Page 81 of The Cottage in the Highlands

Flynn delivered a mischievous grin. “I bet you don’t call your parents by their first names.”

“What makes you say that?”

He gave a shrug. “I don’t know. I bet when you get together with them, it’s all apple pie and big hugs.”

“I don’t like apple pie,” I teased. “Now if you had said chocolate torta della nonna, you would have been on the right track.”

“Oh, what’s that?”

“A Tuscan tart – dark chocolate with custard filling and sweet pastry. It means grandmother’s cake in Italian.”

“Sounds irresistible.”

I flicked him a look and moved the conversation on. “So why photography?”

Flynn set down his knife and fork for a moment. “I’ve always wanted to be a photographer. This might sound like a cliché but I love the idea of capturing a moment or a memory.” He lifted his glass of water and took a considered sip. “It’s being able to let other people see a side to a person or a landscape that they would never normally witness themselves.”

Then he told me he had studied for his degree in Photography in Glasgow. “From there, I managed to get some freelance work on a couple of the newspapers, but I always wanted to start my own studio.”

He leant across the table in an almost conspiratorial fashion. “The Glasgow skyline, I think, is one of the most beautiful and dramatic there is to photograph. It’s all lights and towers and spires.” Then he gave a reflective smile. “Golden hour, also commonly referred to as ‘magic hour’, is my favourite time to go out there and capture something with my camera.”

“When is that?” I asked, not failing to notice how enthused he was. It was infectious.

“It’s the time right before sunset and after sunrise. The sun is low on the horizon so light takes on a redder shade than when it’s higher up in the sky. It can make for a stunning image.”

We enjoyed the remainder of our lunch, teasing each other over our respective families and when it was over, he refused to let me pay. “This is on me.”

“Thank you. Well, next time…”

I realised what I was about to say and bit it back.

His eyes twinkled, but he didn’t say anything.

We returned to the outside world, blinking and sated after our filling lunch.

“I’ll drive to my grandfather’s,” Flynn insisted. “We’ll come back and collect your car from the car park afterwards.”

We continued our easy chat as Flynn negotiated our way out of town and towards Cairntilloch. The country lanes were pretty twisting turning roads, bordered by huge swathes of fields and the odd remote cottage. They gave off a sleepy, lazy vibe as we slid past clusters of sheep and the odd grazing cow.

In the distance, the hills were dusted with snow.

After such a generous-sized lunch, I would have been ready for a nap, but seated beside Flynn in his crystal-blue Mazda, I knew I wanted to savour every minute of it.

We laughed about our jobs, regaled each other with tales of work colleges and compared notes on the music drifting out of his car radio.

Part of me didn’t want the car journey to end. It was just about us cocooned in there. There were no Chandlers, no prickly grandmothers, no talk of deceitful journalists; no demanding magazine editors or my job pushing its way between us.

“Well, here we are,” murmured Flynn, easing his car into the kerb outside his grandfather’s house. “This is going to be interesting.”

I gazed out of the car window at the balconied bedroom windows. “When was the last time you were here?”

Flynn narrowed his eyes in concentration. “It must be about five years ago since I last came to this house. I think it was for his birthday. He didn’t want any fuss, but my parents insisted on getting caterers in.” A sardonic smile spread across his face. “He was too busy moving and shaking with his VIP friends and hangers-on to chat to his own family. My grandfather spent the evening complaining about the canapés.”

I fetched my bag from the back seat. “You came under duress?”

“In a word, yes.”

Flynn pressed the intercom and spoke to Mrs Oates, who came bustling out of the front entrance. There were silver Christmas lights framing the grand entrance and the huge fir tree in the front garden.