Chapter 38
‘Who’s leaving?’
Everyone turned in their seats as Nick walked into the kitchen, followed by Gayle’s mum. She looked at them all sitting at the table and said, ‘Where’s my breakfast?’
‘Oh, Mum, I didn’t realise you were awake.’
‘I’m always up with the lark – you know that.’
Robyn glanced at the clock on the wall. No one had the heart to tell her the time.
‘And you are not going anywhere,’ she said, walking over and putting her arms around Robyn, giving her a hug.
Nick agreed. ‘Hey, I hope you’re not leaving on my account. I thought there were enough bedrooms for me to stay too?’
Gayle said, ‘Of course there are.’ She looked at Robyn. ‘You can’t leave now.’ She looked around the table. ‘I’m going to need help running my new guest house. And don’t forget, you’ve got a job to start tomorrow. One of us will drive you over there. Don’t you worry about that.’
David said, ‘And I still need to make it up to you after last night.’
Gayle’s mum said, ‘What happened last night?’
‘Mum, come over and take a seat at the table. How about a nice fry-up to start the morning?’
She took a seat and peered at Robyn, then David. ‘And why have you got matching bandages?’
David and Robyn exchanged a smile, ignoring the question.
Nick ignored it too. ‘You know, I’m famished after that run. I don’t suppose there would be enough for me to have some too?’
‘Of course there is. Take a seat, Nick.’
He pulled out a chair next to Gayle’s mum and was just taking a seat when an almighty howl reverberated around the house. It was like something out of The Hound of the Baskervilles .
Robyn nearly jumped out of her skin. Her heart pounding, she exclaimed, ‘What the hell is that?’
She looked around the table, appearing to be the only one startled by the sound of a dog howling. No one else seemed at all phased by the terrible racket coming from somewhere in the house.
Gayle said, ‘Go on, Nick – you’d better let her come in.’
Nick got up from the table, looking apologetic.
Gayle turned to Robyn. ‘You haven’t met the other new house guest.’
‘What?’
At the door, Nick said above the din, ‘She’s the reason I got kicked out of the other bed-and-breakfast. Although he said he had holidaymakers booked in to stay, I guessed it was because of my dog. They said they welcomed pets. Not her – apparently.’
Robyn looked at him wide-eyed, thinking that with that sort of howl, who could blame them?
She was the only one on the edge of her seat, waiting to see what monster was about to walk through that door. Everyone else had clearly already met Nick’s dog.
Nick said, ‘She’ll quieten down once I bring her in. She’s just feeling left out – that’s all. I left her in the lounge across the hall with a bone to chew. Guess she finished her breakfast already.’
Robyn moved around the table, and sat next to David.
He looked at her. ‘Don’t you like dogs?’
Robyn was sure she did. She just didn’t think, by the sound of it, she’d like this one.
The howling stopped, and then she heard a dog barking excitedly instead.
‘Here she comes,’ commented Gayle. ‘Put your tin hats on.’
Robyn caught David grinning. A second later, a large exuberant dog came bounding into the room. She skidded to a halt on the stone floor, head looking this way and that, tail wagging furiously, as though she didn’t know who to say hello to first. She barked, then ran straight over to Robyn.
‘Ah,’ said David, ‘She hasn’t met you yet. Smart dog. She’ll get extra fusses from the newbie.’
Nick sighed. ‘Robyn, meet Olive.’
‘Oh, my god, isn’t she gorgeous?’ Robyn gushed as the great big Old English Sheepdog, put her large head on Robyn’s lap, doleful eyes looking up at her. Robyn said, ‘I think I’m in love.’
‘Yep, that’s the effect my big soppy dog has on most people,’ commented Nick, ‘once they meet her. Unfortunately, she’s still a puppy, in a big dog’s body. She’s too much to leave with my parents while I’m away working, so she has to come with me. But not everyone wants this sort of dog in their guesthouse; she can be a problem.’
‘Well, she’s our problem now,’ said Gayle affectionately.
‘Here – girl!’ Gayle called her over and fed her some scraps from the table.
Gayle gave her a fuss, then looked around the table. ‘Has anyone got any plans today?’
Everyone shook their heads.
‘Good. How about we take some hot chocolate in a flask, climb in the Bentley, and all go for a bracing walk around the loch together?’
Robyn loved that idea, and so did everyone else.
‘Which loch?’ asked David.
Robyn sat listening to David, Gayle, her mum, and even Nick, who was new to the area, but had visited some of the lochs already, deciding which one they’d like to visit that day.
She smiled as she looked around the old oak kitchen table at her new friends, her new life, and thought, If getting my memories back means giving up all this, I don’t want them back. I like things just the way they are.
She felt happy there, safe. Dr Jamieson had said that something would trigger her memories – a familiar place, her belongings. But what if it wasn’t those things that did it, but a familiar face … and what if that person came back into her life and took all this away from her, forcing her to go back to a life she was running away from?
Robyn’s eyebrows shot up at that thought.
‘Robyn – what is it?’ David asked, noticing she was very quiet all of a sudden.
‘I’m not going anywhere.’ If there is someone out there looking for me, they’ll have to find me first , thought Robyn, feeling defiant.
‘Then you’ll stay, here, with us?’
‘Of course I will.’
She had a home, friends – they’d protect her. But protect her from what – from whom?
Robyn tried her best to ignore that thought. She looked around the table, convinced that the accident, and her selective amnesia, had happened for a reason. That was what Gayle said: Everything happens for a reason . Maybe one day, she’d find out the reason, but just then, she was happy – content just the way things were. She’d just have to cross that bridge when she came to it. But that bridge back to her memories, was, she hoped, in the very distant future, along with whoever might be out there waiting for her.