Page 9

GEORDIE

At five to nine on Saturday morning, I’m the last one on the bus. Fussing over Mum like an overprotective granny has made me late. Ready-to-eat meals for two in the freezer. Dad-proof instructions tacked to the fridge. Piles of freshly chopped firewood stacked by the hearth. A last-minute refresher course on working the new television and getting the game live. Hopefully, he can follow my instructions.

For an intelligent man, it’s beyond me why technology baffles my father, or why he treats cooking like a dark art. I just hope he gets the television right. Mum’s almost as excited at the prospect of spotting me in the crowd as she might be if I was running onto the pitch to face the mighty All Blacks.

If I thought I could slip past Coach unnoticed, I’ve got another think coming. My mates greet me with a chorus of catcalls. Fortunately, Razor just glances up, giving a nod as if mentally counting the last of his charges on board is his final responsibility for the day, then returns to his newspaper. Or maybe he hasn’t noticed me at all. Maybe he’s found the article Dad read aloud over the breakfast table this morning, where they’re talking up Scotland’s chances of a win tonight. Whatever the reason, Razor seems in a good mood.

I scan the length of the bus. It’s spacious and way more luxurious than those of my rugby playing youth. Appropriate for the team destined to win the County rugby competition this season with the famous Robbie Sharpe at the helm. Ours.

Halfway down, I spot her. Jenna. Sitting alone. Alone . No one beside her, across the aisle; hell, not even in the seats in front, or behind. As if she’s a bloody leper and they’ve fenced off the space around her to keep from catching her disease.

Razor spelled it out the first day she showed up, leaning on the fence at the practice field. Back then, wrapped in a big padded jacket, hood up against the unexpected August cold, she might as well have been wearing a Scottish version of a burka. The layers gave no hint of the spectacular curves beneath.

As she glanced across at us, while handing her father some paperwork, was it only me who suspected those eyes, like liquid chocolate, offered a promise of hidden beauty? Now they’ve seen her without the barrier of a puffer jacket, everyone understands the reason for Razor’s threat.

“Any of you horny little bastards so much as look at her…” he’d muttered. Staring each of us in the eye, one by one, waiting for us to nod in acknowledgment, his voice rose to a vicious growl. “Let’s make one thing clear. Just because Jenna’s not paid club staff like at the Highlanders, it doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply. She’s off limits. Bother her, and you’ll answer to me. Touch her, and you’re off the team.”

His words echo in my brain. I shove them aside. Plenty of spare seats, but I know exactly which one I’m taking. If the universe hands me an opportunity to sit next to the woman I’ve obsessed over for a week, I’m not going to spit in its face.

On Saturday night, I thought I imagined it at first—the flicker of interest in her eyes. Then Connor interrupted before I could push beyond small talk. But inside the house, the connection remained. She hadn’t flinched away from my touch, accepting my hand at her waist, my thumb grazing the top of the rounded arse that’s since featured in my dreams. Imagining it pressed hard against my stomach as I stood in the shower…

I force myself to stop. These are not helpful images at this moment.

Beyond the sheer, crippling sexual attraction and my hope for something deeper, Jenna stirs something else in me. She tries so hard to be fiercely independent—and she is—but I feel an instinctive need to take care of her.

It was there from the start. Seeing her raw grief when we spoke of her mother. The sadness, regret, and guilt she shared when I got her alone again. I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her it would all be okay.

Then at practice, when Connor spilled the details—jilted a week before her wedding by some bastard who probably traded her for someone else—I had the urge to hunt the fucker down and rip him apart.

And on Thursday, in her office, when I saw her distress at the dangerous faulty wiring, I knew there was this small thing I could do. I don’t have much to offer, but I’m a practical man. I can keep her safe. I’d never let harm come to her.

This is new territory for me, but the speed and depth of what’s overtaken me says I shouldn’t ignore it. If this woman provokes something different in me, that’s every reason to go after it and see where it leads.

No way am I letting her sit on this bus alone today, everyone treating her like she’s got the plague because her dad still thinks she’s thirteen, not thirty-four. Because he’s made sure no one else will take this seat, but then abandoned her to sit on her own all the way to bloody Edinburgh. The least the old bastard could have done was sit with her. I’m hoping that either he doesn’t notice, or he trusts me more than the rest of them, given Jenna’s history with my sister Rachel. It’s the latter that’s more likely to save me.

Taking this seat beside her is impulsive. Risky. But I’m not passing up the chance. I catch Nathan’s eye and he gives me an encouraging wink. It was a relief to have a man-to-man on the subject of Jenna in a back booth at the Railway last night. His advice was the same as at practice on Wednesday: if you feel that way, go for it, so I am.

