Page 120 of A Scottish Country Escape

‘Are we ready?’ I asked the car occupants.

Linda Carlucci looked hesitant but she nodded.

Chapter Seventy-Six

‘What the hell is going on?’

Shelley’s piercing eyes, daubed with winged eyeliner, were leaping out of her face like sharp blades.

She swooped on Elsa as we entered the hall. ‘You’ve been gone hours!’

From behind her came Dexter, clutching Nadia’s hand. My breath stuttered in my throat.

When he saw our odd little group, he stopped dead. ‘Elle?’

I took a few steps towards him, my long velvet boots clipping on the tiled floor. ‘Mrs Carlucci wants to talk to you.’

His powder-blue eyes swept over me. I could feel my heart rattling. Then a cacophony of emotions travelled across his handsome face.

‘Are we having a party, Uncle Dexter?’ piped up Nadia. She shot me a cheeky grin. I winked back at her.

‘We might have a party,’ I said to Nadia, ‘once we’ve had a chat with Uncle Dexter.’

‘Yippee!’ she squealed, hopping from foot to foot. Her dark bunches bobbed either side of her head.

Shelley’s irritation was evident. She turned to Dexter, swishing her brunette waves. ‘Can’t we ask them all to come back another time, Dexy? I thought we were going to that fusion restaurant for lunch.’

‘Mr Grayling?’ Linda’s stilted voice rang around the hall.

Looking like a seven year old who had just come face to face with Father Christmas, Dexter ushered us all into his office. ‘Please. All of you, come in.’

Shelley stepped to one side, gawping as the four of us filed past her. When she came to me, her expression hardened.

‘Shelley, would you take Nadia into the gardens for a little while please?’ asked Dexter.

She took her daughter’s hand, muttering something about it being ‘too bloody cold’ before guiding Nadia away.

We all lingered in Dexter’s office, assisting him to move chairs and the small sofa. He looked amazing in a pearl-coloured cable-knit jumper and black jeans, but there were traces of melancholy under his heavily lashed eyes. I think even I had underestimated how much of a toll all of this had taken on him.

Cameron Lomax started to talk, but Linda Carlucci interrupted. ‘It’s true,’ she gushed. ‘I did place a curse on this young man.’

A combination of relief and apprehension flooded over Dexter’s face.

‘That day,’ she started, ‘when you sped into Fir Haven in your car… you reminded me of someone. Someone I lost.’

‘And that loss was down to me,’ added Cameron Lomax.

Dexter sat behind his desk, his brows rising and falling. One minute he was blowing out air, the next gulping it in as Cameron Lomax explained again about that fateful August night in 1964, before Linda took up the rest of the story.

At times her attention drifted, weaving in and out, but she managed to compose herself.

I nodded encouragingly at her as she described the loss and anger she still felt and how the sight of Dexter in his fast car, who reminded her so much of Ross, had made her lash out in pain. When she finished talking, a sense of relief enveloped her.

I watched as Linda’s right hand snaked up to her crescent moon necklace and she touched it for the briefest time. No one else seemed to notice except me.

Dexter rubbed his stubbly chin. His eyes swam while he comprehended everything Linda had told him. ‘I’m so very sorry for your loss,’ he managed. ‘It must have been awful for you. And then when I came speeding into town like that…’

Dexter’s broad chest rose and fell as he spoke to Cameron. ‘And I appreciate you being so honest, sir. It can’t have been easy for you coming here either.’