Page 13 of Fixing a Broken Heart at the Highland Repair Shop

The following week saw a whole lot of wondering whether the repair shed and café’s fortunes would fare better come Saturday.

McIntyre had retreated almost entirely to the silence of the barn all week long, only strolling home for lunch and dinner (and a gentle scolding from his wife) who was missing their son worse than ever, now that he’d jetted off after his visit.

She was too much with her own thoughts to be seriously aggravated by the return of her husband’s reclusive habits.

Meanwhile, Ally had tried not to read too much into the change within herself: the little thing that was suddenly insisting she get up early, exercise, shower, do her hair and actually sit at her laptop in a nice outfit for her weekday morning tech support job.

Her shifts online hadn’t gone any faster than they normally did, and the clients she was remotely connecting to weren’t any less confused or inclined to have lost their logins and passwords or to have installed random, unnecessary malware onto their computers without really knowing why they’d done it, but nevertheless Ally McIntyre was irrefutably happier.

On Tuesday, after the particular battery she needed for Jamie’s toy repair had arrived in the mail, she’d spent the evening checking the tiny circuitry, cleaned the corrosion off the battery contact point, and proceeded to make an extraordinary discovery that had made her clasp a hand over her mouth in amazement.

She decided to keep her discovery to herself until Jamie was there for the big reveal.

Ally loved repair reveals at the repair shed, when clients were re-united with those extra special projects that might have taken a while to restore, or were items of especial sentimental value. She’d have to wait until a repair café Saturday for that.

They’d had no reason to see each other since their walk to the Nithy Brig, and Jamie hadn’t stumbled her way in search of any other local landmarks.

Still, after her morning’s work, come clocking-out, and not a second after, she’d rip her headset off and – having checked for email responses to her job applications (there were never any) – decide each day that a walk was what she needed.

On Wednesday, Ally found herself wandering through the town and past the police station, for no reason other than her love of dodging the slow-moving tourists on the pavements and finding every shop stuffed to the gunnels with out-of-towners who’d come in by the coachload.

She told herself she had no intention of bumping into anyone in particular, whether accidentally or entirely on purpose.

That’s why, when she happened to spot Jamie Beaton in his off-duty gear on the other side of the high street, she hadn’t momentarily felt compelled to yell his name and run straight up to him to say hello.

When she twigged he was walking with a beautiful, dark-haired woman – who had her arm looped through his – laughing and chatting, Ally had instead concealed herself behind the old phone box, staring after them, something within her deflating like a stray party balloon caught in a hedge.

She didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her before that he’d have a girlfriend and that, of course, she’d visit him on his days off.

He had to be working out those muscles for someone’s benefit, right?

Of course it was a stunning Edinburgh woman, probably with a glamorous girl-about-town kind of job, judging by the seriously cool way she was dressed.

She must be a regular visitor to the Harvey Nicks cosmetics department, if her perfectly arched brows and that sheeny red lip were anything to go by.

Ally had skulked away, ending her torture, her cheeks burning redder than the phone box she’d hid behind at the realisation of how close she’d been to nursing a silly crush on Jamie Beaton.

That evening, sitting out on her waterwheel window ledge, the feat of contortionism she put herself through would have impressed even the most experienced Cirque-de-Soleil gymnast. She convinced herself it was lovely that he had someone special.

A man like him, with a soft, secretive side needed company.

They really had looked happy together. She was pleased for him and she was delighted for his girlfriend, scoring an upstanding, ambitious, handsome man like Jamie Beaton. Good. For. Her.

And that’s how she’d stayed, knotted up in delusion until early the next morning when her brother’s phone call made her jump awake.

‘Good news, sis,’ he’d told her. ‘They’re going to interview you for the Zurich job!’