Page 87 of Surprises on the Scottish Isle

‘Due west of the boathouse. I believe she would have tried to moor up on the other side in the shallows.’

‘I’m assuming she wouldn’t have gone out if the weather had already turned, so she would have been caught out either when she was still there or on her way back. Can you give me a guestimate of where you saw her?’

‘A quarter of a mile north of where she’d started, and a few hundred yards from shore.’

Mack nodded, then began muttering to himself. Cal caught a few snippets – wind speed, drift, tide, rate of knots – but he didn’t interrupt. Mack knew what he was doing.

‘I reckon I know where she could be, there or thereabouts,’ he announced and changed course slightly. ‘If we get ahead of her and turn our backs to the tide, we’ll have a chance of netting her. The last thing I want is to miss her. We’ll take a zig-zag line because her location depends on how well she can steer that little boat of yours. Not that your piddly motor will be much use in this weather. What?’ he asked as Cal let out a groan of despair.

‘She mightn’t be able to use the motor. The damned thing keeps cutting out. Oh, God!’ He felt like gnashing his teeth and wailing, and it was with difficulty that he held himself together. If anything happened to her, he didn’t know how he would carry on.

When they found her – he had to say when, not if – he was going to throw himself on her mercy and beg her forgiveness for being such an idiot.

He’d tell Tara he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and he hoped she would forgive him. He wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t, because he could never forgive himself for putting her through such heartache for a second time.

Please, please, let her be safe.

Please.

Chapter 26

Noise filled Tara’s head. All she could hear was the wind and the slam of the waves against the boat. All she could feel was the rain and the spray soaking her already sodden body. Her feet sat in the freezing puddle at the bottom, and she couldn’t feel her fingers. She kept having to look to check they were still gripping the sides. Her hands were pale and dead in the false gloaming, as though they belonged to a ghost.

How long had she been on the loch? She wasn’t sure, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours, could it?

She didn’t think night was approaching just yet, despite the heavy, lowering cloud. The thought of being out here in the dark terrified her even more than she already was.

Her voice hoarse from shouting, she tried again. It was little more than a whisper. ‘Cal.’ Would his name be the last word on her lips?

The boat rose, a wave lifting it, tilting the stern so high she thought it would topple backwards, before it slammed down to sink into the watery chasm that opened underneath.

Tara screamed, a harsh guttural cry, expecting icy water to close over her head.

Miraculously, the boat stayed afloat. But for how much longer?

Blinking tears and raindrops out of her eyes, she squinted into the distance, desperate for a sight of land.

The loch was only two miles wide, but it may well have been an ocean. If there were any lights on in the castle or the village, she couldn’t see them. But maybe she was looking in the wrong direction.

Or was she?

Tara blinked again and narrowed her eyes as she peered into the murk, keeping her head still as the boat turned. That was definitely a light. It pierced the gloom in a single beam, then disappeared as a wall of water reared up to obscure it.

Filled with dismay, Tara craned her neck. She wanted to stand up for a better look but knew it would be fatal. Her grip tightened on the sides of the boat, and she gritted her teeth, pain flaring along her jaw.

Then she saw it again.

Was it closer? She couldn’t tell.

A new noise filtered into her consciousness, a low grumbling rumble, mechanical rather than natural, and a shape behind the light emerged out of the lashing rain.

‘Help! Help!’ she screamed. She wanted to jump up and down and wave her arms, but she had to trust they had seen her.

When the beam caught her and held, she knew they had.

Sobbing with relief, fresh tears cascaded down her face to mingle with the rain and the spray.

But as the sound of the engine increased as her rescuers grew nearer, she began to worry that they hadn’t seen her after all and she was about to be run down. Then the vessel turned sideways on when it was still some distance away, and the engine noise decreased.

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