Page 16 of A Scottish Lighthouse Escape (Scottish Escapes #9)

Chapter Eleven

C hristmas.

A word that used to fill Joe and me with sparks of anticipation. It was descending on me now like a black fog.

It was growing ever closer, taunting me, reminding me of the wonderful Christmases Joe and me had had.

Or at least, I had thought they were wonderful.

How many times did Joe make up an excuse and slip away to see Greta over those festive seasons?

Where was he, when he was claiming he had another post-work Christmas drinks do to attend?

Christmas was five weeks away now, and I was already sick of the sight of festive selection boxes, chocolate figures of Santa, snowmen and reindeer, not to mention the sparkly greeting cards.

At the entrance to the local garden centre, miniature Christmas trees and festive wreaths glowed everywhere.

I adjusted my moss green crocheted hat and clamped it down tighter over my curls. Even the weather seemed to be hinting at the festivities to come. Doughy clouds sailed overhead, with the water in the bay laced with white horses as it struck the pelt of sand.

I blinked furiously as pictures of Joe and me decorating our six-footer silver Christmas tree last year exploded in my mind.

Him kissing me under the mistletoe; both of us savouring hot chocolate in Hyde Park and sharing a bag of roasted chestnuts; our breath colliding and mingling in the frosty air as we did our Christmas shopping, arms draped around each other.

Did he repeat everything with Greta? A Christmas replay of all things romantic?

When he was kissing me, did he taste her too and vice versa?

I tried not to dwell on how I would always insist on wrapping rose-gold fairy lights along our apartment balcony and station another decorated tree out there too.

Inside our apartment, the air would be filled with the scent of cranberry and cinnamon potpourri, and pictures were draped in more lights and garlands of holly and ivy.

I didn’t think you could go over the top at the most magical time of the year and Joe was every bit as crazy about Christmas as I was.

I tried not to register the empty feeling tripping through me, as I saw myself and Bronte stumbling out of the apartment and me slamming the car door shut, me imagining Joe’s face in the rearview mirror.

I gripped Bronte’s lead tighter in my right hand.

I’d stashed a couple of reuseable carrier bags in my shoulder bag. I wanted to get some air and decided to walk to the supermarket, rather than jump in the car.

No corner shop for me today. I didn’t want a repeat performance with Rhea Stafford.

Hopefully, no more nosey parkers would leap out and interrogate me.

I know people meant well and only wanted to pass on their condolences about Joe, but all the kind sentiments in the world wouldn’t wipe out how I was feeling and what he’d done.

* * *

At the supermarket I secured Bronte’s lead around the nearby railings, grabbed a basket and dropped my chin into my scarf, just in case.

As I stepped inside, a display of Christmas selection boxes caught my attention. I glowered at the reindeer glitter design. Jesus, I was turning into Scrooge.

Gathering my resolve, I proceeded to scoot up and down the aisle locating bananas, bagels, more milk, pasta and assorted vegetables.

My lip curled up when I saw mince pies and Christmas puddings for sale.

There were a few other customers around, but it wasn’t busy. Relief swam through me.

I surmised that nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning in November, wasn’t the most popular time to conduct your weekly grocery shop. Perhaps a lot of people had ventured into the bigger towns to start their Christmas shopping. I groaned inwardly at the thought of it.

I hurried up another aisle under the strip lighting, reaching for a bar of 90% dark chocolate. On the shelf below, was Joe’s favourite– Oreo. A pang of something hit me in the chest.

I pulled my eyes back up to the fluorescent ceiling.

Was this what my life was going to be like from now on?

Feeling like I was taking part in an episode of Supermarket Sweep every time I needed to restock my fridge?

Stay cooped up in my grandparent’s cottage for the foreseeable?

Hiding from people? Trying to avoid awkward situations and probing questions?

Worried that I’d dissolve into a torrent of tears, if anyone so much as asked if I was okay?

I glanced back at the bar of Oreo chocolate he loved.

