Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Rowan
Five minutes into the hike, I feel confident. Good, even.
I set my alarm to go off before sunrise, and for once I didn’t snooze it.
By the time the little town of Milngavie was waking up, I was dressed and ready to go.
I stopped to admire my outfit: orange workout shorts to match the tangerine cap I designed – back when I did things like that – which read Zesty on the front, turquoise vest that reminded me rather wishfully of a Mediterranean Sea, fuchsia socks with little cats reading teeny-tiny books emblazoned at the ankle.
The borrowed hiking boots were, sadly, brown, but the rest of my clothes made up for it, bringing a smile to my face.
I looked ready. I looked confident, competent.
I looked like someone who could walk a hundred miles.
The town slipped away quickly, once I found the path beside the looming, grey obelisk, and supplied myself with a cheeky sausage roll from Gregg’s for my first hiking breakfast. Soon, I’d left civilisation behind for a wooded path, walking through the dappled morning light in the crisp morning air.
Not so bad, I thought.
One hour later, my feet are sweaty and painful in my borrowed hiking boots. My thighs chafe where they rub together with every step. The bag’s weight has settled on me like a yoke and there’s a knot between my shoulder blades that no amount of lifting or stretching will shake.
One hour later, it’s clear that I am not someone who can walk one hundred miles. I am barely someone who can walk two miles.
Despite the internet promising me that this is neither a particularly technical nor a particularly difficult hike, I’ve already managed to skin one knee, while a bruise is forming on my other shin where I bashed it against a branch.
I’m hot and sweaty and tired, and I still have eighteen miles to go.
And that’s only today.
My prospects are not looking good.
The problem with embarking on a multi-day walk six days before my sister’s wedding is that I’ve put a clock on the challenge. Missing the preparation is one thing. Missing the actual day will be quite another.
The West Highland Way is supposed to be one of the most picturesque trails in the United Kingdom.
One hundred miles of undulating hills, sparkling lochs, and mountain views, winding from sleepy Milngavie through the Scottish Highlands and up to Fort William.
A relaxed walker might complete it between seven and ten days.
I, in my over-confident, over-inebriated state, figured that I was reasonably fit and, having battled the London crowds for over ten years, a fast, capable walker, who was often overtaking other pedestrians. I, two bottles of wine deep, decided that five days would be plenty of time.
And, in the interest of saving money, I also decided that I would camp, and that carrying the weight of a tent and a sleeping bag on my back would be fine.
On so many counts, I was very, very wrong.
If I keep on at this rate, I won’t be at the first campsite by midnight, let alone sundown.
I’m hot, miserable, and bored. I want my couch, my TV, a greasy takeout and a scented candle. I want to be at home with Ethan, his hand on my thigh, gossiping about another celebrity drama on Instagram.
But Ethan cheated on me. In our bed. On my sheets.
And now here I am, a sweaty, furious mess determined to walk her feelings off and hating every second of it.
I could quit. Book a train ticket south. Swallow the indignity, the expense. But then I imagine the understanding, sympathetic, but ultimately knowing look on Marnie’s face as I slump shame-faced back into London, and I know I can’t.
I can’t go home. I can’t face Ethan. Not until I regain some of the power I’ve lost, not until I’ve written and re-written my speech, ready to dump him in a dramatic, yet utterly vindicated, manner, ideally with a hot Scottish man on my arm, who will be a secret billionaire, waiting outside in his vintage Lamborghini, about to sweep me off to the castle he happens to own.
This is so far out of my comfort zone, it’s halfway to another planet. I’ve spent the last eight years playing it safe. Staying away from risk. Protecting my mental stability at the cost of everything else.
And where has that gotten me?
I’m here now. I have to keep going.
Even if it kills me.
* * *
An hour later, I stomp my way into a clearing and take a deep breath: fresh rain, mulched leaves, and the damp smell of grass.
I’ve turned the swearing into a song consisting of only one word, and the endorphins are finally kicking in.
I’m almost cheerful. Maybe there’s something to this walking malarkey, after all.
