Page 30 of Highland Getaway
I deliberately didn’t look too closely at my surroundings earlier, because it would’ve felt too much like snooping. Now that I know the place isHunter’s, though, and that he has a daughter, but apparently no wife or girlfriend, my ‘intrigue sensor’ has been triggered, and I shamelessly want to know why the two of them are on their own.
Tragic dead wife?
Bitter custody battle?
Witness protection programme?
I scan the room quickly, but all I can gather from the general chaos is that Hunter wears brightly coloured underwear, and really needs to get a cleaner.
There’s no evidence of any feminine touch at all, though, and I’m just trying to figure out why that pleases me as much as it does when the door opens and Hunter appears again.
‘Got it,’ he says, holding up a room key. ‘I see you decided to brave the whisky again?’
‘I did,’ I reply, holding up the glass to show him. ‘It tasted a bit better this time. Either that or my taste buds have just been destroyed by it.’
‘I told you it would grow on you,’ he says. ‘Everything OK here while I was gone? No more ghostly wanderings from Hannah?’
‘Nope. Not so much as a peep from her. And I didn’treallythink she was a ghost earlier,’ I add, knowing Hannah will probably be telling him all about my hysterical reaction as soon as she wakes up in the morning. ‘It was just a bit spooky after everything else that’s happened since I got here. I’m starting to feel like I’m in an episode ofScooby Doo.’
‘Well, I’m happy to assure you that Hannah’s very much alive,’ Hunter replies, refilling my glass without asking. ‘And her mother’s alive, too,’ he adds. ‘Just in case you were wondering.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t,’ I assure him, even though I absolutely was. I take another sip to give me an excuse to look away.
‘She lives in Edinburgh,’ he goes on, smiling in a way that tells me he knows exactly what I was thinking. ‘We’d originally intended to try to share custody, but she travels a lot for work, so Hannah ended up with me. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I love having her here; I just worry that she’ll be lonely stuck in a mouldy old castle without any other kids to play with.’
‘That must’ve been really hard,’ I say, surprised that he’s being so open. I guess that whisky really does loosen the tongue. ‘Breaking up when you have a child, I mean?’
I’m hoping the question will prompt him to say more about the mysterious ex – andwhyshe’s a mysterious ex – but Hunter’s face just takes on an odd, closed expression, as if he’s said too much already.
‘Ah, well, it is what it is,’ he says, in a tone that tells me story time’s over, as abruptly as it began. Shame. ‘Another dram?’
‘Definitely not.’ I cover the top of my glass with my hand. ‘I should probably be going, actually. It’s late.’
‘You’re sure you won’t be too scared of the ghosties to make it back to your room?’ he replies, but there’s a twinkle in his eye, which I know means he’s just teasing.
‘No, it’s the human residents of this place I’m scared of,’ I reply, getting reluctantly to my feet. The whisky I’ve drunk has left me feeling pleasantly fuzzy around the edges, but not so much that I don’t know a bad idea when I see one; and falling for a man who lives hundreds of miles away would definitely be a bad idea, even by my standards – and I say that as someone who recently pretended to be an influencer in order to blag her way into a free hotel stay.
‘You still think someone’s out to get you, then?’ Hunter asks, hitting on the one topic of conversation guaranteed to make me stay.
‘Um, I’m not sure,’ I reply, sitting back down beside him and trying not to think about how good he smells: like woodsmoke and salty air. ‘I can’t imagine why anyonewouldbe, really; especially not if they’ve seen the kind of content I’m coming up with for this competition. It’s not like I’m a big threat to any of them. But then, someone definitely moved my clothes; I just can’t accept that I imagined that. And then there’s the thing with the itinerary.’
I tell him how I searched my room for the piece of paper with the note on it, watching him closely the whole time for any sign of guilt. But Hunter just listens quietly, then shrugs in that way of his.
‘It’s a slip of paper, Rosie,’ he says. ‘It’s really easy for a piece of paper to go missing. They fall down cracks. They get mixed up with other documents. The fact that you haven’t found it yet doesn’t mean someone’s stolen it.’
‘I know. And if it was just that, I wouldn’t give it another thought,’ I reply. ‘I’d think I’d just mislaid it. But there’s also the fact that mine was the only copy with that note added to it. Zara told me hers didn’t say anything about dressing to impress. Someone wrote that on mine deliberately, then took the paper from my room so I couldn’t prove it. I’m sure of it.’
‘OK,’ says Hunter, leaning back. ‘Say someone did. What’s the point? Just to make you dress up when no one else was? So? Why does that matter?’
‘Oh, it matters,’ I mutter darkly. ‘I know it probably seems trivial to you—’ he nods briefly, not even bothering to deny this ‘—but it made me feel stupid and out of place. And Ihatethat.’
He fixes me with that intense gaze again, and for once there’s no mockery behind it.
‘You try very hard not to feel out of place, don’t you?’ he says softly.
‘Very,’ I agree, the whisky I’ve drunk making me brutally honest. ‘I’ve been trying all my life. It never works, though. I think I’m doomed to always be the “wrong” Rosie – at school, at work . . . and now here, too.’
Hunter reaches out and tops up my glass again without asking.
