Page 35 of A Scottish Lighthouse Escape (Scottish Escapes #9)

I didn’t think he was about to say anything else, judging by the guarded expression in his eyes.

‘That’s not fair,’ I blurted, the Talisker firing up my assertiveness. ‘I just opened up to you and answered your questions, and now you’ve gone all moody on me.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

I nodded so hard I thought my alcohol-induced brain would rattle. I stopped. ‘You cut my questions dead then and went to collect logs you didn’t need.’ I could hear my voice. It sounded husky and a little slurry. Not like me at all.

Mitch muttered something under his breath.

Conflicted emotions took hold of his dark features.

‘Okay. Okay.’ He ground his teeth together and stared down at the red patterned rug.

Then his deep, Scottish accent broke through the quiet.

’If you must know, I used to own an outdoor activity centre in the Lake District. ’

‘Okay. That sounds great.’ I angled my head. ‘Is that when you were doing a lot of pitches?’

Mitch looked discomfited. ‘Aye. Pitching to potential clients, sponsors, that kind of thing. And it was great. I loved what I did until…’ His voice vanished.

‘Until?’ I prompted.

He stayed quiet for a few moments, as though gathering himself. ‘Until there was an accident.’

‘What? You had an accident?’

Mitch swallowed. ‘Not me.’ There was another agonising pause.

‘It was the son of a wealthy businessman from New York; the father made his money in real estate.’ He paused and then carried on.

‘The lad was larking about out on a rock climb with a couple of friends. One of my instructors and I were accompanying them. We told the lad to stop, but he didn’t take any notice. He was too busy showing off.’

‘What happened?’

Mitch bit his bottom lip. ‘He fell and suffered serious injuries. It took him a long time to get back on his feet again. He had to have a lot of rehab.’

I gasped. ‘That’s awful. But it wasn’t your fault, Mitch.’

‘His father didn’t see it that way.’

‘Why? What did he do?’

Mitch glanced down at a slumbering Kane.

‘The father hired a couple of hotshot lawyers. I think he saw himself on some sort of crusade. Despite it being the boy’s fault and witnesses there corroborating what had happened, he successfully sued me for negligence and I had to close the doors on my business, make people redundant, the whole nine yards.

’ Mitch’s face paled at the painful memories.

‘I had such a good thing going on there, but in one fell swoop, I was ruined.’

My chest ached for him. ‘I’m so sorry. When did this happen?’

‘Four years ago now.’ Mitch clicked his tongue as he dredged it all back up again.

‘The boy’s father– DonColton– wanted money and was determined to ruin me, but he didn’t want the story being splashed across the newspapers, as he was rumoured to be involved with some dodgy office block scam in New Jersey. ’

‘So, what happened?’

Mitch looked resigned. ‘Don Colton took out a civil action against me. That’s when I lost everything.’

I shook my head. ‘You mustn’t take the blame.’

Mitch cut me off. ‘The lad in question was only twenty, Rosie. He had such a bright future ahead of him.’ He focused on the coffee table in front of us.

‘Noah– that’s the boy’s name– was a promising artist. A painter.

He’d been accepted by the Glasgow School of Art.

’ He stopped talking, regrouped and then picked up the story again.

‘I hear he suffers from bouts of depression and anxiety now and he’s struggling to drum up any enthusiasm for his painting. ’

It took me a moment to unscramble what Mitch had just told me.

This young lad, Noah, was going to study art.

He’d been a promising painter. The young man had been close to his dreams. Then the accident happened; Mitch took the blame on his shoulders for the terrible incident, and as far as he was concerned, Noah losing out on a career in art was down to him.

Things began to slot into place.

Maybe that was why Mitch had insisted on trying to help secure an exhibition of my grandma’s work.

He felt responsible for what had happened to this young man and saw it as a way to make amends.

Was he trying to appease his own guilt? He was doing this in order to deal with his emotions over the accident.

He was trying to right a wrong in his conscience.

