Page 93 of A Secret Scottish Escape

Mask studied me. “Where were you trying to get to?”

“We were taking a walk through the campsite woods when I did this,” interrupted Ed. “I’m staying with friends there for the weekend.”

Describing the rest of the guys in Battalion as friends right now was pushing it, considering the current situation, but I didn’t comment.

Mask loomed there, surveying Ed for a few more moments.

“Can I have a word?” he asked me, jerking his hood to indicate that we would be leaving the sitting room.

I followed him into his kitchen, which was located at the end of the hallway. It consisted of a marbled breakfast bar with chrome appliances, cream accents, and off-white cupboards.

Mask pushed the kitchen door closed behind me. “If your boyfriend isn’t capable of negotiating a simple forest walk, I’d advise something more sedate next time.”

I stared up at him. “Boyfriend?”

Mask’s dark eyes washed over my bemused expression. “It’s none of my business of course, but when people who are ill-equipped take off on ridiculous jaunts—”

A smile flickered across my lips. “Hang on. You think I’m going out with Ed?” Mask’s jaw tightened as I burst into a weary giggle. “You think we’re a couple? I can assure you that we aren’t.”

Mask snatched two glasses from a cupboard and filled them with water. He thrust one at me and then took the other in to Ed, only to return with it seconds later. “Christopher Columbus is asleep. Stepping over twigs must have taken it out of him.”

He glanced over his shoulder, indicating the sitting room as he closed the kitchen door again. “So if he isn’t your partner, then who is he?”

I frowned as the puffs of cloud knitted together outside the kitchen window. At least the hessian roller blind in here was drawn up, presumably because the kitchen was located at the rear of the cottage and offered more privacy. “Why are you so interested to know who he is?”

Mask shrugged. “I’m just curious. You come to my door, looking dishevelled, with a strange man draped all over you.”

I could feel my resentment bubbling. “For your information – not that it’s any of your business – I happen to be dishevelled because I was helping Ed through thick undergrowth.”

Mask continued to examine me.

“And he wasn’t draped all over me, as you so colourfully put it. I’m not bloody psychic! How was I to know he’d injure his foot?” I snatched up my tumbler of water and took a sip. “If I’d known that, I would have packed my portable crutch.”

I could have sworn Mask’s mouth twitched for a second.

Annoyance sizzled in my veins. “Why the hell am I explaining myself to you anyway? You aren’t exactly an open book.”

“I don’t follow.”

I bit back an ironic snort. “That figures. You hide behind that mask, conceal yourself under that hood…”

Mask’s angular jaw throbbed and I noticed the faintest peppering of stubble on his chin. “I don’t hide.”

“Well, that isn’t the impression you’re giving out.”

I swung round to reach for the kitchen door handle when Mask’s hand shot out and touched my bare arm. His fingers teased my skin. The sensation made me gasp out loud. Embarrassed, I turned it into a cough.

Mask gazed down at his fingers and snatched his hand away, as though he had been burnt. “You still haven’t told me why you were in the woods with this guy.”

I shoved my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. Why was he so keen to know about Ed?

I took in the faint, shadowy angles of his features under the hood. “Maybe I will tell you one day, when you decide to confide in me about all this.” I lifted a hand and flapped it at his mask. “I tried to help you and all I got in return was my offer thrown back in my face.”

I placed my hand on the door handle. “Trust is a two-way thing, you know.”

I pulled open the door, catching a flickering movement out of the corner of my eye and the sound of slithering fabric.

“Oh, for pity’s sake. You are so frustrating. Layla, turn around. Please.”