Page 31 of Highland Games
He walked out the door.
Zoe looked to the heavens and let out a long slow breath. He was killing her and he had no idea. She turned back to the table. She wanted to let Basil out of his cage so this mess needed to be out of his reach. She put the leaflets and pieces of paper in neat piles, anchored down by saucepans. The leather-bound books she arranged on the desk. She would attack it when she was fresh in the morning.
She idly picked out a trifold leaflet. The first page was filled with an imposing image of the castle. It could have been a prison; threatening and austere. She opened the leaflet to see more uninspiring photos, including one of the great hall, filled with dark and gloomy portraits of miserable people. She shuddered. If this was meant to attract visitors, it would undoubtedly have the opposite effect. She put the leaflet down, let Basil out and grabbed the bottle of wine Fiona had given her. She poured some into a mug and leafed through the papers and books Rory had brought her. She rolled her eyes every time she saw the name Stuart MacGinley, Earl of Kinloch. Here she was, just another peasant sorting out his problems for him.
By two o’clock the bottle of wine was finished, along with a third of a bottle of whisky, but Zoe was not. Her laptop battery had died, so she worked with a camping light and pen, scrawling notes manically on the books and on the backs of invoices. She was pissed, her mind possessed with possibilities, and loving every minute of it.
What she didn’tlove was waking up at nine, her mouth drier than the desert and her bladder fuller than the sea. She’d crashed out in the tent fully clothed but had at least remembered her eye mask and earplugs. She had no time to get up leisurely. If she didn’t make it to the outhouse immediately, she was going to have an accident that would put Basil to shame. Her head was pounding and the daylight outside of the mask was too bright so she kept it on, navigating by the narrow view out the bottom. Earplugs could also wait to be removed. The last thing she wanted was to have birdsong hammering into her skull.
She got to the front door, managed to get one boot on, then tried to put on the other. Unfortunately, there was something wrong with her balance. She made the critical mistake of leaning against the flimsy door as she pulled at the boot, finally yanking it on as the door gave way. She fell through, arms flailing, crashing into an object. Something hard and heavy that slowly moved out of her way. Behind the muffling of her earplugs she heard a yell, and pushed the eye mask up, in time to see an extremely large man fall out of the sky and land with a thump on the ground in front of the porch.
She saw with blinding clarity she had fallen into a ladder. A ladder that had been supporting the weight of Rory. A ladder she had pushed over. In front of her, both it and Rory were now lying immobile on the ground. She could see Bandit leaping out of his truck and coming to see what was going on.
She stumbled off the deck into the cold morning and ran to him, kneeling on the frosty ground, placing her hands on his shoulders and yelling his name.
‘Rory! Rory! Oh my god! Are you okay? Rory!’
She couldn’t hear a thing. He wasn’t moving. She straddled him for balance and put her ear to his lips to see if she could hear him breathing, and her hand under his jaw, frantically searching for a pulse. His skin was like burning silk with a faint prickling of stubble, but in her panic, she could feel nothing, hear nothing. Bandit was alternating between licking his face and hers, not sure who needed his attention more.
She tried to remember her last CPR course and knew she had to get help. But there was no bloody phone signal. Then she had to get his airways open, start chest compressions. She clumsily tugged at the buttons of his jacket. She was going to have to give him mouth to mouth. Oh god, with her hungover breath? Wasn’t it preferable to just let him die?
What is wrong with these bloody buttons!She tried to rip them but they were sewn on with steel. She was near tears, her bladder screaming, her stomach wanting to vomit its contents over the man below her. She saw his eyes open. His mouth moved, but no words were coming out.
‘Oh my god! Rory! You’re alive!’
He mouthed more words.
‘What? I can’t hear you. Speak to me. Are you okay?’
Rory reached up, and with exquisite delicacy for such huge hands, located an earplug and popped it out, presenting it to her. With his other hand he gently pushed Bandit away.
‘I was just asking why you were shouting so loudly.’
Zoe grabbed the earplug from him and pulled out the other, pocketed them and clamped her hands over her mouth. He was alive. And that meant he could smell how rancid she was.
‘Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you, I didn’t know you were here.’
His hand dropped weakly, and landed on her thigh. ‘Why do you have your hands over your mouth?’ he asked feebly.
‘Because I stink, and if I haven’t killed you with the fall, I’ll definitely do it with my breath.’
Rory tried to laugh but it turned into a wheezy cough. Zoe dropped her hands to hold onto his arms.
‘Oh god, don’t move! You might have punctured a lung or something.’
Zoe started to move off him, but his hand clamped down on her thigh. ‘Wait,’ he croaked pathetically. ‘I need to check if everything’s still in place.’ Zoe went stock still.
She was hit with a wave of guilty pleasure feeling him between her legs. It was better than any fantasy. He was so broad and solid. His hand was so high up her thigh he was practically cupping her bum. He had one of those big thick Maglite torches in his trouser pocket, and she briefly entertained the fantasy it was him, before discounting her wishful thinking. Nothing human could be that big, that hard, and he’d made it abundantly clear he found her about as appealing as a hole in the head. Her bladder screamed and she wiggled her hips. If she didn’t get to the outhouse soon then it was going to explode. Rory looked in extreme pain.
‘What are you doing?’ he hissed at her through gritted teeth.
‘I’m absolutely desperate to pee, and if I don’t jiggle, I’ll have an accident.’
‘Just go,’ he yelled hoarsely. ‘Now!’
Zoe leapt off him and ran.
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