Chapter 3
RB Accountancy.
Bex read the words again, taking in the beautiful craftsmanship of what was clearly a hand-painted sign and trying to stop the tears from welling in her eyes.
She may have had her own firm for a couple of months now, but this, a brick-and-mortar establishment, was enough to take her breath away. Turns out there was no keeping those tears from escaping after all. She could feel them trickling down her cheeks.
‘You okay?’ Duncan asked.
With a slight sniff, Bex managed to nod in response, but she still couldn’t speak.
She had spent so long working up a ladder where the gaps between the rungs kept shifting, and people with less experience, less skill, somehow got to jump ahead of her. But now… now she had her own ladder and she could point it in whatever direction she wanted. And it was all down to Duncan.
Finally regaining her senses, she spun around, pushed herself onto her tiptoes and kissed him.
It felt like every day he did something like this.
Something to make her know she had made the best decision of her life in saying yes to him.
But this… this was a whole new level of perfection.
Yet as he wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer to her, a throat cleared behind them.
‘Hey, there are other people here, you know,’ Lorna groaned.
‘Don’t care,’ Bex muttered, kissing him again, grinning so high her cheeks ached. Far sooner than she wanted, Duncan broke away.
‘You want to look inside?’ he asked.
‘Inside?’
‘Aye, you think I just put up a wee plaque and was done with it? Come on. Let’s show you. It’s just the basics. I thought you’d want to pick out most of it yourself, but it’s a start. And if you dinnae like it, blame Fi.’
‘Fi? Fi knew about this?’ Bex asked, amazed that her apprentice, whom she saw almost every day, could possibly have kept something like this from her.
‘Aye, now, come on.’
He slipped the key into the door, then stepped back to allow Bex to enter first. Her heart was drumming so hard she was still standing there when Duncan spoke again, though this time it was to Lorna. ‘You can keep an eye on these two,’ he added, gesturing to the dogs.
Leaving her canine companions and future sister-in-law outside, Bex drew in a deep breath and stepped into the building.
‘This is incredible.’ Her jaw dropped as she walked into a small seating area with a sofa and two armchairs covered in a deep red tartan fabric, a coffee table decorated with a vase of wildflowers, and a water cooler and coffee machine set up on a sideboard.
The walls were painted a clean, crisp cream, with a couple of large paintings she recognised as views from around the loch.
It was like a cross between a waiting area and a living room.
Nothing like the stark white offices where she’d spent her time in London, and it was so much better for it.
Not only that, but there were so many little details.
Like fresh flowers and a bowl of hardboiled sweets in the centre of the table.
‘And through here is where I assume the magic will happen,’ Duncan said, pushing open a door on his left that Bex hadn’t even noticed.
This time, she actually gasped.
Bex would never have guessed there’d be this much inside such an inconspicuous grey building, and she suspected some walls had been brought down to make such an open area, but it had been done so well. Light flooded the ready-furnished space.
‘Four desks?’ she questioned, looking at Duncan.
‘Aye, figured you needed room to expand,’ Duncan replied, a cute smile lighting his eyes.
Yes, he was right. Of course he was. There was already enough work that she and Fi were struggling on their own, and more than once she’d thought about employing someone else, but that had seemed ridiculous when they were still working out of her home library – as impressive as it was. Now though… now the sky was the limit.
‘It’s perfect. Thank you. Thank you.’ Bex turned in a slow circle, trying to take it all in, wishing she had more words to say what she meant.
Before Duncan, the men she’d dated had been intimidated by her success.
Her drive. And here Duncan was, doing everything he could to support her.
This was what a relationship was meant to be like.
And not for the first time, she was overwhelmed by a wave of gratitude that fate and a job she’d never wanted to take had sent her life on such a U-turn.
Brushing the tears from her cheeks, she turned back to look at her fiancé.
‘Really… I don’t know how to thank you.’
‘I didn’t do it just for you.’ He grinned. ‘You know it was getting kinda cramped in the castle with all the boxes you’d got in there.’
Laughter snorted from her. The thought of the castle ever being cramped was more than a little amusing, with all the rooms they were yet to look through.
But now that she would have a physical separation between work and home life, hopefully they would get to it all.
She reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him again, only for a phone alarm to shoot through the quiet.
‘Crap! Sorry, guys.’
Bex had completely forgotten Lorna was there. Clearly, she’d got bored with dog-sitting duty as the dogs were currently sniffing around beneath the desks, while she rummaged in her pocket as the alarm continued to blare.
