Page 48 of A Scottish Country Escape

Chapter Thirty

‘Elle. Elle? Are you still there?’

‘Yes,’ I faltered, disappointment at Dexter leaving searing right through me. Why had he left so abruptly? ‘Yes. Sorry. I’m still here.’

I finished the call, making an appointment for Lisa at the greetings card company to pop by and see me with samples from the new range in a few days.

In the meantime, a determined toddler had got her way with the teddy bear card she had selected and grinned up at me as I rang it through the till for her mother.

Dexter kept appearing at the corners of my mind, niggling and haunting me.

Once the mum and child had clattered back out of the shop, with me holding the door open for them, I steeled myself and reached for my mobile.

I rang Dexter’s number. Something inside me wondered whether he would pick up, but after half a dozen rings, his stilted voice made me start. ‘Elle.’

The words rushed out of my mouth, before I had a chance to stop them. ‘Why did you leave the shop just now without saying anything? Did I do something to offend you?’

His silence irritated me further.

‘Don’t you think you owe me an explanation? One minute we were talking about ideas for tracing Linda Carlucci, and the next you had gone.’

His voice was heavy; faltering. ‘I had to take an urgent call. Sorry about that.’

I decided not to conduct a post-mortem on it. It seemed he wasn’t prepared to discuss the real reason for him disappearing like that, let alone go into details. It was perplexing though.

‘Look,’ I said, staring out of the shop window at the odd local wandering past, ‘we really do need to talk over the wording for a notice in the local paper to find Linda Carlucci. That’s if you still think it’s a good idea?’

‘Of course, I do.’ There was a pause. Then he wrong-footed me. ‘How about you drop by Hawk West Hall when you close up the shop tonight?’

I blinked hard.

Why was he inviting me to his home? My brain felt addled. One minute he goes AWOL on me and the next he’s extending invitations? But Dexter and I couldn’t keep dancing around one another. We wouldn’t get anywhere otherwise!

I decided to accept his invitation, even though a tiny voice inside me was screaming at me to think again.

Chapter Thirty-One

I closed Paper Roses that evening before heading back down the street and around the corner to the car park so I could drive up to Hawk West Hall.

The street shone with the silver remnants of afternoon rain. I climbed into my car and examined my reflection in the rear-view mirror. My dark-brown eyes bore smudges of tiredness and a lot of my hair had worked itself free from its ponytail.

I neatened my hair before reaching into my bag beside me and dashing on some fresh rose-pink lipstick and blusher. I finished by flicking on another coating of black mascara.

I stopped.

Hang on. Why am I bothering so much about how I look? I was going over to Hawk West Hall to discuss our search for Linda Carlucci. End of.

I switched on my car radio to drown out the odd thoughts swimming around inside my head and set off for Dexter’s home.

* * *

The hedgerows were fringed with pale droplets of rain from the earlier shower as my car flashed past.

There was already an abundance of wooden protest signs erected by the roadside in brightly coloured paint, with the words ‘Nature Comes First’, ‘Save Our Reserve’, and ‘Wild about Nature – Stop the Closure!’ emblazoned across them.

Good! So the other protestors hadn’t wasted any time in being proactive.

I made myself a promise to do all I could to help. I flicked my indicator right and negotiated my way down a narrow country lane with banks of grass on either side.