Page 17 of A Scottish Lighthouse Escape

It was like she was waiting for me to fill the space, but I couldn’t dredge up anything to say. She carried on. ‘I remember when I lost my Freddie; you feel like you’re lost in this fog.’

She tried to push some buoyancy back into her voice to compensate. ‘On another writing deadline, too, eh?’ Her curious pale eyes studied me out of her ruddy, sixty-something face. ‘I take it that you’ll be getting back to writing all those books of yours. Best to keep busy. I love your stories. All those wonderful, gorgeous heroes of yours. I can’t get enough of them.’

The inside of my mouth turned to sandpaper. I was having difficulty looking her in the eye. Don’t start crying, Rosie. Hold it together, at least until you get out of the shop.

Rhea Stafford’s features carried an expectant expression.

My attention fell on the pet section. I reached over and snatched up a brown bag of salmon flavoured kibble for Bronte.

I wasn’t going to hang around here longer than I had to. Rhea Stafford was here for the foreseeable. Any minute now, I expected her to go and get a bright light and shine it in my face. ‘Sorry, Mrs Stafford, but I really do have to go now.’

‘Aye, you’ll have that cottage to sort out too now, I suspect?’ she continued, relentless. She folded her arms against her plastic grocery apron, making it crinkle. ‘Is that why you’ve come up here? To clear out the cottage? You don’t want squatters hearing about it lying empty. That sort will be in there and having orgies in no time.’ She let out a dramatic breath. ‘Tilda and Howard were such a sweet couple. She was a bit arty and unconventional perhaps, but her heart was in the right place.’

Unconventional? Arty? Of course she was. That was what made my late grandmother so special; so, her. She had the biggest heart of anyone I’d ever known.

Rhea Stafford’s critical inference about my grandma nipped at me. She was known for her enviable talent of being able to weigh many a comment with a passive-aggressive undertone.

Spotting a display of tins of biscuits by the till, I reached for one and thumped it down on top of the counter beside my basket with the kibble inside. I would take the biscuits to Barclay.

My gaze was steely. Before, I might have just brushed off Rhea Stafford’s niggling asides, but not now. Not today. ‘If you’re not going to go to the trouble of putting my groceries through your till, you can have this. That should cover it.’

I dived one hand into my bag, pulled out my purse and snatched a twenty-pound note from it. I threw it down on top of the counter. I didn’t feel like me. I didn’t sound like me either, but I realised I didn’t care. I didn’t think I’d ever feel like Rosie Winters or even Rosie Ward for the rest of my life.

Rhea Stafford gawped at me as I thrust the kibble and Barclay’s biscuits into a carrier bag I brought with me.

‘Well, there’s really no need for that, I’m sure. I was just being neighbourly. In fact, I was just about to ask if Barclay had told you his news yet…’

But I was already whirling out of the shop and untying Bronte.

I was all for supporting local businesses, but I decided there and then that it’d be better for the sake of my privacy, blood pressure and Rhea Stafford’s personal safety, if I shopped at the supermarket up the road next time.