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Actually, no, muesli absolutely sucked as a comfort food.
“Are you feeling all right?” Bea looked me up and down. “You look a little peaky.”
I shrugged off her concern and sat down at the table. “I’m fine.”
I would never admit to her that my friend’s good news had thrown off my morning. It wasn’t like I didn’t have my own good news. I had a new promotion, too. It just felt…weirdly anti-climactic considering all the work I’d been doing on vacation.
“You have the option of two cycling routes today,” Lewis announced. “One amounts to about five miles through town, and the other is twenty miles on the Black Isle. We’ll drive you to the starting point and pick you up in the afternoon.”
Well, I would choose the longer route. A full day riding a bike around little villages on the island sounded like a perfect distraction. It wasn’t really an island, apparently, but it should have plenty of good views, and now maybe I would have a chance to see more of the quaint towns I had only gazed at so longingly from the road.
Conversation swirled around the table while we ate. Spencer relayed a story he’d read about a bicyclist who’d broken his leg in a crash and wasn’t found for three days, developing gangrene while he waited for rescue. A bleak start to our morning, not going to lie.
Duncan didn’t have much to say, but when I looked over at him, it seemed his silence came more as a reflection of mine than his own desire to be taciturn. Ihadrun out on him in the middle of our flirt-fest last night, after all. I didn’t want him to think my morning’s morose attitude had anything to do with him, so I flashed a small smile. He returned it easily, and that wobbly little something in my stomach flipped over.
“Let him woo you!”
Maybe I should.
Our groups divided following our usual pattern: Bea and Rupert opted for the shorter, in-town route with Lewis, while Arnav ferried the rest of us to and from the next village for the longer circuit. After doling out snacks, lunches, and water bottles that we tucked into our backpacks, we set off.
Arnav had driven into town to get the bikes first thing in the morning. Mounted atop the mini-bus, the bikes lent an air of adventure the vehicle had lacked all week. We piled onto the bus, and Arnav took us the short drive to the village of Munlochy.
“All right?”
Duncan watched me more closely than I liked. He seemed to catch everything. Since I couldn’t very well sayMy best friend is moving away in a few weeks and, oh yes, she thinks I should let you woo me, I tried to shrug it off. “It’s been a weird morning.”
Arnav stopped at a turnout on the side of the road and unloaded the bikes and helmets and passed out laminated maps of the area with our planned route highlighted yellow.
“The beginning is the steepest section, but it will bring you to a nice descent along the coast. I’ll be back in six hours. That should give you plenty of time to complete the route. My cell number is there in case of emergencies or if you just need a pick up.”
He snuck a glance at me, and I scowled back. Sure, fine. Between tumbling around on Ben Macdui and falling straight into Loch Ness, I’d proven myself a bit of a liability. But I rode my bike plenty back home—this would be fine.
Better than fine. I would kick this island’s butt.
Standing astride my mountain bike, I strapped on a helmet while I memorized the first three turns of our route. Carlos set off in the lead with the rest of us close behind him. That didn’t last. Within minutes, the span between me and the others grew from one block to two, until I stopped trying to catch up. Arnav had warned us, but I hadn’t expected the uphill climb to be anything likethis.
Maybe he’d been right to doubt my abilities.
My breath seared as I tackled the steep grade. I fell so far behind, I could barely see Harlow. Duncan was still somewhere behind me, but that didn’t bring me a lot of comfort when I wheezed this hard. Why had I signed up for an adventure tour? I could have found a nice grandma tour like my mom had suggested. You could probably see a lot of Scotland from the seat of a Rascal.
My legs burned with every turn of the wheel, moving my bike up the slope slower than if I’d stepped off and walked. Oh, I was tempted. I kept my eyes fixed on the road, watching for any sign of the plateau that must be coming.
Any time now.
At least I had the coast to look forward to, if the climb up didn’t kill me first.
The pain in my legs paled next to my frustration with Lincoln. After the last-minute work I’d put into the mock-ups, he’d canceled the meeting. If I’d been in my office, it would have been just a blip in my day, a mild annoyance he would have smoothed over by sending the intern out for coffee and donuts. In Scotland, that wasted time formed a livid bruise on my vacation, made worse by his indifference.“Sorry, Molly”didn’t cut it.
“Sorry, Molly” might as well have been my full name, he’d said it so often.
Duncan’s bike whirred right behind me, spurring me along. It was both a comfort and a curse that he’d stayed with me. The comfort—well, I didn’t question that part. He hadn’t left me like the others, which was nice of him, considering he must have had the ability. But it was a little dismaying to know he was right behind me, watching every agonizing pedal of my climb. Forty-nine or not, he was crazy strong. I would have had to ride Queen Anne Hill every day to prepare for this.
I exhaled a laugh even though it took all my strength to keep the bike going. When had I ever been prepared enough for anything? I’d thought I had it all together with my business, and that had crumbled within a year. I’d more than prepared Lincoln for my vacation, but the requests kept rolling in. I’d planned a nice, relaxing trip away from stress and worry, and here I was, falling for a man on the tour.
No. Not falling. I mentally slapped myself upside the head. We weren’t falling for each other, we were just…getting to know each other. A little harmless flirting. It would be stupid to read anything more into our time together.
So very stupid.
