Chapter 3
Jamie
The following morning, Jamie was throwing jeans and jumpers and jackets into a holdall.
Normally he was more circumspect with packing, but today, escape took priority.
Plus, a whisky hangover was niggling at the edge of his brain.
Last night he’d tried the “drink a lot of Scotch and see if it fixes things” solution.
It hadn’t, and Jamie was still wondering where he’d gone wrong as a lover, and was no further forward in coming up with an innovative way to boost sales to convince his father the company was safe in his hands.
In fact, with each dram, his mind became cloudier and he couldn’t think straight to do anything productive.
What he had done, though, was text his dad and tell him that he was taking a week away from the office to head to Ben Corrin Hydro, a remote hotel in the mountains of the Highlands.
There was no surfing at the hydro but there were hills and walking, and an indoor pool.
And the lodge he’d booked commanded views across the mountains – perfect for sitting and thinking.
Things would be clearer in the mountains.
They always were. His dad would be fine with this because since starting at Butler’s Distilleries Limited ten years ago, Jamie had barely taken a break, choosing instead to give his all to the family company.
He was immensely proud of BDL and couldn’t let its standing slide in the modern market.
The sauna was sheltered under the trees behind the lodge and afforded views of the snow-capped mountains.
Was it wrong to think that this would be excellent for sweating out the whisky from the previous evening?
No, of course not. Jamie had paid to be here.
He could drink as much whisky as he wanted.
As he left the sauna, he noted that there were others dotted around the hillside, each belonging to one of the lodges.
The plaque on the nearest one said Thistle Lodge, linked to the cabin along the path from his own.
Jamie would sauna later. His plan was to change out of his dark jeans, shirt, waistcoat and brogue boots into something more comfortable, stretch his legs around the area and keep inhaling that luxurious mountain air.
Then, having worked up an appetite, he would dine in the main hotel.
The online evening menu was mouthwatering: all fresh Scottish produce, including seafood, game and organic vegetables cooked by a Michelin-starred chef.
It would be a refreshing change from pasta and pesto thrown together in ten minutes after work.
But when Jamie returned from checking out the sauna, he realised his mistake.
He’d left the keycard sitting on the coffee table, and the lodge door had locked behind him.
God, what an idiot. All those thoughts of hiking and gourmet food had him distracted.
Using a credit card in the slot, he tried, unsuccessfully, to gain entry, and checked around the side for open windows, but it was no use.
The only answer was to go back to reception and ask for a replacement.
Making his way down the path to the hotel, Jamie marvelled again at the beauty of the old building.
He loved the ancient history that bled into this part of his country: the long past battles and feuds between clans.
There was something thrilling yet comforting knowing the turbulent history of the Highlands of Scotland yet being here with hot running water and a private sauna.
At reception there was a queue to check in.
All Jamie wanted was a replacement keycard or someone to let him into his room, so, surely, if he stood to the side of the main line, they would see to him soon.
Moving towards the front desk, he gazed up at the statuesque stag’s head on the wall, remembering it from his childhood.
He and his siblings had named it Brad after their mum’s favourite movie star crush.
When she found out, she wreaked playful revenge by threatening to set Brad on them if they were naughty.
And to use up their boundless energy, their dad had sent them off on a treasure hunt around the hotel to find out if Brad had any siblings.
He did. One on each floor, no less. After that, if they misbehaved, they were sent to run to Britney, Shania or Mariah to reflect on their behaviour.
Jamie was smiling at the memory when someone to his left said, ‘Thank you, Ms Williams. The porter will take your luggage to your room.’
‘Wonderful, thank you,’ a female American voice replied.
Jamie turned and saw a woman with long, dry-ish mousey hair and a pink beanie peering at him from behind giant sunglasses.
‘Just this suitcase, the easel and this other bag,’ the woman said, pointing to several pieces of luggage on the floor.
‘What?’ Jamie swung round to find that no one was there.
He looked to the reception desk. The one person attending to guests was already busy with the next customer and no one was interested in disabusing this woman of her assumption that he was a porter.
Did he look like one? Sure, he had on a shirt and waistcoat, but he wasn’t dressed like a porter, was he?
‘You should be able to manage,’ the woman added. ‘At worst, it’s cumbersome, but it’s not too heavy. I thought one of your colleagues would take it at the door, but everyone must be on an early lunch.’
