Page 37 of Highland Games
‘To be fair, it was more of a snuffle, I thought it was Basil at first.’
‘Go away,’ she mumbled.
Rory grinned, stood up, walked to the table, lifted it up, and moved it across the room. He then came back for the chairs.
‘No! Stop!’
Zoe was on her feet, stumbling towards him, hot tea slopping everywhere. She put her free hand on the back of the commode. ‘Don’t touch it!’
‘Why not? There’s nothing inside, is there?’ he asked, innocently. ‘Let me just take a look.’
Zoe sat down on the seat and glared at him.
‘Well, I’m glad it’s been useful for you.’ He started laughing, face lighting up, the sound resonating through the floor and sending a tingle up through her legs. ‘Do you want me to empty it?’
Zoe pointed to the door. ‘Out! Get out! I’ve had just about enough embarrassment for one morning. Give me five minutes, then you can come back and pretend you’ve just arrived and none of this ever happened.’
Rory gave her a salute and walked out, still chuckling quietly.
Five minutes later, Zoe emerged with the potty to find Rory lounging against the wall of the cabin, his thumbs hooked into the belt of his trousers. He was so devastatingly gorgeous she let out a moan which she disguised with a cough.
‘You may go in now,’ she said, with as much dignity as she could muster whilst holding a container of her own wee, and hurried off to the outhouse.
When she reappeared, Rory was nailing in battens with practised efficiency. She opened the Rayburn to put more logs in, only to find he had already done it. She hadn’t the energy for porridge so finished off the last of Sunday’s leftovers, then stood at the bottom of the tower.
‘What time can I visit the castle?’
‘Meet me in the back courtyard at two. That should give me enough time to finish this.’
‘You sure I can’t help you here?’
‘Yep, go make an Instagram or whatever you need to do. I’ll take care of Basil and the Rayburn. I’m better off on my own.’
His words stung. She knew how he felt, but to hear it vocalised still hurt. ‘Yep, me too,’ she replied brightly, then packed her bag and left him to it.
Back at herusual seat in the library, Zoe arranged to pick up the back boiler for the Rayburn, ordered a water tank, and set to work on the castle’s website. She bought a new domain, wrote a website brief and chose a WordPress theme. She then went to an online jobs site to put out a tender for a developer and fleshed out her ideas for the menus and content.
Her tummy rumbling made her realise how much time had gone by. She went to the post office to give back the empty Tupperware and hopefully cadge a sandwich.
Morag was about to close for lunch and told her it was perfect timing. Fiona and Liam were off with Duncan, and Jamie was out at work so she was glad of the company. The two of them sat around the small kitchen table and chatted as Morag plied Zoe with soup so thick you could stand a spoon up in it. Morag was still fretting about the businesses who had let her down but Zoe reassured her.
‘It’s fine, I’m doing a job swap with Rory. He’s helping me do up the cabin in exchange for me helping him sort out the castle accounts and designing them a website.’
‘Has he said anything about the earl? Is he coming back?’
Zoe shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He’s just left other people to sort out the mess.’
‘Well, if you find anything out, let me know. It would be nice to have it open again. It’s been shut for too long.’
Zoe let Morag’s happy chatter wash over her, and ruminated about the best marketing approach for the castle. It was hard to be inspired about a cold dead building, when images of a man who was the embodiment of life kept pushing their way into her thoughts. As she let her unconscious mind sift through ideas, she turned over a magazine on the table. It was last month’s copy ofVanity Fairand on the cover, smouldering out at her, was her first love.
Morag paused her stream of consciousness and let out a sigh.
‘Oh, Zoe, what a dreamboat, eh? That’s going to be my bedtime reading for quite a while.’
Brad Bauer: Hollywood superstar and power player. He began his career as an actor, then moved into producing blockbusters with his name on the top of the poster and his face in every scene. Not content with dominating at the box office, he also wanted recognition, and once a year took on smaller, indie projects, this time his focus on a different kind of prize. The roles he played involved angst, injustice, and disability, and were set against the backdrop of slavery, poverty, or any war starring Americans. They were Oscar catnip, and he’d finally hit the jackpot playing a one-legged, gay, French–American Jew who became a spy, stealing Hitler’s secrets out of Germany hidden in his prosthesis.
‘Have you ever seen anyone more gorgeous than that? Apart from our Jamie of course.’ Morag swooned.