‘That’s why you’re so keen to help with my grandma’s paintings,’ I said softly.

Mitch didn’t answer. He just stared past Kane and Bronte slumbering on the rug in front of the fire as the snowflakes danced outside.

I then leant forward far quicker than I should have and then wished I hadn’t. Whoa! That whiskey was gorgeous, but it was making my head float. I slowly lowered myself back against the sofa cushions.

‘I tried to tell Noah what he was doing was stupid,’ carried on Mitch, seemingly oblivious to my increasingly delicate state.

‘I shouted at him and so did Tim, the other instructor. From the moment Noah arrived at the centre, he was larking around. He was always acting the clown, being sarcastic and taking the mickey out of our authority.’ Mitch’s voice carried an element of anger.

‘I got the impression that he was used to being surrounded by money and didn’t hear the word “no” very often. ’

‘But you can’t keep punishing yourself over what happened. You lost your business.’ I pressed my lips together in thought. ‘Why don’t you just admit it? That’s the reason why you’re doing what you’re doing with Tilda’s work.’

Mitch looked awkward. He shook his head. ‘No.’ His voice was steely. After a few moments, he rubbed at his stubbly chin. ‘Okay, maybe a bit.’

He sank back against a cushion. ‘I bet this all sounds really pathetic to you.’

I took in the way his curls were falling messily forward onto his brow. A deep ripple of something shot through me. ‘No. Not at all. I get it.’

Mitch gave a wry smile. ‘It wasn’t just my business I lost. That was just the start of it. After what happened with Noah, my marriage collapsed.’

I let out a shocked gasp. ‘Your wife didn’t stand by you after what happened?’

‘Not long after I lost the business, Romilly left me. She said she couldn’t cope with the fallout from everything. She blamed me for the financial predicament we found ourselves in at the time. We had to sell our house and cars to stay above water and pay the compensation to Noah’s father.’

I rubbed my neck. Poor Mitch. ‘I’m sorry.’ I paused before asking him another question. ‘Do you have children?’

‘No, Romilly never wanted them. She was always a career girl.’ Mitch shrugged. ‘If she’d really loved me, she’d have stuck by me. That’s what I soon came to realise. We’ve been separated two years now. She moved away to London.’

I took a side glance out of the sitting room window. The snow was still falling, swamping everything in thick, white layers of icing that looked impenetrable.

‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘Do you have kids?’

I blinked back my intended plan of starting a family with Joe, once I’d got my next book written and out of the way. ‘No. No children either.’

We both sat there, studying one another.

The atmosphere had changed. Now I understood what that journalist had wanted to speak to Mitch about.

No wonder he wanted to seclude himself in this remote location.

There was an understanding, charged with something else that I couldn’t quite decipher.

It was as if an electric current was sparking between the two of us, illuminating the room.

I couldn’t believe I’d just told Mitch about what Joe had done and the guilt that I’d been carrying around, like some lead weight, before Greta’s letter and photographs arrived.

I hadn’t intended on telling Mitch as much as I had– if anything– but he’d teased it out of me.

Time seemed to drift like the snow outside.

‘And that’s when you decided to become a lighthouse keeper?’ I asked him. ‘After what happened?’

Mitch stretched his legs out further across the rug.

‘After Romilly and I split up, I wondered what the hell I was going to do next. My life felt like it had shattered in front of my eyes.’ He shrugged.

‘I’d always wanted to study outdoor education and did a degree at Stirling University when I was seventeen.

I graduated when I was twenty-two, worked for six years in the States at a couple of centres, then came back to the UK and finally opened up Rock ’n’ Ramble six years ago.

’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Everything was going great. I met Romilly when her agency started work on a PR campaign for us and we got married soon after.’

‘And the decision to become a lighthouse keeper?’

‘Solitude, the sea, the challenge, the change in lifestyle, helping people.’ He gave a slight nod of confirmation as he spoke.

‘I happened to spot an advert for Barclay’s vacancy online, and I thought, why not?

