Chapter 9
9
Fraser frowned as he stepped into the café, just a fraction later than most would consider lunchtime. Harper was not there…
But his sister was.
“Cam?” He marched over to the counter, baffled. “I thought you weren’t coming back ’till next week.”
Cam looked perfectly comfortable, albeit exhausted, behind the display of cakes and sandwiches. The café was completely empty, but worry gnawed at him all the same. It only felt like a few days ago when she’d been in the hospital, recovering from her emergency C-section with a newborn latched onto her. Why hadn’t she told him she was coming back to work?
“Oh, no. You’ve got that look,” Cam said, chewing on the end of her pen.
“What look?”
“The ‘I’m about to be insufferably overprotective’ look.” She leaned over the counter and poked his chest. “Alice came down with the flu, and I was getting cabin fever anyway, so Sorcha and I agreed it was time.”
He ignored her first comment. It wouldn’t be the first or last time his sisters had accused him of being too protective, but someone had to be. After their dad abandoned them, he’d shouldered the responsibility as best a thirteen-year-old boy could. Sought to protect them from any more hurt. And the scare Cam had experienced, with a heavy bleed during the surgery, had only made him worse. Things could go wrong so quickly. If Cam wasn’t ready to come back to work—
“Ow!” Fraser exclaimed when Cam flicked his forehead roughly.
“You’re still doing it! Stop!” Cam ordered. “I’m fine!”
He huffed, glaring as he rubbed away the sting of her long nails. “Well, I’m glad you are. Who’s watching Isla and Archie?” Sorcha was already back working long hours as a home care nurse. Fraser didn’t know how they did it between them.
“Nobody,” Cam deadpanned. “Left them at home all alone.”
“Hilarious.”
“They’re with Mum, you tube. Probably having the time of their life.”
That put him at ease. It was lucky Mum loved being a granny. With five grandchildren, she never got a moment’s peace, but even when her arthritis was affecting her mobility, she claimed she far preferred it that way to living alone.
He looked back at the tables, just to check Harper hadn’t suddenly materialised. “I assume you met my new tenant.”
“Eh?” Cam’s blue eyes, identical to his own save for her smoky black liner, widened. “What d’you mean, your new tenant? You mean the hot blonde author girl?”
He slumped against the counter, pretending to be interested in a custard tart. “Some might describe her as that, aye. She’s staying in the cabin. Couldn’t find her anywhere else when her Airbnb reservation fell through.”
“ What ?” She gawped at him, a slow smile creeping across her forever mischievous face. “Oh, this is good. I like this. A gorgeous woman living in your cabin… The possibilities are endless.”
“Oi!” He snapped his fingers, desperate to put an end to that train of thought. He didn’t need his sister putting ideas in his head – or Harper’s. Mostly because the ideas were already there for him, and he was trying desperately to get them out . He’d got here late because he hadn’t been able to. Because instead of doing his job, he’d been daydreaming about her. About her laugh and her curves and that bloody vibrator in her suitcase. “Stop. It’s not like that.”
“But why shouldn’t it be? You need some fun.”
“I don’t have time for ‘fun’, or any of the other nonsense that comes with it.”
Cam scoffed, crossing her arms over her apron. “Sometimes I wonder how you got to be so boring. I bet Grandad has more sex than you.”
“Jesus, Cam. Don’t say ‘Grandad’ and ‘sex’ in the same sentence.” He clenched his jaw, resenting her words. Why did people have to fuck around and date and get married and have kids to be considered “fun” or “normal” these days? He wasn’t boring. He kept himself plenty entertained. Besides, he’d seen how messy relationships could get, first with his parents and then with Eiley. He was quite happy to remain alone with Bernard and save himself the hassle. “Do you know where she is or not?”
“Why? So you can stand five feet away from her in fear of catching feelings?”
Before he could think of a rebuttal, the door jangled open and Harper spilled through, dripping from the rain. She battled with her umbrella, which was twisted inside out and, by the looks of the protruding metal, broken beyond repair. “Blooming ’eck, it’s wild out there.” She closed the door, then noticed Fraser and stopped. “Oh, hello. Finally remembered your guest, did you?”
“It’s been a busy morning,” he lied. “Where’ve you been?” He didn’t like to think of her outside alone in this weather after how lost she’d been upon arrival, and the image in front of him didn’t make sense. They’d established she wasn’t outdoorsy, so why had she been out in this torrent?
Happily, Harper sashayed in and petted Bernard, who licked the rainwater off her boots. “I’ve been making plans.”
“Oh, aye?” He cocked his head. “What sort of plans?”
“Inspirational plans,” Cam answered for her.
“That’s right. I need to live a little if I’m going to write a decent book. Explore my surroundings. So I’m starting with a boat trip across the loch tomorrow.”
Oh, this was definitely the work of Cam. She’d been hired by Alice three years ago mainly because she was the village’s unofficial tourist information point. She’d worked briefly at the B&B before Andy had taken over from their parents, then the tavern. If anything interesting was happening in Belbarrow, Cam knew about it, just as she knew which tourists would enjoy a sunrise hike through the woods and which would prefer a day trip to Oban. It was how she’d met Sorcha, in fact: offering an impromptu tour of the place had been Cam’s way of flirting.
