Page 96 of Duke It Out
I blink into my tea and nod, biting down on my lip and taking a breath to steady myself before I look up. “Thanks.”
She doesn’t press for more. She squeezes my hand, tells me with a fond smile about Gregor’s attempts to make a smoker out of an old metal drum, and then heads back to her car with a bag of potatoes and a quiet smile.
“Don’t be a stranger,” she says, leaning out of the window.
I smile and wave as she crunches down the track. We both know there’s no way back, but it’s nice of her to pretend there is, even for a moment.
I don’t reply to Anna’s messages when we find my phone – mud-covered but amazingly none the worse for a couple of nights in the wild – lying on the path by the river by a patch of wild garlic. I’ve no idea how I missed it falling out of my pocket, but I guess sometimes things happen for a reason.
Some weekslater
“Four flat whites,one with oat milk, three cardamom buns, and two raspberry scones,” calls Morag over the din of the crowd.
Summer tourists have descended on the village, and my feet are killing me.
I’ve been at it since six this morning, and the clock overthe kitchen door tells me it’s almost four. My hair’s escaping from its ponytail, I’ve got coffee stains all down the front of my apron, and I’m pretty sure I have flour in my eyebrows.
“Coming right up,” I say with a smile, despite the fact that the oat milk jug is empty again and I’m the only one who remembers to refill it. I think of Gregor every time I do, and his scathing disapproval of vegetarians in general and oat milk consumers in particular, and it makes me smile.
A group of hikers pile in, bringing with them the smell of rain and pine. One of them is wearing a Loch Morven Estate T-shirt from Jamie’s project, and I feel the now-familiar pang in my chest.
“Don’t mind the crush,” Morag says to one of the tourists as they edge their way into the corner table. “It’s our resident author here, words got round she makes the best flat white in the Highlands.”
I roll my eyes and snort as I tamp down the coffee. “Three weeks ago I couldn’t tell a cappuccino from a cortado.”
“And now look at you.” Morag winks. “Like with that book of yours.”
“Book?” says the man at the till.
I shake my head, laughing. “Don’t listen to her.”
The crowd finally thins at six. I wipe down tables and load the dishwasher with Ginny as Morag does the till.
“Go home, lassie,” she says, waving her fingers in the direction of the door. “You look dead on your feet.”
“I’m fine, honestly.” Covering a double shift means I’m so tired I don’t have time to think. My shoulders are aching, and my smile feels like it’s plastered on.
“I’ve been watching you,” says Morag beadily. “Working yourself to the bone then typing away half the night. You’ll burn yourself out.”
“Or she’ll end up a millionaire when her books hit the top of the charts,” says Ginny with a bright smile. She does a thumbs-up at me over the counter. “And when that happens and they turn your book into the next Bridgerton, can I get a starring role?”
“If that happens,” I say confidently, “I solemnly promise I’ll make sure you get a cameo. Which is a nice way of saying it’s never going to happen.”
“Aww,” says Ginny pouting. “I could totally see myself waltzing around in a ballgown.”
I have been working hard, it’s true. The words have been pouring out of me. Not just edits to the first book – I’ve gone through it over and over, tightening it up and making every line sing – but chapters of the next one. They’re flowing faster than I can type, ideas coming to me as I’m handing out cardamom buns, so I have to rush off into the back room and scribble little notes to myself in my notebook. My heroine’s heartbreak is a lot easier to write now I know how it feels. But I try not to think about how it feels.
“Go on, you, shoo.” Morag waves a tea towel at me, flicking it so it hits me on the leg. “If I have to chase you up the stairs to that flat I will.”
It’s Morag who helped me get the flat. Kate said I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted, but I wanted to find my feet.
It’s technically a studio, which is a nice way of saying one single room with a bathroom, a teeny little kitchenette, and a window looking into the house behind and a view of the bins behind the village shop. The windows rattle when it rains, and the blinds don’t roll down properly, so I’m woken at five in the morning when the sunlight shines through and hits my face. The shower works until it doesn’t. But for the firsttime in my life, I have my own keys. Not a student flat, not shared with a man, not Anna’s – they’re mine.
There’s a corkboard over the little wobbly desk I saw advertised on the village noticeboard, and I’ve pinned an offcut of ribbon from Kate’s roll for luck as a reminder of the clootie tree and my wish.
I’m writing again. Charlotte hasn’t been in touch – it’s summer, which means the whole publishing world grinds to a standstill. But I’m not writing for her – I’m writing for me.
It’s almost midnight and the room is lit up by the glow of my laptop screen and the vanilla-scented candle that flickers on the window ledge. Rain patters against the window, but I’m so lost in the story I barely notice.
