Chapter 4
SKYE
Offered. Apparently, I’d offered. I’m so nice.
But once Dad said it, I couldn’t say no.
We get in my car, and I crank up the stereo for two reasons.
One, it’s The Ramones, and The Ramones should always be played at full volume.
And two, I want to discourage any kind of conversation.
It’s a forty-minute drive to Inverness on a clear day.
In the rain that’s now coming down in relentless sheets, it’ll probably be closer to an hour.
I’m still in shock that my father didn’t tell me about this whole renting out our home to complete strangers.
Well, not complete strangers, if a humiliating letter from nearly a decade ago counts.
“So, you’re a music fan, huh?” Miles practically shouts over Joey Ramone.
I nod.
“What’s your favorite band?”
Even though I don’t want to talk, I answer automatically. “The Rolling Stones.”
“Oh yeah. That’s cool. I met Mick a couple times.”
I turn down the music. “What?”
“Yeah. I met him on set. He and Keith. They were doing a song for the soundtrack of That Night, and they came to set to check it out. Get a feel for the film.”
My heart is in my throat. I don’t want to be impressed by his shameless name-dropping, but Mick Fucking Jagger. “What was he like?”
We talk about Mick and Keith—he calls them by their first names.
“When they showed up, I knew they were a big deal by how everyone else was acting, but I had no idea who they were.”
I suck in a breath. “Shame on you.”
“Hey! I was eleven. It was the nineties. If it had been NSYNC, I would’ve been hyped.”
Despite myself, I laugh.
“Don’t worry. My music taste has evolved since then.” Miles gazes out the window, watching the countryside go by. “What got you into classic rock?”
“I listen to all sorts of music,” I deflect, not wanting to share that my mother is the reason. Miles tells me about his record collection. We both love vinyl. I almost forget that I don’t want to be in a car with him, that I want to find a way for the production not to come here.
“Everything just sounds rich—” Miles stops what he’s saying and gasps.
“What?” I ask.
He looks at me and smiles, then points back out the window. “Rainbow.”
The hills are green, wet and lush with the rainfall, stones jutting up here and there. In a stream, as if it’s shooting directly from a cloud, is a hazy but vivid rainbow. My chest fills with pride, like I’m somehow responsible for the beauty of the land.
“It’s gorgeous.”
“Aye.”
“Have you always lived here?”
I pause, considering my answer. “For the most part.”
Miles smiles at me, his eyes twinkling. “There’s a story there.”
“For another time, maybe.”
I get some coffee while Miles does his shopping. I have a draft due by Friday for work, but I can’t exactly write it up on my phone. Anyway, I have a more immediate problem. I call my friend Logan, who works for the tourism board.
“Skye, long time. How’s it going?”
“Great. How is the babe?”
“She’s growing like a weed. She’s three now, and the next one is due in December.”
I already knew. It’s all Logan posts on his feed. I just wasn’t sure how to launch into it. “That’s awesome.”
Silence crackles over the phone.
“So…what’s up?” Logan asks, sounding just the tiniest bit suspicious.
“Yeah, so…” I explain to Logan about the film production and my need for them not to use Castle Loch Ness.
“I don’t know, Skye. I’ll look into it, but two weeks is pretty short notice. If Dun Loch Ness needs the money—”
I appreciate his referring to the castle as “in need” rather than me.
“—why not let them shoot there? It sounds like it could be a lot of fun.”
How can I explain my gut reaction that inviting this circus into the castle would be disastrous?
My mother had been a star at one point. She was a singer-songwriter and made three albums, one of which got really big.
She met my father after the release of her second album.
When they married, she continued singing and released one last record before falling pregnant with me.
She gave it all up and never said why. Once, when I was thirteen, I gathered all my courage and asked her plainly why she quit.
She could’ve been a big star, like Adele or Lily Allen.
She said, “I changed. It wasn’t who I was anymore.”
I didn’t understand. I still don’t. Would she want the fame she left behind knocking on our door now?
Besides, how can I write with all the distractions? Once I sell my book, we can pay for repairs with my advance. If I write a bestseller, we can keep the castle afloat with just my income.
And then, of course, there’s the stupid letter.
Remembering Logan is still waiting for an answer, I say, “It’s hard to explain. In my gut, I just know it’ll change everything.”
There’s a beat, and then Logan says, “Change might not be such a bad thing. But I’ll see what I can do.”
Swapping my phone for my book in my bag, I feel better already. Logan will find something, and then the whole production can move to Lewiston or Dores—anywhere but here.
I tuck into the book Kate made me buy. I’ve been inhaling it—gulping air like I’d just hopped off the bike after a steep hill.
It’s about a pop star and a baker falling in love.
I usually only read mysteries or thrillers, sometimes the odd literary fiction, but I’m hooked on this romance despite myself.
None of it is based in reality. Proper fiction, practically a fantasy novel, really.
But it’s the first romance I’ve read, and it’s a revelation.
Someone doesn’t have to die in a book in order for it to be exciting. Who knew?
“Good book?”
I startle, spilling a little coffee on the page I’m on.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Miles frowns. “I thought you saw me coming toward the table.”
I’d been so lost in the story, I hadn’t. Somewhere along the way in his shopping, Miles had changed out of the enormous trousers and into a pair of dark-gray jeans and a black jumper that hugs his body in such a seductive way, I imagine my fingertips gliding along the soft knit.
“There’s a bookstore back there,” Miles says, jarring me out of my daydream. “I can buy you a new copy. What book is it?”
Heat floods my cheeks, and I suddenly don’t want Miles to know I’m reading a romance. It’s low spice, from what Kate says, but all the same, I shove the book into my bag.
