Page 34 of Kilts and Kisses at Highland Hall (Kilts and Kisses #1)

Bex didn’t have to sit. She knew that. She reminded herself of what she’d thought only a moment before.

This was her weekend, and she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to.

But there was something about the way Fergus had spoken that had her intrigued.

His face was off in a daze, and she couldn’t help but wonder when he had last had someone to sit and talk to in here.

She hesitated for a moment longer, then finally, taking her time, strode slowly across the room and sat down.

Silence swirled around them. From her seat on the floor, Ruby’s gaze moved between Fergus and Bex and back again as if she wasn’t sure what was going on.

You’re not the only one , Bex thought, although rather than saying as much, she cleared her throat and forced that professional smile back onto her lips.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked. ‘If you’ve been in the study, you’ll have seen I’ve made a lot of progress in there. The personal things are all set aside, though. I can show you where they are if you need them.’

He grunted in a way that could have been a yes or a no. Bex clamped her mouth shut. She wasn’t going to say any more. He was the one who had asked to speak to her. So he could bloody well speak.

Out in the hallway, the grandfather clock struck to announce a quarter past the hour. She had been in here for nearly five minutes and he had said absolutely nothing. Finally, the old man coughed.

‘So, you went out with the boy today,’ he said.

‘You mean Duncan? Yes, he was just showing me how to clay pigeon shoot.’

‘Is that right?’

She didn’t know how to respond to that comment either. Of course that was right. That was why she had said it. She was just about to ask if there was a particular reason he had called her in here, other than to make her feel as awkward as possible, when he spoke again.

‘He’s a hard worker, that one.’

‘I can imagine. I heard you used to be friends with his grandfather,’ she said, only to regret the comment. Why on earth would she have brought that up when she knew they had stopped speaking? ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be nosy.’

‘Not nosy,’ he said. ‘’t’s taking an interest. It’s what people do.

’ He paused, filling up the glass he’d held out to Bex earlier, then passed it across to her.

She wasn’t much of a whisky drinker, but she needed something to take the edge of this conversation.

‘Aye we used to be friends. Different time back then. Different place too. This—’ The way he nodded, it felt like he was talking about the whole castle.

Or maybe, Bex thought, thinking of the photo with him laughing away, he was referring to himself.

Maybe he had felt like a different person back then, too.

She took a sip of her drink. The smoky caramel taste was followed by a heat down the back of her throat, which wasn’t anywhere near as unpleasant as she’d imagined.

As such, she took another, slightly longer sip immediately after.

When she looked up, Fergus had the faintest whisper of a smile gracing his lips.

‘Shall I top that up a dram for ye?’ he said, eyeing the glass in her hand.

Bex was surprised by how much she had drunk.

Or how nice it was. She hesitated. All she had eaten all day was the sandwich that Duncan had brought them, and she’d been planning on making some eggs for dinner, but there were a couple of hours until then.

She could sit and have another drink with Fergus.

Especially if it improved the relationship between them.

‘Just a little,’ she said, and held out her glass. When her gaze met Fergus’s, she saw a twinkle in his eye. A twinkle she had never seen before.

‘Aye, just a wee dram,’ he replied, then proceeded to pour the drink.

* * *

She should have stopped at least two drinks ago. Probably three. But she was having fun. Genuinely. And as the latest laugh barrelled from Fergus, it was so loud and unexpected that one of the dogs started howling.

‘Why do I get the feeling they’re not used to hearing you make this noise?’ Bex asked.

‘Daft buggers, they are,’ Fergus said, ruffling the dog behind the ears with a rough stroke.

They had been speaking for two hours, although when the conversation had shifted from polite small talk – how long the castle had been in Fergus’s family, how big the village was, how long she had been at her firm, etc.

– to this – amusing anecdotes from their lives – Bex couldn’t be sure.

And by amusing anecdotes from their lives, she meant Fergus’s.

The old man certainly had tales to tell.

‘Well, after that, my days as the caber toss champion were gone. Still had to go along to the events though. I may have tried to spread a rumour that he cheated, but no one was buying that.’ His gruff chuckle continued, pausing only as he took another draw from his drink.

The latest tales he’d been telling Bex were those where he had joined in the highland games, and judging by what she’d heard so far, the caber toss and shot putt were mere sidelines to all the things they got up to.

‘And where was Winny when you were up to all this?’ Bex asked, keen to hear more about the wife that she had heard of only as a ‘marriage of convenience’.

‘Oh, she was there,’ he said. ‘Normally with the bairns. Treated all the wee ones in the village like they were family. Think it happens like that a lot when you can’t have your own.’

The laughter faded, and for the first time a quiet sadness permeated the air.

There was so much more Bex wanted to ask Fergus.

