hurt anyone (except him-pity about the blisters!), didn’t involve so much alcohol that he’d regret it the next day and got him away from Susie.
The logs were propped as posts. The woodchoppers were given a truly excellent axe and told to go to it. Hamish did his first ceremonial chop, then watched the champion woodchoppers with something akin to envy. While he watched the woodchoppers, the inhabitants of Dolphin Bay were watching him, talking about him, clapping him on the back-and looking sideways at Susie.
Things were starting to get desperate. His blisters hurt-but would a real earl be deflected by a few blisters? Of course not.
As the novice events started, he stripped to the waist and proceeded to chop.
‘There’s something about a man in a kilt and nothing else,’ Kirsty murmured, and nudged her sister. ‘Ooh-er. A fine figure of a man, our new laird.’
‘He’s not our new laird,’ Susie retorted, a trifle breathlessly. ‘A new laird wouldn’t sell his castle and run.’
‘He hasn’t sold it yet. There’s many a slip…’
‘Cut it out, Kirsty.’
‘Susie, he’s gorgeous.’
‘Kirsty, he’s engaged to be married.’
‘So you have noticed he’s gorgeous.’
‘I’d have to be blind not to notice he’s gorgeous.’
The logs had to be chopped into four. The way it was done was to chop a chunk out, ram a plank into the chunk, stand on the plank and lop the top off. Then lower the plank and start again with a lower chunk. Hamish was on his second level. Chunks of wood were flying everywhere-there was more enthusiasm than science in his technique. His body was glistening with sweat.
‘Kilts are yummy,’ Kirsty said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if Jake’d wear one.’
‘I’m yummy enough without a kilt.’ Jake had come up behind them, and now he put his arms round his wife and hugged. ‘How do you improve on just plain irresistible?’
‘I liked you better when you were four feet taller,’ Susie told him, eyeing her brother-in-law with disfavour. ‘And I don’t know how it is but the red nose just doesn’t cut it.’
‘It turns Kirsty on, though,’ Jake said smugly, and Kirsty answered by pulling his plastic nose back to the full length of its elastic, holding it thoughtfully for a moment and then letting it go.
‘Yep, I like it better on,’ she said, and turned back to her sister. ‘Now, where were we?’
‘Hey.’ Jake clutched his nose in pain and Susie giggled. But there was a part of her…
There was a part of her that was really, really jealous of her sister and her husband, she decided. She’d met and fallen for Rory, but she’d had him for such a short time and then he’d been gone. His loss still had the power to hurt so much that she almost couldn’t bear it. The sight of her sister and her husband so happy…
Her eyes turned involuntarily back to Hamish. Hamish smashing through his third the level of wood. Hamish concentrating every ounce of energy in getting the log through, pitting his strength against the wood.
She thought of how he’d been yesterday morning, digging her path with just such energy. What was driving him?
What was this Marcia like?
It wasn’t her business.
‘I’m going home,’ she said abruptly. ‘Harriet’s over under the trees with Rosie and Pup. I’ll go and collect them. I think it’d be better if I took Pup home now and settled her into her new home before dinner. Even if that home is temporary,’ she added in an undertone but Kirsty heard and winced.
‘Susie, do you mind? About the puppy?’
‘I love Pup.’ She hugged her sister.
‘But Hamish…do you mind that he’s taking over?’
‘Well…’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t not mind, but it doesn’t make sense to care too much.’
‘If you two got on…’
‘We do get on. And no matter how much better we got on, he’d still sell the castle. It’s the only sensible thing to do. Can you give him a ride home?’
‘Sure,’ Jake told her. ‘If you really need to go.’
‘I really need to go.’
He won.
Hamish stood over his four pieces of chopped logs and gasped until he got his breath back. This was fantastic. Much better than any gym workout. He was standing bare backed, clad only in his kilt and footwear, the sun burning on his skin, the wash of the sea the background roar to the applause of the crowd. His hands were a bit painful- actually, very painful-but what was a bit of pain? It felt like he’d been transformed into another place, another time. Another life.
He’d won.
He turned to where Susie had been standing, and she wasn’t there.
‘Where…?’ he started, and Jake came toward him and wrung his hand.
‘Well done, mate.’
‘Ouch,’ Hamish muttered, and hauled his hand back. ‘Where’s Susie?’
‘Gone home.’
Right. Suddenly his hands were really, really painful.
This was dumb-but it didn’t feel fantastic any more.
Hamish didn’t come home for dinner and Susie didn’t care. She didn’t, she didn’t, she didn’t. She’d eaten far too much rubbish at the fair to worry about dinner-a piece of the inevitable toast was fine. She fed the puppy the mix Adam’s mother had thoughtfully packed. She popped her to sleep in the wet room, and then as the puppy complained she carted her back to the kitchen, sat in the rocker in front of the fire and cuddled her.
‘I’m calling you Taffy,’ she said. ‘I know I had sixty-three other suggestions but they can’t tell me what to call my very own puppy.’
Taffy looked up at her in sleepy agreement, curled into her lap and proceeded to go to sleep.
Susie rocked on.
‘Me and a puppy and a baby,’ she whispered. ‘I have a houseful.’
‘Where will I go?’ she whispered back. ‘Where will I take my little family?’
She’d go back to the house she’d shared with Rory. Of course. That was the best thing to do. The simplest.
But the thought of going back to the house she’d shared with Rory…
‘It’ll be empty, Taf,’ she told the puppy, popping her down onto a cushion by the fire. ‘Even with you. It’s a gorgeous house on the coast. It looks out over the ocean. It’s really wild. Rory worked from home and it was great with the two of us there but…but I’m not sure you and Rosie are going to be good enough company.’
As if in answer to her question, Taffy said nothing at all.
Susie rocked on. She’d lit the range more for company than because she needed its warmth, but the gentle crackle and hiss of burning logs was comforting.
Not comforting enough.
‘I have to go home.’
‘Isn’t talking to yourself the first sign of madness?’
She jumped close on a foot. When she came down to earth she was breathless-and cross.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Coming home,’ Hamish said and it was so much an echo of what she’d been thinking that she almost jumped again.
‘You scared me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s your kitchen,’ she said, but she sounded defensive. She took a grip and tried for a lighter note. ‘You’ve had supper?’