They wanted someone quickly and I was desperate to just leave everything behind.

’ He shrugged. ‘The advert listed the sort of attributes they were looking for– good communication skills, fitness, organisational abilities– and as I wanted away from everyone and everything after what happened with Noah Colton, I thought living in the Scottish Highlands, looking after a lighthouse, was the perfect solution.’ Mitch almost smiled.

‘I’d been working as a forestry guide in the Lake District after Noah’s accident, but I knew it wasn’t for me.

I was craving somewhere where I could try and come to terms with everything and the people I’d let down.

I didn’t want to be around anyone.’ Kane raised his big, beige and black head at his master.

Mitch gave Kane an affectionate rub. ‘Aye, apart from you, you big lump.’

Mitch stood up and clicked on a couple of lamps. ‘Being a lighthouse keeper isn’t just a job, though. I’ve learnt that very quickly. It’s a way of life.’

‘Barclay used to say that. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all keepers of the same lighthouse here.’

‘Aye. So I read. Albert, John and Nathaniel Hogan respectively. The Hogan lighthouse legacy around these parts is one hell of a responsibility to live up to. I intend to do them justice.’

I glanced towards the sitting room window, the curtain of white disappearing into the dark. In the distance, the silhouettes of snow suspended from the cliff face and the rooftops look like ghostly apparitions.

Mitch had resumed his seat in his armchair. ‘Do you know that one of the definitions of a lighthouse is “a beacon of light providing a sense of direction, safety and hope”?’

Even though my eyes were growing heavy, his words clutched at my heart. We all needed that.

I blinked across at him. Barclay would’ve approved of Mitch’s appointment.

He was hard-working and dedicated. Good grief.

How could Romilly have abandoned him like that?

Just when he needed her more than ever? She must’ve been crazy.

His serious face was beginning to waver in front of my eyes. I was struggling to focus.

A cosy, muzzy feeling wrapped itself around me and wouldn’t let go. It was like we were snug in this glowing, private little haven, with the snow whirling outside. The fire popped and cracked.

Mitch was sitting there, looking delectably dishevelled, and our two dogs were snuggled side by side.

It was the safest, most contented and relaxed I could remember feeling for a long while.

I offered Mitch a lazy, tipsy flicker of a smile and I saw him roll his eyes. Then he grinned back. He had that sort of smile that made you want to smile back at him.

God, he was very handsome. There. I admitted it to myself. Again. But that didn’t mean I was attracted to him; I struggled to reason in my addled head. Of course, it didn’t. Gorgeous though Mitch was, I would implement iron restraint. My heart couldn’t and wouldn’t take any more.

He’d ordered me not to go out in the car because he was worried about my safety in the snow. He’d checked up on me, to make sure I was alright when Rhea Stafford said she’d seen a stranger near the cottage. Yes, gratitude. I was grateful to him.

My eyelids were fluttering closed. I forced myself to sit up straighter. I must’ve looked like a struggling tortoise.

‘No more Talisker for you tonight, young lady,’ wafted Mitch’s deep, Scottish accent.

‘Spoilsport,’ I mumbled, grabbing one of the cushions behind me and wrapping my arms around it.

‘Now, I’m going to make you a coffee whether you like it or not.’

I let out a snort. ‘Okay, Mr Lighthouse Man.’ I gripped the cushion and my mouth went into overdrive. ‘I hate to burst your bubble but I have to tell you, I don’t find you in the slightest bit attractive.’ My face blossomed with colour when I said it.

Mitch erupted with laughter. ‘Yeah, right.’

An indignant gasp shot out of me. Then Mitch threw me a jokey wink over his shoulder and vanished into his kitchen area. I heard him put the kettle on.

The arrogance of the man! He just laughed at me, as though me not finding him attractive was incomprehensible.

I conjured up in my head pictures of Mitch’s sea-coloured eyes and the way his mouth hitched up at one corner when he smiled.

Oh boy, I was struggling to keep my eyes open…