Page 57 of Journey to the Scottish Highlands

Chapter Eleven

Oh please, please let these bloody bombs get dealt with as soon as possible!

I gazed down into my cup of tea, stirring it with the spoon around and around. I was doing it so much I was at risk of making myself dizzy.

My thoughts kept creeping back to Evan and the way Sacha had corralled him out of the pub last night.

I was annoyed at being annoyed in the first place. My teaspoon stilled in my hand.

All the compliments Evan had been paying me, the teasing and the flirting, the charged looks, and then he disappears off with her? But then, what should I have expected? She’d rung him the other night, and then there’d been the loaded comments from the police officer friend of Evan’s about her.

I resumed stirring my tea. It was my own fault. It was self-inflicted. I’d sleepwalked into this where Evan was concerned. I’d assured myself after the mess with Leon that I could keep a lid on my feelings.

But here I was, teetering on the brink again.

I should never have allowed Evan to carry me upstairs. His eyes raking my face, drifting down to my mouth, resting there with that burning, dark intensity; feeling his muscles shifting against me. If I’d known what I knew now, I would’ve limped up them myself, even with a dodgy ankle.

A dull ache inside me wondered where Evan was. There was no sign of him. Same with Dane.

I was still the only one at the breakfast table, with Louise zipping back and forth with conserves and cereal. Her thick, bouncy, blue-toned curls jumped around her face.

Even Alison and Bennett hadn’t appeared yet.

I forced myself to stop clattering the spoon. My tea resembled a beige whirlpool. I had to stop thinking about where Evan might be and who he was with.

I got frustrated with myself again. I tapped idly on my phone screen, which was lying on the tablecloth at my elbow.

‘Good morning, Daisy. Sleep well?’

Bennett came striding into the dining room. looking suave in a coffee coloured, short-sleeved shirt and light trousers.

I pushed myself straighter up in my chair and forced a smile. ‘Yes, I did. Thank you, Bennett. How about you?’ This was a lie. My mind had kept racing in the dark, torturing myself about whether I’d imagined any connection between Evan and me and what he and Sacha might be up to.

‘Yes, slept well, thanks,’ carried on Bennett, oblivious to me dwelling on his oldest son. ‘Did you have a good night at Dane’s gig?’

I was about to reply when Evan’s voice interrupted. ‘Morning.’

I reached for my teacup and all but pushed my face into it. I wished he hadn’t stopped me from drenching Fox on Saturday. I wished I’d never given him a ride to Scotland. I wished that there had never been a sodding tech outage at the airports. I wished there hadn’t been two unexploded bombs. I wished he’d never invited me to stay here. I wished I’d never accepted. I wished he hadn’t been so gallant and insisted on taking me in his arms and carrying me upstairs. I was knotted up inside, and my head was going into a tailspin.

‘Morning,’ I sing-songed, hoping I sounded so laid-back I’d look horizontal.

Don’t sit opposite me, Evan, hissed an inner voice. Don’t sit opposite me… oh shit!

He dragged out the chair opposite me at the table and sunk into it.

Why couldn’t he have taken that irresistible mouth and eyes of his off down to the far end of the table?!

Evan reached for the coffee pot and glugged the steaming, hot, dark liquid into his cup. ‘Did you enjoy the gig then?’ His voice was strained.

‘Yes, it was wonderful, thanks,’ I said with forced joviality. ‘After it finished, I stayed behind with Dane and the rest of the guys. We had a great laugh.’

Actually, it had been anything but.

I’d been bored rigid.

Dane had to be centre stage, even in conversations. He’d sat there with the other band members and a few hangers-on from the pub crowd, preening and managing to turn every topic around so that in the end, whatever the subject was, the chat invariably came back around to be about him. It was admirable in a way. It really was a talent.

But there was no need for Evan to know that.