Page 66 of A Secret Scottish Escape

Dad loitered at my shoulder. “Come on, sweetheart. False alarm.” Then he threw a glare at Mask and called back to him. “And may I suggest, sir, that you show more gratitude in future, especially when someone is concerned for your welfare?”

I dropped my gaze. “Don’t, Dad. Please leave it.”

Mask’s eyes burned into me, before he banged his front door closed.

I watched the police car depart first in a blur of lime-green and white.

Dad eyed me across the roof of my car. “You OK, lovey?”

I settled myself and waited until he had shut his door. “Yes, Dad. I’m OK.”

He pulled a face. “If that’s the sort of thanks you get from that man for showing concern, I wouldn’t bother in future.”

I looked back at Coorie Cottage. “Maybe you’re right.”

From out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mask’s tall silhouette hovering behind his front door. “I still think he was lying.”

I turned left, the spools of Galen Waterfall disappearing behind us. “I think he did have some sort of disagreement or altercation with someone and he’s trying to cover it up.”

Dad stretched his legs. “All I know is that he shouldn’t have been so bloody rude to my daughter.”

I smiled for an instant.

“Now don’t give it any more thought,” instructed Dad, staring out of the window at the black silhouetted countryside. “You concentrate on The Conch Club.”

He glanced across at me from the passenger seat. “He’s given you those songs, so you use them for opening night. But I wouldn’t have anything more to do with him, if you can help it.”

One minute Mask was giving me those beautiful songs he’d written, the next he was snarling at me. My face flushed hot again at the memory.

Maybe Dad was right and I should just leave him to fester up in Coorie Cottage, with only the squirrels for company.

I felt sorry for the squirrels.

Chapter Thirty-One

I pulled up outside The Merry Maid again.

A couple tumbled out of the door in a clumsy embrace and shared a conspiratorial giggle.

Dad examined me. “Aren’t you coming back in?”

“No, I’d really rather just call it a night, if you don’t mind.”

“You aren’t dwelling on that rude sod’s comments just now, are you? Emerging singer or not, he had no right talking to you like that, especially when you were just being kind.”

The truth was, as we’d approached the pub again, I had been hit with images of Ed Stockton. “I’m not in the mood to see Ed again this evening,” I admitted. “Don’t get me wrong, part of me does want to know the truth…”

“But part of you would rather remain in ignorant bliss,” nodded Dad’s shadowy profile beside me. “Oh, I get that, believe me. I feel the same way.”

He reached his hand over and gave my fingers a squeeze. “But we both know deep down that that until this is settled, we’ll always be wondering.”

I kept staring out of the windscreen at the pub car park, with its hanging baskets suspended from a couple of lampposts. “You’re right. I know you are.”

Then I turned to him. “It might sound a bit stupid, but part of me was almost grateful to Mask tonight. At least that … thing – whatever it was – up at Coorie Cottage provided a temporary distraction.”

Dad’s light-grey eyes softened in the dark as I leaned across and gave him an awkward hug. “Love you, Dad.” Then I blinked back a tear. “Right. Go on. Get back to your gang of fellow reprobates.”

Dad grinned. “I see you’ve got the measure of us.”