Chapter Two
Iona
I ona McKenzie stood on the bike to pedal up the hill. Nearly at the top. The view over the emerald sea was glorious on hot days like this, but sweat was making her crop top and shorts stick to her back. To cap it all, the skin on her shoulder and arm smarted. Not to mention the pain in her ankle from the bike landing on her when that idiot had walked into her.
People like him were what made island life so irritating. Yeah, yeah, she knew tourists were a necessary part of the economy and her business, but some of the stuff they did was full-on mental and drove her nuts. Maybe she didn’t have the right to complain. She wasn’t an islander, born and bred. Still, she’d come here with a view to live and work, and amazingly for her, she’d stuck it out. Tourists who came to contribute to local businesses and respect the environment were fine. That man in the town, however? Well, maybe he was contributing somehow, just not to her sanity. He certainly looked like he had money – if that shirt was anything to go by – but would he survive five minutes here dressed like that? Maybe she shouldn’t have swerved and tried to miss him. She could just have powered on and knocked him down the hill into the sea.
The idea made her smirk, though she wasn’t really that mean. The scrapes and bruises were aching reminders of his lunacy, that was all. They’d soon pass. Iona didn’t let pain bother her for long. She was always getting something in her line of work, but when someone else caused it, it annoyed her.
She reached An Grianan, the farm where she lodged, and swung her leg off the bike, freewheeling on one pedal to the door of the shed. Taking off her cycle helmet was a relief, and she shook her long wavy hair free from its ponytail, tossing back her head and letting the breeze whisper cool air across her hot forehead. She needed a shower, and she should probably put something on her shoulder and arm, though the pain was already subsiding, and would soon be forgotten completely. All her life, she’d been like this – quick to move from one thing to another. As a child, she’d been overactive, bouncing off walls, running everywhere, banging her head, scraping her knees and picking herself up to do it all again – pretty much driving her parents insane with worry at what damage she might do to herself next. But hey, she was still here to tell the tale.
Once her bike was safely away, she crossed the yard at the back of the farmhouse, where a few chickens pecked about, and went to the backdoor.
‘Hi Iona,’ a soft voice said as she entered the kitchen.
‘Hi Eilidh.’ Iona ruffled the little girl’s head. ‘What are you up to?’
Eilidh lifted a pen from the paper she was drawing on as though it was obvious. ‘Drawing a butterfly.’
‘Don’t you want to play outside on a day like this?’ Iona crossed to the cupboard and took out a glass, filling it to the brim with water.
‘I got too hot.’
‘Yeah, I can understand that.’ Iona plonked herself down at the table. The door from the hall creaked open and Catriona Griffin, Eilidh’s mum, came in with a pile of laundry.
‘You’re back.’ Catriona dumped the laundry on an empty chair with a sigh and stroked her luscious long hair into a ponytail. Iona marvelled at Catriona, who, at twenty-six, was two years younger than her, but still seemed more mature and together. How did she do it? Perhaps it was because she’d had a child already, or maybe she just had more sense. She was always hard at work – an old head on young shoulders, who also happened to look amazing despite constantly having her nose to the grindstone. Iona herself was blessed with height, a good figure and strong bone structure, but she didn’t even manage a tumbled-out-of-bed look well – she generally felt messy and not well put together.
Catriona started folding the laundry, and Iona reached out to help. ‘Were you paddleboarding today?’ Catriona asked.
‘Earlier on, yeah. Then I took a group cycling, but they were all cooked by two o’clock, so they went back to their holiday cottage to cool down.’
‘Mummy, can I have an ice lolly?’ Eilidh looked up hopefully.
‘It’s a bit close to dinner.’ Catriona looked at the clock beside the dresser. ‘But ok. Since this might be the hottest day we have. Might as well use it.’
‘Can I have one too?’ Iona grinned at Catriona midway through folding one of Eilidh’s school polo shirts. Catriona raised an eyebrow, then let out a huff of a laugh.
‘Like you need my permission.’
Iona winked at Eilidh. She’d been lucky to find this place to live. At first, she wasn’t sure she’d like living with a family. But Catriona had been so kind from the start. Iona had almost been jealous of her at first, but she saw what a hardworking, single mum Catriona was, so she wasn’t envious at all. Catriona barely had a minute for herself – between the farm, her daughter, her mother and the guests, she was stretched very thin.
‘What happened to you?’ Catriona eyed Iona’s shoulder as she sat back down with the homemade lolly.
‘Oh, that.’ She glanced at the scrape marks.
‘I had a run in with a tourist who wasn’t looking where he was going. I swerved to get out of his way and lost balance.’
‘You should clean it up. It looks a mess.’
‘Yeah, I will.’
Catriona was such a mother hen.
‘And is the rest of you ok?’
‘I think I turned my ankle a bit, but I’ll be fine.’
Catriona gave her a stern look. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And how is the tourist?’ Catriona flapped out a shirt before folding it. ‘Was he hurt too?’
‘Na. I missed him. I’ll try harder next time.’
Eilidh giggled, and Iona winked at her.
‘You know what the worst bit was?’ Iona sucked the lolly and both Eilidh and Catriona waited with wide eyes.
‘I dropped my chips. I’d just bought them too. Some huge black backs swooped in and ate them all. What a waste. I was going to sit by the sea and eat them.’
‘You were cycling with chips in your hand?’ Catriona pulled a face.
‘I would have been fine if the numpty hadn’t wandered into me.’ Though she might have balanced better if she hadn’t been trying to save the chips before herself.
