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In the starklight of day, nausea crept over me like waves against something slimy that had washed ashore. I couldn’t say which made me feel sicker: the whisky or my evening with the men. I dreaded facing Rupert again, knowing how I’d shamelessly—however inadvertently—flirted with him last night. That he thought I was coming onto him would have been laughable if I didn’t have to face him every day for another week.
Not that facing him would be much of a problem, apparently.
At breakfast, he flatly refused to make eye contact with me. He gave me a wide berth at the buffet and kept his wife closest to me at the table. Nerves tumbled around in my stomach as I watched Bea, but she seemed ignorant of the whole situation. If she’d known, she would probably have already made a nasty remark about brazen women going after married men. I flinched every time she opened her mouth to speak, waiting for the blow to fall, but it never did.
Rupert was wiser than he appeared at first glance.
Today’s itinerary would take us up Ben Macdui, the second tallest mountain in Great Britain, according to a laminated placard in the lodge. After a hearty breakfast, we piled into the mini-bus for the drive into the Cairngorms. We went deeper into the mountains than we had yesterday, winding our way up hillsides whose imposing, rocky slopes were softened somewhat by the lush green grass that clung to them.
At the car park, Lewis reminded us to bring our jackets, no matter how little we thought we would need them. The temperature hovered in the low sixties in the valley, and I’d stowed my fleece-lined rain jacket in my pack.
“Any snow?” Duncan asked as he slipped a water bottle into his backpack holster.
“Latest report says there’s no concern for ice or snow fields,” Lewis said, double-checking his supplies.
“Snow fields?” I said. “But it’s summer.”
“You’re in Scotland now.” Duncan buckled his backpack’s chest strap, drawing my attention to the way his hunter green shirt hugged his upper body.
This marked the first time I’d seen him without a fleece on, and I had to stop myself from doing a double-take. He had a slim stomach, defined pectorals that stood at attention beneath his shirt, and round biceps that strained mercilessly against his short sleeves.
Would it be rude to whip out my camera so I would never forget the sight?
We got going, but my enthusiasm flagged pretty quickly. The track cut over a mild slope, but a half-hour of even that gentle climb had my legs burning. Gravel rolled underfoot as I crunched along, and we had to scramble around bigger rocks that covered the path.
At least after this I would spend the next few days kayaking, where I could abuse my arms instead of my legs. Spread the misery…er, joy.
Clouds hung low in the sky, bringing with them a chill wind, and although I hadn’t felt a drop of rain yet, my lifelong experience in Seattle said it was inevitable. I stopped to pull on a wool cap and my jacket. Even another layer more would have been welcome protection against the elements on the bare mountainside.
Summer, my behind.
The mountain fell sharply away, carving out a little lake at the bottom of the valley. Other hikers scrambled down to it, and judging by their tiny figures, the lake was a lot bigger than it appeared from up here.
“It’s a perfect spot for wild swimming, if anyone’s up for it,” Arnav said.
“Followed quickly by hypothermia,” Spencer put in.
“Worth it.”
Spencer didn’t look tempted. Honestly, I voted with Spencer here.
I took more and more pictures just to have an excuse to stop on the trail. The Cairngorms were wide and round, massed together in giant ripples all the way to the horizon. Beautiful, but oh, so hard to climb.
The track grew steeper, and I silently cursed myself for ever thinking I needed anadventuretour. I could have gone on one of the group vacations my parents kept trying to get me to join, full of fit and active people in their seventies. But no, I’d had to prove to myself that approaching forty hadn’t put me on a downward slope. So noble—so misguided.
My legs ached, my lungs burned, and my exhaustion seemed premature compared to the rest of the group. At least I wasn’t so miserable I’d had to stop to throw up, but that didn’t give me a lot to cling to.
The clouds broke into a mist that hung low in the air, narrowing visibility and leaving my clothes damp. I’d seen a lot of overcast days in Seattle, but never experienced anything quite like this hanging mist. It formed a perfect cap to the hilltop, even if it meant we couldn’t see the rest of the Cairngorms now.
Next to me, Arnav just noticeably breathed hard as he paused to take a drink of water. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Have you ever heard the legend of Am Fear Liath Mòr?”
“I don’t even know what you just said, so no.”
“It’s the Big Gray Man of Ben Macdui.” He put a sinister edge in his voice like we were sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories. “Some say he’s a tall creature covered in fur. Others say he’s the spirit of a climber that haunts the summit where he died. Whatever he is, the Big Gray Man can send icy fear into the bravest heart.”
Even as he spoke, the mist curled in around us, and I took a step closer to him. He was putting me on, of course, but the gloom made anything seem possible.
“Have you ever seen anything up here?”
