Page 18 of A Scottish Country Escape

‘Gee. Thanks for that.’

‘You know what I mean.’

I gestured to my empty freshly painted shop with its bare shelves. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m trying to open a business.’

‘I think you should help this young man.’ My grandmother’s voice pricked the air.

My mouth popped open. I stared down at her, incredulous. ‘What?’

She shifted in her chair. ‘I can help you in the shop with anything else that needs doing and you’ve Cate’s offer of help too.’

This was worrying. Really worrying. I’d never seen her like this before. ‘Are you serious, Gran?’

‘Very.’

I shook my head, unable to comprehend what she was saying. ‘Gran, I’m not being rude but are you feeling all right?’

‘Perfectly fine. Why?’

My cheeks pinged under the gaze of Dexter Grayling and my grandmother.

‘So you believe me?’ Dexter asked, in a way that made it sound like an appeal.

She didn’t respond, but there was an odd angling of her mouth now, which she got when she was thinking about something. My mum had been the same.

‘Grandma?’

She made an exasperated noise. The silence was heavy until she spoke again. ‘Yes. I believe you.’

Her tone was grim. Hesitant.

I must be dreaming all this. Hallucinating. My head whizzed from my gran to Dexter and back again. ‘How can you?’ I half laughed. ‘Gran?’

She shifted her grey gaze away. ‘Nobody would make up something like that.’

Dexter’s panicked expression was now one of temporary but tense relief. ‘Thank you.’

‘That’s why I think we should help him.’

My eyes rolled in their sockets. Then a sudden feeling of foreboding stole over me. ‘We?’

Grandma’s expression was pinched.

‘But the shop,’ I argued, drinking in the bare surroundings with rising concern. Is she ill? Has this Dexter Grayling character manipulated her in some way? No. He can’t have done. This is the first time she’s met him.

I struggled to keep the concern out of my voice. ‘No disrespect, Mr Grayling, but we barely know you. I’m sorry but as you can see, I’ve got other priorities right now.’

Grandma straightened her back as she sat there. ‘I’ve just told you, Elle, I can deal with any issues about Paper Roses on your behalf. I’m not senile – yet.’

I couldn’t conceal my shock. Dexter Grayling had managed to work his magic on my gran within the space of twenty minutes of meeting her. Frustration and worry gnawed at me. ‘But, Gran, this is crazy!’

I shrank backwards when she turned in her chair and appraised me with a hard stare. ‘No, it isn’t.’

There was something about the way she spoke to me; I had never seen her looking so rigid and intense before. ‘Elle, have I ever lied to you or misled you?’

‘Don’t be silly, Gran. Of course you haven’t.’

‘And I’m not about to start now,’ she announced, flicking back her hair. ‘So, are you going to help this young man or not?’