I pause to sling my bag in the overhead locker. It seems only fair to give her a chance to veto the move. Also dangerous. It gives her the chance for public rejection. My heart crushed in front of the lads, my humiliation relived in endless retellings. But if she doesn’t? This could become the stuff of a different type of retelling—the day I hooked up with your mother; kids, that’s where it started. Crazy thoughts.

I’m prepared to gamble everything on this move.

I have no idea what’s come over me, but ever since the party, all I can think about is a future with her in it. It’s as if Cluanie, having lured me home, now plans to chain me here—with Jenna as the most unexpected and welcome jailer. When I arrived back, I thought I’d be here a few months, maybe a year. Now I have no desire to leave the place that has her in it .

As I hover in the aisle, there’s the added danger that her father, seeing what I’m up to, will launch himself from his seat, march down here and rip my arms off, snapping them like twigs right at the place where my unworthy shoulder is about to brush that of his precious daughter. Fortunately, he remains oblivious, eyes locked on the newspaper. One lift of his head and a glance in the driver’s ample rear-view mirror and it’s all over—but luck is on my side. He doesn’t notice the guys all holding their collective breaths. I’m holding mine too.

Jenna smiles up from her phone and I take that as permission to get my obvious body into the seat next to her before her father leaps up to object.

“Hi, I’m Geordie, you might remember me…” I slide into the seat, realising this is going to be torture. The seats are generous, but it’s near impossible for my broad body not to spill over into her space. My hip grazes the curve of her thigh. I swallow down the sudden pang of wanting more. She doesn’t shift away. Doesn’t angle herself like you would with a stranger.

“Hmm, I’m not sure,” she says, pressing a finger to her lips. A barely suppressed smile tugs at the corners, threatening to unleash the cute dimples she hides well behind an often serious expression. They are the reward for the patient and the fortunate. Today I’m both, as the little hollows twitch with mischief. “Something about you looks vaguely familiar.” She gives up on the deadpan face, laughter spilling out. “I know! It’s the village stalker from my teens.”

“Oh, come on,” I groan. “I wasn’t that bad, was I?”

“Yes, you were. How many times did I catch you peering through bushes? Peeping round corners? Geordie, you were everywhere. Really, I thought you had a career in MI5, although you’d have needed to up your covert surveillance skills.”

I frantically try to recall just how annoying I was towards my older sister and her friend all those years ago. Not too bad, I hope. I’m desperate for this version of Jenna to like me. This me, not the painful kid brother hanging around, desperate for her and Rachel to notice him.

“To be fair,” she says, choking back a laugh. “Rachel and I were rather obnoxious teenagers. Strutting around Cluanie thinking we were queens of this little patch. Probably unfairly mean to everyone else, including you.”

My impulsiveness has landed me in a situation that I have no match plan for. I wasn’t expecting her to drag up the kid I was. Highlighting the age difference between us isn’t going to help nudge this rekindled relationship in the direction I’m hoping for.

“Nah, I’m sure I deserved it. Annoying was my specialty back then.”

“Perhaps,” she says, and we both know the truth of it. I was an irritating little snot, but she doesn’t appear to hold it against me. “Hey thanks for this work on the electrical stuff,” she continues. It’s good to return to the here and now. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have slept properly. Do what needs to be done. Whatever it costs, it’s worth it.”

“No charge. It’s the least I can do for you and your dad.”

“Geordie, you don’t have to,” she says, brown eyes softening. “We can afford it. We’re not short of money, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I want to,” I say, my voice low, responding to her nearness. “You’ve been through the wars. Call it my chance to offer a bit of TLC. ”

“Thanks,” she says. I hear the sadness there. “It’s been a shit year. Mothers, eh? You never expect you’ll be the one who looking after them? But I’d give anything to still be doing it, if I could. She went so fast.”

The undisguised grief in her eyes makes me regret veering into this territory. But when she places a hand over mine, I see that she appreciates talking to someone who knew the woman she lost.

“And I’m so pleased your mum is going to be OK,” she says. “She’s lucky to have you all behind her. I saw Rache when she was here. She said the home support plan is going well.”

“You saw Rachel?” I echo stupidly.

Three weeks ago, Rachel finally dragged her neglectful arse up from London for a few days. Fixated on how easily she could have come home over the years, I didn’t exactly invite small talk. I had no idea where she went or who she saw in the brief times when I begrudgingly let her off the hook from Mum-minding duties.

Guilt prickles. I was hard on my sister, and that wasn’t really fair. With a jolt of unease, I realise my so-called good luck—being the one here when Mum and Dad needed me, has led me to take moral high ground. A position I don’t deserve. I need to smooth things out with Rachel when I next see her. Or sooner.