‘Ignore me. I’m definitely not ruining the moment,’ she added. Finally, she found her phone and stopped it from ringing. ‘I’ve got to head back to the café. That’s my break done.’ She turned and moved to the door before changing her mind and looking back at Bex. ‘Actually, are you two busy?’
Bex couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Busy? You mean like starting a business, planning a wedding, raising a puppy, and being landlords to an entire village?’ she said sarcastically.
‘So… is that a yes?’ Lorna asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘It’ll just take a minute.’
With a light chuckle, Bex shook her head. ‘We were going to have lunch out. We can come to the café?’
‘Perfect. Then I can get both your opinions.’
She made a dash for the door, only to stop again. ‘And congratulations on this place. It’s awesome. Really awesome.’
A moment later, she was gone, and Bex and Duncan were alone. Alone in her office.
Wordlessly, she moved over to the biggest desk, which had a sleek spinning chair, and was seated next to the window, the view out onto the cobblestone road outside.
‘I know it’s not quite the corner office you’d imagined—’ Duncan started, only for Bex to cut across him before he could continue.
‘No. It’s better. So much better. Thank you for this. I can’t believe you went to all this trouble.’
‘You’re the one who’ll have to work out how much rent you need to pay the hall. And invoice the painters for their jobs too,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t do it at the time. Didn’t want you finding out.’
‘Deal.’ Bex moved back to him. Estate finances were a whole extra job of their own, and they could have easily employed someone just to do them, but with Bex’s knowledge and skill, it made sense for her to continue.
‘Have I told you that I love you recently?’ she said as she wrapped her hands around the back of Duncan’s neck.
Duncan crinkled his face. ‘I’m not sure you have,’ he said.
‘Liar.’ She grinned. ‘But I do. I love you so very much.’
‘Right back at you.’
This time, it was no quick peck on the lips.
It was her and him, and the rest of the world didn’t matter.
It felt like they had hardly had any time together these last couple of months, what with her starting up this business, and him unable to find someone to take on the groundskeeper’s job.
Clearly, doing this on the sly had taken him away from her a fair bit too, but now that was done she hoped they would be able to spend some quality time with one another. And the dogs, obviously.
‘Thought we could grab an early night tonight and watch a film. What do you think?’ Bex asked as she broke away.
‘Do we need to watch a film, or could we just have an early night?’ A twinkle glinted in Duncan’s eye.
‘Why, what did you have in mind?’
‘Well, I was thinking that—’ Before he could reveal his answer – although Bex had a fairly good idea what he was going to say – they were interrupted by the ringing of his phone. ‘Hold that thought, will you?’
He looked at the screen only to press his lips together. Bex’s stomach churned. That didn’t look like good news. He lifted his phone to his ear, only for his frown to deepen.
‘Aye? Aye?’ A series of harrowed expressions rolled across his face as he continued to offer one-word replies. ‘No, it’s grand. I’ll be there,’ he said, letting out a long sigh, before hanging up and looking at Bex.
‘Let me guess,’ she said. ‘Lunch plans are cancelled.’
‘I’m sorry. But evening plans should still be a go.’
She admired his optimism, but Bex had already learned that there were no quick jobs where the laird-slash-groundskeeper was involved.
Even when it had been winter, he would be out in below-zero temperatures, making sure everything got done.
Still, she gave him the answer she knew he wanted to hear. ‘Okay. I’ll hold you to that.’
With a grin on his face, he turned to the door, only to stop in a remarkably similar manner to his sister. Although rather than speaking, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a brass key.
‘You okay to lock up? It is your place and all.’
‘I guess I can manage.’ Bex grinned back.
‘And these two? I could swing by the castle and—’
‘It’s fine,’ Bex replied, not wanting to give him even more to stress about. ‘I can deal with the dogs.’
‘I love you,’ he repeated, this time with a far quicker peck on the lips before leaving for real this time.
Alone with only the dogs, Bex remained standing in the centre of the room.
It was strange how a mostly empty room could evoke such a sense of overwhelm, but it really did.
Her heart was full, and so was her mind, filled with so many ideas of what to do.
Duncan may have said expanding was a half-joke, but the truth was, she could already do it.
She could do a much better job if she had someone else to train Fi and guide her through her exams, and it also meant she could pass on the small jobs.
With a deep breath in, she dropped into the swing chair and inhaled another lungful of fresh Highland air, the tang of paint almost gone.
Rebecca Barker. CEO of her own accountancy firm. Fiancée of a laird. Puppy mum extraordinaire. Well, maybe not that last bit, but she’d get there.