Usually writing was my distraction.
Opening my eyes, the first thing I saw was her book.
Hollow Graveby S. M. Brodie.
It suddenly looked more like a life raft than pages bound together, so I kicked off my shoes and clambered onto the bed. Picking up the hefty tome, I pried it open and hoped like hell Sarah McCulloch was about to surprise me some more.
Two
SARAH
“Are you sure about this?”
Closing the boot of my car where Jared had just placed my suitcase, I turned to look up at him. When my cousin arrived on the farm almost five years ago, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Never in my wildest imaginings would I expect us to become best friends, for Jared to be like the younger brother I’d never had. Even if he acted like my big brother most of the time. The thought brought a tender smile to my face, and I reached out to squeeze his arm in reassurance. “I’ll be fine.”
He gazed down at me with green eyes the exact shade as mine. We’d inherited the unusual color from our fathers, who’d inherited them from our grandmother. “I don’t like you being so far away by yourself.”
“I’ll be two hours away.”
Jared’s handsome face tightened. “Aye, in a cottage, by yourself.”
“I hate to break this to you, Jar, but I’m thirty-one years old and I can take care of myself.”
“I know. But I worry.”
With the staggering new fortune I’d amassed in the last year, I’d purchased a small cottage in a coastal village in the North-West Highlands, in a pretty, wee village called Gairloch. It had a beach like Ardnoch but was much smaller, and the waters turned turquoise like the Mediterranean. Our grandpa used to take me to that beach every summer when I was a wee girl. Now I’d packed my bags, intent on spending a few months there writing the next book in the Juno McLeod series.
What Jared didn’t say, yet I knew was behind part of his agitation, was that he’d miss me.
I was twelve years old when I officially moved in with my grandpa and Nana. Their eldest son, my father, died in a farming accident when I was a baby. Afterward, Mum left Ardnoch and took me home with her to Dundee. But she was devastated after losing my father, and she struggled with depression and substance abuse. I spent summers with my grandparents, but when I was twelve, things got so bad at home, I plucked up the courage to call my grandpa. He didn’t just come to collect me this time. Grandpa brought the police and social services.
After that, Mum didn’t put up a fight. Custody was granted to my grandparents. A few years later, Nana died, and it was just me and Grandpa. He was my whole world.
Over the years, my cousin Jared would stay with us during the summer holidays, but he was a very angry young man, six years younger than me. We didn’t have much in common. Or so we thought. My uncle, my dad’s younger brother, hadn’t wanted anything to do with the farm and left Ardnoch at eighteen. He’d spent most of his life abandoning anything that required responsibility and commitment. Including Jared. And we discovered Jared’s life with his mum in Glasgow wasn’t easy in a very similar way to mine.
Jared called Grandpa when he was twenty-one and asked if he could come work on the farm. He was heading down adangerous path and was smart enough to know he needed to make a change. Grandpa didn’t even have to think about it. Jared moved into the farmhouse a few days later. And he threw himself at the work.
I think even he was surprised by how much he grew to love the farm. Grandpa left the farm to both of us. Fifty-fifty. However, I gave my half to Jared. The farm to mewasGrandpa. And he was gone now. But the farm was in Jared’s blood, and I wanted him to have it.
“I’ll miss you too,” I promised him. “I’ll call and then I’ll be back at Christmas.” Our first Christmas without Grandpa. Tears stung my eyes at the thought, and Jared’s face softened with understanding.
“Come here.” He pulled me into his strong embrace, resting his chin on top of my head as we held on to each other. “If you get lonely out there, you come back. No persevering through it because you think you should or because you think I need space.”
I smiled against his chest. “Okay, big brother.”
He snorted at that, kissed the top of my head, and released me. “And don’t worry about me. I’ve got plenty here to keep me busy.”
My brow furrowed. I doubted many people realized that farming was one of the most stressful jobs ever. When your income depended on the climate and you lived in the Scottish Highlands, it could be utterly soul-destroying. We’d seen crops fail because of inclement weather, crops my grandpa and Jared had poured their sweat and blood into.
“I’ve got Georgie and Enzo,” he reminded me, referring to the farmhands who’d worked on the farm for the last three years. I’d seen a few farmhands come and go, but Georgie and Enzo were closer to Jared’s age, and the three of them worked well together and enjoyed each other’s company.
“And whatever girl you take a fancy to this week,” I teased. Jared had a bit of a reputation in Ardnoch for being a player. It didn’t matter if he was no longer quite so much the playboy he’d once been, especially as he had such little time to do so now. He’d garnered the reputation during those first few years when he’d slept with every eligible woman in the village and beyond, from here to Inverness.
Jared rolled his eyes. “Aye, like I’ve got time for that.”
“Make time.” I patted his arm. “You know what they say. All work and no play …”
He grinned. “Aye? You planning on taking your own advice, Sister Sarah?”
