We’d talked for a little while and she said she’d fly over, but I told her not to. I wanted her to, but it was a long flight, and I knew it wasn’t easy for her to get time off. When London texted me two days later from a new number without explaining why she had a new number, my mind started racing. Whyhadn’tNick relayed Cammie’s message? Why didn’t London see the voicemail or calls? Why did that mean she needed a new number?
I thought about my concerns regarding Nick in general. After the blinders had been lifted about Hugh, it worried me that he and Nick were such good friends. I’d grown to think of them as two peas in a pod. Were they two peas in a narcissistic, controlling pod?
Now I was anxious about London on top of everything else.
London wasn’t a problem I could solve right now while I was still recovering.
But Ramsay … Ramsay was a problem I knew I needed to face, or I’d drive myself crazy.
By the time I reached the hilly driveway that led up to the B and B, I felt a little twinge in my gut and my limbs were shaky. What shocked me more than anything was how much my whole body needed time to recover from the attack. I grew exhausted easily and couldn’t wait for my energy levels to return to normal.
“Ms. Silver.”
I turned from where I’d stopped to take a moment’s rest.
The young man walking toward me was familiar. Dressed in paint-splattered coveralls, I recognized him as a member of Quinn’s crew. He had a coffee cup in hand as he hurried toward me, his brow furrowed.
“Fit like?” he asked.
I stared at him in confusion and then down at my feet because I knew the Scots sometimes pronouncedfootasfit.
He chuckled. “Jus’ askin’ how ye are? Should ye be oot and aboot like this?” he asked in his thick Scots accent.
I gave him a tired smile. “I’ve been walking a little farther each day. And I miss the B and B. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Greig,” he offered, pronouncing it likeGreeg. “Ah dae all the plasterwork an’ painting fer Quinn.”
“Greig. Hi. You’re not from Glenvulin, though, right?”
“Originally Banff. Noo Oban. I stay wae a friend here in Leth Sholas an’ then heid back tae Oban at the weekends.” He gave me a cheeky smile as he offered me his arm. “Want tae lean on me?”
Greig was good-looking with close-cropped auburn hair and a strawberry blond beard. He had freckles and light blue eyes. He was also probably only a year or so younger than me and yet he seemed too young for me to find attractive.
Ramsay had ruined me for men my own age.
He’d just ruined me, period.
Asshole.
Gratefully, I took Greig’s arm, and we began our ascent. “I thought I could make it. I’ve been getting better every day.”
“I think ye’are amazing. Most folk might hole up in their hoose after what ye’ve bin through.”
I wanted to. But I knew that was a path to nowhere good. When I first left the house, I’d been constantly looking over my shoulder, feeling vulnerable in a way I’d never experienced. Over the last few times, that feeling of needing to be hypervigilant had eased somewhat.
It helped to know my attacker, Shawn Prescott, hadn’t been granted bail.
“Thanks. You … gotta get on with it, right?”
“Ye were born tae be an islander, Ms. Silver,” Greig replied with a grin. “Even if ye are fair trauchled by this here hill.”
I chuckled because clearly, I hadn’t hidden how out of breath I was by the climb. “Trauchled. I’ve never heard that one. Exhausted, though, right?”
“Aye.”
“Your accent is so different.”
“It’s the Doric dialect. Even Lowlanders huv a hard go understandin’ it. Yer doin’ weel. Even if yer pechin.”
