Chapter 8
Alicia
Dean and Diana’s lodge was much smaller than Alicia’s. Or was it that the walls were closing in? She wondered if she had been here enough time to politely leave. Was forty-five minutes long enough?
‘You’re much smaller in real life than on the telly.’ Dean supped on a home-made margarita and raked his yellowy eyes up and down Alicia in a way that made her skin crawl.
‘You’re even prettier, too,’ said Diana. ‘Chad Bradbury was a lucky lad.’
‘Mmhm.’ Alicia was only able to make vague appreciative mumbles in response to this line of conversation.
No way was she talking about Chad with these people, as hospitable as they were pretending to be.
All she wanted was to get away from them.
Plus, they had laced the margarita with a potent amount of tequila and she might be sick if she drank more than one.
Then, as the bottom of her glass was fast approaching, and the chat about the charms of the hotel was drying up, the perfect departure excuse landed in her lap.
‘If you fancy staying for longer, we could all have some fun together.’ Diana sent a saccharine smile Alicia’s way, a hint of suggestiveness lacing it like the salt on the margarita glass.
‘What?… Oh, God, no!’ Alicia surprised herself with her vociferousness and tried to backtrack.
‘I mean, sorry, but I’m not that person.
I… Look, I will have to go now.’ She nearly apologised again.
But why should she? She’d come here for a friendly cocktail and been propositioned into a threesome with a couple who were about twenty years older than her.
‘You don’t have to leave,’ said Dean. ‘I was enjoying our chat.’
‘I think it would be best.’ Alicia put down her glass – which she’d been gripping as a stability device. ‘Thank you for the drink.’ She strode towards the door.
‘Dean will walk you back to your lodge,’ said Diana. ‘Make sure you’re safe.’
‘Truly, there’s no need.’ Alicia examined the patterns on the lodge floor rather than looking at Diana. There was a whorl of wood that looked like a ghost. ‘It’s sixty seconds away.’
‘We’ll wait here to see that you get back, then.
’ Diana patted her on the shoulder, and she had to stifle her impulse to flinch.
They hadn’t mentioned the nudes, but that’s what they were thinking of.
She almost tripped down the porch steps in her haste to escape this creepy couple.
The cold air was like being given new life after the suffocating heat of the lodge.
It wasn’t that she feared Dean and Diana. It was the violation of privacy she hated: that they’d seen her naked and thought that made her fair game. She loathed that her own image was out of her hands and being cultivated by other people.
Alicia stumbled along the path, her mind fuzzy from the margarita, sights on her lodge, where she could lock the door and be safe in her own world.
But before that there was someone else’s world.
Jamie’s. As she neared his accommodation, she saw that he was sitting on his porch in jeans and a flannel shirt, a whisky tumbler in hand, brooding on an orange glow dancing in a small fire pit.
The epitome of rugged mountain man. She stopped on the dimly lit path and watched.
The title for a painting came to mind. The Lone Scotsman.
An unaffected man, minding his own business and radiating unfiltered masculinity. She could stare all night.
Or she could move out of the shadows and go talk to him.
‘Hi.’ Alicia stopped in front of his porch.
‘Oh, hey.’ Jamie turned from the fire, the timbre of his voice undercut with a mild flintiness, possibly at his solitude being disturbed. Alicia willed him to smile even more – to ease the cold and foreboding generated by Dean and Diana.
‘Aren’t you cold?’ She motioned to his bare feet. God, they were huge.
‘Naw. I’m always roasting hot.’
Mmm. Snuggling up to a man’s hot body to keep warm in bed. Alicia roved her eyes up Jamie’s legs, thinking about wrapping her own around them. What would that feel like?
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘What? Oh, yes.’ Alicia broke out of her fantasy and met his gaze.
‘I’m on my way back from drinks with some other guests.
’ She risked a fleeting look over her shoulder to see Dean and Diana still standing on their porch.
‘Actually, if it’s not too cheeky, would you mind if I join you for a while?
’ Far from worrying Jamie might be trouble, Alicia’s emotional compass told her he was the lighthouse she needed right now.
‘Um, if you’re sure?’ It sounded as if being a lighthouse was not on Jamie’s wish list, yet he remained a true gent, pulling up a chair as she stepped onto the porch, the heady, masculine scent of bergamot wafting into her senses.
‘I won’t stay for long,’ she assured him.
‘Stay as long as you like. It’s no bother. Can I get you a drink?’
‘Please. I’ll have whatever you’re having.’ Alicia nodded to the bottle of whisky on the floorboards. ‘This?’
‘Aye. Butler’s Eas Inchfallon. One of the fancy ones.
I’ll get you a glass.’ Jamie disappeared into the lodge leaving his citrusy smell lingering in the cold air.
When he returned, Alicia got a more potent hit, chased again by that radiating heat in her sexual core.
Being near this man unlocked something ancient and wanton within her.
‘So, you were having drinks with the couple in that lodge over there?’ Jamie asked, nodding to Dean and Diana’s.
‘Yes.’
‘Have fun?’
‘Not really.’
His gaze narrowed and, like momentary static on a television screen, a flicker of something akin to protectiveness crossed his features. ‘Did something happen?’ he asked.
‘No, no,’ Alicia insisted. ‘It was fine.’
‘Right.’ Jamie sipped his whisky in a manner that could have been described as sceptical.
Alicia liked that he wasn’t pushing her to divulge whatever was on her mind but was insightful enough to notice something awry.
She couldn’t tell him what went down at Dean and Diana’s because she’d need to explain the back story, but feeling the tiniest bit seen made all the difference to her comfort levels.
‘What have you been doing?’ she asked.
