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Jack himself.
Rose.
Jack’s assistant, Elaine.
Elaine’s sister.
Anyone Elaine, Rose, or Elaine’s sister might have told.
Anyone any of the people who were told might have told.
Probably Shona McLaren — who hasn’t beentold, as far as I know, but who’s bound to find out, if she doesn’t already.
So, pretty mucheveryone, really.Fantastic.
The next morning, my alarm jolts me abruptly out of a dream in which McTavish’s grandad is trapped in a sauna while Jack taunts him from the other side of the glass, and I roll over, groaning as I remember the am run I have scheduled with Brian.
Why on earth did I let him talk me into this?
Jack’s side of the bed is already empty — unlike me, he actuallylikesgetting up early — so I climb reluctantly out of bed and into my running gear, almost falling flat on my face as I struggle to get into my new leggings, which almost cut off the circulation in both my legs.
“This better be worth it, Brian,” I say once I’ve stumbled down to the shed, where Brian’s waiting for me, wearing a lime green Lycra number and looking pointedly at his watch.
“Oh, it will be,” Brian replies. “Ye just have to put the effort in, and soon ye’ll be like a brand new woman. Well, other than the hair, obviously. It’ll take more than a few training sessions to fix that.”
“I’d love to be a new woman,” I say ruefully, as we start our warm-up routine. “I’m not sure Jack’s too keen on the old one right now. I’m not sureIam either, to be honest with you. It’s not a makeover I need so much as a complete reinvention. Hey, I don’t suppose you do those too, do you?”
I’m joking — well, mostly — but Brian looks at me seriously.
“It’ll be aninterventionye need if ye keep on like that,” he says firmly. “Remember what happened thelasttime ye decided to re-invent yerself?”
“That was anaccident,” I insist, wincing as I try to wrestle my protesting limbs into a stretch. “It’s not like I set out to make Jack think I was Scarlett; I just didn’t bother correcting him when he assumed I was her, that’s all. And you don’t need to worry, I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t want to pretend to be someone else. I just need a bit of a … well, anupgrade, I guess. Just to get things back on track with Jack and his parents.”
“I can help ye get in shape, Emerald,” says Brian, who clearly thinks he’s Yoda training Luke to be a Jedi, rather than just a personal trainer about to take a bride-to-be for a run around a loch. “Well, I can try, anyway. But ye cannae reinvent the past — or yerself. You should know that better than anyone.”
I wrack my brain for a suitable response to this, but before I can come up with one, he’s off, sprinting out of the gym/shed and shouting for me to follow him. As I force myself through the door and chase Brian down to the lochside path, I try not to think about the fact that everything he’s just said to me was right. Even the bit about my hair.
Especiallythe bit about my hair.
I might not have intended to lie about who I was when I first met Jack, but I ended up doing it anyway, and it almost ruined everything. I’m determined not to let the same thing happen again; and while, okay, the chances of thatexactsituation happening again are almost as slim as Brian saysI’llbe by the time I’ve completed the Platinum Plan, the last few days have left me feeling like I’m hovering dangerously on the brink of another “accident”.
Let’s face it: I’ve already managed to make the worst possible impression on Jack’s parents. I’m pretty sure Kathryn hates me. Rose keeps giving me flashbacks to the time my so-called friend, Lexie, set me on fire as I was about to step on stage as the village Gala Queen. And just yesterday I snooped through Jack’s desk in a bid to find something I don’t even know I’m looking for, then lied when he almost caught me in the act.
Oh, and mum sent me a message this morning saying Jude Paw’s eaten her wedding hat. Which has absolutely nothing to do with me, but which feels like a bad omen, all the same.
I have to fix this. I can’t go back to my old ways of “accidents” and misunderstandings. Not when I’ve come so far. I need to become, in Brian’s words, “a new woman”: and what better time to do that than when I’m about to get married? A wedding is the perfect opportunity for a re-invention, despite what Brian says. And I know Jack would say he loves me exactly as I am, but, well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? But what ifIdon’t love me exactly the way I am? What if I want Emerald Buchanan (Will I change my name, though? Need to work that out…) to be everything Emerald Taylor is not? I’m not talking about pretending to be someone else again, obviously — God knows, I’ve learnedthatlesson. I just want everything to be perfect. And the only way I can make sure it is, is by finding out who’s been sending me those stupid messages, and putting a stop to it, so everything can go back to normal.
First, though, I have to run all the way around Loch Keld: an endeavor that leaves me feeling not so much like a new woman as like a hungover sloth in Lycra.
Fortunately, though, I’m still fired up with the anxiety that’s been keeping me going ever since the messages started arriving, and it gives me the strength to limp my way along to Heather Bay’s tiny police station, where I’m determined to enlist the help of someone who can get to the bottom of these messages once and for all.
Or, failing that, Dylan Fraser, the village’s one and only police officer — who I enter the little two-room station to find engaged in a steamy clinch with Scarlett Scott, his journalist girlfriend.
Things have certainly changed around here since Young Dougie left, then.
“Oh, hi Emerald,” splutters Dylan, catching sight of me over Scarlett’s shoulder and pushing her quickly off his lap. “Is there, er, something I can help you with?”
I look tactfully away while Scarlett scrambles to her feet, and when I turn back, she’s standing primly next to Dylan, her cheeks red.
