“Hiya, um, I’m Georgie Fitzgerald,” I tell the woman behind the desk. “I work for McLaren Hotels, and I’m picking up a car?”
She gives me a friendly smile and taps on her keyboard. “Let me check the system for you, love. Though it won’t be a car.”
“Oh?” I frown. What the hell will it be?
She squints at the screen, then bellows over her shoulder: “Angus! Miss Fitzgerald’s here. Can you take her out back?”
A burly guy in his fifties appears, all salt-and-pepper beard and weathered lines, looking like he’s just wandered off a shortbread tin. “Aye, of course.” He grabs my suitcase. “This way, lass.”
I follow him through a door, expecting… I don’t know. A communal minibus with tartan seat covers, maybe.
What I do not expect is a runway. With helicopters.
“Head straight down to bay forty-two,” Angus says cheerfully, setting my suitcase beside me. “Mind and stay on the path. We’ve had folk wandering before.”
I’m sorry, what?
“Mycaris down there?” I squeak.
He looks at me like I’ve just asked if haggis grows on trees. “Car? No, lass. Mr. McLaren’s ready for departure.”
My stomach backflips.
“Mr.McLaren?”
“Aye.” He shrugs. “Best have a wee chat with him yourself.”
With that helpful nugget, off he goes, leaving me alone with my roller suitcase and a deep sense of unease.
I walk shakily down a tarmac path lined with helicopters. My suitcase bumps along behind me like it’s just as confused as I am.
This can’t be right. Surely they’re nothelicopteringme to Skye?
And surely they don’t meanthatMcLaren.
McLaren’s common in Scotland. Like Smith in England. Must be some other McLaren. Maybe a cheerful, nonthreatening Bob McLaren, who works here, with a beer belly and a receding hairline.
I reach bay forty-two.
Oh fuck.
There’s not a Ford Focus or a harmless Bob in sight.
Just six feet plus of pure masculinity leaning against a matte-black helicopter withMcLaren Hotelsgleaming in sleek silver lettering.
He looks like he was ripped from a Bond film. Dark aviators that hide those blue eyes. The kind of man who’d shout, “We’re not leaving anyone behind” while something explodes behind him.
This is so much worse than Office Patrick.
He runs a hand along a helicopter blade, checking for… blade problems? Loose helicopter bits?
“Patrick?” I squeak. It comes out like a question, as if there’s any possibility this is some other intimidatingly handsome man in aviators leaning against a helicopter with his name on it.
He turns toward me. Even through the dark lenses, I can feel him cataloging every tragic detail of my appearance.
“Georgie.”
“Yeah, um, I was told to come here, but I think there’s been a mistake?”