‘Ach, just drinking whisky, watching the mountain and thinking.’
‘You don’t get bored sitting here?’
‘Not at all. It’s healthy to stop and do nothing. Plus, life at home’s been boring of late. This is positively scintillating by comparison.’
Alicia smiled softly. ‘My life at home had far too many events in it,’ she admitted, before wondering what had given her the confidence to divulge this snippet.
‘Is that why you’re hiding out at a remote hotel in the Highlands of Scotland? Jamie asked. ‘To get away from the action.’
She had courted it, but this line of enquiry ricocheted fear through Alicia.
‘Who said I’m hiding?’ she bit back.
‘Nobody. It’s just a turn of phrase.’
‘Oh, sorry, I’m a little touchy.’ Just a little? You bit the guys’ head off.
‘Want to change the subject again?’
‘Yes. Why don’t you tell me about your boring life?’
After hesitating for a moment, as if this would not be his conversational topic of choice, Jamie said, ‘Ach, I just came out of a ten-year relationship where the height of action was playing board games instead of even watching TV.’
Alicia tucked her hair behind her ear to mask her far too obvious relief at hearing Jamie had been in a nice, steady relationship but was now single. ‘I do like a good board game from time to time,’ she said. ‘But…’
‘Aye,’ Jamie agreed, knowingly. ‘But…’
For a moment or two, they sat in the weighted silence of the evening. Alicia sipped her drink, enjoying the bold notes of leather and tobacco on her palate and the way that Jamie’s whisky, and presence, were decadently heating her core.
‘Maybe it’s my fault,’ Jamie suggested.
‘What is?’
‘The board games. We didn’t have a TV growing up. My dad always wanted us to be doing other things, so I got used to not watching it.’
A key piece of the puzzle clicked into place. This could be why he didn’t recognise her. He didn’t watch TV. How refreshing, on two levels. He had no idea of her fame, and he lived in a world where he made his own entertainment. Although Alicia loved to absorb herself in films.
‘So, you never watch movies?’ she asked.
‘Oh, sure. I love them, but I like to watch the old classics, you know, Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jack Lemmon, folk like that.’
‘You don’t watch any modern movies?’
‘Aye, from time to time, I do. If enough people recommend something, but it’s about ten years after it’s come out at the cinema. I’ve got so many other things I want to do, so movies aren’t a huge part of my life.’
‘And what are all these other things?’ Alicia angled herself a little more towards Jamie. He was so easy to talk to and even easier to look at.
‘Well, there’s work. That takes up a lot of time, but there’s also surfing, hiking, climbing, running, podcasts.’
‘And staring into space.’
He chuckled ‘Aye, got to find time to fit that in. But what about you? What’re your favourite things to do, presuming you’re not as into gawping at the void as me.’
‘I do like to do that, but it’s usually because I’m painting and looking at something for a long time.’
‘Ah, you’re an artist?’ The glow in Jamie’s eyes burned brighter and Alicia hoped it was from an interest in her art rather than solely the fire’s reflection.
‘Yes, this’s why I’m here – to paint the Scottish scenery.’
‘Fantastic. You’ll never run out of inspiration in Scotland.’
‘It’s a world apart from LA, for sure.’
‘You’re from LA?’ Jamie edged himself up in his seat.
‘I’ve been a couple of times for work. Great buzz, but I have to say I was glad to get home to my wee village where things are a bit more…
down to earth. I mean, I can understand the plus side of living there: glorious weather, beaches, fancy restaurants, but it’s not for me. Too shiny.’
Too shiny. What an astute way to describe her hometown. With those words, Jamie Butler just got even hotter. This man who was so down to earth he was practically rolling around in the mud was pushing every single one of Alicia’s ‘turn me on’ buttons.
‘Did you ever want to be an actress?’ he asked. ‘Don’t they say that everyone in Hollywood is an actor of some kind.’
‘No, never.’ This wasn’t a lie, as such.
Alicia had never wanted the role of actress for herself; it had just happened, and she got out as soon as she could.
‘I dabbled a little but I prefer painting. While I’m here, I’d love to paint some Scottish wildlife.
Red squirrels are the cutest. We only have the grey ones back home. ’
‘Ah, there are loads of red squirrels around here. And deer and stag. I’ve a map inside of a route you can take. It’s a fun wee tramp as long as the weather stays clear.’
Alicia swallowed another potent mouthful of Scotch and roamed her gaze over Jamie.
He had fortified her enthusiasm for this vacation and now she wondered if he might invite her to join him on a hike.
The words could you show me the way yourself were hovering on the precipice of her lips, but he became distracted by something in the sky.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘It’s snowing. That’s pretty unusual for early November.’
Tilting her chin skyward, Alicia saw chunky white flakes tumbling through the darkness. Goodness! Her mouth dropped so wide that had it not been for the shelter of the porch, the snow would have melted on the warmth of her tongue.
‘When was the last time you saw snow?’ Jamie asked.
‘Gosh, I can’t even remember. When I visited my grandma in Norway or the one time I went to Canada.
Every time is like the first time.’ Alicia turned to him, his brilliant blue eyes sparkling in the honeyed glow of the porch.
Jamie Butler was the first person who might win the battle for her attention with snowfall.
But as friendly as he was being, she knew his hospitality was borne of politeness rather than a desire to spend time with her.
She had, after all, carved a line in the ice between the two of them, and for good reason too.
It was best to tell herself that rich men were trouble in the end – there was always family drama or a hidden ego the size of the USA.
This man, despite his rugged Scottish looks, twenty four carat manners and abs to match, was probably an asshole best avoided, just like all the others.