Page 3 of The Love Leap (Timeless Love Chronicles #1)
Chapter Three
The Scottish rain has evolved from merely unpleasant to actively vindictive. It drums against my shoulders with increasing urgency, as if trying to push me into the ground and bury me without a funeral.
My phone’s map app flickers between helpful and useless, the blue dot of my location jumping erratically across the screen. It appears to be just as bamboozled by life’s shenanigans as I am.
Lovely. Even GPS has abandoned me.
I squint at street signs that might as well be written in ancient Pictish for all the good they’re doing me, my vision blurred by raindrops clinging to my eyelashes.
“Excuse me,” I call to a passing woman hunched beneath an umbrella that resembles a massive red mushroom house from The Smurfs . “Where can I find the bus station? ”
She gestures vaguely down a narrow side street, muttering something that sounds like “second left, then right at the kirk” before hurrying away.
I have no idea what a kirk is, but I’m assuming it’s some building and not, say, a rare Scottish woodland creature waiting to complete my humiliation by stealing my luggage.
I drag my increasingly waterlogged suitcase down the cobblestone alley, its wheels no longer rolling so much as scraping in protest. The case contains three “date night” outfits I’d carefully selected for impressing Brady, each one now destined to become evidence of my spectacular misjudgment.
It also holds my laptop with the fifteen pages of my new manuscript—the only fifteen pages I’ve managed to write in eight months.
Fifteen pages that Margot declared “technically words, but lacking the essential ingredient of not putting readers into a lifelong coma.”
My right shoe squelches with each step, the insole apparently having decided to drink half of Scotland’s rainfall. I should probably find a place to sit down and adjust it, but that would require stopping and stopping might lead to thinking, and thinking would definitely lead to ugly crying.
Public sobbing is not on today’s itinerary.
The memory of Margot’s voicemail from last week surfaces: “Mills, my darling, now Highbury wants an outline by Friday. I’ve told them you’re deep in the creative process—please don’t make me a liar. Again.”
How do you tell your indispensable agent that you’ve lost faith in the very concept your career is built on?
“Hey Margot, funny story—I no longer believe in love, so writing about people falling into it and living happily ever after now feels like crafting elaborate fairy tales about unicorns farting rainbows and responsible politicians saving the day.”
My “Happily for Always” saga had been successful—four installments detailing the smooth-sailing journey of Roxy Fairfax, a highly regarded London Matchmaker, as she helps her clients and herself find love in the most unexpected places.
Readers were captivated by Roxy. My editor and publisher were enchanted by her. Yet, I found myself growing weary of her and her ceaseless hopefulness, her resilience to rebound from heartache with a witty retort and a fresh red rose in her hair.
Book five is now nine months overdue.
I slip on a particularly slick patch of stone and barely catch myself on a lamppost, my free hand splayed against the cold metal.
A teenage boy passing by raises his eyebrows but doesn’t stop—possibly recognizing that I’ve reached a boss level of disaster, where helping might unlock an unwanted side quest.
“Just living my best life,” I mutter as he hurries past .
The narrow street opens into a slightly wider road with actual traffic—a promising sign of civilization and potential transportation options.
With its remaining 9% battery, my phone informs me that the bus station is allegedly just two blocks away.
Whether these are Canadian blocks or Scottish blocks remains to be determined, but having a destination feels like progress.
I think back to when I finally decided to buy the plane ticket. It was 2 AM, I was staring at a blinking cursor in my blank manuscript, and Brady had just sent me a voice message reading Keats in his smooth Edinburgh accent.
“Mills, I wish you could see the moon over Inverness Cathedral right now. It made me think of this...” And then his voice, seducing me with words written two centuries ago as if they were fresh and meant just for me.
The same voice that an hour ago had said, “My wife is inside.”
I’d booked the flight that night, fueled by career desperation, sexual attraction, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, being in Scotland, breathing its air, walking its streets, surprising the man who made poetry sound like a living language—would unlock whatever was frozen inside me.
“Find your inspiration,” Margot had said during our last video call. “Your first books had spark. They were romantic, funny and sexy. This new stuff reads like you’re trying to convince yourself that love is real. Readers will notice.”
She leaned closer to the screen, her chunky orange necklace clicking against her desk’s polished surface.
