500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(45)

“Lissa,” said Lissa, putting out her hand.

“Och!” said Lennox. “You’re Cormac!”

“Apparently,” said Lissa. “Does everyone know each other here?”

Nina and Lennox looked at each other.

“Well, yes,” said Nina. “That’s more or less how it works.” She kissed the baby, who giggled.

“He’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” said Nina, pleased. “We like him.”

She blew a raspberry on the happy baby’s stomach, and he chortled uncontrollably. “My mum still can’t believe I came back with a ginger baby,” she added.

“God, I can imagine,” said Lissa, then: “Oh God, I didn’t mean it like that!”

The other two just laughed. “Don’t worry about it.”

“How’s Cormac getting on down south?” said Lennox. “He’ll hate it.”

“Actually,” said Lissa, who’d woken up to a patently drunken and misspelled email and a picture that was just a scribble, “he spent last night at Stockton House and had a totally amazing time.”

She had found herself envious. She didn’t get invited to many private members clubs.

“Cormac?” said Nina. “Ha! Gosh, he’s changed. Maybe he’ll turn into a socialite and he’ll never come back and you’ll be stuck here!”

Lissa looked out at the sun dappling the cobbles and Nina with her happy baby and suddenly felt rather wistful. “What’s Cormac like?” she asked.

“Haven’t you met him? Oh, no, I suppose you wouldn’t have,” said Nina. “He’s kind. The old ladies love him.”

“What about the young ladies?”

Nina smiled. “Oh, he’s not an alley cat. Not like that Jake.”

Lissa raised her eyebrows. “Oh, is he?” said Lissa, disappointed.

“Oh no! Did he have a crack at you?”

Lissa shrugged. “He wanted to take me to the fair.”

Nina grinned. “That’s adorable. Well, he’s . . . very nice.”

“But a bit of a player.”

“He . . . has girlfriends,” said Nina.

“That’s okay,” said Lissa. “I’m not after anything serious. I’m supposed to be chilling out anyway.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” said Nina. “But he’s perfectly safe to go to the fair with. He’s a good bloke. Just not marriage material.”

Just then a woman darted across the square, looking perturbed. “Lennox!” she yelled. “Lennox, can you come?”

Lennox looked confused. “Aye, Carrie, whit is it?”

“It’s Marmalade,” she said. “I can’t find him.”

“Carrie!” said Nina reprovingly. “You can’t just ask Lennox every time—”

“Aye, I’ll have a look,” said Lennox.

Nina gave him a look that turned into a kiss. “You’re not the errand boy of the village.”

Lennox rolled his eyes and packed little John back into his sling. “Aye, the bairn will like seeing a cat,” he said, as the baby waved his fists in the air.

Nina watched him go affectionately, and Lissa had the strange sense, as she had had recently, of watching other people’s happy lives as if from behind glass, as if she were watching them on television, taking part in a life that wasn’t hers, wasn’t a place she could legitimately be in. Why did everyone else seem so sorted and organized? (It would have surprised Nina very much to know that anyone thought this about her; as far as she was concerned they lived on a shoestring, couldn’t ever go away because of the farm, and dealt with a myriad of daily ups and downs, just like everyone else in the world. Plus, she was miles from her family. Although when she got home in the evenings to the farmhouse and the log burner was blazing and John was kicking his little feet in delight on the lamb’s-wool rug, smelling of baby oil after his bath, grinning and gurgling up at his besotted father—well, nothing else seemed to matter quite so much.)

Would she? Lissa was thinking. Would she ever have something so pleasant and so simple? She sighed. Everything like that, all the trappings of a grown-up life—and they had to be nearly the same age—felt so very far away from where she was.

“You seem pretty settled,” she said shyly to Nina, who looked surprised for an instant, then smiled.

“Well . . . it’s a pretty nice place to be,” she said, and at that moment Lissa could only agree with her.

The next second, there was a terrible screeching of brakes and a yowling sound. Both the women jumped up, and Lissa dashed out of the bus.

There on the square was an old battered car and, knocked clean to the side of it, a fat, scruffy-looking orange-and-brown tabby cat.

Carrie, following, gasped aloud. “Marmalade!” she screamed.

“Stay here,” said Nina fiercely, holding the old woman back. “Can you go?” she said to Lissa. Lissa had absolutely no idea what she could conceivably do with a dead cat, but she tentatively wandered over.

An incredibly old woman, who couldn’t possibly have seen over the steering wheel, got out of the ancient white car.

“Noooo,” she said. “Och, oh nooooo, is that Carrie’s cat?”