2. Maisie
maisie
The owner of the Bed and Breakfast, Effie, started fussing over us as soon as we stepped foot inside the whimsical stone front house. I don’t think I’ve ever been more relieved than when we drove up the cobblestone driveway and saw her smiling rosy face.
“Let’s get you settled right away, dears,” she says, shuffling us up the stairs to our room.
It’s a single room with two double beds, a TV, and a private bathroom.
The design is comforting, not sterile or lacking personality like a hotel room would be.
The beds feature hand-carved headboards and soft, off-white linens.
The walls are adorned with hand-painted landscapes of the town, along with a few embroidered pieces.
I wonder if Effie stitched them herself.
The thought has me even more endeared toward the sweet woman.
There’s a large dresser on one side of the room and a coffee table with two velvet chairs in front of the large bay window.
Effie pulls back the curtains and we’re greeted with an unobstructed view of lush green mountains, the evening sun shimmering into the room.
There’s no denying the charm and stunning landscape of this place. I suppose, if I have to work remotely, I couldn’t ask for a better view.
“The lounge, front room, and dining room are open to all guests, we just ask after 10:00 p.m. the noise is kept to a minimum. I serve breakfast from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. If you have any food that you would like to keep in the kitchen, just ask me or Angus and we’d be glad to help.
Your door has two locks for privacy, here are your keys, though this town is incredibly safe for Omegas,” she adds in, handing me and Birdie a ring of keys each.
“Oh, if you’re hungry, Greer’s is open till late or I could fix you up some sandwiches if you’re looking to get some rest.”
“Only if it wouldn’t be any trouble?” I ask, not wanting to leave this room. In fact, I want to melt into that plush bed and not resurface for the foreseeable future.
“Of course, dear. You two get settled, I’ll be right back,” Effie says, the skin around her crystalline eyes crinkling as she smiles.
“Don’t think we've shared a room since senior year of high school,” Birdie says.
“I hope you don’t still snore.”
She gasps and puts her hands on her hips. “I do not snore.”
“You sure about that?” I say with an arch of a brow and a smirk.
“If I snore, then you snore too,” she quickly retorts, and I shake my head with a laugh.
“You don’t snore, Birdie. I mean, at least not most of the time.”
“You’re messing with me,” she says, a small smile tugging on the corner of her lips. So much time and distance has separated us. My sister doesn’t even know when I’m joking anymore.
The realization sends a pang through my chest.
“I’m going to take a shower first, if that’s okay?” I ask softly and Birdie nods as I step into the tiny bathroom.
It will have to do. The vanity is small, but I can keep most of my products out in the main room. A porcelain tub sits along the far wall with a hand-held shower, and the toilet sits across from the sink and mirror.
I turn on the water and undress before stepping into the tub. It’s not the same as my shower back home that has jets along the side and a rainfall feature, but at least the water is hot as I wash off the grime of the travel day.
I might not be able to scent anything right now, but just knowing that unfamiliar scents are lingering on my skin from the plane ride is enough to fuel this incessant need to remove them, to be clean again.
My skin is red with irritation and my curls are heavy, weighed down with water by the time I get out.
The mirror above the sink is foggy, and I use my forearm to wipe it off, grabbing my glasses off the vanity as I look at myself. I can hear Birdie humming in the other room and I sigh.
I need to try harder with her. We’re going to be here for a whole month and the last thing I want is for us to feel like two perfect strangers sharing a room. Sure, I’ll need to work most of the trip, but that shouldn’t impede our sisterly bonding.
“This is what Mom wanted,” I whisper to myself in the mirror.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m clean, safely at the place we’re staying and no longer overwhelmed by people, new places, or traveling, but it has me looking at this trip completely differently.
This is the trip where I’m going to reconnect with Birdie and maybe, if I’m lucky, find some closure in these mountains and finally accept that our mom is gone.
When I step out of the bathroom, it’s to Birdie taking fistfuls of her clothes and shoving them into her dresser. I head over to my suitcase, grabbing the packing cube with my sleeping clothes.
“What should we do tomorrow?” Birdie asks.
“We’re five hours ahead here. I just need to be by my computer at one, so we’ll have the morning.”
“Maybe we could just explore the town some? You aren’t planning on working the whole time, right?”
I clear my throat, guilt clawing away at me. Instead of being the good sister I promised I would be just a few minutes ago, I turn defensive.
“Don’t you have work to do too while we’re here?” I ask.
Birdie turns away from me. “Some, but not much. I don’t think Mom’s hope was for me to explore Scotland all by myself while you’re tucked away in here with your laptop,” she replies, hiding behind her hair.
“We’ll have the mornings and the weekends, Birdie, I promise,” I say, knowing I’m going to put in late hours with the time difference, but I can make this work. I might be a little sleep deprived at the end of this trip, but it will be worth it.
I can have it all, time with my sister, honoring my mom’s final wish, and keeping the dream job that means so much to me. I’ve got this.
I wake up with a snort, like I was sleeping with my mouth open. With a groan, I tap the nightstand, searching for my glasses. When I put them on my face and grab my phone, I mumble a curse.
It’s noon. We fucking slept till noon and the East Coast team is going to be awake in an hour.
We missed breakfast, and I promised Birdie we would spend the morning together. She sleeps with her hair all over the place, mine still wet from my shower last night as I get up and nudge her shoulder.
“Birdie, it’s noon.”
“Hmm?” she questions groggily, peeking open an eye at me.
“We slept until noon. I have to start work in an hour.”
She grabs her pillow and holds it to her face. “I’ll get up and explore when you have to start work,” she mumbles and I realize that yesterday wore her out just as much as it did me.
There are parts to being an Omega that no one really talks about much.
