Finding Fraser (32 page)

The thing about getting naked fast in a
late Scottish springtime is—well, it really can’t happen. There are just
too many layers. And multiplied by two people who are in somewhat of a hurry,
but still mindful of not being quite in the financial position where torn
clothing can be easily replaced ….

Let’s just say that in seconds, there were
raincoats on the floor at my feet, and shoes, and his shirt and my sweater.
Hamish had made his way down at least three buttons of my uniform, when the
door behind me flew open.

Morag stood in the doorway, the light from
the barn framing her Mackintosh-clad form. Her hair was sticking straight up
and she had a streak of blood down one side of her face. “Emma,” she said.
“Allison has a problem. I need yeh.”

I clutched the top of my uniform closed as
her head turned to take in the pile of clothing at our feet. She looked up at
Hamish.

“Ach—nice tae see yeh, young man. We
might have use fer a man who’s good wi’ his hands. Ye’d best come, too.” She
thrust a flashlight at him, scooped up an armful of dry hay and headed out the
door.

“Who’s Allison?” hissed Hamish, as we
scrambled back into our coats.

“I’m not sure,” I whispered back. “Maybe one
of her cows is stuck in a ditch …?”

But we followed Morag’s bobbing flashlight
upward, so there could be no ditch involved. It was hard going with the ground
covered in prickly heather bushes, chasing a farmer who was deceptively round.
In pitch-blackness.

Perhaps she could move so quickly because she
was low-slung.

In any event, we made it, panting, about
half way up the big hill behind the barn to the spot where Morag’s flashlight
had stopped moving. We found her on her knees, spreading the straw she’d been
carrying on the ground. She had propped her flashlight against a heathery shrub
and the light shone down on a small sheep, lying on its side and clearly in
distress.

As we approached, the animal bleated a
little and kicked her legs weakly. Morag ran her hand across the wooly flank
and made soothing noises as she tucked handfuls of the straw around to make a
bed.

Hamish shone his light on the tail end of
the sheep, which was awash in mud and blood. He made a little gagging noise in
his throat. Morag made her own disapproving Scottish noise in return. “Righ’
man, you don’t have to linger at that end. Jes’ hold her head steady—I
can do the rest.”

I knelt down near the head. “Will she bite
me?” I asked, a trifle nervously, and remembering my experience with Cara all
too clearly.

“Nah—she’ll be fine. Jes’ take ahold
of her front legs there, young man, and you grab her head, Emma, gentle now …”
The rest of what she had to say disappeared in a flurry of grunting and
bleating.

I couldn’t tell who was making which sound.

What I could tell, as I put all my weight
down on the sheep’s head to stop her from whipping it around, was that Hamish
wasn’t doing his job. I could tell this, because one of the legs he was
supposed to be holding smacked me, hoof first, square in the ear. My glasses
slipped dangerously down my nose.

“What the hell…” I sputtered. I leaned my
left elbow down on the sheep’s head, and tried to feel for the damage with my
right hand. My hand was mud-covered when I inspected it in the beam of the
flashlight, but there didn’t seem to be any blood. Luckily it had been a
glancing blow, and my glasses hadn’t broken either.

“Hamish,” I gasped, “Can you try to grab her
legs?”

“Ugggh,” grunted Morag, and the sheep
bleated anxiously in unison. She yanked her head out from under my forearms and
I could feel the wind as her teeth snapped shut beside my right cheekbone.

“I thought you said she didn’t bite,” I
yelled at Morag.

“We’el she never has done before,” came the
tense reply. “But as I’ve got mah whole arm inside her now, I reckon she’s a
mite uncomfortable, aye?”

She grunted again, and then the animal lay
still for a moment, head down, flanks still trembling.

“Nearly there,” said Morag, through gritted
teeth. “Yer boyfriend’s run off, then, has he?”

“What?” I yelled, whipping my head around.
“Hamish?”

Sure enough, I could see a flashlight
bobbing halfway down the hill.

“I’ll see yeh in the mornin’, Emma,” came
his voice, floating through the cool night air. “Somethin’s come up!”

“Arsehole,” muttered Morag. “Men are useless
at this sort of thing, anyhow. No stayin’ power.”

The sheep bucked its legs, but I managed to
dodge beneath the hooves.

“Aye—atta girl,” said Morag,
approvingly. “Yer learning, ain’t yeh?”

I didn’t have even a moment to think about
Hamish, as the sheep suddenly began whipping her head back and forth,
frantically.

“Jes’ hold her head, luv,” Morag panted. She
was on her knees by that time, her hands busy doing something I was just as
happy not to see. The sheep stirred distractedly under my grip and then
suddenly jerked her head as if to sit up.