‘Right.’ Jamie found himself adding, ‘Um…no problem,’ before lifting the suitcase, which wasn’t heavy at all. ‘Which lodge?’ He slipped the easel under his arm and the other bag into his left hand. Who brings an easel on holiday?
The woman looked down at a piece of paper. ‘Thistle,’ she said.
‘Okay, thistle do nicely.’ Jamie cringed inwardly at his awful joke and didn’t dare look to see the woman’s reaction.
He recovered with a jolly, ‘Follow me, then.’ He could show the woman to her lodge and come back for his keycard.
Should he tell her he wasn’t a porter? No, it might embarrass her.
He would get her to her accommodation, then be on his way.
As they moved through the corridors to the back of the hotel, the woman was only half paying attention, focused instead on her phone.
Jamie walked ahead, turning back occasionally – albeit with difficulty considering his cumbersome load.
There was something striking about her, despite the dry brown hair and superfluous sunglasses.
She was tall and slim, around five feet eleven in her heels, dressed in skinny jeans and an oversized cream sweater.
As he held the door open so she could pass, he wondered why he had taken on the assumed role of hotel porter like this.
It wasn’t something he’d normally do. Jamie was the sensible one: the one who took the job with the family company while his other siblings forged careers of their own, the one who went steady with a girl for a decade, accepting a woeful sex life as his fate in life.
Perhaps it was her perfume. As the woman passed through the door, the heady exotic scent of frangipani invaded Jamie’s senses and muddled his brain. He’d caught hints of it at reception, but now, for a moment, it was up close and personal.
The woman said nothing as they made their way along the path and then up the gentle slope to her lodge, which, being Thistle Lodge, was about 100 yards away from Jamie’s.
Her phone was away now, and each time Jamie checked she was okay, she appeared lost in thought.
It was hard to turn away. There was something alluring about her.
When they reached Thistle Lodge, Jamie put all the bags down and plunged into his pocket for the key before realising that, of course, he didn’t have it. Or a master key. The first obstacle in his faux porter act.
‘Do you have the key?’ he asked the woman.
Unexpectedly, she said, ‘Of course,’ and passed Jamie her keycard before turning her fragmented attention back to the mountains. Jamie didn’t blame her. They were stunning.
‘This lodge has the same astounding view,’ he told her as they stepped inside. ‘That big mountain out there that has your eye is Ben Corrin, one of the Munros – mountains over 3000 feet high. If you are into that sort of thing, you might like to bag it on your stay.’
‘It’s incredible.’ The woman was mesmerised. ‘But bag it?’
‘Aye, sorry, what I mean is climb it. Bagging is what mountaineers call climbing them and checking them off your list. I often come up here and…’ Jamie stopped on the precipice of an anecdote about coming to stay here to climb Munros.
It would make no sense: a porter coming to stay at the hotel he worked at.
‘And…um, look at the view when the room is empty,’ he finished.
‘I see.’ The woman nodded and peered into her purse before holding out a ￡10 note to Jamie. ‘That’s for you.’
‘Och, no, it’s fine,’ Jamie flapped away the money. ‘You don’t have to give me anything.’
The woman’s mouth crinkled in confusion.
‘I insist.’ With soft, smooth fingers, she pressed the note into his hand.
Ripples of something stirred inside him.
God, it had been too long since a female touched him.
It was vital he get out of this room and put the kibosh on his body’s desire to embarrass him.
‘Please, don’t worry about the tip.’ Said no porter ever, you numpty. ‘Your being settled in is the main thing. I’ll leave you to unpack and get comfortable.’ Jamie placed the ￡10 note on the coffee table. ‘Have a lovely stay, Ms Williams.’
As soon as he closed the door behind him, Jamie realised the next embarrassing step in this ridiculous scenario of his own making.
His own lodge was within direct view of this one.
Once he returned from picking up a new keycard, the woman would – unless she had extremely poor eyesight, which maybe she did behind her sunglasses – see him entering and leaving his own accommodation and work out that he wasn’t a porter at all.
Could he go back and explain? It would be weird for a minute, but possibly he could redeem himself.
No, the time to fess up was when they were at reception.
Jamie was a buffoon who was about to elevate his status to mega-buffoon.
He scraped his fingers through his hair and rolled his eyes at his own idiocy.
The hassle-free holiday had encountered its first hassle, and it was all his own fault.