‘But, I want to come home, I…’ Every second away from the office felt like another tolling death knell for her career. She’d be forgotten about if she didn’t get there soon. ‘The whisky idea’sgood! Can’t we get Creative working on some mock-ups for the brand collaboration? I can talk with Remy’s about it today if Seamus would just let me. I know they’ll like the idea of an exclusive guest distillery in their bars, especially if we get the look right…’
‘Nina, Seamus doesn’t want you approaching Remy’s or anyone else right now. If anyone’s doing that it’ll be Luke or Himari.Theytalk to clients now. You’re the scout, remember? You make first contact, that’s all.’
‘But…’
‘Just be back here in a few weeks and make sure you have some solid ideas. Seamus needs to be wowed if you’re going to get back in his good books, and… between you and me, you don’t want to be here. Luke’s refitting your old office for Himari. You don’t need to see that.’
Nina digested that horrid morsel in silence.
‘Listen, honey, if someone was paying me to make myself scarce on vacation for a while, I’d make the most of it. Do you hear what I’m saying? You’re injured, you’re not allowed to fly anyway, what’s the hurry? Go see some sights, chase some wild haggises – or is it haggi? Toss a few cabers, or whatever it is they do there. Just don’t hurry home yet.’
It had hurt to hear, but there was sense in it. Better to come back all guns blazing in another week or two when she had a stronger portfolio of Scottish products and new connections than limp back into Seamus’s office now with a handful of half-baked plans. And it was better to let herself brood over Luke and Himari from a distance than have her nose rubbed in their whirlwind romance close up.
The thought of them living her old life, of being replaced so easily, gave her a physical pain in her chest that made her wonder if that’s why people call it heartache. Luke had been everything to her until so recently. Her friend, her lover, her home, and her business associate. Now, there was just nothing at all, apart from the shock and the loneliness and the sense of having hit rock bottom somewhere around about the time she was hitting the tarmac on the roadside in the haar. Her humiliation was complete.
She’d been sent away from New York where everyone she knew would be whispering about her and air-kissing Himari, and now she’d made a fool of herself amongst the people of Port Willow too. She’d been stubborn and sullen, demanding and unsatisfied, and her sneaking sense of shame combined with her sense of being unwanted and exiled. She didn’t really belong anywhere, it seemed.
Except here there was a cosy bed, and a chance to prove herself, and good people like Ruth and Beatrice who never walked past her without saying hello and asking how she was. It was a small sense of belonging, she supposed, and so she’d resolved to stay put and let herself recover a little.
The bar room was growing busy as guests piled in for dinner and the locals ordered drinks at the bar. No sign of Mutt again tonight, she noticed. He’d made himself scarce last night after it was decided she’d take Ruth and Mark’s room.
She hadn’t actually thanked Mutt, she realised. Technically, he’d rescued her, though something inside her hated to admit it. The same thing that told her she was supposed to be standing on her own two feet, proving her worth and showing she could make it on her own, in spite of what her colleagues might think of her.
Yet she couldn’t help questioning where she would be now if he hadn’t picked her up. She could have passed out on the roadside and really been in danger. He’d been there right when she needed him.
That’s another thing she had to be grateful to him for. He’d helped her out even though he thought she was some overpaid, overprivileged corporate oik. He’d made assumptions about her that had riled her. He’d teased her and aggravated her. He didn’t like her business ethos, he didn’t approve of her high heels, he thought her insistence on seeking out luxury and scarcity ridiculous and exploitative. Well, he was wrong about all of that.
As she toyed with her soup spoon in the steaming bowl, her curiosity about Mutt grew at the back of her mind, but she didn’t want to think about it, not when she was tired and still a little hungover from the whisky and the fall. Not when there were painkillers numbing all her faculties. Not when she’d liked being held in his arms and carried across the country safe on his passenger seat. Not when she’d worn his fisherman jumper all night long and felt guilty doing so for reasons she also did not want to examine.
She shook her head to clear it and concentrated on feeding herself. She had to build herself back up, find strength from within, not from some brusque, stubbly white knight on his pick-up truck charger who didn’t seem to like her all that much but seemed to keep saving her and made her weaken a little each time she felt him gaze at her through those dark lashes.
‘Uh-uh, nope,’ she said to herself, shaking thoughts of him away, wielding her spoon and looking at the thick golden broth – the kitchen’s own homemade ham hock and celery stock – specked with parsley and bobbing with soft pearl barley and fat peas. It looked wholesome. Just what she needed right now. And it smelled wonderful, salty and savoury.
Her appetite, suppressed years ago, was back with a vengeance. Why did the Highlands do this to her, she wondered? Was it because the air was so fresh and unpolluted that every gorgeous foody aroma and sweet scent off the sea or the landscape went straight to her head in an olfactory assault that left her salivating? Everything here tasted better than anything Luke had ever tried to impress her with back home. All those clean, lean dishes, every healthful, ascetic mouthful, all the skipping meals and never, ever feeling full. It hadn’t been fun, and it hadn’t been worth it.
Beatrice chalked the words ‘sticky toffee pudding with proper custard’ onto the specials board and turned to throw a wink at Nina, making her feel seen and indulged in a way she hadn’t been in years.
Tears wanted to prickle at the back of her eyes, but Nina wouldn’t let them. She grabbed a hunk of buttery loaf and tucked in, the warmth from the fire and the warmth in her belly holding her self-pity at bay, the closest thing to the hug she so desperately needed, and almost as soothing.
As Nina was adjusting her crutches ready to turn in for the evening, now full of broth and sticky toffee pudding and feeling really very satisfied indeed, Beatrice joined her for the walk back to her room.
‘I’ll get the doors for you,’ she told her.
Nina thanked her. It was nice having someone look after her a bit. Beatrice was probably only a few years younger than her mum, though she wouldn’t dream of telling her that.
Beatrice had the look of someone havering to get something off her chest, so she kept quiet and let her find the right moment.
‘Listen, Nina, love,’ the older woman said, as she opened the doors into the reception area for her. ‘Don’t mind Mutt too much. He’s… he’s got his own stuff going on.’
‘Stuff that makes him be rude to women he doesn’t even know?’ Nina knew how that sounded. Sullen. Hypocritical. She felt herself shrink when Beatrice laughed.
‘Well, yes, there’s a little of that in him.’
‘He’s probably never met anyone like me,’ Nina suggested.
‘Well…’ Beatrice screwed up her eyes as though pondering this. ‘It’s just… some people don’t come to the inn for a holiday, or to work in Mutt’s case, or for the food or even for the scenery.’
Now Nina screwed up her face in confusion. ‘They don’t?’
