Highlander Assassinated (Highlander In Time #16)

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

T his was definitely one of the most impulsive things she’d ever done, Lissa reflected as her alarm went off in what felt like the middle of the night. Had it really only been two weeks since she’d gotten roaring drunk alone in her apartment and done some deeply inadvisable online shopping? It was completely out of character for her, that kind of indulgence — something she’d seen on television, but never actually understood herself. Well, something had changed in her that night. On television, of course, the women generally blew half their paycheck on impractical shoes or something, packages they didn’t remember ordering turning up in the mail days later.

Lissa hadn’t ordered any shoes. Lissa had booked a non-refundable flight to the other side of the world, based on the most arbitrary imaginable series of drunken clicks on the first website that had come up on Google when she’d typed in “holiday”. The next morning, hungover and feeling decidedly sorry for herself, she’d looked through the itinerary that had been emailed through on her phone, wincing first at the light hitting her eyes — and then at the memory of what she’d done.

It would’ve been one thing to take some time off work and go somewhere she’d been meaning to go for a while. Back home to visit her family, maybe — an impromptu trip to Maine to surprise her dad would’ve been nice. Or if she was going to get ridiculous with it, why not go all-out and pick a proper tourist destination? Paris, or London — one of those enormous European cities, full of history and culture and a million languages she didn’t speak. Why couldn’t her drunken-self have just booked a Contiki tour like a normal burned-out woman in her late twenties?

But no. Drunk Lissa had, for some reason, booked flights to Scotland. And not Edinburgh or Glasgow, one of the country’s major cities — no, for some accursed reason, her itinerary took her to a town called Inverness. But that wasn’t all. Drunk Lissa hadn’t wanted to stay in some town in the middle of nowhere, oh no — that wasn’t weird enough for her. Instead, she’d booked two weeks at something called Weatherby Manor, which a few hungover taps of her finger had informed her was some kind of historical site that had been refurbished for the benefit of … well, she didn’t want to call them nerds. History enthusiasts, she supposed.

It wasn’t that Lissa disliked history, exactly. But it had never exactly been the reason she got out of bed in the morning. And there was absolutely no way that she’d have considered getting on a long haul flight to spend two weeks in the Scottish countryside if she hadn’t been both wildly drunk and completely damn done with her entire living situation.

She’d spent that whole day debating whether that argument would hold any water with the companies she’d booked through. Unfortunately, though, her drunk-self hadn’t thought to check the fine print on the terms and conditions she’d happily agreed to. The flights were completely non-refundable — some kind of last-minute sale, there wasn’t even an option to change them. As for Weatherby Manor, she’d paid a hefty deposit that would not be refunded. Neither would the transport she’d arranged to and from the airport, a detail which made her laugh. Trust her to be so attentive to the finer details of the dumbest plan she’d ever made.

She’d set her phone aside then, deciding to deal with the hangover situation before she gave any more consideration to the trip — it wasn’t like she could reverse any of the damage now. The obvious solution was not to go. Sure, it was a damn stupid waste of money, but unlike the rest of her life, her financial situation was pretty solid right now. With the exorbitant rate she’d received working for Angela as long as she had, her bank account hadn’t been hit too hard by the booking. She could afford this — chalk it up to experience, make a note never to drink alone with Internet access again, and move on with her life.

But something about that idea niggled at her in the days that followed. A few times, she sat down at her laptop with the intention of reaching out to the Scottish hotel to cancel her booking — and every time, she somehow managed to get distracted before she could actually send the email. Maybe it would be cool to go to Scotland, she kept thinking. There were dumber ways to spend a couple of weeks. And the idea of going somewhere completely new was appealing… as was the idea of disappearing from her life for a little while. The breakup with Blake — it made her grind her teeth even to dignify it with such a serious title, they’d been on barely a handful of dates before he’d proven himself a coward — was still weighing on her. She didn’t know the first thing about Scotland, but she’d heard the accent. Two weeks would surely be enough time to find a hot single guy with a beautiful voice for some no-strings-attached fun…

And so it was that she found herself dragging herself out of bed at an impossible early hour of the morning, throwing the last few things into the suitcase by the door, then heading for the airport. The same strange sense of unreality settled over her as she looked out of the window of the cab at the dark streets of the city. Strange to think that she’d been in Chicago for five years — it still felt like a place she’d only just moved to, a place where she was still getting settled. After all the moving around with the military, she’d been looking forward to planting her feet once she was somewhere she didn’t have to leave in a few months. But even five years hadn’t been enough to get her feet planted. Did she not belong here?

Maybe she didn’t belong anywhere, Lissa thought. It was a sobering thought to start a trip with, and she resolved to try to cheer up a bit as she made her way through the busy airport. There was something nice about the way airports never seemed to sleep. Even if you were there at five in the damn morning to catch the stupid cheap flight your drunk-self had booked two weeks earlier, there was light and noise and hundreds of people in any direction you cared to look. And no matter what, security always took forever.

By the time she was actually on the plane, the hustle and bustle of the airport had gotten her out of her doldrums. Economy wasn’t a comfortable place at the best of times, and for someone with legs as long as hers, it was a nightmare — but she was delighted to realize that she had the whole row of seats to herself. Not a lot of demand for flights to Scotland at the tail end of winter, it seemed — was that why her drunk-self had pounced on the offer when it presented itself? But as the plane took off, Lissa couldn’t help but smile. This was the most impulsive thing she’d ever done in her life — but hell, it had certainly taken her mind off the rest of her woeful life. Maybe there had been more wisdom in that bottle of wine than she’d initially thought. Maybe from Scotland, she could get a proper look at her life and figure out what the best way forward was. The one thing she knew was that she needed to change some stuff. Why not start big?

Thanks to the surprisingly roomy row she had to herself, Lissa was able to sleep for most of the flight, stirring awake only when the announcement came over the speakers that they’d be landing soon. And so it was that, feeling more refreshed than she had any right to feel after a long-haul flight, Lissa took her first steps onto Scottish soil.

Well, Scottish tarmac, anyway. The sky was a bleak and miserable gray and the air bit into her exposed skin, viciously cold after the warmth of the well-heated airplane. Still, she caught a glimpse of the countryside surrounding the airport, and a tingle of excitement ran down her spine. She was genuinely looking forward to getting to know this strange new place a little. Maybe this would end up being one of her best stories, she thought as she and the other passengers headed for customs. Maybe one day, she’d look back on that drunken night as being the start of the rest of her life.

And even if the trip ended up being pretty unremarkable, she thought with a faint grin, at least she knew she was just about as far as it was possible to be from her damn job.