Sure, we go through heats, and there’s the whole pheromone driven life that’s out of our control, but there’s more to it.
We tire more easily, need more sleep. Our immune systems aren’t as strong as other designations, along with a slew of other bullshit we have to deal with.
It’s in my humble opinion that the Omega designation is highly romanticized, because there’s been little in my life that’s come easily.
Maybe if I actually attempted to date, let a pack court me, my life would change, but then I’d give up all my control.
I’d be at the mercy of whatever my pack of Alphas wanted; the idea makes me shiver.
I throw on a pair of jeans and a sweater before putting my hair up the best I can. I grab my purse and lock the door to the room. I’ll grab us some coffees and breakfast, or lunch, whatever I can get right now.
The rest of the house is quiet. I’m sure most of the other guests are out exploring and enjoying their day. I usually love my job, the way it lets me hone my focus on one thing. But right now I feel resentful that I couldn’t take more time off to enjoy this trip.
I give this company sixty to seventy-hour work weeks almost religiously; I go above and beyond, and I care so much about the quality of my work. Sure, I have to take heat leave every quarter, which leaves no time for any leisure.
“No more negative thinking,” I chastise myself.
I’m grateful to have my job, I worked hard for it, and this is all a part of climbing the corporate ladder. I’m only twenty-six and I’ve accomplished so much. A few years from now, I’ll move on from just the Omega marketing campaign to an even bigger branch and keep working my way up from there.
I walk through the lounge, and that’s when I bump into who I’m assuming must be Effie’s husband, Angus.
“You must be one of the Omega twins staying in the double room, I reckon?” he says, his accent so heavy I need to stare at his mouth to understand him.
Our mother always had an accent, so I grew up used to it, but he puts my mom’s brogue to shame.
“Yes, I’m Maisie. Do you have a recommendation for a cafe in town?” I ask.
This has him brightening up. Angus is a large man, clearly well loved and fed by his wife Effie.
He’s balding, minus a ring of white that travels along his head that matches the thick beard on his face.
His cheeks have a rosy hue to them, and I can’t help but to compare our precious hosts to Mr. and Mrs. Claus.
“Craic Cafe is always a favorite. If you go out the garden gate, make a left on the street. You’ll pass a few homes, but once you hit the market, the cafe will be on your right.”
“Thank you,” I tell him and he gives me a wide smile.
“If there’s anything else you’ll be needing, just call for me or Effie,” he says, nodding before he stacks firewood next to the fireplace.
I do as Angus says, walking through the garden gate and making a left. The cool morning air against my face helps wake me up, and it’s the first time I really get a good look at the town. When we were driving in, I was focused on making sure we made it here alive, not how whimsical the town feels.
It’s nothing like Chicago, and while I love my city, I can’t help but to feel a deep sense of peace in this place. It’s quiet, serene even, and I wish I could have experienced it with Mom here.
She always wanted to take us back to Scotland, show us where she grew up and the country she loved so much. We were just too busy, didn’t have the money, and by the time we started talking about actually planning the trip, she was too sick to travel.
I take a deep breath, inhaling the fresh air and attempting to let some of my guilt go.
When I get to the cafe, a quaint little shop, with an all glass front, I’m greeted by a kind Beta with green and black hair.
“Welcome in, what can I get for you?” they ask.
“Can I have two hazelnut lattes and two ham and cheese toasties, please?”
“Right on it.”
I take a seat by the window as I wait for the food, watching as everyone goes about their day. I wonder if my mom ever sat at this very cafe, if she ever milled about on this very street. Something about the idea has me feeling close to her, and I have to take a deep breath before I cry.
“I see you found Craic Cafe,” a deep voice says, startling me.
I glance up to find our roadside knight in a kilt, Lain. I eye him suspiciously, considering yet again, he’s wearing the red kilt, this time with a cream-colored sweater.
He looks at me and I can’t help but to push my glasses closer to my face and fuss with my hair. I didn’t even look in the mirror when I left the room. It’s probably a nightmare.
Who cares what you look like, Maisie?
“It was a recommendation from Angus,” I say and the Alpha’s lips turn up.
“Ah, so you’re staying at the Heather Beag, then?”
“Does everyone in this town know each other?” I say, wondering if he only fixed our tire in some master murder plot. I need to chill with the murder pods while I work.
“Mostly, though I’ve known Angus since I was wee.”
I hum and look around. “Where’s your coworker?”
“Fergus doesn’t get along with the coos, so I leave him at home on the days I do tours to the farm.”
“And this is your uniform,” I say, waving my hand at the attire.
He takes the seat across from me, showing off his knees as he sits. Is it me or does his kilt rise a salacious amount?
“Aye. I used to dress normally, but my mate suggested…mate as in friend,” he says, interrupting his own thoughts as he clears his throat. “Anyway, he suggested I whip out the kilt for tours, and wouldn’t you know my tips went up by 40 percent?”
“I can believe it,” I say, glancing down at his muscular, exposed thigh and I swear a slight flush creeps up around the collar of his sweater.
“For Maisie,” the barista calls my name, and I grab my food and drink, thanking them by putting a few pounds in the tip jar.
“Don’t forget about that tour discount,” Lain says as I walk by him to the exit.
“Oh, so should I cancel my tour with Rory?” I ask, teasing him.
The man arches an eyebrow at me and I laugh, which has him smiling in return.
“Don’t worry, I won’t forget. See you around, Lain.”
“See you around, Maisie,” he says, my name sounding like a caress.
For some crazy reason, I hope I see him again too. I bring our brunch back to the B&B, opening my laptop, and resenting the fact that I’m stuck in here and not out exploring the place my mother held so dear.
I promised myself I could do both. But as Birdie leaves the B&B by herself, there’s a longing feeling wishing I was going with her.