“Now, I need more ideas. Hang on.” Harper riffled through her handbag, retrieving an elegant leather-bound notebook and a pink, fluffy pen. At the counter, she left it open between them, so Fraser could see what she’d written in an impressively neat cursive: “ Harper’s Guide to Inspiration” under a lengthy step-by-step plan of how to become a bestselling novelist.
She wrote down the number 1 and circled it. “Book a boat trip,” she announced. “Check. What else would you recommend?”
Harper’s eyes sparkled as she looked at Cam. Fraser didn’t like it. Admittedly, his sister was charismatic… but was she deserving of all of Harper’s attention?
“There’s the Fairy Trail,” Fraser butted in, and felt foolish for it. What was he doing?
“Perhaps you should take her there, Fraser.” Cam winked, causing his palms to sweat.
Harper glanced between them. “Are you two friends?”
“Worse,” Fraser said. “Siblings.”
“Oh!” She hopped back as though she’d seen a ghost, scrutinising each of them in turn. “So it runs in the family...”
“What does?” Cam asked, amused.
“Nothing,” Harper murmured, but she blinked rapidly all the same, which only made Fraser want to know more. “You didn’t tell me your sister worked here, Fraser!”
“Well, that’s because she wasn’t supposed to be back for another week,” he replied pointedly.
“It’s okay. Fraser doesn’t tell me things either, like how he has a gorgeous woman living in his cabin. Aren’t you shivering away in that thing?”
Harper was the colour of a beetroot now, and Fraser wasn’t far behind. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I bought her a heater.”
“I bet you did.” Cam bit her lower lip suggestively.
Now, it was Fraser’s turn to flick her, right in the middle of the forehead. “You’re like a kid!”
“That’s because you’re like a grandad. Show the lass a good time, for goodness’ sake.”
“I can have a good time all on my own,” Harper said, lifting her chin.
“Oh, so I’ve seen.” Fraser grinned crookedly, and he saw the realisation dawn on her. Yes, he was thinking of her toy again.
Clearly, so was she, because she jabbed a finger in his face. “Do not!”
Cam gasped. “What? What? I want to know!”
“Nope. No, you don’t. If you’ll excuse me, I have a list to write.” Harper sauntered back to the table, notebook and fluffy pen in hand. She gestured two fingers to Fraser in an “I’m watching you” motion.
He could feel Cam’s eyes scorching the back of his neck, and he whipped around quickly. “I’ll have a tea. And one of those special paninis you make just for me. I miss those.”
“I made you one last week when you came round.”
“Alice’s panini maker is better.” With that, he slid his cash across the counter – more than she would have charged him – and then walked over to the table with Bernard. Harper didn’t look up from jotting her notes as he sat down.
“The Fairy Trail is beautiful,” he said, raking a hand through his sopping hair. “Hard to find, though. I could take you there at the weekend. If you like.”
He didn’t know why he was asking. Or, rather, he did and wished he didn’t.
He wanted to make her trip a good one, since she clearly needed it, but he’d already decided to give her nothing more than that. Even if he kept wondering what it would feel like to put his hands on her thighs, her hips, her cheeks. Even if he knew the colour of her sleep shorts and just how high they could ride in the night.
Harper stopped writing, slowly lifting her head. “Can I admit something?”
“Aye?”
She pressed her palms into her eyes. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I planned to start writing this morning. Then I realised I don’t even have a main character. And I don’t even know what the story would be about. I just came here expecting everything to fall into place, because absolutely nothing was in place at home. But it isn’t working out like that.”
Fraser was taken aback by the confession. For the first time, he saw the uncertainty behind it all. How lost she was, not just because she’d stumbled through the woods, but because she was trying to figure something out, like most people were.
He couldn’t help but lean forwards so that she knew he was listening. “You must have wanted to write something before this.”
She glanced down at her fidgeting hands. “Yeah, but it used to be easier. Now I know I want to create a story that matters, that could be something, there’s all this pressure.”
“Okay…” Fraser pursed his lips as he spoke softly. “So, what if you put the phone and the laptop down for a minute? It sounds to me like you’re used to working too hard. What if you stopped?”
Her forehead creased. “Then I wouldn’t get anywhere.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“I’d go home the same as I left.”
“Would you?”
She hesitated, tracing the edges of her notebook. “I need something to show for all this.”
Like Instagram pictures? he wondered. He didn’t get it. Couldn’t pretend to. He felt like perhaps he was verging too close to an edge, and wanted to retreat before he said something that might upset her. Something that might make him sound like he thought she was shallow. He was certain there was more to her obsession with social media than that, but he couldn’t know what.
Maybe she had the right idea in making a list of places to visit, things to do. If she needed to step out of herself, Belbarrow could help with that. The village may have been quiet, but there was always something to keep you busy. Somebody in need of help.
“You’re here for, what, two months at the very least?” he asked.
She nodded.
“So let the first week be about whatever this is.” He pointed at her list. “Inspiration. If nothing else, you’ll get some decent pictures out of it.”
“That’s true. But… mud. Cold. Rain,” she argued wryly.
“You’ll get used to that soon enough.”
She tapped her cheek with the fluffy end of the pen and then, finally, straightened up. “Okay. I shall take you up on your offer for the Fairy Trail, whatever that is. Thank you.”
He beamed, jittery at the prospect of spending more time with her. “Not a problem, sunshine.”