Page 89 of Duke It Out
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out and wave it around, hoping to catch whatever pocket of signal it just found. Nothing. All I have is a notification telling me it’s time to back up my Fitbit device.
There’s only the sound of the rain and my feet on the tarmac, and a constant refrain in my head:well, you fucked that up.
I’m at the point of contemplating sitting down in a ditchand having a rest when I hear the crunch of tyres on the gravel behind me.
It’s a horse truck, painted in an all too familiar shade of dark blue. It slows, then stops, and the passenger window lowers.
“Jesus, Edie.” It’s Kate. She leans over from the driver’s seat and squints at me through the rain. “What the hell are you doing out here?” Her tone is brisk as always, but her eyes are concerned. “You look like a drowned cat.”
“Don’t you mean rat?”
The door swings open as she pushes it from inside. “You’re soaked to the skin and you’re arguing semantics? What the fuck are you doing?”
I try to laugh but it comes out more of a choked sob.
“I’m reclaiming my narrative.”
“Oh.” She watches me as I climb in, dragging the bags behind me. “Is this a writer thing, or…?”
“It’s not my best idea,” I admit, wiping rain from my face with the back of my arm, which is soaked as well. She passes me a wad of tissues. The heater’s on, and it hits me like a wave. I want to cry but once again I curl my fingernails into my palms. At this point it’s becoming my default position.
“I was just coming back from Inverness,” she says, shifting gears as we pull away. “Kiltie has to have some treatment at the vet hospital, so she’s there for a couple of nights. Vet says she’ll be fine, but I wasn’t expecting to pick up a stray on the way home. Where are you going?”
I bite the inside of my cheek and heave out a long sigh. “It’s a long story.”
She looks at me sideways and says nothing for a while.
“Want to tell me what’s going on over dinner? I’ve got a stew in the slow cooker. I just need to drop the truck back atthe yard, swap cars, and we can head back to mine. You look like you need a hot shower and a chair by the fire.”
I laugh. “You say that like it’s the middle of winter.”
Kate pushes her hair back from her face and grins. “That’s Highland life for you. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”
Kate’s cottage is small and cosy, with her two Labradors waiting in the front porch with wagging tails and smiling faces. The smell of stew hits us as she opens the door and my stomach growls. I realise I haven’t eaten all day.
“Hello, babies,” she says, leaning down to fuss them. “I had to leave them at home today because I was going to the vet hospital. My neighbour came in to check them twice, but you’d think from the look of them that they’ve been abandoned for days.”
The dogs turn to me and sniff me thoroughly. Once I’ve been decreed acceptable, they potter through to the sitting room. It’s comfortably untidy, with sofas covered with tartan blankets and shelves stacked with books. There’s a low glow of embers in the woodstove and a scent of vanilla from a candle on the mantelpiece. Kate throws a couple of logs in the burner then disappears, returning with some joggers and a fleece.
“Sorry, not very glamorous but it has to be better than soaked and freezing. Let’s get you a shower and get you warmed up.”
By the time I emerge, hair damp, toes unthawing, she’s got a bottle of red wine open and two glasses sitting waiting on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
“You’re not going back, are you?” she says, handing me a glass of wine.
I shake my head.
“Didn’t think so.”
She sits down at the other side of the sofa, curling up her long legs underneath her and sipping her wine without speaking.
By the time we get to the bottom of the bottle of wine I’m curled up, wrapped in one of the woollen blankets. It smells of lavender and Labrador, and I’m full of the delicious stew. I’ve connected to Kate’s Wi-Fi which was a mistake, because the phone keeps vibrating. It’s Anna, grumbling about her flight and complaining that I’ve left her in the lurch. I switch it onto do not disturb mode and shove it on the coffee table out of reach.
We’re on the sofa, the fire gently ticking away, one of the Labradors curled up against my leg. Kate’s got her socked feet up on the coffee table and she’s cupping the Malbec as if it’s a well-earned prize, which to be fair, it is. She drove to Inverness and back, did her day job, and rescued a stranded idiot wandering along the roadside like the Highland version of the Littlest Hobo.
“Did youtellRory that you didn’t let her into your room?”
I shake my head. “He wasn’t really in a mood for a discussion.” I take a gulp of wine, trying not to think about the fact that this time last night I was being whirled around the dancefloor by a man who now loathes everything I stand for. “I’m done with them. Honestly. Let them keep their secrets and their money and all of it.”