“Hold ’er, hold ’er,” cried Morag. “Almost
got it … now!”

The sheep closed her eyes and grunted, and the
farmer was suddenly awash in a tangle of legs and head and blood and …

I focused on the mama sheep for a minute,
until the night sky stopped spinning.

But Morag was beaming, and took up a great
handful of straw to swipe the gore off a tiny, mini-sheep. When she’d cleaned
it to the point of it looking more like a wet rat than anything, she lifted it
carefully over the mother’s back leg and the baby immediately nestled in,
nursing.

The mama sheep began straining under my grip
again. “Ye can let ’er go now, Em,” said Morag, so I did. The mama nosed her
new offspring with a tired kind of interest, and I felt badly for holding her
away.

“Whoops,” said Morag, and vanished from out
of the flashlight beam. The mama sheep and I both peered through the dark,
trying to see what was going on. I got the impression of something whirling
through the air, and when Morag reappeared, she was beaming and wiping off a
second arrival. She placed the other wee lamb in beside the first, and leaned
back on her haunches. She was bloody to the elbows on both arms, but she
slapped her hands onto her knees and grinned at me.

“I should have seen tha’ comin’, but it’s
such a late delivery and this mama’s so tiny. Couldn’t sort it out until the
second wee one poked out his nose.”

Morag got to her feet wearily and I realized
I could see her face without the flashlight. The sun was near to rising. She slapped
me heartily on the shoulder.

“Feel like some breakfast? A good lambing
always gives me a roaring appetite for eggs and bacon.”

I nodded and stood beside her, looking down
at the new arrivals busily gobbling their own breakfasts. The mama sheep was
flaked out on her side, nearly asleep with exhaustion, but all signs of
distress gone.

“I’ll head back up after we eat to take care
of this mess,” Morag said, indicating the pile of bloody straw with the
flashlight.

We started down the hill together.

“Will the lambs be okay out on the hillside
like that?” I asked. “I can help you carry them down to the barn, if you want.”

Morag shook her head. “Nae—they’ll be
jes’ fine, the little beggars. I’ll have the vet up later in the week to check
’em for scour and so on. If I was worried at all, I’d bring ’em in, but they
both latched on jes’ fine.”

We walked into the main barn door, and Morag
headed straight over to the giant stone sink. She sluiced the blood off her
hands and arms, scrubbing with a soap whose antiseptic smell wafted across to
where I leaned against the next stall.

I walked over to close the door to my room.
We must have left it open in the rush to follow Morag up the hill. I also tried
very hard not to think about Hamish. About what had nearly happened inside my
room. Or about what hadn’t happened up on the cold hillside. Inside my head the
thought Jamie would never have run seemed to be on repeat.

Morag was striding down the barn toward the
door to the farmhouse. I followed along, staring at my mud-boots as they
shushed through the straw. “That’s three babies since I’ve been here,” I said,
more to myself than anyone. “This is a weird habit to be forming.”

Morag grinned as she dried her hands on an
old piece of sacking. “Are ye sure it’s a habit, Em? P’raps it’s more of a … calling.”

The look on my face made her cackle, and
still chuckling, she walked out of the barn to see about making breakfast.

Farm Family…

11:00 am, June 25

Nairn, Scotland

It seems some Scottish warriors are at a
loss when it comes to babies——even baby lambs! Okay, just kidding.
But my landlady Morag’s new lambs are gorgeous, and she tells me the wee farm
family will feature at a Highland Games sometime this summer.

Today the sky is a thin, clear blue——no
rain in sight, and I’m hoping my warrior returns soon.

- ES

Comments: 63

(Read 63 comments
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To:
 
[email protected]

From:
    
JackFindlay@*range.co.uk

June 25

Hi Emma,

I want to apologize for being such a
gomeril the other day in Edinburgh and dashing off on you, so I thought email
might be more private than posting a comment to your blog.

Still, I would like to hear more of the
lamb story, next time we meet. You have a way of giving just a tantalizing
tid-bit in your posts that leaves your readers wanting more. You are a
fantastic storyteller——keep at it! This is a skill I need to learn
with my books, which brings me to my next point.

Thank you also for your kind words on the
blog, flogging my books, and for helping me get past a problem that’s been
worrying at me with the new story. Your honest assessment has been more
valuable than I can articulate.

As always, wishing you and your warrior
the very best. I am a sucker for a happy ending.

Jack

PS I also want to apologize for the
perhaps slightly over-enthusiastic greeting I gave you at the bookstore. These
events can be very trying and——well, it was just lovely to see a
friendly face. So——sorry.

