack said, had been done up, so it had all mod cons—central heating, power showers, fridges with ice makers and Wi-Fi. The central heating news was welcome. Away from the muggy heat of the hall, the wind coming off the water blew straight through Katya. Would she ever get used to the Scottish climate?

  Key retrieved from under the plant pot at the back of the house, Jack opened the door to the house.

  “I’ll just check the bedroom situation,” he said, sprinting up the stairs at the
back of the hallway. Katya snuggled up to Zac once more. Everyone else now seemed to accept them as an item. Perhaps even Katya herself. Move on, Katya, for heaven’s sakes. Dexter is long gone.

  Zac rested his head on her shoulder and Mhari held her phone up. “I’ll take a pic of you for the WhatsApp group. You look cute.”

  Her camera flashed and everyone’s phone pinged with the update.

  Jack trotted back down the stairs, the smile he wore sheepish.

  “Er... I think there’s been a mix-up,” he said. “There’s only one bedroom.”

  “Whaaat?” Jolene and Zac synced their replies.

  “I’m sleeping for two,” Jolene said. “I need a bed.”

  Jack nodded. “Aye, fair enough. Does everyone agree?”

  As Zac started to say something. Katya stood on his toes. They couldn’t take the bedroom from a pregnant woman.

  “What is up there?” Gaby asked.

  “A huge bedroom—double bed and two couches so four people could go in there. And the living room looks okay.”

  He pushed open the door of a room to his right. It had two sofas and two big armchairs, all of which looked comfortable. Except that three people would be in there. Zac might not mind performing clever tricks under a table, but Katya drew the line at attempting anything covert while Mhari was in the room. Her flatmate would know, film them secretly and share it with the WhatsApp group.

  A discussion ensued, where everyone agreed Jolene and Stewart got the bed, Gaby and Jack took the sofas in the same room, and Zac, Mhari and Katya fought it out for the most comfortable options downstairs.

  Gaby shrugged apologetically at Katya and headed up the stairs with Jack, followed by Jolene snapping grumpily at Stewart who was so drunk his eyes crossed and he had difficulty putting one foot in front of the other. Katya guessed he would snore like a walrus. Downstairs might not be so bad after all.

  Mhari rustled around in her bag, pulling out several bars of chocolate. “Want one?” she asked. As Zac and Katya nodded agreement and reached forward to take her offerings, she handed them over and darted into the living room, plonking herself down on one of the sofas. Neat. They were big enough for one person to stretch out. Two would push it.