500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(28)

The bridge was slowly lowering again, the taxis getting impatient, the children pulling at their mothers’ skirts. Cormac let himself out and down the luxurious elevator, back to the new mysterious streets so far below.





Chapter 28


Aonghas Collins didn’t mean to be frightening; he just had absolutely no idea why someone he assumed was Cormac from the uniform was hanging about his farmyard when they both had plenty to be getting on with, so he lumbered over carefully.

“Aye, whit are you doing, you lazy big jessie?” he said, his brain not being of the quickest sort, not quite getting into gear before he’d hit the fluorescent medical jacket squarely on the back with his good arm, knocking the figure forward and eliciting, to his horror, a loud scream.

The person turned around, black curls bouncing, hand up, ready to slap him in the face, and true terror and panic in her eyes.

“Ah,” said Aonghas, jumping back in alarm. “Ach, now.”

“What the hell?” yelled Lissa, red-faced and furious. She realized her arm was up and slowly brought it down. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Well, aye, well, this is my farm?” said Aonghas, looking around carefully just in case it might, for whatever reason, not actually be his farm.

Lissa was panting. “Why did you hit me?!”

“Aye, well, I thought you were Cormac,” said Aonghas, screwing up his eyes apologetically.

“Do I look like Cormac?”

“Aye, no, well, no, no, you don’t, no.”

“Why did you hit Cormac?!”

Aonghas didn’t really like being told off in his own farmyard.

“Didn’t he tell you I was taking his place?”

It was entirely possible, Aonghas had to concede. Truth was, his mind wandered a little bit from time to time when people were talking too much, to wondering how his cows were getting on. He hadn’t done well in school. But it hadn’t mattered much. Although he supposed, indirectly, it had led to this, a strange woman shouting at him in his own farmyard . . . His gaze wavered over to the high field, where he’d turned the cows out to enjoy the sunshine; it had rained over the last few days and the grass was so green it was practically fluorescent . . .

“Excuse me, are you listening?”

Aonghas looked at the girl again. She sounded bossy.

“Just . . . don’t sneak up on people . . .” she said, as if she’d slightly run out of steam.

He blinked. “But you’re in my farmyard,” said Aonghas again, stubborn as his own cows when it came to sticking to a point.

They seemed to be at something of an impasse. Lissa, who had been shocked to the point of tears, then furious with both herself and this man for the realization that of course she wasn’t any better yet—how could she be?—tried to shake herself out of it and glanced down at her notes.

“A-oooo,” she started, then gave up. “Are you Mr. Collins?”

“Aye,” said Aonghas, who was thinking it must be lunchtime.

“I’m standing in for Cormac. I’m here to look at your back.”

Aonghas didn’t want this bossy person—a woman no less—to have anything to do with his wound but didn’t quite have the courage to say so in case she yelled at him again.

“Aye,” he said.

He looked in pretty good health from what Lissa could see, as she followed him into the farmhouse.

Inside the low building was a nearly bare kitchen with a long, low table. One cup, plate, and knife were neatly washed up on a draining board. Minimal supplies—porridge, flour, a small bowl of apples—were on the surfaces of the old wooden kitchen; a fire was dying down in the corner. Aonghas paced over the flagstones, scowling. He didn’t have people in the house very often, and he was never there himself during the day. He led Lissa to the table and sat on one of the ancient wooden chairs.

“Okay,” said Lissa. “Can I have a look?”

Aonghas took off his heavy shetland jumper and unbuttoned his frayed check shirt until he was sitting in his undershirt; the air in the dark house was chill, but he didn’t seem to notice. Lissa gasped when she took off the blood-soaked bandage: a great curl of skin had come off his back and the top of his right shoulder. It was all on the surface, but it was a horrible thing to see, like he’d been sandpapered. It must have hurt like hell.

“Are you all right? Doesn’t it hurt?”

Aonghas shrugged.

“What happened? It looks like a burn?”

“Aye, Maisie got right cross with me.”

Lissa rummaged in her bag for the disinfectant and Sudocrem and looked at him. Was that his wife? Girlfriend? Was she going to have to hand out one of her domestic violence leaflets?

“Oh yes,” she said, keeping her voice neutral as she always did in these situations. “Did you have a bit of an argument? Had you been drinking?”

Aonghas snorted. “Naw! She just kicked me.”

“You know,” said Lissa, inspecting it. It didn’t smell, which was a good sign; it wasn’t suppurating. She remembered suddenly that Barnabas had been on her list today. Oh crap. She really should have warned Cormac about him.

“I’m going to clean it out,” she told him. “It might hurt a bit.”

“Aye,” said Aonghas as if this didn’t bother him, which indeed it didn’t.