Runaway Actress (35 page)

She looked at herself and tried to see her as Mikey might. Had he noticed the new-look Maggie and would it make any difference to him if he had? Or would he just see the old Maggie? Hamish’s little sister who sold shortbread?

Maggie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. There was only one way to find out and that was to confront him.

‘Right now,’ she said, running downstairs and shutting up the shop before she lost her nerve.

Just as she was leaving, she spotted Mrs Wallace heading up the road.

‘Margaret Hamill!’ she called. ‘Surely you’re not closing at this time of the morning, are you? I need a pint of milk.’

‘Come back this afternoon!’ Maggie called, laughing to herself as she saw the expression on the old bat’s face. ‘There are more important things than a pint of milk,’ she added, making a quick getaway before she could hear her reply.

As Maggie drove into Strathcorrie, she swore she could feel her heart knocking against her ribs. Her whole system seemed to be flooded with adrenalin as if she was about to give a speech before hundreds of people rather than talking to an old friend, but that was because he was more than an old friend. Michael Shire was a god. The sexiest thing ever to have been seen in a kilt, Maggie thought, remembering the outfit he’d worn at his older brother’s wedding and how her own knees had weakened at the sight of his.

Parking her car in the main square, Maggie walked towards Dougie’s Autos where Mikey and Hamish worked. She could hear someone banging from underneath a car but couldn’t make out who it was so stood waiting until the person emerged.

It was then that the phone from the garage office began to ring.

‘Bugger!’ a voice said. It was Mikey and Maggie watched as he crawled out and stood up to full height. He hadn’t spotted her and she watched as he wiped his grimy hands on his jeans before answering the phone. She’d never known anyone who could make grease look so sexy. His dark hair hung in waves around his tanned face and his bright eyes were narrowed in concentration. He was wearing a dark green T-shirt that was edging towards black and the cut of the sleeves showed his arms off to perfection. Maggie had always had a thing about men’s arms. There were some women who went on about a man’s bum being the thing but, for Maggie, it was always the arms – good, strong, lean arms that could wrap around you and pull you into a warm embrace.

Just as she felt her face heating up like a furnace, Mikey came off the phone and spotted her.

‘Are you all right, our Maggie?’ he said. ‘What a nice surprise. You shopping?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘You okay? You look a bit red,’ he said, examining her face.

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

‘Come to see Hamish? He’s just scooted off to the shop to get us some supplies. He’ll be back in a mo.’

Maggie took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t come to see Hamish,’ she said. ‘I came to see you.’

Connie marched up the hill towards Alastair’s, her mind a whirlwind. She hadn’t stopped to give herself time to think. She’d just upped and left without saying very much at all to poor Euan after his revelation.

‘Oh God!’ she cried into the sky, thinking of how she’d just sat there on his sofa as Euan had tried to explain what had happened that summer before her mother had left Lochnabrae.

‘Vanessa was never happy here,’ Euan said. ‘Some people get like that. Most are content with their way of life here – can’t think of any other way – but your mother wasn’t one of them. Always dreaming, she was. Always talking of going to Hollywood and becoming an actress.’

Connie had listened, wondering – dreading – where this story was going to end.

‘That last summer was crazy,’ Euan told her. ‘All she went on about was getting away. She drove me mad. I kept telling her she couldn’t go – that I didn’t want her to go and she’d just laugh.
I have to go
, she told me.
You can’t keep me here
.

‘I began to notice she was acting strangely. She’d lost a little of that mad sparkle of hers. So, I confronted her one day,’ he said, stopping to rub his chin thoughtfully. ‘She didn’t tell me, of course, but I had my suspicions.

‘And then, one day, she wasn’t here any more. She’d left without even saying goodbye. The first I knew about it was a postcard from LA.’

Euan got up and opened a chest drawer, handing Connie a bright card featuring the famous Hollywood sign. She turned it over and read the message, acknowledging that it was, indeed, her mother’s writing.

I told you I’d make it! Found a place to stay and have auditions next week! You wouldn’t believe the weather out here. Beats Lochnabrae! V x

That was it. Four brief sentences that gave very little away.

‘There was a second card,’ Euan said, pulling it out of the drawer. ‘Seven months later.’

He handed it to Connie.

