Page 50 of Scotlander

She was shitting him, right? ‘Yes. That’s it exactly,’ he deadpanned.

‘Raspberry jam?’ she asked, as if she actually thought she was on the right track. ‘That’s Scottish, right? Who doesn’t like raspberries?’

‘I thought you Americans were more the grape-jelly type.’

‘Yeah, but these are Scottish cows,’ she parried.

Finn filled his lungs instead of answering. He really didn’t think he had a fortnight’s worth of patience for this type of nonsense.

‘C’mon, then, lass.’ He beckoned for her to join him at the gateway. ‘It’s time to learn from the master.’

‘I’m not sure there’s enough room for me.’ She batted her eyes at him. ‘What with your ego taking up all the space.’

Christ. An airhead ego-shaming him. Just what the doctor ordered.

And just like that she became a thing of motion. She grabbed a bucket off the wall, handed it to him, then pulled a twenty-five-kilo sack of mixed grain out of one of the feed bins. She plopped it on the ground, expertly undid the chain-stitched sack, poured some into the bucket, picked it up then began to shake it loudly, calling out, ‘Cows! C’mon, cows. C’mon in, girls.’ And, as if they’d known her all their lives, the girls pricked up their ears and began jogging down the hill towards the barn. When they charged towards her, she opened the gate, got them all in the main pen then pulled the gate shut behind her with a satisfying clang.

He looked at her, shocked. ‘How did you know how to do that?’

She smirked at him. ‘It’s how all domesticated cattle are called in. Round-ups are for huge herds out on the range. And Oreos are for girls like me who don’t know how to say no to trans-fats.’

He had to laugh. ‘I’m guessing this is the sort of thing you got up to in the bumfuck middle of nowhere?’

‘Yup.’ She tipped an invisible cowgirl hat at him. ‘And just so you’re a bit more au fait with bumfuck lexicon – small towns are also called cow towns . . . for a reason.’

‘I suppose now’s the part where I should feel like an idiot for patronising you.’

‘Pretty much!’

He looked down and made a connect he should’ve done an hour back. She was wearing trainers. She might be able to call the cows in like a pro, but if one of the girls stood on them? She’d be hobbling round with broken toes for weeks.

He took the bucket from her, flicked the grain into a nearby feeding trough, then deftly picked her up and flipped her so that she was hanging over his shoulder.

‘Hey!’ She pounded his back. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I thought I told you to put on appropriate footwear.’

‘Excuse me, Mr Highland Health and Safety. No one mentioned we were going to be playing cowboy.’

‘You really didn’t plan for this at all, did you?’

‘I didn’t know what I was planning for,’ she protested, her voice more heated than he would have expected from someone who’d bought and paid for a two-week holiday.

‘Why? Didn’t you read all of the bumph?’

‘What’s bumph?’

‘The fine print. You know, the pamphlets and whatnot.’

‘Whatnot?’

She was being obtuse now. ‘The stuff that Orla sent out when you booked the holiday.’ He set her down on a hay bale just outside the pen the girls were now inspecting with the glee of children set loose in a ball pit.

Willa put her hands on her hips and harrumphed. ‘I told you. I didn’t book it.’

‘So who did?’

Chapter Eighteen