PPS To clarify, I am not sorry for the
kiss itself——or kisses, if you want to get technical. I am,
however, abjectly sorry if I crossed a line or startled you in any way.

PPPS Right, so I do know I crossed a
line, kissing you when you are already in a relationship, but just to be clear,
it’s very customary in places like Europe for people to kiss each other on
greeting. Edinburgh is a very European city.

However, I think I’d better just stop now
before this gets even more humiliating. Thanks again for coming, Emma, even if
it was by accident.

JF

Summer
may have come to the village, but I soon learned that summer in this part of
northern Scotland, at least, meant the occasional sunbeam, quickly murdered by
rain-filled clouds and a piercing wind.

So essentially, the same as winter.

But somehow, I didn’t mind it at all.

Since I was on late shift that day, I spent
the whole length of Katy’s coffee break in the chair at the library, reading
and re-reading Jack’s email. I wasn’t sure just what to make of it. He had been
happy to see me, yes—but something in that kiss felt different. Before he
knew I’d only stumbled upon his reading. I stared at the screen until my eyes
were sore, replaying that kiss in my mind. Of course he knew I was with Hamish.
And he was with Rebecca. He was just happy to have a friendly face to read to.
Of course he was.

Still …

When Katy marched over to throw me out, I
made her happy by paying the twenty pence to run off a copy of his note to
stick into my pack.

On my afternoon break, I leaned against
the fridge in the back and read the email again, until Sandeep came in and
threatened to cut my break short. So I threw on my coat and dashed across to
see Hamish.

Which turned out to be the Right Thing To
Do.

Hamish emerged from the back of the garage,
wiping the grease off his hands on a rag. He kissed me, and began a somewhat
convoluted apology explaining his dislike of blood, which involved a dead
squirrel and an accident on his bicycle when he was seven. He just reached the
part where the bike, with him on it, was in mid-air above the poor, doomed
squirrel when Geordie walked in, raised an eyebrow at me and ordered Hamish to “quit
ditherin and get back tae tha’ bleedin’ engine.”

Which he did.

And that was okay. It had to be okay, right?
I mean, you can’t blame someone for a real phobia. Of all people, I should
understand a panic-driven reaction.

But that voice in my head shouted me down.
Jamie wouldn’t have run
.

I pushed the voice away and walked along the
street for the rest of my break, trying to focus on the warmth of the late
afternoon sun. Hamish wasn’t on the road at the moment, and we’d soon have time
together again.

To finish what we’d started.

Besides, I was busy myself at work. Sandeep
was in heaven with his new espresso machine, and I’d spent many hours going
through the differences between a cappuccino and a latte—not to mention
Americanos and macchiatos—with him and Ash. He’d taken copious notes, and
as I left each night it had made me smile to see him carefully dusting coffee
grounds out of the components.

After my walk, I returned to the cafe to
find Ashwin in the back, holding a piece of paper between his fingers.

“Yer boyfriend left ye a note,” he said, and
waved it under my nose.

I snatched at it, but he pulled it away and
held it behind his back.

“Give me that,” I said, indignantly. “It’s
private!”

Ashwin looked defiant, and took a step
backwards. “Are ye in love wi’ him, then? Because he’s no’ right for ye, Emma.”

I took another unsuccessful grab at the
note. “Ash! It’s none of your business.”

His face fell, but he took a second step
back. By that time he was up against the wall that separated the kitchen from
the seating area.

“It
is
my business,” he muttered. “Maybe I care what happens to yeh, aye? Hamish Lewis
has gone ou’ with nearly every girl in Nairn, and walked ou’ on as many, too.
He dropped one when he met you—didja know that? Eilidh MacAdams. Left ’er
like an ol’ shoe out in the rain.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, the
crumpled note still in one hand. “I wouldnae want it to happen to you, is all.”
His face had gone red with this speech, but he still hadn’t handed me the note.

“Hamish already told me he’d broken up with
someone recently,” I replied. “He didn’t keep it a secret.”

Ashwin jutted his jaw at me and didn’t
budge. As I stared at his flushed face and red eyes, something clicked in my
brain. “Ash—how old are you? Sixteen?”

“Nearly eighteen,” he said, defensively.

I reached over to him and patted his
shoulder. “I didn’t know you felt so protective of me,” I said. “I’m really
okay, honestly. I can look after myself. But thank you for watching out for me.
It’s very— brotherly of you.”

“I’m no’—” he spluttered. “It’s not
like tha’ …”

We both stood there for a long second, then
he sighed deeply and handed me the note.

“I’ll be here when he breaks yer heart,” he
muttered, and stalked outside to puff moodily on cigarettes for the rest of the
afternoon.

