Page 41

GEORDIE

Two hours trapped in a van, then four hours trudging on foot, glaring at the back of a man I truly hate. It’s only the presence of five other decent men in our hiking party that keeps me from grabbing Kyle Stewart by the throat and throttling him. Or simply giving him a shove as we edge along the narrow trail, skirting high bluffs and sheer drop-offs on our way to Beinn Greannach’s summit.

Now we’re there, the bad news is I get to spend the night with the fucking piece of scum too. Connor, as an experienced mountaineer, checked off every last detail of this trip, including the forecast, but no amount of preparation is enough to guarantee Scotland won’t throw some unexpected weather in your path, just to make it interesting.

That’s why Connor made the call to camp here tonight. We’ll descend at dawn, after the unseasonal blizzard passes, when we can safely pick our way back to civilization. We all joke about having a legit reason to skive off work on Monday, everyone in good spirits despite the weather—except for me. The last thing I want is to spend any longer than necessary in bloody Stewart’s company .

Connor’s yelled instructions carry over the rising wind, which already stings our faces with needles of snow. Our three tents, anchored against the storm, stand as bright beacons of refuge in a world of grey stone and wind-whipped tussock.

Connor assigns us to tents through lip-read shouts and wild gestures, factoring in each man’s size for the best fit. The sleet hammers my face like steel shot, but I linger, feet leaden, as I process his arrangement. Tonight, I’m sealed in with Brandon and Kyle fucking Stewart. Maybe once Brandon drifts off, I’ll press my jacket over that smug face and smother him. Connor, blind to the hatred crackling between us, has sentenced me to what promises to be the longest night of my life.

The vision of Jenna standing on Kyle’s front steps this morning, still in yesterday’s clothes—the evidence of her overnight stay written in her untamed hair—haunts me. Nothing happened between them. It couldn’t have. She’s made no secret of despising him. Christ, only last night I was the one defending the bastard to her. Never imagined she’d twist my words into some warped permission slip, getting pally enough to spend the night at his place. My jaw locks, teeth grinding until they ache.

Pain knots through me like barbed wire as I picture her standing there, casual as morning coffee, making a fool of me in front of my mates. Whatever her reason for sleeping at Kyle’s, she had to know what it screamed to the world. Might as well have walked straight from his bed, the way she stood on those steps—shameless, unconcerned about appearances, or the whispers that she and Kyle are more than friends which are no doubt already echoing around Cluanie. While I’m the one she keeps hidden, her dirty secret stashed in the shadows .

I still blame Kyle. The underhand bastard must have loved it—convincing her to stay, then parading her on his doorstep for maximum exposure. Everyone watching. A calculated show.

The hours drag by over hands of cards. I find myself grimly grateful for Kyle’s army habit of carrying a deck. Even wedged as far from him as possible in our seven-foot prison, he dominates the space, his laughter with Brandon bouncing off the walls while I maintain a sullen indifference to his attempts to draw me into the conversation. Brandon senses the tension, but I force normal conversation with the kid. Not his fault Connor threw him into a war zone.

We break for meals—emergency rations that taste like cardboard and necessity. Water does nothing to ease the sandpaper in my throat.

When exhaustion sets in, we agree it’s time to pack in the card game. I retreat to my sleeping bag along the left wall. Kyle wisely takes the right. Brandon between us is an unwitting human shield, preventing murder in the night.

Though we lie shoulder to shoulder, the darkness isolates me in my own lonely space. The weather’s relentless howl wraps around my thoughts like white noise. I force my body to still for the sake of Brandon alongside, but inside my brain is a riot. Outside, the wind hammers at the mountainside, but our little tent, tucked into an outcrop, shields us from the worst of the blast. I wish I had a similar shelter from the storm pummelling my heart.

Kyle pissed me off, but rational me knows he’s not the source of the problem between Jenna and me, only a symptom.

That first night in Edinburgh, I knew. Knew my life wouldn’t be complete without Jenna in it. Desperate to have anything of her I could, no matter how small or superficial or infrequent, I grabbed the scraps she offered.

From the beginning, we’ve both let our fears and insecurities win. Jenna holds me at arm’s length, scarred by her ex, keeping me in a place where I can’t hurt her like he did. But I can wait. I’ll show up every day until she sees I’m nothing like the bastard who left her. I’m anchored here in Cluanie, ready to prove she’s not just everything I’ve wanted—she’s more than I dared dream possible.

For me, years of not feeling good enough, and my failure to meet others’ expectations, have ground down my self-esteem until it’s a fragile shell, easily damaged. I let the opinions of people who don’t matter get to me.