She wanted to ask how he had come to be living on his own in such a great castle; she wanted to know what had happened with Duncan’s grandfather and why Fergus had stayed so close to Duncan, though she suspected she already knew the answer to that.

Guilt. He might not have been able to put things right with his best friend, but he could try to build the bridges with his grandson.

Make amends for a fractured past in the only way he could.

With the drink loosening her tongue, she was more than a little tempted to dig into that particular strand of his past. But instead, she asked a different question, though it was still related to family.

‘I’ve heard a couple of people mention your nephew, Kieron,’ she said. ‘Is he on your side of the family, or Winny’s?’

‘Ah, now Kieron is my sister Ishbel’s boy.

’ A smile broadened on his face. ‘She’s a special lass, my Ishbel.

Firecracker that’s for sure. Unlike that lad of hers.

Takes after his dad, that one.’ He let out a low hiss, and Bex found herself reminded of when she had mentioned Kieron to Duncan. There was clearly some friction there.

‘Right, enough o’ this, I’m going to give you some words o’ wisdom,’ Fergus said, lifting his glass. ‘Call it payment for drinkin’ all my best whisky.’

‘Shouldn’t I be the one paying you, if it’s for the whisky?’ Bex asked, aware of the fact that the floor seemed to have developed ever such a slight sway. Yet Fergus merely waved his hand at her as he shook his head.

‘Dinnae wait,’ he said. ‘Whatever you’re thinking about doing, dinnae wait.

Do it now. You don’t ken if you’re going to get a tomorrow, or if it’s going to be the tomorrow you think you ought to have.

So dinnae wait. That’s it. That’s my advice.

’ He brought his glass to his lips as if he was going to take a sip, only to change his mind and continue talking. ‘Oh, aye, and make the big memories.’

‘Big memories?’

‘Aye, it’s no’ the big things, it’s the big memories.

The ones that stop your heart. That you remember even when you’re my age and the drink’s weathered half yer heid.

Like that darn caber toss.’ He let out a chuckle.

‘And the way she, she…’ He shuddered his shoulders, drawing the rest of his sentence back within him, before he looked back to Bex.

‘Like I said, it’s the big memories that stick.

An’ if you’re no’ careful, they might pass y’ by before y’ even notice. ’

There was something about the way his eyes drifted off into nothing that made Bex think Fergus was no longer thinking about the caber toss.

There was a wistfulness to his gaze as he stared into the last dregs of his drink.

Was it Winny perhaps? Or maybe someone who had come before his wife?

The woman in the photograph with Duncan’s grandfather, maybe.

Before she could ask, Ruby let out a long yawn and looked up at Bex with her big amber eyes.

Aware of the gaze still on her, Bex glanced down at her watch.

Somehow it was gone seven. She had spent three hours talking to Fergus and still hadn’t eaten anything.

Suddenly aware of how empty her stomach was feeling, she slowly stood up, resting her hand on the arm of the sofa to help with the sudden unevenness of the floor.

‘I should leave you in peace,’ Bex said. ‘Although I was going to make an omelette for dinner. I bought some eggs yesterday, if you fancy one too?’

Fergus smiled at her warmly.

‘You’re all right, lass,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a wander up to the village in a bit. Let these guys stretch their legs.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow then. Goodnight, Fergus.’

‘Goodnight, lass.’

It turned out that making an omelette after numerous whiskies was easier said than done.

The first attempt had to be binned, due to the half a shell that ended up in the mixture.

Even on the second attempt, what Bex ended up with was far closer to scrambled egg.

Dry scrambled egg with no sauce and nothing to make it taste better.

On Monday, when the shops were open again, she was going to need to do a proper shop, even if it meant taking an hour lunch break to get it done.

As she climbed up the stairs towards her bed half an hour later, her conversation with Fergus was still playing on her mind.

What were her big memories? There was the memory of her parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary that had happened the year before.

That felt like a big one, as did the memory of Theo proposing to Daisy, not to mention their wedding, but they didn’t feel like they should be her memories.

They were theirs. Immediately, an image flickered into her mind: Duncan opening the bathroom door while she was standing in there naked.

That one seemed unlikely to fade soon. If ever.

What about him bringing the bridie? Or the way he had held her body close to his while he had shown her how to mount the gun, then added the gentle pressure to her finger as he guided her to squeeze the trigger?

No, she thought, trying to push the images from her mind.

He was a friend. A friend who brought her food and gifts and made her feel like her entire body was on fire every time they touched.

People had friends like that, didn’t they?

She dropped onto the bed, only for Ruby to let out a low whine that perfectly encapsulated how Bex felt.

There was no point denying it. She didn’t see Duncan as a friend.

She never had. But he was also definitely not boyfriend material either.

Not given his current state, so where did that leave her?

‘I know, girl,’ Bex said, reaching down to scratch beneath the dog’s chin. ‘I seem to have found myself in a bit of a pickle here.’