This bitterness towards my sister that’s sprung up in the midst of Mum’s illness doesn’t sit well. Resentment would be a completely natural response to the place she’s held in our family all these years. The golden girl. The one who followed the expected pathway—top marks at school, a law degree from King’s College in London, with honours, a stellar corporate career. I should envy my sister. She’s all the things my father wanted and everything I’m not .

In a way, though, her success has worked in my favour. Her exam marks, scholarship wins, glitzy job offers, and now high-profile court cases, all provide a handy diversion for my father’s judgmental eyes. Sure, she’s set an unattainable standard of what a MacDonald can achieve, but I was always going to fall short of the mark. I’ve never begrudged her the place on that pedestal.

I just wished that, being the nearer child, she had checked on Mum more often when I couldn’t, but I have no right to punish her for not doing so.

“We talk every week, you know.”

“Every week?”

I want to slap myself. Why is it only lame repetition of her words seems to be the only thing I’m capable of in Jenna’s presence?

Up until a week ago, I had no idea Rachel and Jenna were still friends. Seems they’re very good friends. Then again, Rachel and I have been strangers to each other for years. And the distance between us? That’s on me.

When I first moved overseas, Rachel texted often. My frequent lack of response—not out of malice, just my usual half-arsed approach to life—made them dwindle to almost none. A ‘Happy birthday’ here. A ‘Well done’ there, as she climbed higher up a ladder I’ll never even reach the bottom rung of.

Not wanting to look the arsehole brother I am in Jenna’s eyes, I smile, making a noise that suggests I know they keep in touch.

“Yeah, I told her we caught up at the party. Hey, I know. I’ll send her a picture.” Jenna rummages in the bag at her feet and pulls out her phone. “She’ll think this is funny.”

I doubt funny is the word Rachel will use. I can’t imagine her being thrilled at her kid brother hanging out with her friend. And if she knew where my intentions lay, well, that could get ugly. But Jenna knows my sister better than I do, so I go with it.

She leans in, wrapping an arm around me, and raises her phone. Even sitting chastely next to her, the smell of Jenna Sharpe is delicious—like the inviting, yeasty pull of fresh bread from a Subway store. Up close like this, the need to have her, to taste her, is overwhelming and I’m drawn into that warmth.

With a start, I straighten. Christ. I need to kick these eating metaphors to touch. They’re leading in a very dangerous direction. I need to stop before the lustful images in my mind spill onto my face for all the world to see. Well, for my sister anyway, and that would be almost as bad.

I crack a goofy grin. I can’t help it. The crazy whirl of emotions twisting my face makes me look like a right dick in the picture. Part nerves at Rachel seeing this, part triumph at my arm around Jenna’s shoulder.

The photo vanishes through the ether on Snapchat. Pretty sure that’s the one that disappears after a time. A shame. If things go south, I won’t even have a souvenir to prove this moment happened. Or to cry over later.

“So, Geordie MacDonald,” she says, grinning. “Who’d have guessed we’d find ourselves all grown up and back in Cluanie? Tell me, what have you been up to? I don’t want to hurt your ego, but you haven’t exactly been part of the conversation between Rachel and me.”

I gather my thoughts. An opportunity here if I can string together a coherent answer. Maybe I can prove Jenna hasn’t been saddled with a complete idiot for the next half-day on this bus. I’m keen to impress, but I’ll take care not to overdo it. Jenna isn’t drawn to blowhards. I saw the disdainful looks she threw Kyle’s way.

“Rachel doesn’t know the half of it anyway,” I laugh. “Didn’t want to worry her. Or Mum.”

“Well, now you absolutely have to tell me. Come on Geordie. What trouble did you get yourself into? Thrown in jail maybe?

I look her in the eye, saying nothing, while trying to keep my face neutral, but I can’t help my mouth twitching in amusement. She’s guessed right.

“What the hell, Geordie? Jail? Really?”

“In Brunei.”

“My god, no wonder you didn’t tell your family.”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. It was only for a couple of hours.”

I’m smiling as I tell the story, but at the time I was shit scared of ending up another foreigner languishing in an Asian jail for something he didn’t do.

“I’d parked my rental car—legally—at the junction of a T-intersection. This local woman came right through the stop sign. Ploughed into my car. I arrived back there at the same time as the police. Well, she said the accident was my fault—if I hadn’t parked the car there, she wouldn’t have hit it. So they took me away for questioning. It all got sorted out. Luckily.”

“Could have done with your lawyer sister there, perhaps?”

“Hell no. If Rachel had been there, I’d probably still be in jail. Her too, for abusing the police.”

“Probably,” she grins. We both know my sister is hot-headed. “So jail, huh? What else? Near-death experiences?”

“Not quite.”

“What do you mean ‘not quite’?” She gazes at me expectantly.