Time for a well-deserved rest and a snack. I let the bag fall from my aching shoulders and rifle inside for one of the breakfast bars Erica so wisely made me pack.
“Aha!” Salted caramel and almond. It’s not in the same league as a KitKat or – I start to drool – a packet of Maltesers, but out here in the wilderness, beggars can’t be choosers.
The wilderness. Impossible as it seems, I, Rowan Turner, am not only in Scotland, but hiking in Scotland, and maybe, possibly, potentially enjoying myself.
My legs hurt and my back aches, and there’s a pool of sweat inside my sports bra that will require the pressure washer to get off, but still. I’m here. I’m doing it.
I snap a selfie, me in my Zesty hat and my widest grin, and send it to Marnie.
Fuck it. I open Instagram and post it there too, with the hashtag #hotgirlwalk.
With any luck, Ethan’s obsessively checking my social media, and will see it and know that I’m not missing him, or thinking about him sitting in bed with the leggy blonde, feeding her ice cream using one of my favourite teeny tiny spoons while they laugh about the frumpy brunette he used to date, who doesn’t suit red lipstick (I’ve tried, many times) and wears too much colour and cries all the time.
Okay, maybe I’m not over it yet.
I stuff the protein bar in my mouth in a half-hearted attempt to stem the thoughts, but then my phone starts ringing, the lyrics of ‘I’m Too Sexy’ breaking the silence of the clearing.
Ethan chose it himself, snatching my phone and plugging it in, grinning all the while.
And when I saw what he picked, I laughed until I cried, and he looked at me across the sofa with that lopsided smile, his fringe falling into his eyes like a puppy, beaming that he got it right, that he knew exactly what to pick.
Shit balls.
I panic. And instead of sending my cheating arsehole of a boyfriend straight to voicemail or throwing my phone into the bushes like a sensible person, I press accept.
What the hell am I doing?
It’s at this point, I realise two things: first, I have no idea what I’m going to say, and the speech I was planning to deliver is still five days of walking and ninety-six miles (give or take) away from being ready, and second, my mouth is full of what has turned out to be both an extremely hard and extremely chewy protein bar, which has practically glued my teeth together.
“Rowan? Thank god you picked up. Are you okay? I’ve been so worried. Marnie wouldn’t tell me where you are, but from your Instagram it looks like you’re hiking?”
He sounds concerned. As if he’s genuinely worried about me.
But he doesn’t have any right to be. Not after what he’s done.
I want to shout at him. Give him a piece of my mind and let him know exactly how stupid, how embarrassed, how pathetic I felt walking in on him yesterday.
We’ve only been dating for a year, but I moved in with him, for fuck’s sake.
I didn’t even want to. I like my space, like my things the way I arrange them, like having Marnie over for girl’s nights, like that my local barista knows my order, like the way the light falls on my bed in the morning. I gave all of that up, for him.
And less than a month later he’s cheating on me?
My eyes are hot with unshed tears. My nose clogs, and with my teeth still glued together, what comes out of my mouth is closer to Darth Vader’s death rattle than comprehensible words.
“Rowan? Are you there?”
Another wheezing breath.
I can’t do it. I hang up, the taste of almonds heavy on my tongue.
I let out a low, slow groan.
“Fuck. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck,” I curse. “FUCK.”
What’s wrong with me? The opportunity was right there. So why didn’t I give him a piece of my mind?
“Do you mind? You’re scaring the wildlife away with that caterwauling.”
An extremely Scottish-sounding, extremely cross-looking man is sitting on a fallen log on the top of a knoll not a metre away. And he’s glaring at me with a hatred as strong as if I’d walked up to him, stolen the coffee from his hands and thrown it in his face.
He’s also the hottest man I’ve ever seen in my life.
His square jaw is covered in a rough scratching of two-day old stubble.
His dark brown hair is short at the back and sides, tousled on top, and he’s dressed in unfussy hiking clothes: steel-grey cargo trousers with an overabundance of pockets and a tight, black T-shirt that shows off every inch of his wide shoulders.