You have a daughter. I’ve named her Constance after my grandma. Please don’t try and find us. Making a new life here. V x

‘I did try to find her, of course,’ Euan said, ‘but people get swallowed up in a place like Hollywood and she changed her name for a while so, when I asked around agencies, nobody had heard of Vanessa Gordon.’

‘But my father?’ Connie said, thinking of the man she’d thought was her true father all these years.

‘She met him shortly after moving out there. They got married pretty quickly and I guess he must have known he wasn’t your real father. I know this is a lot to take in, lass,’ Euan said. ‘I still can’t believe it myself. But, seeing you here – getting to know you – I
can
believe it.’

Connie had stood up at that point.

‘Connie?’ he’d said. ‘Will you no’ stay a wee while?’

She hadn’t said anything. She’d simply fled and the only place she could think to flee to was Alastair’s.

Reaching his cottage, she knocked on the door with an impatient fist, causing Bounce to bark from inside.

‘Alastair?’ she called, opening his door after remembering that he’d said that he never locked it. ‘Are you there?’

‘Connie?’

His voice was coming from the kitchen and Connie went through but she stopped dead when she saw he had company. It wasn’t just any company either. It was a pretty blonde woman in a nightdress – her hair damp from a recent shower.

‘Hello,’ the woman said, turning around to address Connie. ‘I’m Sara. Who are you?’

Mikey wiped his hands on an old rag and faced Maggie. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘No,’ Maggie said.

‘So, how can I be of service?’

A thousand wicked thoughts raced through her mind of just how Mikey could be of service to her but she tried to shake them.

‘Well, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you.’

‘Oh, aye?’

Maggie nodded. ‘Only I didn’t know how.’

Just then, Hamish appeared with a jar of coffee in one hand and a packet of ginger snaps in the other.

‘Mags!’ he said.

Maggie turned and glared at him. Hamish stared at her as if weighing up the situation and then his eyes suddenly widened in understanding.

‘I’ll go and call Mr Benton,’ he said, ‘and tell him his car’s ready.’

Mikey’s eyes followed Hamish but quickly returned to Maggie. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

Maggie’s heart was racing wildly and, because she couldn’t think of a single thing to say, she did the next best thing and launched herself at Mikey, kissing him passionately until she felt like there wasn’t a breath left in her body.

‘Oh, my!’ she said, once they’d parted.

‘Maggie!’

‘I’m sorry!’ Maggie blurted, looking everywhere but at Mikey.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said. ‘It was very nice.’

A laugh suddenly exploded from Maggie and she looked up at him. ‘Was it?’

‘Very nice indeed,’ Mikey said, ‘but what on earth have I done to deserve it?’

Maggie looked at him, her eyes wide and bright with love. ‘You’re you,’ she said simply.

Mikey frowned. ‘What about Ralph?’

Maggie looked at him in disbelief. ‘Mikey – Ralph’s not real!’

‘What do you mean, not real? I saw him with my own two eyes and you were kissing.’

‘Aye, I know but it was Connie.’

‘What was Connie?’

‘
Ralph!
Ralph was Connie. She was in disguise to get away from Colin Simpkins. It worked too – for a while.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Well, you’d better.’

‘You snogged Connie?’

‘Aye.’

‘Oh my God!’ Mikey said, wiping his hand over his jaw. ‘I wish I’d known at the time. That’s really hot.’

‘Mikey!’

‘What was it like?’

‘Oh, stop it!’

‘Go on – tell me,’ Mikey said. ‘I’m heating up just thinking about it.’

‘You great pervert, you!’

He moved towards her and bent his head a little. ‘Kiss me again,’ he said.

Maggie could feel herself blushing. ‘I have to know how you feel about me first.’

Mikey cupped her face in his huge hands. ‘You’re the one for me, Maggie Hamill, and, if you hadn’t come here today to tell me then I would have come to tell you.’

Maggie felt tears welling up in her eyes. ‘Really?’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘It’s been coming on a while now only I’ve been too stupid to say anything. That day I came into the shop to buy shortbread?’

‘What about it?’

‘I meant to tell you then but I was too tongue-tied.’

Maggie gave a little smile. ‘I wish you
had
told me,’ she said. ‘I was cursing you that day, Michael Shire.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m telling you now!’ Maggie said.

