Page 63 of Scotlander

‘I should be asking you the same thing.’

‘I told you.’ He opened his car door. ‘Piglets.’

‘Yeah . . .’ She spun her finger round. ‘And . . .’

He shook his head. ‘And . . . piglets.’

‘If that’s the way you want to play it, Braveheart.’

He slammed the door shut. It drove him nuts when people’s history of Scotland was a foundation laid by Mel Gibson. He liked history. He liked Scottish history. It was complex and tribal and passionate. A people united by one thing – the love of the land they’d been born to. And, hundreds of years on – thousands, even – he was no different.

She followed him into the barn where, true to Duncan’s text, their sow Isla had had a dozen little fat piglets.

An instant sense of calm washed through him. Being here, with the animals, inhaling the barn scents, hearing the gentle rustling of the cows beyond the rail-tie wall brought his hammering pulse down a few notches.

‘Oh my god!’ Willa, irritation forgotten, beamed at him. She had this amazing glow when she was overcome with pure happiness and, he had to admit, it was nice to bask in something positive for once.

She rushed into the pen, not waiting for him to run through a health-and-safety spiel and, having clearly done this before, plonked herself down in a corner where she could watch the little things, all dozen of whom were currently nestled on and around their mum after a good feed.

‘You’re a lot more cow town than you like to admit, aren’t you?’

She gave a shrug, not meeting his gaze. The gesture was a kick in the gut. Yet again, he’d managed to unwittingly insult her.

‘I meant it as a compliment.’

‘It wasn’t one.’

‘Why? You’re good with the animals. What’s wrong with that?’

She whipped her head round and stared at him, mouth open but no words coming out. He got it. The answer should be obvious. But it wasn’t. Not to him, anyway. Which wasn’t a huge surprise seeing as he was making a hash of just about everything he put his hand to lately.

‘Look, how about we do a do over?’

She gave a single shoulder shrug.

‘I owe you an apology.’

‘Oh, wow! How very Mr Manners of you.’

She caught his flinch and he saw the remorse he was feeling cross over to her. Not the plan at all when she was clearly the one who’d been treated poorly.

‘I should’ve told you I was going to be away. I’m sorry for that.’

‘Yeah, well . . . I know how to build a wall out of rocks now, so if you do it again I can pre-build your cairn.’ She faked a couple of karate chops to show him she was kidding/not kidding/but actually kidding. Sort of.

And then what she’d just said registered. His mouth went dry. ‘Did you— Were you up at the cairn?’

‘Yeah. Trevor showed it to us.’ She pointed out, up towards the hill where they’d buried his father. ‘Really amazing stones. They stack well.’

A Highland cow slamming into him would’ve hurt less. ‘You used the stones from the cairn to fix the wall?’

She bridled. ‘We’ve been through this before, Finn.’ She pointed her index fingers at herself. ‘Just because I interview celebrities for a living does not mean I suffer from a microscopic IQ.’

He’d pissed her off. Royally. But how was he supposed to know what she did and didn’t know. She was as easy to get close to as . . . Duncan. And that was saying something. ‘I wasn’t—’ He stopped and tried to put himself in her shoes. She’d been doing what she’d been told and if anyone should pay for this, it was Trevor. He tried again. ‘It wasn’t an accusation, it’s just . . . that’s my dad’s grave.’

‘Oh god, Finn.’ Her hands crossed over one another on her chest. ‘I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have snapped at you like that. Of course we didn’t. No. Trevor made a special point of saying what a cairn was and that we were, under no circumstances, to use any of the rocks in it for the wall. But he didn’t say who was laid to rest there. I’m so sorry.’

The pressure released a bit. As did the flaming ball of wrath he’d been about to unleash on Trevor.