500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(20)

She opened it up, looking magnificent in her Japanese robe.

“Och.” Cormac pushed his hair out of his face, trying to look sorry. “I thought . . . I thought we maybe got off on the wrong foot,” he added.

Kim-Ange sniffed and folded her arms and raised a black eyebrow, all at the same time.

“I’m . . . from a very small village.”

“That has never heard of the internet or the outside world. We established that.”

Cormac looked down at the chocolates. “Well, I’ll just leave these here,” he said. English people were, he had concluded, very, very confusing.

“I’m lactose intolerant,” said Kim-Ange.

“I’ll throw them in the bin then,” said Cormac, picking them up and retreating.

Kim-Ange stuck her arm out of the doorway and snatched the box. “Well,” she said quickly, “it comes and goes.”

And she shut the door, making sure she didn’t betray even a hint of a smile.





Chapter 24


As soon as he’d knocked on the door of Cormac’s cottage, Jake realized that turning up unannounced to greet a strange woman who’d just arrived in town might be seen as a bit . . . well . . . odd.

But on the other hand, he told himself, he was going to have to work with her after all. Might as well be friendly. Yeah. Friendly. Just checking in.

The sun was going down behind the meadow as Jake looked around. Ach, come on, surely she was going to like it here all right. It was gorgeous. And with someone like him to show her the sights . . .

Of course that wouldn’t be appropriate. At all. But Jake liked playing the odds, and there were few enough girls in the area—several mostly liked him, which was fine, but they were hardly a challenge when he thought about it—and Ginty MacGuire still had her eye on him, just like she had in fifth year, and she was about the prettiest girl in Kirrinfief, even if she was also a pain in the tonsils, so, you know, they’d probably get around to that one of these days. But no harm in checking to see if there was any competition . . .

“Yeah?” a loud English voice shouted at him from the other side of the door, instead of just yelling “come in.”

This was unheard of. Jake considered opening the door and just walking in, as he’d have done if Cormac were home, but (thankfully) discarded that idea (Lissa would have hit him with a lamp she’d already eyed up).

“Hi . . . uh, it’s Jake Inglis? I’m the paramedic. Did Cormac not mention me?”

Lissa cursed. This was the second time she was in trouble for not actually reading the stuff Cormac had so thoughtfully typed up for her and therefore following the most basic of his instructions. She hadn’t left him anything, had just assumed that her entire world was pretty obvious. Was that what anxiety did to you? she thought. Made you so focused on the tumult inside you that you couldn’t focus on anyone else, not properly?

Tentatively, she opened the door a crack. It wasn’t locked, she realized. Presumably if he was going to murder her he’d just have walked in.

Jake, perceiving what she was thinking, stepped back.

“Just me,” he said. “Except, of course, you don’t know me, so saying ‘just me’ isn’t much use. Ha. Aye. And also I’m not in my uniform, so . . .”

Get it together, he thought. This wasn’t like him at all. But he hadn’t expected . . . he hadn’t thought of what to expect, truly. Not this pretty, curvy girl wearing old jeans, with ringlets coming out from her head at all angles, beautiful big freckles dotting her cheeks, and tired dark eyes. She looked a bit cross. He wondered immediately what she’d look like with a bit of effort and maybe a smile.

He tried one himself. “Hello again,” he said. “Jake Inglis.”

“Yeah, you said that,” said the girl, frowning. “Sorry. I thought I didn’t start till tomorrow.”

“Oh, you don’t,” said Jake. “I thought it would be polite to come and introduce myself . . .”

Suddenly it didn’t feel particularly polite to either of them, with twilight falling and the occasional owl hooting in the woods.

“. . . but I suppose I’ll see you about.”

“Okay, thanks,” said Lissa. She was thinking how weird, rude, and standoffish she was being. But she just couldn’t . . . What was she supposed to do, make jolly conversation with a stranger? Nobody in London would do this in a million years.

“Well, let me know if you need anything—I promised Cormac I’d look out for the house if anything came up.”

“Okay, thanks, that’s kind,” said Lissa, feeling her heart beat completely impractically. He’s just being kind! she tried to tell herself. Nothing bad is going to happen! This is normal.

She found herself closing the door in his face anyway.

Oh well, thought Jake. You win some you lose some.

Just as he was pulling out in his silver SUV, he heard her voice behind him.

“Sorry,” she said, and she did sound genuinely sorry, anguished almost. She was, Jake concluded, extremely odd.

“Aye, nae bother,” he said, stopping the car.

“No, I mean . . . could you possibly . . .” She pulled at her curly hair. It really was quite something. “Could you . . . ? Do you know how to light a fire?”