“This Brady guy—he’s doing something for you. You mentioned him three times in five minutes. Use that. Forget about London and Roxy Fairfax for now. Go have a fling with your Scottish historian. Write about it. Let love light you up again.”
So here I am. Lit up like a short-circuited Christmas display in the Scottish rain.
My phone buzzes, and I squint at the rain-splattered screen. It’s Lila.
“Hey. How are you? Please tell me you’re still at the airport?” her voice crackles through the speaker as she adds:
“Don’t go to Brady’s house.”
I stop walking to wipe raindrops off my forehead and eyes. “Oh, sweetie. I’m so glad you called! Hearing your voice right now is the only thing keeping me from hurling myself into Loch Ness.”
“Don’t do that, and don’t go to that address,” she presses on urgently. “He’s married, Mills.”
A bitter laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “I know.”
There’s a pause on her end. It’s shock. Or sympathy. Maybe both. Then she launches into an outraged tirade that would make any sailor blush .
“I woke up with this nagging doubt,” she continues. “So I dug deeper, did a reverse image search, and found his Other Facebook,” she spits this out like it’s a curse word, “the one he doesn’t use for dating sites.”
Her words hit like a thousand punches to the gut. Not once did I spot the wedding ring that Lila found so easily in his personal Facebook photos. Not once did I question why his apartment always looked so impersonal in our video chats.
Because it wasn’t his home, I now realize, but an office he deemed safe for our online chats, away from prying eyes and curious colleagues.
“He’s the worst kind of player,” she asserts with a bite in her voice that makes me wince. “And Brady isn’t even his real name. I’m so sorry, Mills.”
“What?” I choke out. “What’s his real name?” Despite everything, the question slips out before I can stop myself.
There’s a pause on the other end of the line before Lila sighs softly.
“Do you really need to know? He’s not worth another second of your time. From here on end, we shall call him Shitty McLiar.”
I groan, pressing my hand to my forehead. “God, I feel like such an idiot!”
“No way! You’re not the one at fault here,” she insists fiercely. “He’s the jerkface who lied and cheated. If I ever get my hands on him... ”
Her threat dissolves into mutters of creative punishment involving testicles and rope burns that make me chuckle loudly despite everything.
“Are you okay though?” Her voice softens then, anger giving way to genuine concern.
My response is more of a snort than anything else as I glance at the drizzling gray sky above me. Not exactly an image of ‘okay.’
“I’m lost, and not just figuratively. I wish I could bend time and have you materialize right here,” I admit to the open air, longing for my words to possess some magical power to summon her. “We’d wash down our sorrows with a bottle of Cabernet and two tubs of Ben suddenly, it’s like she’s sitting beside me.
I can practically see the twinkle in her hazel eyes reflecting concern for me.
But the harsh reality comes crashing back, and it’s just me: alone, soaked from the Scottish rain and nursing a shattered heart.
“So,” she says after a silence. “You coming home?”
“I dunno,” I take a deep breath. “I’m trying to get to the airport. But…I might stay the night? You still okay with babysitting Chanandler Bong? I might stay. I might need more time to unravel this book...and myself.”
“Anything for you,” she says brightly, “Even though he is the most high-maintenance feline I’ve ever encountered. Woke me up this morning by planting his furry body on my face.” There’s a brief silence before she adds, “More action than I’ve had in months if I’m honest.”
A giggle bubbles up from my chest. “You’re a gem,” I manage to squeeze out between laughs. “I owe you one. But I should probably hang up before my phone dies a painful death. I’ll call you back once I’ve solved the meaning of life...or, you know, after a warm meal and a bubble bath.”
The promised bus station finally appears ahead.
It’s a modern glass structure that looks almost obscenely dry from where I’m standing.
I quicken my pace, the prospect of shelter briefly outweighing my awareness of how I must look: a soggy eclair with raccoon eyes and a hairdo that’s transitioning from “stylishly curled” to “recently shocked by electric eels.”
Inside, the fluorescent lighting is merciless, highlighting every mud spot on my once-cute travel outfit. A man in a tweed newsboy cap behind the information counter observes my approach with the wary expression of someone who’s had to deal with too many tourist emergencies for one day.
“When’s the next airport bus, please?” I ask, summoning every last bit of my strength to lace my words with courtesy despite the bone-deep exhaustion tugging at me.