Page 127 of A Secret Scottish Escape

I looked up when I heard a knock on the front door.

It was Jack.

I indicated my checked pyjamas and my hair tied on top of my head in a messy pineapple.

“Don’t worry,” he smiled. “You still look better than your dad.”

I laughed. “I won’t tell him you said that. Come on in.”

Jack ambled into my sitting room. “Rehearsals are going well but your dad has made one huge mistake that we, as his fellow band members, feel we can’t ignore.”

My stomach plummeted to the floor. Oh no. What had happened now? These creative types were so unpredictable!

Jack kept his face straight. “He’s run out of milk for the tea.”

I hit his arm playfully. “Don’t ever do that again. I think I’ve just aged ten years.”

Jack grinned as I headed over to the fridge and plucked out a spare pint of milk. “Here you go.”

He thanked me and cradled the milk against his grey and white sweatshirt. “I’d better get back to your dad’s. Goodness knows what they’ll be sounding like down there without their wizard on keyboards.” I walked Jack to the front door. “And how are things going with you and that musician everyone is talking about?’ he asked. “I heard his latest single has gone straight into the top ten.”

I huddled deeper into my fluffy dressing gown. “Oh, that was nothing.”

Jack blinked at me. “Really?”

I struggled to contort my expression into one of indifference. “We had a moment about a month ago,” I confessed. “Or at least I thought we did. I must have read more into it than there was because, according to the rumours, he’s moving away from the area.”

Jack processed that, the lamp light casting shadows against the angles of his face.

“And you haven’t tried to speak to … Mask, is it?”

“Rafe,” I said after a pause, his name hurting my lips. “His real name is Rafe.”

I shook my head, almost dislodging my topknot. “I opened myself up to him after what happened with Mac. I wanted to take a chance on him. I honestly thought he felt the same way, but I haven’t seen him since. How wrong can you be?”

I embraced Jack and pecked him on the cheek. “Give my love to Dad, Mikey, Ed, and Stan. No doubt I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jack appraised me from my door step. “Well, if you ask me, the guy is an idiot.”

I know who the idiot is, I thought, affording Jack a small wave and closing my door against the stars prickling in the sky.

Saturday was proving to be frantic.

As soon as I’d woken up, realisation kicked in with full force.

Oh hell. Today was the day.

I lay in bed, frozen with nerves.

Since Mac’s death and the truth about his deception with Hannah, the last few months had seen me making a series of decisions that had led to tonight.

Visions of the old boathouse, transformed from a tired, ramshackle tackle shop into a music venue decorated in a palette of blues and strung with fairy lights, flashed in front of me.

There was little time for reminiscing, however, as I had to double-check stock, ensure the lights all worked, watch the erection of the marquee – likely with a combination of fear and excitement – and mull over Rafe’s songs, which would be played after Battalion had appeared.

A couple of times over the past twenty-four hours I had caught myself idly checking my phone for texts. Rafe knew The Conch Club was opening this evening and yet he hadn’t even sent me a good luck text.

A stab of disappointment pricked me in the chest but I refused to engage with it. He was probably too busy having Coorie Cottage valued, or packing up his worldly goods, to grant me a second thought.