Page 19 of A Secret Scottish Escape

She reminded me too much of Mac.

I gave myself a mental shake and turned my attention back to the matter in hand: Mac’s paperweights. I sealed the lid of the box with a thick strip of Sellotape.

I sat back on the living room carpet, the silence seeping into my skin. The house was too quiet, so I got up and fetched my phone.

As some 1970s American rock music blasted out, I moved towards my writing desk at the back of the sitting room and stared out of the window.

The trees were pricking snatches of powder blue sky and the loch lapped gently against the shore in the distance.

The number of arguments Mac and I would have – not only about my choice of music, but the volume at which I would play it – came back into my thoughts.

Thanks to Dad, I had grown up surrounded by music – heart-tingling lyrics and mind-blowing riffs. Once I moved away from Loch Harris, maybe I could try and focus more on freelance music journalism?

Leaving the area would be painful, but surely not as painful as staying. I had to leave. I had to move on.

I pushed my hands into the pockets of my jeans.

Through the tree tops, I could see the church spire. I hadn’t been up to the cemetery since Mac’s funeral. I dropped down into my swivel chair and rocked backwards and forwards.

I switched on my PC and listened as one track drifted to an end and another one began.

It all came crashing back: Mac twirling me around the sitting room; his melting smile and deep, rumbling laugh while one of his pretentious jazz instrumentals wound its way around the cottage; the fine lines that deepened around his hooded blue eyes when something amused him.

Tears slithered down my cheeks. Why was I crying for a man who had kept secrets from me?

I silenced my music and then took myself through to the kitchen. Rummaging around in my cutlery drawer, I located a pair of scissors and then ventured out the back door.

My modest patch of back garden, with its few feet of wild cherry hedging studded with white flowers, housed a corner of herbs and a bed thrusting with amber and red germini, purple pansies and hybrid tea roses in lemon and sorbet-pink.

I couldn’t take any credit for the riot of colours on display. My gardener dad had woven his magic.

I tried not to question what I was doing as I selected four of the germini and two of the prettiest roses, snipping the stems with the utmost care.

I paused for a moment, breathing in their heady scent before taking the cut flowers back into the kitchen and securing them together with a strand of white ribbon I found in my bits and bobs basket.

Then I filled an empty bottle with water and fetched my shoulder bag from the hall.

My dark purple Nissan Juke was parked by the side of the cottage and I opened the door, placing the bottle of flowers in the passenger seat and wedging them upright with my bag.

I drove towards Loch Harris Church, switching on the car radio to fill the silence and stop the circling questions in my head. The drone of the presenter’s voice was oddly comforting.

I dislodged all the questions my mind was asking and steered right, towards the side lane that led into the church car park.

Relief flooded through me. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around on this Saturday morning.

I fetched my bag and the flowers and picked at the ribbon I’d secured them with. Then I slid on my sunglasses and negotiated the paths that snaked between the headstones. Mac’s grave was just up on the right.

My pink and white trainers crunched over the gravel as I found myself fiddling with some of the petals. The white ribbon that held the flowers together fluttered in the breeze.

Life continued as normal around me. There was the burr of a wood pigeon and the distant parp of a car horn. I blinked and found myself in front of Mac’s grave.

Lois had deposited a bouquet of white lilies when she had visited me. They rested their heads against the cool stone, their thick green stems stretching out of one of the two narrow vases either side of the grave inscription.

I crouched down to decant the water into the vacant vase, before easing my assortment of bright blooms into position.

I got to my feet again and took a couple of steps backwards. Around me swelled the Scottish countryside.

Hitching the strap of my bag tighter over my shoulder, I tried to fight my images of Mac – flirty, twinkling, with that rumbling voice. “Why?” I asked aloud. “Why did you have to do what you did?”