“No, it’s fine.” Then I think about how little of the novel I actually have left. I’m itching for another romance to lose myself in, and I don’t have any at home. “On second thought, I’d love to stop at the shop for a new book, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. My treat. I’m in the market for something new to read, too. I finished the one I was reading in the airport.”
I smile, not sure I want to let him buy me a romance book, or anything for that matter.
I’ve already warmed to him more than I expected on our drive over here.
I don’t need another reason to like him.
Especially since once I figure out how to stop this production from happening at the castle, he probably won’t speak to me again.
“We’ll see. I know a better bookstore than this one, though. Come on.”
We throw Miles’s packages in my car and walk the short way.
“How far is it?”
I see Leakey’s in the distance and point. “It’s right over there.”
Miles’s face lights up, and I suddenly know why people use that phrase. It’s like a literal light is shining from his cheeks. “In the church?”
I nod, not able to keep myself from smiling. “It was almost a nightclub. When the church decided to sell, there were two bids. They thought the bookstore was a better option.”
Across the street, a woman yells, “Miles!”
A young girl in a tiny red skirt waves, and Miles graciously waves back.
He puts a hand on the small of my back in a protective gesture that sends electric pulses through my sternum down to my toes.
He leads us through the open forest green door as the young fan screams, “I love you,” with her phone held in front of her face.
Miles looks embarrassed. “Comes with the job, I’m afraid.”
I nod, dipping my toe into dangerous territory. “I bet you get a lot of fan mail, too?”
He shrugs. “I guess. My assistant Jake goes through it all. Sends them a nice reply.”
Thank the heavens. He doesn’t read them. Maybe he never even saw mine. Maybe the reply was from his assistant. “So, you never read any of them?”
“I used to when I first started out. But I haven’t for years. It’s better for my mental health.”
Shit. Years. How many years? Like ten?
Miles walks through the small entryway of the two-story masterpiece that is Leakey’s Bookshop before I can ask any more questions.
I see it with new eyes, just as Miles must be seeing it now.
The space is open and covered from floor to ceiling in books.
A balcony that wraps around the entire building, making up the second floor and a rickety iron spiral staircase leading up to it.
The walls are all mint green, purple, and light blue, softening the immense interior.
It’s like walking into a fairytale castle.
Smack dab in the middle of the enormous space is a wood-burning stove filling the space with a cozy campfire smell.
Miles turns to me. “It’s incredible.”
A secret thrill rushes through me just like when we saw the rainbow. Like I’m responsible for how amazing this place is.
I head off to find another book and leave Miles to wander.
The romance aisle is full to the brim with colorful spines.
Orange, fuchsia, plum, sapphire, sea green.
It’s like walking into a rainbow. So different from walking through the crime fiction aisle.
I look through the A’s and find a mint green cover with a football player and a ballerina on it.
I read the back, and it sounds fun. While holding on to it, I pick up a few others, reading the back.
There are so many to choose from. All with a variety of scenarios, ranging from realistic to fantastic.
Some, the couple are old friends turned lovers, some are enemies turned lovers, and some are strangers turned lovers.
Little pinpricks tingle the back of my neck as the idea forms. I could write one of these books. I could write a romance.
I don’t believe in love at first sight like in the books, or a lasting love of any kind, really.
Look at my parents—madly in love, my mother gave up her dreams for my father to live out a fairytale in a castle no less, and my dad still ended up alone.
Exhibit B—my one foray into love ended with me alone, heart shattered, worse off than when I began.
But just because I don’t believe in it doesn’t mean I can’t write it.
It’s fiction, after all. I wrote a book where multiple people were murdered, and I don’t actually want to kill anyone—well, most of the time.
I can write about love without believing in it.
Clearly, there’s a market. Look at all these books.
I find my way to the craft-writing books.
So many already grace my shelves, Save the Cat Writes a Novel, Bird by Bird, On Writing, but if I’m going to write in a completely new genre, I’m not pompous enough to think I won’t need a little help, especially since I just started reading the genre myself.
Happily Ever After, Beat by Beat by Trudy Lamour looks amazing. It’s a beat sheet for romance novels, exactly what I need. Another one catches my eye, and I’m pulling Write Naked by Jennifer Probst off the shelf to read the back cover, when Miles walks into the aisle.
“There you are. This place is incredible. Look at this cool copy of Slaughterhouse-Five.” He holds up a black, white, and red cover with a large bomb in the center. In a wacky font under the title, it has the best line in the novel: “Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.”
Miles steps forward, bringing with him the heady scent of cinnamon and clove. He takes the book out of my hand before I even realize what he’s doing. “What did you find?”
Color rises in his cheeks as he reads the title. “Oh, are you a writer?”
My mind spins with how to answer. My imposter syndrome snarls loudly in my ear. I take the book back and add it to my stack. I always hate this question. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“I write, but it’s not anything serious.” Just my passion, my dream, the reason why I get out of bed some mornings. “Just for fun.” And so I don’t spiral into an existential black hole.
In an attempt to end the conversation, I start off toward the register.
“That’s awesome. What do you write?”
My second most dreaded question. I wrote a cozy mystery about a woman who owns and operates a landscaping business and also stumbles into solving a murder.
I wrote another, more serious mystery about a woman living in Cornwall who stumbles upon some remains while on a run and solves the murder.
I wrote a time-traveling cozy mystery where the protagonist stumbles upon a time machine and goes into the future to find they were murdered, then has to travel to the past to solve it.
It seems stumbling is a big theme in my work.
All of the stories sound ridiculous when I try to explain them, so I say, “Crime fiction, mostly. Or I guess you say it’s the mystery genre in America. ”
Miles steps up as I place my books on the counter. “My treat, I insist. I ruined your other book.”
I think about protesting, but I can’t deny how nice it feels to have someone, particularly an extremely handsome, nice-smelling someone, buy me a book. “Thank you.”