Page 23 of Scotlander

She looked away and announced lightly, if not a tiny bit dishonestly, ‘It was a gift.’

‘From your boyfriend?’ Jennifer gave her a saucy wink. Or it might’ve been a bit of straw caught in her eye. It was hard to tell because it was getting really dark in the back of the jeep.

‘Are you going to have a shag fest under the Scottish stars like Jamie and Claire?’ Fenella asked in a really loud stage whisper before Willa could explain that not only was Gabe not her boyfriend, but he was also unlikely to speak to her again now that she had scarred him for life. Sure, the chunk of thick, ebony hair they’d had to shave off would grow back, but if he ever went bald? There’d be a scar and she the reason for it.

Not that someone as beautiful as Gabe couldn’t make a scar look sexy. But after the airport fiasco? Actual amnesia was their most likely path to true love.

The car began to slow down and, when it turned on to an earth track, conversation, mercifully, turned to what lay ahead.

Chapter Nine

Finn had turned into a bamstick. There was no other way to explain it. How else could he explain his involvement in this shambolic, cockamamie, class-A taking of the Michael?

Saying that, he had to hand it to Orla. Of all of the bonkers schemes she’d come up with through the years, this one definitely took the cake.

His dad would—

He cut the thought short. What his dad thought didn’t matter any more.

The fact that Finn had come running when Orla had cried wolf for the umpteenth time did.

When would he learn? He’d walked away once, twice, then a half dozen other times, and every time he came back it made leaving again that much harder.

His eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror and snagged with Willa’s. Her dark eyes were catching the light of the moon, giving her an air of wisdom beyond her years. Her expression, however, was impossible to read. Evil, murderous, #MeToo thoughts no doubt.

She was probably composing a mental letter of complaint about him. Which was fair enough. He’d write it himself given half a chance. How the hell his hand had got stuck in her—

He scrubbed a hand over his face. Trust him to accidentally cop a feel of the first woman in he-didn’t-know-how-long to catch his eye.

Anyway, whether or not he fancied her was a moot point. She was taken and lived in LA.

With any luck, when Orla heard about it, she’d send him back to Inverness and he could get on with his life, pretending this whole debacle had never happened.

He bumped through the first of many potholes begging to be tended to. Maybe one of them would jolt his brain back into proper functioning order. Then he could do what he’d intended to do in the first place: send all these good people home.

Chapter Ten

Willa forced herself to look away. Again. Staring into Finn’s North Sea eyes kept making her forget how much she wanted to dislike him.

As steady and kind as he appeared, there was definitely something he was withholding from them. A wariness she couldn’t put her finger on.

He was probably a serial killer. Only murderers pulled off busy roads and on to deserted creepy ones like this.

She thought of the lonely stretch of highway leading to the dirt track she’d grown up at the end of and dismissed the thought instantly. That was different. American serial killers were always missing a tooth or had a haunting minor-chord cackle or . . . uh oh . . . were desperately good-looking and liked to start cults.

‘Ooof!’ Rosa bounced off the bench seat as the Defender crashed through yet another puddle. ‘Bumpy!’

‘I’m sure potholes are just the start of the authentic experience,’ laughed Jeff, protectively cupping one of his mammoth hands over his wife’s head after his own head conked the metal roof frame for the third time.

‘It certainly smells authentic,’ Jennifer said, waving her hand in front of her nose. ‘What is that?’

No one else knew.

Willa did.

It was freshly tilled soil after a light rain. It was pine needles and sap. And something else earthy and floral she couldn’t quite identify. But she knew the source. It was exactly what Finlay smelt like. She’d breathed him in like oxygen when he’d talked her down from her out-of-character panic attack. Taken in each scent, breath by breath, as if she were inhaling an aura of peace and calm that she could carry round with her like a balm. And then she remembered he was a judgemental know-it-all who was plotting mass murder and just like that she was cured of finding his personal man scent to her liking.

An energetic hush fell over them as the headlights illuminated two large stone pillars, then the vehicle pulled to a stop in front of a handful of large rocks. When he switched the light off, there was complete darkness.