Page 42 of A Summer of New Beginnings
He nodded. ‘Bess will stay and keep you company. Oh,and if she tries to get on the sofa, don’t let her. Bloody little madam. I swear she thinks she’s human.’
Of course, as soon as Lachy left the room Bess cheekily hopped up beside Zara and snuggled into her side.
‘Hey, you’ll get me in trouble, you little tyke,’ Zara informed the dog, but stroked her fur regardless. How could she not? Bess was adorable.
Lachy appeared again moments later. ‘Ahem,I see you’re a soft touch with the animals, then.’
Zara cringed. ‘But she’s so cute. I couldn’t resist.’
He grinned and shook his head as he handed her a glass of water and two tablets. ‘Here you go. Just paracetamol. You’re not allergic, are you?’
She took the pills and swallowed them as she shook her head no.
‘Look, I was going to give the bike place a call. I know one of the owners fromway back. Thought I might be able to sweet-talk them for you.’
‘No! No, I need to fess up. I can’t have you doing that for me. I mean, itwasan accident, after all.’
He sighed. ‘God, you’re stubborn. But whatever. Anyway, the guest room’s ready for you. Although I should warn you that I’ll be coming in to check on you in the night, so you’d better not sleep naked if you want to save your dignity.’
Zara gasped and felt her cheeks warming – the ones on her face, that was. ‘Why would you be doing that? It’s creepy.’
‘Look, you heard the doctor. Sleep can be a problem with concussion. I need to make sure you’re still alive. How would it look if I wound up with a dead cyclist in my spare room?’
‘Erm… okay, fair enough. Nice to know it’s purely selfish on your part,’ she huffed.
‘Oh, totallyselfish.’ He grinned again and left the room and Zara proceeded to call her friends to let them know what had happened.
*
Two in the morning.
He’d be getting up for real soon but right at that second he was hovering over the young woman in his spare room. Her face was turned to the side and her elbow bent so that her fingertips touched her chin. She was beautiful. Something about her drew himin even though he knew it was pointless. She’d be leaving soon enough and he’d go back to tending sheep and advising his local friends and neighbours on boundary disputes and encroaching trees. He didn’t miss law. In fact, he wasn’t given the chance to miss it, considering how many legal matters he’d assisted on since coming home. He didn’t mind. Not really. It beat what he had left behind anyway.
When he had first qualified as a lawyer, he’d had amazing ambition. He was going to sail to the top and make his father and mother proud. The silly thing was they were proud of him regardless. His dad had told him so when he’d returned to save the croft from ruin when his father was gravely ill.
‘Lachlan Grant, with every breath I have left I want to make sure you know how much it means to methat you’ve come home. Your mother, God rest her soul, would feel the same. She missed you so much when you left for studies.’
Lachy had gripped his father’s wizened hand, the paper-thin skin crumpling beneath his touch. ‘I should never have gone away, Dad,’ he had sobbed.
‘I’ll have none of that, Lachlan. You’ve helped so many people. Done so much good. And I want you to know that when I passon you have my blessing to sell this old place. Go and make your own life. You’re a lawyer now and a damn good one too. So as long as that makes you happy, son, you keep on keeping on, you hear me?’
It had been that particular conversation that had made the decision to come home to Scourie for good so much easier. Knowing what the law firm had planned and knowing the good he had been doing upto now wasn’t going to be good any more had spurred him on.
He remembered telling Saskia he was leaving to go back to the croft. ‘You’re throwing your whole education, future and us away because of a little on-the-side working? Are you mad?’ She had flicked her jet-black hair over her shoulder and regarded him with utter disdain. ‘Don’t bother asking me to come with you, Lachlan. I’m not preparedto throw everything away like that. Not to live in the middle of a field covered in sheep dung. It was nice whilst it lasted.’ It had lasted three years until she had left him standing in his office surrounded by boxes as he’d packed, a sense of unexpected relief settling over him.
She was wrong about the firm, of course. The ‘on-the-side working’ had involved some pretty serious money launderingand Lachy wasn’t willing to throw away his reputation on a job that was no longer fulfilling, nor taking him down the path he had originally intended. He wasn’t prepared to defile his parents’ image of their son. Not for money. Not for prestige and most certainly not for some hard, ice-cold woman whose world rotated round a sun made of possessions and wealth.
In the stillness of the dark roomhe could hear the faint sound of Zara’s inhalations and exhalations and the cute little squeak that came from either her nose or throat – it was hard to tell. But she was alive and that was the main thing. Concussion was so unpredictable and he couldn’t let anything happen to her. He wasn’t sure where the protective streak had emerged from but emerge it had. In the slim shaft of moonlight comingthrough the window he could see her chocolate-brown hair fanned out on the pillow round her, the ends curled naturally but only ever so slightly.
He had never watched anyone sleep on purpose before and realised that if she awoke she’d think him pervy or creepy for doing so. But he was mesmerised. She looked so relaxed and calm – different from the last couple of times he had encountered her –and he wanted to memorise the way she looked. He had already admitted to himself that he was attracted to her, but doubted that a city type like her – as Saskia had been – would be in the slightest bit interested in someone like him; well, at least not the current version anyway. Not that he had anything to offer someone who was simply passing through. In a matter of days she would be out of hislife for good and the thought caused a twinge of sadness that he didn’t wish to acknowledge. But he couldn’t help wondering if something or someone had put her in his path on purpose, considering the number of times they had coincidentally been thrust together.
She murmured in her sleep, something that sounded likeJoshorJoseph. No doubt there was some clean-cut, handsome banking executivewaiting for her to return home to him; to their plush London apartment with all the mod cons. All the cons he had left behind when he’d returned home to Scourie.
Realising he was fantasising about an unattainable stranger, he shook his head and tiptoed from the room. Back in his own bed he lay awake trying not to think about the fact that, when he had seen Zara lying there on the ground, injuredand bewildered, he had wanted to hold her and comfort her. And then when she had been upset about the wrecked bike, how he had longed to feel the closeness of the woman before him who was so fiery and passionate, not frozen to the core.