“OK, well, I did come a little bit too close for comfort to a crocodile last year.” Her eyes widen. “We were on shore leave in Darwin, and a few of the lads suggested we go for a round of golf. Pretty tame stuff you’d think, except in bloody Australia. We were having a nice round, just coming up to the eighth hole and there’s a greenkeeper waving his arms at us, and we’re like “What the fuck’s his problem? We paid our green fees” and keep walking towards the hole. Anyway, then he begins yelling at us, but we keep walking, thinking he’s just some crazy Aussie. Until he starts pointing at the little lake to one side. Well, there’s a croc lazing on the fairway, happily sunning himself. One of the guys had hired a golf cart, and we’d been giving him a hard time, telling him he’s a posh dickhead. We were sure glad of it then. So we all leapt in the cart, a couple of us dangling off the sides, and powered our way out of there. Didn’t stop to worry about the greenkeeper. Guess he got out alive.”

I go on to share more, a potted version of the last ten years. I’ve visited some remote places, met a wide slice of humanity, and built up a decent bank of entertaining stories from my time ashore in between the monotony of life on an offshore oil rig. Enough to hold Jenna’s attention, often provoking her pretty smile and occasionally bubbling laughter.

“Life in Cluanie must be pretty tame by comparison. Not bored with it already?” she asks.

“No, there’s enough to hold my interest.” I catch Jenna’s eye, and she seems to read the underlying message in my words. I see no sign of it disturbing her.

“How about you?” I ask. “Any stories to tell? I know a little of it, given your dad’s name was in the papers every other week. And yours sometimes. ”

She winces. Clearly feeding the media is one thing, but being in it is another. Probably best I don’t reveal my week of internet stalking Jenna MacDonald. What started as an innocent Google search the morning after the party—coffee and painkillers in hand—has become a daily habit. I catch myself doing it on tea breaks. On the couch next to Mum and Dad in the evenings. It’s moved past idle curiosity.

Jenna offers me a similarly condensed version of her life beyond Cluanie, leaving out of course, her near-marriage to that tosser, whose name I’ve found out is Adam. She gives me the lowdown on a couple of scandals—what really went on behind the scenes. The stuff people like her prevent from making it to the public.

“There’s not much call for sports PR in Cluanie,” she finishes, “but I can do that sort of work anywhere when it’s not tied to a team.”

“It’s going well?”

“Yeah, not bad. Better than I expected.”

Too modest by far. I heard her father talking to Grant Darby the other night. Two more high-profile rugby players signed with Jenna this week. While I hope her success only grows, I also hope that it doesn’t push her so high she’s completely out of my reach.

“I thought I’d see if I could get one or two clients of my own, while I’ve got this time away from the Highlanders, and now I’ve got eight.”

I only hear two words: ‘time away’ and my heart sinks. I thought Jenna had left the Highlanders for good, but ‘time away’ suggests she’s going back to the team. To Glasgow. Leaving Cluanie. There’s a sick, hollow feeling in my stomach. I’m sure I heard her correctly, but still I make myself check .

“Time away from the Highlanders?”

“Yeah,” she says. “They gave me a year’s leave. I’m meant to rejoin them in November. Not sure if I will, though. If my own business takes off, I might turn down the offer.”

I already wanted Jenna’s business to do well for her sake. Now I’m praying it does for mine.

My phone lights up, and I glance down at it. A text from my sister.

Rachel: What the fuck, Geordie?

My sister’s in an extra grumpy mood this morning. What the hell have I done now?

Me: Good morning to you too, dear sister

Rachel: I saw the picture

Me: And your point is?

Rachel: I saw your face

Me: You have a problem with my face? You don’t like my morning face? Have I developed resting bitch face overnight?

I can’t resist winding her up some more. I wait for the explosion.

Rachel: I SAW THE WAY YOU WERE LOOKING AT HER

Me: ?????

Rachel: Please tell me you’re not hitting on my friend Geordie MacDonald.

My full name. Now she’s really pissed.

Me: What if she hits on me?

Rachel: In your dreams. She’s not that stupid.

Me: Harsh

Rachel: Truth

And that’s it. She goes silent, and it’s just as well. Her words wound me more than she could ever know—because I’ve spent a week wrapped up in the possibility of Jenna .

I never wanted to come back to Cluanie. Even now, it was never intended to be permanent. But the sight of her on the stairs last Saturday night, the brief conversations, the chance to just be near her, like this—all have unlocked something inside me. I have no name for it, no clue why.

What I do know is, I’d endure a thousand lifetimes in my shithole hometown if I could spend just one of them with her. But, as my sister has so bluntly reminded me, women like Jenna don’t waste their lives on guys like me. Even if she stays.