“Me and my friend. Well, not so much a friend. We know each other from school. Well, I know her sister more.” This was not going according to plan.Focus, Morgan!She shook her head. “I’m going off topic.”
“A little,” Dave agreed with a smile.
“Here’s the thing. My old acquaintance and I met today at the airport, where we were catching a flight to Devon for Christmas. But then, our plane had a fault and it snowed. We hitched a lift this far from Glasgow, but sadly for us, our driver had to turn back due to matters of the heart.” She paused. “And did I mention our baggage is still at the airport?”
“You’ve had quite the day, and it’s only,” he checked his watch, “three o’clock.”
It honestly felt like a year since this morning. “Exactly. We’ve tried hitching, but nobody’s stopping, so I wondered if you would give us a lift. Even to the nearest train station so we could get to Manchester eventually?”
“You don’t want to go back to Glasgow? You’ve not come far, and there are more trains than the local ones around here. Plus, your bags are there.”
Morgan shook her head. “The bags still haven’t been located.” She’d hadn’t received a text as yet. “And honestly, I think we’d rather go south than north. It feels a little more like we’re heading in the right direction, at least.”
He studied her face. “You might be in luck. I’m packing up here in around two hours, and then I’m heading home. And home is half an hour south. If you stick around and help me stash the trees in the lot in around 90 minutes, you can get in with me and I’ll drop you at Lockerbie, which is on the Manchester train route. How does that sound?”
Morgan went to hug him, then remembered she must not come over as a mad woman. She was in control. She was sorting things out. She was a problem-solver supreme.
“It sounds bloody perfect. Thank you, Dave. You don’t know what this means. Let me tell my friend, and we’ll come back.” She shivered, then clapped her hands. “Don’t drive off without us.” Morgan pressed her frozen fingers together, as if in prayer.
“I promise.” He gave her a grin as she left.
Minutes later, Morgan skidded back into the cafe to find Ali on her phone. When she heard her, she looked up.
“You think I should cancel this hire car we have for tomorrow? I don’t want to bugger up someone else’s Christmas travel if we won’t use it.”
Morgan shook her head. “No. Mainly because I’ve solved our travel issues.”
Ali blinked. “This I can’t wait to hear.”
Morgan put her hands on her hips. “You don’t believe me?”
“If you’ve promised me to a sultan in exchange for a car ride, I reserve the right to say no.”
“No sultan, just Dave, who’s selling the Christmas trees. In exchange for a hand putting them under wraps at the end of the day, he’ll drive us to Lockerbie, which is the next train station on the line to Manchester.”
Ali stared, then gave Morgan a big smile. “You really have saved Christmas with your sweet-talking ways. Did you buy some extra chocolate to bribe him?”
Okay, Morgan deserved that. “Mock all you like, but it means we don’t have to spend the night here in Bothwell services.”
“And for that, you have my thanks.” Ali opened the train app on her phone. “Let’s see if I can get some train tickets next, shall I?”
“Even if we can’t book a seat, I say let’s buy a ticket and squeeze ourselves on. We’re small, and we don’t have luggage. I want to at least get into England tonight. This morning, that wouldn’t have been my bare minimum aim, but now, it seems like an impossible dream.”
Ali scrolled, made some faces, then looked up. “It says we can book them. Maybe everyone from Glasgow is getting off at Lockerbie. Maybe they know something we don’t.”
Morgan wriggled her fingers. They were still numb. “I say book them.”
“Shall I book for both of us?”
“Yes please. How about you pay for the train, I’ll pay for tonight’s hotel when we get to Manchester, then we can sort the difference later? I’m good for it. And if you don’t think so, you know where my family live. You can track them down and hold them to ransom until I cough up.”
Ali laughed. A full belly laugh. Which made Morgan laugh, too. It felt so good to do so. Like she’d been tense and holding her breath ever since their travel disruption began. But there was still time to repair the damage and get home before Christmas. Sure, she wouldn’t make it to decorate the gingerbread house, but she hoped her family would save her a section of the roof. They always had before when she’d turned up late.
Plus, she wasn’t doing this alone. Much as she was self-sufficient, she was glad that was the case. Also, Ali wasn’t a stranger. She was a blast from the past. A welcome one.
An attractive one.
But Morgan’s fingers and brain were still too cold to process that thought. For now, she was happy she had a partner in crime.
