Page 116 of A Secret Scottish Escape

My eyes moved across his handsome, pensive face.

Rafe stared listlessly over my shoulder and out into the descending night.

I gestured to his scar. “You showed me that,” I faltered. “I told you about my dad and Ed. Why won’t you confide in me again?”

Rafe’s jaw throbbed. It was bearing the faintest dash of stubble. A whoosh of relief entered my chest as he indicated for me to follow him into the cottage, which was warmly drenched in swathes of lamplight.

I sank down onto his two-seater sofa in the sitting room and Rafe took up the chair opposite. “You look cold.”

“I’m fine,” I lied, eager to hear him talk. “So … Emily…”

Rafe delivered a defeated nod, before shrugging off his navy hoodie. He looked as though he was struggling to make sense himself of what he was about to tell me.

“It was the twenty-first of May, four years ago. Emily and I were in the car on the way home from our engagement party. We were laughing and brimming with optimism for the future. Our engagement party had been a sea of glowing, celebratory faces of family and friends. Now we were returning home, with a carload of presents decked out in silver bows and shiny wrapping.

“Emily stared across from the passenger seat at me with one of her looks that always made me smile. ‘When are you going to write a song about me?’ she asked. I grinned at her. ‘What a damned cheek! Every song I write is about you,’ I said. Emily laughed. ‘Yeah, right. You’re so full of bullshit, Buchanan,’ she said. She always called me that. I winked at her. ‘Why, thank you.’ I narrowed my eyes as I continued to stare into my rear-view mirror. The guy behind was getting a bit close and Emily swivelled, peering over her shoulder at the looming lorry.

“I hit the brake to make him ease off but he didn’t. I dipped down a little in the driver’s seat to get a different angle in the rear-view mirror, but the articulated lorry’s cab and the interruption of lights along the freeway wasn’t making it at all easy for me to make out the driver, and an uneasy sensation settled in my stomach. I could tell Emily was scared, so I rearranged my concerned expression into one that I hoped was supreme confidence and told her it was nothing to worry about. He was just driving like a bit of a dick.

“Changing my mind about the slowing down theory, I decided to adopt a more dramatic approach. With the lane of the freeway ahead of us clear of traffic, I subtly pressed down on the accelerator and Emily’s hands clawed at either side of her seat. I shot out my hand and squeezed hers, telling her everything was going to be fine…”

It felt like my own breath was choking me. I sank back against Rafe’s sofa.

“And then what happened?”

His voice was brimming with pain. “I should have done more, Layla. I felt as if I were watching events unfold through a sea of treacle. The driver of the lorry, unbeknownst to us at the time, had taken too many sleeping tablets after a slew of restless nights on the road. His foot slammed down on the accelerator and by the time the freeway lights shone behind his flickering eyelids, the chrome beast he was fighting to control was already ploughing into our car.”

Rafe’s unwavering gaze reflected the burnished flames of his log fire.

“There was the worst sound ever – like a thudding and bouncing that shook our insides. Our car rolled over a couple of times like a dice. I thought Emily would scream, cry for me to help her, reach out to me … I begged for her to yell, to call my name, to reach out for me, but she didn’t.

“I threw out both my arms, trying to find her. She was just beside me, after all. But my hands just grabbed air.”

Rafe rubbed his hands on his knees as he sat there, hunched over.

“We eventually landed upside down on the other side of the freeway. The air in the car was suddenly so still and quiet. There was the odd creak and splintering sound, but nothing else. I tried to move but there was this pain shooting through my body and then an excruciating sensation on the right side of my face.”

He lifted one finger and traced it down his scar, as if to illustrate the point.

“I managed to wriggle out of my seat belt. All I could think of was Emily.”

My voice was a whisper. “But she was gone?”

Rafe’s eyelids fluttered closed for a moment. “Not at that point. I started to scream at her. I shook her. I begged her to look at me. I managed to free her from her seat belt and reached to feel her pulse. She was slumped forwards like a ragdoll. Her pulse was very faint, but there was one. I felt it. I began to try and move her, but then a pair of hands grabbed me from behind and pulled me out. I screamed at them, begged them to take their hands off me. I told them she was still alive, barely, but still breathing. But they wouldn’t let me go back in to help her.”

He thumped his fists down. “I begged them to let me return to her, but they held me back. Do you realise how that felt? I could have saved her, Layla.”

Rafe’s eyes bore angrily into the flames of his log fire. “She died moments later.”

He thrust his finger towards his scar. “See this thing on my face? It’s nothing. It’s nothing compared to the guilt I carry around with me over what happened to Emily.”

I wanted to embrace him as he sat there, rigid with pain,

I wanted to tell him that none of what had happened to Emily was his fault.

My heart ached for him. This weight he was carrying around with him must be unbearable.

“Rafe, you mustn’t feel guilty…”