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Chapter 1
Headed for Inverness on the East Coast Train…
Scotland. The Highlands. Purple heather. Northern lights. Men in kilts. I was too excited to sleep. I might have made this journey on my own long ago. Instead, I had waited until the moment was right. The wrong companions could ruin even the most exotic trip. Luckily, I’d known the two women traveling with me since we were all in diapers.
Hayley—whose mother ran the in-home daycare where my friends and I first met as toddlers—taught third grade. She was organized, earnest, and one of the most caring people I’d ever known. It pleased me to see her so happy. She practically vibrated with enthusiasm.
After the long flight from Atlanta to Heathrow—and a brief night of sleep in a nondescript hotel room—the three of us were now sitting in motor coach–style seats on either side of a small rectangular table. The train racketed along at high speeds, stopping now and again to drop off and pick up passengers as we whizzed through the countryside. Hayley had finished her tea and was poring over one of the guidebooks she’d brought along.
Willow, on the other hand, brooded loudly, if such a thing were possible. I suspected her cranky attitude was a cover for very real nerves. She had never traveled farther than a few hundred miles from the Peach State. This was a big step for her, not only because of transportation firsts, but because she’d had to leave her business behind.
The salon she co-owned, Hair Essentials, was the product of blood, sweat, and tears. Willow’s history was neither as privileged as mine nor as stable as Hayley’s. Yet somehow, our cynical friend had managed to find her own path, and a successful one at that.
I stifled an unexpected yawn, swamped by a wave of fatigue. Despite the collection of stamps in my passport, I’d never mastered the art of crossing time zones unscathed.
Willow and I had been squabbling half-heartedly for the last hour. As if sensing that I was losing my steam, she half turned in her seat and glared at me. “Jamie Fraser is a fictional character,” she said. “Like Harry Potter or Jason Bourne. You’re not going to find him wandering around the Scottish Highlands waiting to sweep you off your feet.”
I glared right back at her. “I know that. I’m not delusional. But at least I have a whimsical soul. You wouldn’t know a romantic moment if it smacked you in the face.”
We were in the midst of an ongoing argument that neither of us was going to win. I knew the Harry Potter reference was a deliberate jab at me. Though my travel companions had moaned, I’d awakened them early enough this morning to make it to King’s Cross Station for photographs and retail therapy. After all, it wasn’t every day I had a chance to get my picture taken at the famous Platform 9 ¾.
By the time I scoured the handkerchief-sized gift shop and braved the line of tourists posing for the platform picture, we’d had mere minutes to make our noon departure. It was worth the mad scramble. I considered J. K. Rowling one of the wonders of the modern world.
Willow wasn’t really miffed about my Harry Potter obsession. She was scared…scared that we three were embarking on an outlandish adventure sure to disappoint us in the end. I could see it in her wary gaze. Life—and probably men as well—had not been kind to her.
Hayley looked at Willow and me with hurt, puppy dog eyes, as if stunned we could be at odds in the midst of this great adventure. “You’re both jet-lagged,” she said. “If you’re not going to enjoy the trip, at least get some sleep so you won’t be grumpy when we get to Inverness. I’m tired of listening to both of you.”
Willow and I tabled our squabbles in favor of closing our eyes. Now the sensation of motion intensified. The train raced along, offering tantalizing glimpses of the countryside each time I peeked. Though I had spent a week in Edinburgh several years ago, this was my first chance to venture north. I had told Willow and Hayley that a recent bequest from my grandmother’s estate prompted our bucket list trip, but in truth, I’d been planning this pilgrimage for some time.
I was trying to make up for the decade and a half when my childhood friends and I lost touch. Though Hayley’s mom had eventually caught up with most of her daycare graduates via Facebook, in the years before that, little more than Christmas cards kept the connection alive between my friends and me.
Our lives had taken far different paths. Hayley was firmly middle-class America with two loving parents and a conventional job. Willow, on the other hand, didn’t talk much about her past. Her father had walked out right about the time my parents pulled me from public school and enrolled me in an elite academy. Willow and her mom had been forced to rely on the kindness of relatives who lived on the opposite side of the city.
Despite our differences and the years we spent apart, we were closer now than ever, partly because of a shared obsession, albeit a harmless one. We were all three madly enamored with Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander books, and more recently, the TV series. We spent hours critiquing the first season of the show, deciding that although nothing could compare to the actual book, the producers and directors and cast had done a bang-up job of bringing Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser to life.
Somewhere, somehow, in the midst of a sleepless spring night when my hormones were raging and my good sense waning, I had seized on the idea that Hayley and Willow and I should travel to Scotland and seek out our own Outlander-style adventures, preferably with a kilt-clad hero involved.
I knew my plan was farfetched. Guys like the fictional Jamie Fraser, particularly in the twenty-first century, were few and far between. I’d dated my share of losers. Kissing frogs was a rite of passage for millennials.
In my personal experience, though, American men tended to fall into three categories: mama’s boys who wanted another woman to take care of them; high-powered workaholics who didn’t need or care about real relationships; and last but not least, a large group of genuinely nice guys who would make great boyfriend or husband material, but didn’t get my heart (or anywhere else) all fizzy.
Still, I couldn’t give up hope that somewhere out there was the one man who was my soul mate. I didn’t actually share that belief with my friends for several reasons. Hayley lived like a nun, and Willow was too much of a hard-ass to believe in fairytale romance. Or if she did believe in it, she sure as heck wouldn’t admit to something so girly.
My goal for this trip was to get away from everything that pigeonholed me back in the States. I lived mostly in Atlanta, but my parents had a penthouse apartment in New York and a ski chalet in St. Moritz. I was the epitome of the poor little rich girl. I knew my last nanny better than I knew my own mother.
I wasn’t complaining. Not at all. Nobody ever said life was fair. Since I’d never had to clip coupons or worry about my car being repossessed, I suppose it made cosmic sense that the average American family wasn’t something I would ever have. No Monopoly games around the kitchen table. No making s’mores over a summer campfire. No irritating siblings to steal the attention from me.
Hayley and Willow were the closest thing to sisters I would ever have. I felt more than a little guilty that I had bludgeoned them into making this trip. Even though I paid for the first class airfare and train tickets, the two of them were still going to be out of pocket for lodging and meals.
I wished they would let me cover that, too, but Hayley had pulled me aside months ago and pointed out that she and Willow needed to feel invested in this adventure and not entirely beholden to me. Like Claire Randall, the gutsy heroine of Outlander, we were supposed be bold and independent. In the process, perhaps we might stumble upon our own gorgeous, chivalrous, modern-day Highlanders.
Hayley believed it could happen. Willow would probably work hard to make sure it didn’t happen. And as for me…well, I as far as I was concerned, it was a pleasant daydream.
My repeated yawns were rubbing off on Willow. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Tell me again why we didn’t fly straight to Inverness?”
“You know why,” Hayley said. She opened her notebook. “We agreed that since we can’t actually go back in time like Claire does in Outlander, this train journey will be symbolic of our desire to go off the grid for a month. No cell phones. No Internet. No Facebook. No Twitter. You agreed, Willow.”
“Under duress,” she muttered.