Mikey smiled. ‘How much time we’ve lost,’ he said.

‘But I thought you only saw me as Hamish’s little sister,’ Maggie said.

‘Aye, well, I did for a while,’ he said. ‘But then you blossomed, Mags, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’

‘But you went away,’ she said. ‘You left. For months!’

‘I know. And that’s when I couldn’t get you out of my head,’ he said, his long fingers combing through her hair. ‘That gorgeous little smile of yours followed me right around the world.’

‘Liar!’

‘It
did!
Swear to God.’

‘And what about all those exotic beauties you met?’

‘Och!’ Mikey declared. ‘Mere distractions from the good stuff at home.’

Maggie didn’t look too convinced. Until he bent forward and kissed her.

‘I came back, didn’t I?’ he said.

‘For how long?’ Maggie asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘How long will it be before you get itchy feet again and want to leave?’

‘Has Hamish not told you?’

‘Told me what?’

‘We’re taking over the garage. Dougie’s retiring at the end of the year. Hamish is going to do most of the mechanic work and I’m setting up a motorbike hire company on the side.’

‘What?’

‘Aye. It’s a done deal. It’s one of the reasons I came back,’ he said, pulling Maggie close to him. ‘Why on earth didn’t he tell you?’ Mikey asked. ‘Hamish?’

‘HAMISH!’ Maggie yelled.

Hamish stuck his head around the office door. ‘You two got things sorted out, then?’

Connie had walked away from Alastair’s cottage at the kind of pace Bounce would have had difficulty keeping up with. She wondered if Alastair would run after her and hoped he wouldn’t because she didn’t think there was any explaining to do.

Blinking away stinging tears, Connie cursed herself.

‘Stupid,
stupid
girl!’

What had she thought she was doing? But that was it – she hadn’t been thinking, had she? She’d let go of all that and simply fallen – deeply and hopelessly in love – and, all this time, he’d been living with Sara in his cosy little love nest at the top of the hill. How hadn’t she known? How hadn’t the village known? Surely Maggie would have said something. But maybe Alastair was cleverer than they all thought. Maybe he enjoyed the subterfuge, sitting in his snug little cottage, laughing at the inhabitants of Lochnabrae.

‘STUPID!’ she cursed again.

They’d made love and she’d thought he was in love with her. She’d trusted him,
believed
him, when he’d told her the story about Sara. She’d assumed that Sara was part of his old life and the reason why he’d come to Lochnabrae. She hadn’t realised that he’d brought Sara with him. He hadn’t told her that.

He lied to you.

Connie thought back to that moment in LA when she’d read Maggie’s letter, remembering how she’d envisaged Lochnabrae as some sort of retreat. In her mind, it had been a perfect place where the mountains shielded you from the miseries of the world and you could drown your sorrows in the beautiful blue depths of the loch. But Lochnabrae was just like anywhere else with its problems and its secrets. It wasn’t a perfect place where she could hide from the world and she wasn’t going to meet the perfect man there – far from it. It was just as Bob Braskett had told her. She couldn’t stay there. She didn’t belong.

Connie stopped and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The castle, the new home and friends, it was all just a dream but, like Audrey Hepburn in
Roman Holiday
, Connie had to wake up to reality and, for her, reality was LA.

Tears filled her eyes, obliterating the view of the village before her, the loch becoming just a long blue smudge. She didn’t want to go. There was so much that was good in Lochnabrae: dear sweet Maggie and Hamish, Isla with her motherly ways, funny old Angus and the rest of the LADS. She’d even miss grumpy old Mrs Wallace.

And Alastair? And Euan?

Of course she was going to miss them – more than she wanted to admit. But it would be impossible to stay now.

‘CONNIE!’ a voice cried behind her as she entered the village. She kept on walking, picking up speed once again. ‘Connie – wait!’ She felt a hand grab her shoulder but, still, she didn’t stop.

‘Keep away from me!’ she shouted.

‘Listen to me – Sara’s just visiting.’

‘Right.’

‘You’ve
got
to believe me. She turned up the other night
completely
unexpectedly. I had no idea she even knew where I lived.’

‘I saw her – in your kitchen – in her
nightdress!
How can I trust you? Why didn’t you tell me she was staying with you the other night?’