Page 46 of Scotlander
‘. . . then you’re going to have to give this a go . . .’
‘. . . fifty acres?’
‘. . . not impossible . . .’
When Willa finally came back out, running shoes peeking out beneath her skirt and her new puffa jacket zipped up to her chin, Orla was nowhere to be seen. Finn’s expression no longer bore the tension it had a few moments before, but storm clouds still hung over his head.
‘Ah!’ Willa cried when they turned the corner and headed towards Finn’s old Land Rover. ‘The trusty Jacobean steed, groomed and waiting for the day’s journey.’
Finn’s mouth briefly twitched into a smile but he said nothing. Awesome. If this was a portent of things to come, she wasn’t going to have to worry about oversharing.
After Willa remembered the passenger door was on the far side of the jeep, she climbed into the cab. Once he started the motor she brightly asked, ‘Where are we going, O Ball and Chain of Mine?’
‘Barns.’
‘Wow. So this is the famed Scottish wit and repartee I’ve heard so much about then, is it?’
He shot her a glance. ‘Aye.’ And then, ‘Sorry. Just a lot on my mind.’ He lifted his index finger off the steering wheel and pointed towards a long dirt track. ‘We’re away down the new barns.’
The small gesture was a classic guy-in-a-truck manoeuvre. One she’d seen her dad and brothers perform a million times. Strangely, she found it comforting. As if he was a new flavour of ice cream with just enough sprinkles of the familiar to make her feel not entirely outside her orbit.
If this had been work and he a celeb, she’d instinctively have known whatever he was grumpy about had nothing to do with her. (Spanx too tight, a need to wee, an embarrassing photo about to hit the tabloids.) But since they had literally just promised to be one another’s truly beloved, she felt she was allowed to press for more than the odd monosyllable.
Before she could think of the perfect question, a pebbledash-covered two-storey house came into view.
‘That doesn’t look very Jacobean.’ Willa pointed at the house. ‘Who lives there?’
‘Orla and Dougie,’ Finn said. ‘Their kids. Orla’s dad.’
‘Oh wow. Three generations in one house. That’s cool. But . . .’
Anticipating her question, Finn said, ‘Orla’s father is my stepfather.’
‘Soooo . . . sorry. I’m confused.’
‘My mum married Orla’s dad after my father died.’ Finn shot her a quick look. ‘Orla was Duncan’s from his first marriage.’
Ah. That explained a lot. The wilful staring contests she’d seen between Orla and Finn were your normal mixed family drama. ‘How old were you when all of that happened?’
‘Nine,’ he said, eyes still glued to the track ahead of him. ‘Orla was seven.’
‘Are either of your mothers still—’
‘Around?’ Finn finished for her. ‘No. My mum died a couple of years back. Orla’s mum is alive but lives abroad.’
Willa threw him a look.
Finn explained. ‘She’d come up from Birmingham to work in a hotel during the summer season, met Duncan and stayed when she got pregnant. After a few years, she decided she didnae take to life in the Highlands and took off with a ski instructor from New Zealand. Duncan took up with my recently widowed mother and that was that.’
It twisted her heart to hear how bereft of emotion his voice was. As if a robot had crawled inside him and taken possession of his larynx. ‘There’s a lot to unpack there.’
He tipped his head as if to say, depends upon what you compare it to.
Failing to come up with something deep and meaningful to say, she held out her fist and he lightly bumped it with his own.
After a few moments’ silence, he gave the steering wheel a squeeze and straightened his arms. ‘Luckily for me, we don’t unpack emotional baggage here in Scotland. We just stuff it in an attic somewhere and forget about it.’ There wasn’t an ounce of humour in his voice.
Her brain flashed back to the swish surrounds of the hospitality suite in the Four Seasons where she’d held up the trauma of Los Angeles traffic against Val’s death. Even though the window dressings were worlds apart, they both came from places where people didn’t talk about the hard stuff.