A tattoo snakes out of one sleeve, a collection of small birds darting among what look like leaves wending over his defined bicep and thick, hairy forearm.
He looks rugged, outdoorsy. Like he could bear me away in his burly arms and show me the finer meanings of wood.
When I meet his gaze, his eyes are a deep acorn brown that makes me think of melted chocolate and falling leaves in autumn. I bet he has the kind of callouses that catch on sensitive skin. I bet he knows how to ask for what he wants, and take it like he means it.
I bet—
Woah, girl.
“Who died and made you king of this clearing?”
The words slip out before I can stop them, my anger at Ethan deflecting straight onto the man in front of me.
“Oh, I think I’ve a little more right to it than you.” He takes me in slowly, raising an eyebrow when he reaches my orange shorts. “First time on the trail, is it?”
“No. I go hiking all the time. It’s my favourite hobby. Obviously.”
I’m not usually a confrontational person. If someone asked me to write a list of things I hate, confrontation would be right there at the top, waging war with smarmy yoga mums wearing Lululemon leggings and people who claim they have better things to do than watch TV.
But there’s something about the lumberjacks’ judgemental stare that has my spine stiffening, lending me a sass I don’t normally possess.
“I think you’ve spent a bit too much time on the trail though,” I add.
“And why is that?”
“You seem to have misplaced your manners out here. Maybe instead of shouting at innocent women you could try looking for them and leave me alone.”
“You barged into my clearing.” His hands tighten around his mug as if he wants to throw it at me.
“It’s not your clearing. You can’t own nature.”
“Says the English girl.”
The bad-tempered Scottish bear is plummeting in my estimation, and even his husky baritone can’t save him.
“I thought Scottish people were supposed to be friendly.”
“Guess you thought wrong. What a shame. Don’t let the border hit you on the way out.”
He sips his coffee, a smug glint in his eyes, and it takes everything I have not to stamp my foot.
Instead, I grab my bag with a groan and sling it over my shoulders.
My biceps scream at me to stop, but I refuse to give the shaggy Scot the satisfaction of admitting that I have no idea what I’m doing.
The silent treatment. That’s it. I’ll march off without even the dignity of a response. That’ll show the sexy yeti.
“Your hip strap is loose.”
I spin around, and my ponytail swings with me, hitting me in the face.
Calm, Rowan. Remain calm. Everything is under control.
The smug light is still dancing in his eyes, the corner of his mouth now upturned, revealing a dimple in his left cheek. How dare he have dimples. It shouldn’t be legal to be this attractive.
“That’s why your shoulders hurt, and you’re walking with a hunchback. The waistband is meant to take most of the bag’s weight. You’ll be more comfortable if you tighten it.”
The words sound like advice, but I know what they really are: a taunt.
“But I’m sure you already know that, given you’re such an experienced hiker.”
He raises his coffee in a silent salute.
I stalk away, flipping him the bird as I go, somehow making it out of the clearing without tripping over my own feet.
Arrogant. Obnoxious. Arsehole.
I say the words on repeat, my anger like diesel fuel in my legs, and for the next few miles I whizz along, hardly stopping to rest or drink.
My only aim: getting as far away from the hot Scottish werewolf as I possibly can.
I think up petty curses: that his kettle will never boil, that his coffee beans will always taste sweet, that wherever he stands, a raincloud will follow, that every bench he sits on will collapse.
I’m so engrossed that I don’t notice the path drop down, or the tree root that sticks out from the path, or the slippery moss on the rock before it.
Before I know it, my foot is sliding out from beneath me, my heavy bag pulling me off balance, and I’m pinwheeling straight into a muddy puddle.
Don’t cry, Rowan. Don’t you dare cry.
I’m wet, my legs and my bag are covered in mud – and, to make matters worse, my shorts have turned see-through, and you can very clearly see my thong through them at the front, which means it’s probably visible from behind as well.
I draw myself up.
I will not cry.
I will categorically, absolutely not cry.
And then it starts to rain.