I had to accept that there were going to be reminders of him and of what I thought we had, lurking around every corner. I would just have to learn to deal with them. A song we both liked or a film we snuggled up to watch together. Someone with hair similar to his, running in the park.

And that was precisely why I’d fled from London and dashed up here to Rowan Bay.

It was so I could try to give myself time to heal in private and learn somehow to deal with the pain and the deception.

It wasn’t going to be a quick fix. At the moment, it felt like I was going to be fumbling through this airless, dark torture forever.

With my basket brimming with food items, I rounded the bottom of the next aisle to the pet section and picked up a new, squeaky apple toy for Bronte. Joe hadn’t been keen on getting a dog to begin with. He insisted he wouldn’t have time to devote to them and that it wouldn’t be fair.

But that all changed the day I brought her into the apartment three years ago.

She was a squirming, licking bundle of ten-week-old fluff and I’d fallen in love with her the moment I set eyes on her at the breeder’s house in Camden.

She’d wiggled over to me, licked my hand and then sat down behind my boot, as if to say, ‘When are you taking me home then?!’

As soon as Joe clapped eyes on her, she wrapped herself around his heart and decided she loved us both unconditionally.

I plopped the latex toy into my basket, dropped my head and started to make my way towards the tills. That was until I barrelled into a tall, broad figure. ‘Oh, sorry!’

‘Hey. How’s it going?’

It was Mitch.

‘In a hurry?’ he asked.

I pulled my eyes from my shopping basket. ‘Er. Yes. Just wanted to do a smash and grab. Bronte’s outside.’

He was smiling down at me, a sort of friendly, expectant smile that was making his eyes shine.

I fidgeted on the spot. ‘Anyway, I’d better go. Sorry for almost knocking you over just now.’

Mitch grinned at me, while brandishing the litre of milk he was clutching. ‘I think I’ll recover.’ He gestured outside. ‘I only came in for this and I’ve got my car parked nearby. I can give you a lift back, once I get some more petrol.’

I was aware of his sculpted shoulders under his long coat and the breeziness of his smile. He was being friendly, twinkly. But I didn’t want friendly. I didn’t want anything from anyone. ‘Thanks, but it’s fine. Bronte and I could do with the walk.’

‘Are you sure? You’ve got a couple of bags worth of shopping there, I would guess.’

I flapped away his concern. ‘Like I said, thank you, but we’ll be fine.’

And with that, I wheeled away towards the tills.

The cashier attempted small talk about the icy wind and whether I’d started my Christmas shopping yet, but all I could manage were grunts or stony silence.

My head was mashed and I just wanted to get back to the cottage.

I stashed my groceries in the reuseable carrier bags I’d brought with me. I hoped nobody noticed me. I kept flicking surreptitious glances around, but the couple of other shoppers also in the supermarket were too preoccupied with their own business. Mitch had gone by now.

I thrust my credit card at the cashier, whose name badge informed me that she was called Eva.

She glowered as she directed me to swipe it against the machine.

Then she muttered something sarcastic under her breath about the joys of working with the public.

Bronte leapt up at me when I reached the exit.

I ruffled her warm, solid flank and let out an exhausted sigh.

I couldn’t be around anyone.

As if detecting my morose thoughts, Bronte let out a whimper as she gazed up from the pavement. I crouched down and rubbed her head. ‘Well, okay. Apart from you. You’re the exception.’

I stood back up again, adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulder, and was just about to untie Bronte’s lead from the railing, when I noticed an older man emerging out of the newsagents a little way up the opposite side of the street. He was approaching a car, an old petrol-blue Ford Escort.

There was something familiar about him.

The man, with a newspaper under his arm, unlocked his car and tossed the paper onto the vacant passenger seat. He yanked open the driver’s side and proceeded to clamber in.

Bronte was making impatient whimpers to get going, but I stood there and continued to examine the man. I couldn’t get a close-up view of him, but…

It was as he fired up his car that my brain caught up.

Wait. I did know him. It was him. The dark, greying hair and long, sharp expression.

It was the same man who’d been staring at me through the cottage sitting room window!