Chapter 6
Isla
Hey, Google. Play “Holding Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler
My eyes slammed closed as shock reverberated through my entire body. My ears were ringing. Blood pounding. I’d – I’d been hit. Something was crushing me.
Oh god . . . oh god. How am I not dead? Wait . . . am I dead?
It took an embarrassingly long time to realise it wasn’t a car, but another body, pressing the length of mine into the ground. That slightly roughened hands were cupping my head, protecting it from the stone.
“Holy shit!” I panted into the wide chest that smelled faintly like antiseptic and something more expensive.
Definitely a man.
That hand moved to the top of my spine and squeezed. I tensed, curling my fingers into soft fabric. Was he . . . stroking me? The touch turned probing – efficient and thorough – and I realised he was checking me for injuries.
Muscles starting to relax, I prepared myself for the onslaught of concerned questions sure to follow. An I’m fine already lined up on the tip of my tongue. A broken leg, you say? Don’t worry, I’ll walk it right off.
Except, what he said was, “What the fuck were you thinking, Isla?” The voice was hard. Almost growling. Vaguely familiar.
“Oh my god, oh my god, Isla! Please don’t say she’s dead!” Another voice added to the fray – female – worried and breathless.
My mind and body were out of sync. Everything felt fuzzy, my thoughts racing too quickly to keep up. My rescuer held me so tightly I could scarcely turn my head, my view tunnelled to the collar of a thick navy jumper and a prominent Adam’s apple.
“You can let me go now,” I said. Struggling, I tilted my chin back, finding an upside-down redhead staring down at me. Her green eyes were wide, teeth gnawing at her full lower lip as the man holding me drew back an inch, and I finally got a good look at him.
Perfect hair. Bristled jaw. Permanent scowl.
It clicked into place.
“Oh shit! I’m dead, aren’t I?” I let my body sink back against the cobblestones, no longer concerned that my hair was probably soaking in dirty puddle water.
One of April Sinclair’s perfect eyebrows rose; I’d seen her make that exact expression in a film once. “You’re very much alive,” she said. “Did you hit your head?”
My hair rustled against the cobblestones as I shook my head. “I don’t even think I felt the car hit me . . . it all happened so fast.” And kind of anticlimactically, honestly, where was the bright light? The inspirational movie-credits music?
Fingers slid along my scalp, probing. I felt weird.
Trembly. Like I was a puppet, no longer in control of my limbs or tongue as words continued to spill from my lips.
“Please don’t let Jess sing at my funeral, she always misses the high notes.
And don’t scatter my ashes, I’m pretty sure you need a licence for that—”
“Should we call an ambulance?” April asked while Alistair Macabe lifted my eyelid back.
“That’s not necessary.” His face was so close. His breath smelled of mint, and I could count the lines creasing the skin around his eyes. “Her pupils look normal; she’s probably in shock.”
I slapped his hand away before he could go for the other eye. “Don’t poke me, I’m fine. Well, not fine – I’m dead, but otherwise fine.”
“You’re not dead,” Alistair scoffed in that lilting brogue I admired when he shouted, Keep the racket down, through my wall any time I sang along to “Silver Springs” too loudly.
Not too thick. He sounded like a meaner version of the Outlander guy.
Why couldn’t they have sent the Outlander guy?
“Oh yeah?” I said. “Then explain your presence.”
“Good Samaritan.”
His glasses had slipped halfway down his nose. I refused to find it charming. “Either I’m dead or having an extended psychotic episode where you, of all people, would save my life. The first seems far more likely.”
Alistair looked up at April, catching her stare. She regarded him for a long second then burst out laughing. “Is now a good time to revisit the topic of you being an arsehole?”
Alistair didn’t laugh. His impassive gaze flitting to mine. “Anything else you want to get off your chest?”
“Yes, you.” I poked him in the shoulder.
He blinked slowly, seeming to realise he was still pressing me into the ground. He backed up quickly, a suspiciously gentle hand slipping around my back to take me with him until I was sitting, then holding me steady. At that point, the dead theory was looking pretty solid.
We were beneath the awning of the beauty salon. A crowd of onlookers circled around us, phones glued to their hands, negating the aghast expressions on their faces.
“Don’t worry, Isla, I’ve already reported it to the community officer,” Marie, from the corner shop, said, elbowing her way to the front. “Caught the entire thing on camera.”
