Chapter 26
‘What are you doing here?’ shrieked Alice, as soon as she’d murdered that haggis and got off stage, dragging Bastian into one of the hotel’s service corridors under the gossiping gaze of the entire town.
Damn right she’d finished her poem, once she’d recovered from the initial shock of seeing the man who, little more than a month ago, hadn’t even wanted to speak to her, and now here he was, bursting in on her big moment, just when she’d found her composure.
‘Cranmer said he was worried about you, told me you had some big performance tonight and you were terrified. And… I was worried about you too.’
‘What did you do? Drive all this way?’
He shrugged it off. ‘It’s really nothing in the AMG. She ate up those roads.’
‘Ugh!’ Alice winced at his smugness. ‘I have to get back in there. I’m the guest of honour.’
After the whole town got behind her when she was struggling with nerves in a sympathetic symphony of soothing breathing, she really didn’t want to leave the party. Besides, there was going to be more poetry and Carenza was going to sing, and she hadn’t even tasted her haggis, neeps and tatties yet.
‘I’m sorry you’ve come all this way, but as you can see, I’m fine.’ She turned back for the ballroom.
‘Wait, wait, wait.’ Bastian manoeuvred in front of her. ‘Don’t you think we should talk? You owe me that, at least.’
‘I owe you? I told you I had a new job, you flipped out and stopped talking to me. End of story. We broke up.’
‘Did we? I feel like there was still so much to say.’
‘Like what?’ she seethed.
‘Like I’m sorry. I really am.’
That was unexpected. Bastian rarely apologised for anything.
‘I sulked when I should have supported you. I think it’s great that you’ve got your own practice up here.’ He looked around the tartan-wallpapered corridor with the antlers mounted on plaques like this was what the whole town must be like. ‘No, honestly, I do.’
‘It’s not my practice. I’m only here to complete my training, then I’ll find something…’ She was going to say ‘closer to home’, but it struck her that maybe this place had begun to feel like a kind of home. ‘I’ll find something else,’ she said. Though that didn’t sit well either.
‘I reckon you’re turning into a wee Scotch lassie,’ he said in a terrible Scottish accent.
Alice had learned enough to know that no one living here would ever call themselves ‘Scotch’, but she kept that to herself. Bastian had a fingertip on the plastic thistle pinned to her frock and was hungrily taking in her dress, his eyes adazzle. ‘It really suits you.’
‘Shut up.’ She shoved his hand away, wanting not to smile. It shouldn’t be that easy. ‘You didn’t even wish me luck, or wave me off or anything,’ she said.
‘I know. I had a lot on my mind, trying out for the cardiology programme. Your dad’s been coaching me for these interviews coming up, you know?’
‘Yeah, I know. He’s such a great guy.’ She tried to keep the irony out of her voice but it slipped through.
‘He really is,’ he confirmed, earnestly. ‘Listen, Alice, you go do your party. I’ll wait out in the Merc. Maybe, if you’re not too tired afterwards, we could talk, yeah?’
She looked at him, crumpled and forlorn, obviously frazzled from the dash up the motorway.
‘Did you eat?’ she huffed in surrender.
‘Not one bite since Manchester.’
‘Come on then,’ she sighed, shaking her head. ‘We’ll see if Carenza can fit you in at the top table. But then you have to go home.’
‘Fine, one wee bitty o’ haggis and I’ll leave yee in peace.’ He was doing the silly accent again.
Alice led the way back to the ballroom, not at all pleased, her arms folded over her dress, wondering what on earth the town were going to make of the new doctor bringing a gatecrasher to their special party.
Bastian skipped to catch up with her, trying to slip an arm around her shoulders which she repeatedly shrugged off, just as the lobby’s revolving doors spun and Cary Anderson, dressed head to toe in his Highland outfit and clutching a homemade posy of purple heather, a peace offering for Alice, spilled into the grand hallway, his kilt swinging.
Staggering to a halt, he had to squint to confirm that what he was seeing was real. Alice, beautiful in white, and a guy in tuxedo evening dress slipping his arm around her as they went into the ballroom together.
‘Alice,’ he breathed in defeat.
He was out of time and out of luck, and he really ought to hurry home and change before anyone spotted him.