I turned away quickly to hide my smile. To
tell the truth, I was kind of flattered. I’d never been the subject of anyone’s
unrequited crush before, even that of a seventeen-year-old boy. It was very
sweet.

Hamish’s note sobered my mood pretty
quickly, though. Apparently he had to go pick up auto parts in Glasgow, and
would be gone for at least a couple of days.

But it was the last line of the note that
really left me freaked out.

We’ll
get together when I get back,
he’d written.
I know you need to go home to America soon—and
I’ve been saving my own money. Let’s talk about travelling together …

He’d signed the note with a little heart,
and his name.

Love,
Hamish.

That’s what it meant, right?

I love you and I want to go home to America
with you.

Right?

And even though I was considered the expert
barista in the place, I messed up the next three lattes while I tried to figure
out how I felt about that.

Ash was speaking to me again by the next
day, and things seemed to be pretty much back to normal. We had a bit of a rush
in the cafe in the morning, when a busload of tourists stopped for coffee.

The noise level rose the way it always did
when Americans came in. The people from the tour bus were mostly European, but
sure enough, two Americans were at the end of the line. Their delight at having
“coffee like Starbucks” meant that they tipped me lavishly.

“Best mocha I’ve had since leaving Boston,”
said the man. He wore a plaid tam that reminded me uncomfortably of the
stripper in Philadelphia.

His wife nodded eagerly. “You’ve got the
touch, honey,” she said, and threw another two pound coin into the cup with the
chipped handle we used for tips. Then she blew her nose.

“Are you having a nice visit?” I asked.

The woman took a long, appreciative sip of
her coffee. “Oh, yeah. I been cryin’ all morning after visiting that battle
site. SO sad.”

The man nodded. “First Braveheart, and then
that Bonnie Charlie—it was a sad time to be a Scot, and no mistake.”

“Oh, Braveheart …” I began, but the lady
jumped in.

“Now THAT man was a hero if I ever saw one.”
She swatted her husband’s arm. “Why can’t you be like that, Barry?”

He grinned at her. “What? Run around in a
kilt with blue paint on my face, and then get cut to pieces in the end?” He
bent his knees and brandished an imaginary sword.

“That wasn’t …” I tried again, but the wife
squealed at her husband’s antics and he squeezed her tightly before hustling
her back out to the bus. Historically inaccurate, maybe, but I was pretty sure
that couple’s role-play was benefitting from their Highland tour.

It wasn’t until long after the bus had gone
and the morning rush was over that I realized they had not recognized me as a
fellow American.

I stuck my head in the kitchen. “Where’s
your dad?” I asked Ashwin, who was pulling his cigarette pack out of his jacket
pocket.

He shrugged. “Left. Think mebbe’s he’s gone
for more beans—those tourists drank all the coffee in the place.”

He kicked open the back door and lit his
cigarette.

“Ash, do you think I sound Scottish?”

He snorted at me and blew smoke out the
door.

“Seriously. Do I still sound like an
American to you?”

“‘Course ye do, eejit. Ye’ve on’y been here
a month, aye? Anyway, Americans never get the accent righ’. They allus sound
like themselves.”

I counted on my fingers. “Nearly
two
months here, actually. And four
since I got to Scotland in the first place.”

He shrugged. “We’el, ye still sound American
to me. Prolly allus will do, too.”

I walked back into the cafe, thinking.

An older man I didn’t recognize sat down at
one of the booths. “Coffee,” he said to me, as I walked up. “And noon o’ tha’
fancy crap, mind. Jes’ plain coffee—black as mah soul.”

He shook open a newspaper and began to read.

I filled his cup from my carafe and turned
to go collect up the dishes from another table, when a fleeting glimpse of a
photo on the back of the paper he held caught my eye.

Without thinking, I grabbed the newspaper
out of his hands.

“Oi, that’s mine,” he said, jumping half out
of his seat.

“Calm down, you’ll spill your coffee,” I
muttered, scanning the story underneath the photograph.

“Watch it, lassie, or I’ll have a word wi’
yer manager,” the man demanded, huffily. I pulled the outer page of the newspaper
off and tossed him the sports and celebrity sections.

“Very sorry, sir,” I said to him, scanning
the page. “I just need to read this one story. You read those sections first. I’ll
be done in a second.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, pushed out of
the booth and stomped over to the cash desk where Ash had returned and was
playing a game on his mobile phone.

“Sorry, sir,” he echoed, dead-pan, and then
added: “She
is
the owner.”

He dropped his voice to a stage whisper.
“And she’s righ’ crazy, so I wouldn’t mess with her. She stabbed someone with a
plastic fork just last week.”

“A—a plastic fork?” the man said,
looking over at me, nervously.