“That’s . . .” Awful. Death might have been better after all.
This was the most interesting thing to happen in Kinleith in months.
I’d barely survived the last bout of humiliation.
If I had a pound for every pitying head tilt and rendition of He’ll come crawling back, just you wait, let’s just say I wouldn’t be riding a push bike to work wearing a sparkly pink helmet I’d borrowed from my seven-year-old.
Floundering under the attention, I turned, searching the street. “Where’s Boy? Is he okay?”
It still felt weird being friends with April Sinclair.
Probably because the first time Heather had dragged me along to a coffee date with April and Juniper, a little part of me had expected her to act like a snooty celebrity, all airs and few graces.
But April . . . turned out to be pretty freaking amazing.
Generous. Warm. The type of person who made everyone’s day a little brighter simply by existing.
She always paid the next coffee forward in Brown’s.
Volunteered at village events. Never baulked at taking photos with fans.
I absolutely couldn’t be the reason her dog was dead.
“He’s fine. Mal has him,” she assured me, her shoulders still stiff with lingering worry. “Thank you, Isla. That was so brave, I can’t even believe it. We’d be devastated if something happened to him—” Her eyes turned watery.
I froze. My nervous system short-circuiting.
Even as a kid, I’d never handled praise very well. It had the opposite effect to what I suspected it had on most people. It left me with the dread of impending failure. Like I was seconds from being outed as a fraud.
“No, that was really fucking stupid.” Alistair was still crouching before me, his stony face blocking my view of the street.
“Boy cleared the road before you even got close. You almost killed yourself for nothing.” Incensed at his reaction, I pushed to stand, but he stopped me, his grip tight but somehow still gentle as he rooted me in place.
“Not a chance. I need to finish checking you over first.”
“Not necessary.” I shook him off. “I’m late for work. Jess is going to think I’ve quit – oh, where’s my phone? I must have dropped—” It appeared in front of my face before I’d even finished the thought, cradled in Alistair’s stupidly thick fingers.
“Thanks.”
“You cracked the screen pretty bad,” April noted with a wince. “I’ll pay to replace it.”
“Oh my god – no, it’s been like this for at least a year. Totally not your fault.” I quickly unlocked it, checking for further damage. Then noted the time: nine thirty-four a.m. “Shit, Jess is actually going to murder me. I have to go.”
“Jess will understand. I really think you should let Alistair check you out,” April said, stepping back and bringing me eye to eye with her rounded belly.
Draped in a cute floral summer dress, she was rocking the line between barefoot in the kitchen and Bella in Breaking Dawn.
Happy but deeply exhausted in a way that even a good concealer couldn’t hide.
I remembered the feeling well.
Standing, I brushed off my dress that had, by some magic, not slipped up around my ribs in all the chaos – small mercies.
“You’re bleeding,” Alistair barked. He snagged my wrist and bent to look at my shredded knee. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I didn’t realise, Daddy.” Unfortunately, the barb held little bite, my stomach too busy churning at the blood trickling down my shin.
He made a noise somewhere between a huff and a curse, pulling his jumper over his head, ruffling the short strands of his hair. “Tie this around it until I can clean it.” He thrust it at me.
“No way! That’s probably Armani.” That would also mean looking at the injury. I’d be flat on my arse again in less than thirty seconds.
“Growing a conscience? You didn’t seem to mind ruining my clothes that night in the rain.”
April’s eyebrows shot up.
“That’s not how it sounded,” I assured her.
Ignoring us both, Alistair bent to tie his jumper around my knee, his fingers tickling the back of my leg as he secured it in a double knot.
“You have two options: you let me check you over or I’m calling the ambulance, which will drive you an hour to the minor injuries clinic in Portree.
” He stood. “The second option is a large waste of resources.”
How had he already figured out the best way to threaten me was guilt? “Fine.” I hated him. “But make it quick.”
He nodded like he had no plans of hanging around. “We’ll go to Brown’s.”
He walked closely beside me, so tall I felt like a garden gnome. The bell above the door of Brown’s chimed as he held it open for me and April, and several customers turned in our direction before going back to their conversations.
Inside, the scent of cinnamon and butter greeted me like a welcome hug, instantly lifting my mood. The large street-facing window was still slightly fogged from the ovens and the floorboards creaked beneath our feet.