500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(52)

She found a stream rippling through the woods past the bluebells and, worrying slightly as to whether she’d be poisoned (she checked for sheep pooing in it: there didn’t seem to be many nearby), finally filled her water bottle—the sun was warm on her back—and took a long pull.

The freezing bright freshness of it made her gasp; she could feel it coursing down her throat, so pure and clean and bracing she felt her eyes dazzle with it. As she straightened up, almost drunk on the frozen light, she found herself face-to-face with a huge stag at the opposite end of the clearing.

She blinked and stretched out her phone to take a picture, almost as if it wasn’t real until she did . . . but as soon as she moved her arm, to her great regret, it turned and bounded, crackling through the bracken, the speed of it astonishing until it was gone and she felt like she’d dreamed it.

She carried on, walking almost without direction, off past the village and onto a long road overshadowed with trees. It was farther than it looked, and she realized quickly that she was out of condition. She’d just been sitting, she thought. Sitting, and fretting, and obsessing, and fiddling with her phone, just to put off . . . well, everything. Looking at pictures of other people’s parties. It had been a distraction, but it hadn’t helped. Anita was right. Coming off it was the best thing she’d done.

SHE HIT THE roadway eventually and was about to turn back, when she saw trundling toward her a pale blue van and recognized Zoe, the woman with all the children, driving it, although she was alone for once. She waved, and Zoe immediately pulled over.

“Hello! Want a lift?”

Lissa almost smiled: it felt as if the universe had answered her so quickly. “Um, yes, please. Are you heading to the village?”

“Nina needs to do the banking. Hop in!”

“It’s weird to see you by yourself.”

“I know! Having both hands to myself is very strange.”

Lissa pulled herself up into the van’s tall carriage. Zoe passed her a bag of tablet.

“What is this stuff?”

“Keeps your energy levels up.”

It was a hard, sugary fudge that, once you got over the insane pitch of sweetness, was incredibly delicious.

“Oh goodness,” said Lissa.

“I know,” said Zoe. “Shackleton made it. Then I confiscated it in case they all get diabetes.”

Lissa looked at the bag.

“Yes, please eat more,” said Zoe. “Seriously, it’s going to kill me. It’s going to kill us all.”

“We should have one more piece each then hurl the rest out of the window,” said Lissa bravely.

“You’d kill the first bird that found it,” said Zoe mournfully. “Stone dead. Nobody’s body can absorb that much sugar without consequences.”

They both looked at the bag again.

“Perhaps if we just finished it and got it out of the way, we wouldn’t have to think about it again,” said Zoe.

“We could keep some for Nina.”

“She can’t have it. It would kill John if he got it through her breast milk.”

Giggling mightily, they put the absolutely delicious vanilla-flavored lumps of tablet in their mouths to happily dissolve as the van trundled down the country road, not another car in sight, the sun streaming through the van’s open windows, the radio playing a jolly song with fiddles and lyrics Lissa couldn’t make out.

Nina was pleased to see them as they rounded the farmyard.

“Watch out for that chicken,” said Zoe to Lissa as she stepped down. A particularly beady-eyed specimen was lurking, stepping from side to side in a corner of the farmyard. “She’s a total nightmare.”

Lissa looked at the chicken, who glanced back at her, then directed her gaze straight back to Zoe. It was almost as if she was looking at Zoe specifically, in a threatening fashion, but that couldn’t possibly be true.

Anyway, Nina was sitting cheerfully on the steps of the book bus and waved them over. “Kettle’s just boiled.”

“Where’s John?”

“Out with Lennox,” said Nina, rolling her eyes but looking proud at the same time. Her bonny boy and his dad were rarely parted. “Have a good morning?”

“Yes!” said Zoe. “Those cuddly Nessies are flying off the shelf.”

Nina rolled her eyes again. The tension between her beautifully curated bookshop and Zoe’s more touristy shop—Zoe parked up at Loch Ness—was sometimes there, but it didn’t matter. They were both making a living, and now, sitting out in the cool shade of the beautiful farmhouse, with three huge mugs of tea, Lissa reveled in their chat, especially what it was like coming from an English city to such a remote part of the world.

“My mum thought I was coming to the moon,” said Zoe. “And also that I would be kidnapped by my new employer.”

Nina smiled in response. “At least you weren’t the first English girl ever to set foot here. The silence in Eck’s pub!”

Zoe laughed.

“I think Eck thought you were going to seduce Ramsay,” Nina continued.

“Evil English temptress,” agreed Zoe.

“So what do you think?” said Nina, turning to Lissa. “Are you going to stay for a bit?”

“I can’t,” said Lissa. “It’s just a placement.”