‘Oh dear. And now you’re having an ice-lolly instead.’ Catriona shook her head. ‘As soon as you’ve finished it, you should go and clean that scrape, just in case.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘She’s not your mum.’ Eilidh pointed with her pink pen. ‘She’s my mummy.’
‘Oops, silly me.’ Iona pulled an exasperated face at her own silliness and Eilidh giggled.
Catriona lifted the laundry and left the room for a moment. When she returned, she pulled some pots out from the cupboard. ‘I better put some dinner on. Do you want to join us or was that lolly your meal?’
‘Na, that was just a snack. I wouldn’t mind joining you, if that’s ok, seeing as how I lost my chips.’
‘It’s fine. Alex should be back shortly, and he’s wanting dinner tonight. I assume he’s done the jobs properly. I don’t really have time to check.’ A pot clanged on the work surface as she put it down. Alex was another lodger, an ex-military man who worked on the farm. Catriona, who was generally so nice to people, didn’t really seem to like him. Maybe she was wary of him because he talked so little and gave nothing away. Iona didn’t really get Catriona’s problem with him. He always seemed nice enough. Just quiet.
‘I didn’t see him.’ Iona washed her lolly stick and put it on the dresser.
‘He’s up the hill with the sheep. Oh drat.’
‘What?’
‘I just remembered, there’s a guest in the annex. He checked in earlier, but I forgot to put extra towels in the box. I don’t think he’s back yet, so I’ll nip in and do it now.’
‘I can do it if you want.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ Catriona wiped her hands and turned around. ‘But you’ll never guess what.’ She raised her eyebrows and smirked. ‘He’s a MacNeil.’
‘Oh god.’ Iona rolled her eyes. ‘American, by any chance?’
‘He didn’t sound it, but he definitely looked like someone who was into history.’
‘Great,’ she muttered. ‘So do we need to give him a guard of honour or something?’
‘I can see him being the type to ask you all your favourite questions.’
‘What questions?’ Eilidh asked.
Iona rolled her eyes. ‘I could write a book about the daft questions tourists have asked me about this island.’ Especially the history seekers who bought into all the clan stories, then insisted their ancestors gave them special rights over the island. She didn’t mind the ones who were genuine and knew of Barra’s humble past. Or the ones whose families had emigrated on well-documented voyages, usually to Canada. But the ones who claimed they were descended from clan chiefs and expected service to match were the ones that drove her crazy. She’d once been asked by a group if they could hire a limo for a tour around the island. Which, of course, they could, but they’d have to bring it over on the ferry. Barra wasn’t a place for hiring limos. It was wild and beautiful, and Iona got annoyed when people trampled over it with their delusions of grandeur. ‘I need to have a shower before dinner.’
‘I should tell Mum,’ Catriona mused. ‘We have MacNeils on her side of the family, though she probably won’t have the energy to talk to him.’
Iona made her way upstairs, still thinking about the number of visitors they’d had who’d assumed all sorts of privileges. So many people with the surname MacNeil assumed they were descended from what they viewed as Barra royalty and often came looking for their supposed ancestors’ graves. Sometimes they told stories that had so little basis in fact they may as well have been Disney adaptations. But there was no telling them. Iona had half a notion to dress up in a kilt and a bunnet with a feather in it and greet the new guest the following morning, pretending she was his Scots girl Friday for the day and lead him to the home of his ancestors – wherever he imagined that might be.
She turned on the shower, and the pipes clanked into action. Maybe there was money to be made in that scenario. She already had a boat that she’d taken some paying punters out on, though it wasn’t made for going too far. A costume might add interest, and she could do the short trip out to the castle – that would be enough. She already took groups of paddleboarders and kayakers out to it. She could see tourists lapping up a boat trip with a wee Scot’s lassie dressed in tartan to take them to the castle – even if it would completely do her head in. Stick to surfing and kayaking! Leave the dressing up to someone else.
And really, she was trying to limit her contact with that kind of history tourist. The ones who came for the waves and hills were much more up her street. Give her a vanload of twenty-somethings ready for a day on the surf over a carload of whisky-drinking, golf-playing fifty-somethings searching for the grave of old Tam-o-Shanter MacNeil any day.
As she towelled herself dry – wincing a little at the scraped skin on her shoulder – she pushed open the window in her little bedroom at the back of the house. Voices carried up from below, but with the way the annex jutted out, it was impossible to see who was there. Catriona’s voice, with its gentle island lilt, was recognisable, but not the man. It wasn’t Alex anyway. He had a very distinct low, gravely tone. Maybe it was the guest in the annex? Iona leaned her right ear out, straining to catch what he was saying. Something about a bike, maybe? She frowned. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
Ah well. She let out a sigh, dropped the towel on the floor, and sat down. Her fingertips skimmed the now clean skin on her shoulder and upper arm. It was mostly just a surface scrape apart from one small place where blood seeped out. She held her finger to it. It reminded her so much of times when she’d skinned her knees and her mum had tried to stop her running off long enough to put a plaster on it.
But no one could ever stop her from running off. That was what she did. When the going got tough, she ran. It was the reason she was here, organising paddleboarding lessons and renting a bedroom in a farmhouse on a Hebridean island, and not in a nameless city anywhere in the world, working in the civil service, with a sensible pencil-pushing and besuited boyfriend.
Those days were long gone, and she wasn’t going back, not to the city, not to a desk, and not to a career man who had as much excitement about him as a lecture on tax codes.