My father’s words, so often hurled at me like stones: “You need to toughen up, Geordie.” Never thought I’d find wisdom there. But now, with Jenna, I do need that grit. Nothing in my life has ever mattered more than making this real with her, and that means finding my backbone. What others have to say about us isn’t my business, or my problem.

Physical weariness finally claims the win over my churning thoughts. I drift for an hour, maybe two, until movement in the dark pulls me back. The wind no longer screams at the mountain. It’s dropped to energetic bickering and through it comes the rustle of a sleeping bag as Brandon shuffles himself towards the tent’s entrance. I push myself up, catching his outline, a deeper shadow against the nylon walls.

“Sorry, mate.” I hear the rasp of him zipping a jacket. “Gotta take a piss.”

“No worries,” I say. “Take the headlamp, eh? It’s black as the devil’s ball sack out there. ”

“Nah, I’ll be fine. I’m pretty good in the dark. Back soon.”

Brandon unzips the door, fastens it again, pausing in the porch to pull on boots before the weather swallows the sound of his footsteps.

“How long were you planning to ignore me, MacDonald?” Kyle’s voice in the darkness startles me. He waits and when I ignore his question, chuckles in response to my silence. “Look, mate, you and I both know Jenna’s never going to let me into her pants. And I might have a reputation as a horny bastard, but I’ve never once tried it on with someone else’s girl.”

“Do you think everyone who saw her standing on your doorstep this morning knows that? Given your reputation?”

He huffs out a laugh. “Everyone? No bastard’s out of bed at seven on a Sunday morning in Cluanie. Even if they were, so what if someone saw her? Does it really matter what they think? The only thing that matters here is what you think.”

“The guys all had plenty to say about it.”

Half an hour into our drive, they finally turned their attention from winding me up to giving Nathan a hard time. It would have gone on longer if they hadn’t pounced on him after he asked Connor if he’d packed bear repellent, triggering unbelieving laughter and merciless taunting that hounded our poor na?ve Kiwi boy the rest of the way to the mountain.

“Yeah, well, that’s a good sign, you see,” Kyle says. “If there was any truth in it, they wouldn’t have said a thing. You know we only take the piss when we’re sure it’s not going to blow up in our faces. Believe me, if they thought Jenna had done anything more than sleep in my spare room, there would have been silence like the grave in that van. ”

I grunt noncommittally. I know Kyles’s right—there’s an unspoken code around taking the mick—but damned if I’ll admit it to him. Still, my resentment and anger begin to filter away. He may be a dick at times, but he’s talking common sense on this one.

“What I’d really like to know is how you’re managing to dodge that savage little bastard?” he says.

“Razor?” I can’t help a laugh. “Better not let him hear you call him that.”

“Nah, that fucking dog of his,” he says. “I’ve still got the bloody scar from the bastard’s teeth.”

“Just call me the dog whisperer.”

“I think that’s your missus, actually. Dora wouldn’t leave her side from the moment she set eyes on her. Only one under my roof who slept with Jenna last night—the bloody dog. The little traitor.”

We fall back into silence, but now, instead of an invisible barrier stopping me from grabbing Kyle—and risking a charge of assaulting a police officer (does that even count when he’s off duty?)—the quiet feels more like the old ease between mates, where conversation isn’t necessary.

Tension ebbs away, my racing brain finally slowing. For the first time in hours, a blanket of relaxation settles over me. Even my aching body niggles at me less—the bruises and scrapes, the battle scars from yesterday’s game, the tightness in my calves from today’s steep climb, all subdued as I doze a little.

I’m nearly asleep when the rumble of Kyle’s voice tugs me back.

“The lad’s been gone a while. Think I better go check on him?”

I’m jolted wide awake. How long since Brandon left? Is it two minutes or ten? Way too long for a guy taking a quick slash. I feel a rush of guilt; I’ve been so deep in my own world I didn’t notice.

“Shit.” This has a bad feeling about it. “Yeah, I’ll come with you,” I say, as Kyle taps his phone and weak torchlight bounces off the tent roof.

I unroll my jacket, which I’ve been using as a pillow, and heave it on. I grapple in the pocket, finding a beanie and gloves. My headlamp is in the other and I yank it on over my hat. Kyle shuffles forward, unzips the door, and we sit side by side in the opening to the porch, pulling on boots in grim silence.

“Stick together, yeah?” he says, as we emerge from the tent to stand facing out into the blackness, remnants of sleety rain cutting across the twin circles of light from our headlamps. “Jenna will fucking kill me if I don’t bring you home in one piece.”