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“Seriously, Molly, live a little. You’re on your first real vacation in forever, you’re with a man you clearly like. Just enjoy yourself. I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“I mean man happy. Anyway, you know what they say about older men—snow on the roof, fire in the pants.”
I laughed over her awful idiom. “I’m not even sure he’s that much older.”
“So get it, girl.”
Duncan didn’t strike me as a man I’d easily forget. Then again, if things went wrong, I’d never have to worry about running into him again. Win-win?
“I’ll think about it.”
She made a sound of disgust. “I know you, Molly. ‘I’ll think about it’ means ‘I’m going to drag my feet until it’s too late to do anything about it.’”
I frowned over that, but Olivia’s crying and Shatner’s barking brought an end to the conversation before I could come up with a believable defense. Jill made me promise to let her know if anything fiery progressed.
“Send a text, at least. S.O.S.—Snogged our Scotsman.”
Thinking about that S.O.S. made it hard for me to drift off to sleep.
By morning, I’d fully recovered from my unexpected dip in Loch Ness. I had never been in much danger of dying from hypothermia, but I’d warmed away the last of the chills and slept off the worst of my regrets over my camera.
Now, we’d packed our bags and were headed north to the Black Isle. Duncan and I had become seat-mates, an arrangement that grew on me with each passing mile. He spent most of the drive reading while I stared out the window watching scenery go by, fogging the glass with my breath.
I side-eyed him, Jill’s call sign on my mind. I didn’t do short-term relationships or vacation flings. I wanted the Real Deal. I just hadn’t found it yet. Hidden way down in my heart, I longed for a soul-deep connection, that spark that let you knowThis is It, but it had been so long since I’d felt anything resembling a spark.
Until now.
* * *
Despite Dingwall’s small size, the lodge we stayed in was the largest we’d visited so far, and in sight of the Cromarty Firth where we would go sea kayaking later in the day. We didn’t see any other guests when we checked in, leaving us tucked away in our own little world.
Unfortunately, Lincoln kept intruding on that little world. He’d sent an email asking for front-end mock-ups for a newer site. I’d started notes before I left, but now he needed visuals for the design team’s meeting so they could get a feel for my vision and start the storyboards.
Wait—I read through his email again, sure I’d read it wrong. He wanted the mock-ups fortoday’smeeting? With the time difference, I had at least two hours of work to do, a narrow window to do it in, and no chance to tell Lincolnnobefore the deadline to get the work to the design team hit. I could only get the mock-ups done in time if I opted out of the kayak trip.
An afternoon of sea kayaking on the Moray Firth, surrounded by gorgeous glen scenery—how could I even consider missing it? The firth shone in the distance, a stripe of blue I was meant to be out on in less than an hour. I didn’t want to back out of any part of this trip, but three little words pushed me to my decision:Head of Design. Providing vision layouts for the team would be my new normal when I got home. I just wasn’t usually distracted by hikes and views and sizzling men back home.
Flexing my bandaged palms, I resigned myself to it. I would have another opportunity to kayak once we got to the Isle of Skye, so missing out in Dingwall wouldn’t be the end of the world. A poor justification, but it was all I had.
I wandered through the lodge and found Arnav and Rupert in the dining room looking over a tray of cookies, pastries, and assorted sweets. Rupert defied Bea’s “no fat” edict, nibbling on a small pastry.
“Those look amazing.” I drooled over the buttery shortbreads, golden-brown hand pies, fat cookies, and jam-dotted tarts that filled the trays.
“House-made.” Arnav raised a doughy cookie in toast.
I chose a caramel covered shortbread square that melted in my mouth, the perfect balance of sweet and salty. “Incredible.”
Rupert wiped his fingers at the jam that had oozed onto his lips. “Be a dear and don’t tell Bea about this, would you? She’s worried about my fat intake, you see.”
I shared a conspiratorial smile. My tumble in Loch Ness must have softened his chilly attitude. He’d been much more sympathetic since I’d climbed out of the lake. “My lips are sealed.”
Arnav started to leave, but I remembered why I’d wandered into the dining room in the first place. “Oh, Arnav—” I swallowed down the shortbread bite. “I wanted to talk to you about the itinerary.”
“Let me guess—you want to go back to Loch Ness?”
“Ha. Funny.” Maybe Jill had been right about telling the story at parties. “No. I don’t think my hands have quite healed enough for more paddling.”
