Chapter One
Jenna
Land’s End, Cornwall
874 miles apart
Sorry. Hold on. Wee issue with the camera again.’
‘Oh, no. The Cam camagain? Who’d have thought it! Can you call Tech?’
‘Ha ha. Of course I can call Tech. I have a whole Google-HQ-sized department of techies waiting for me to call because I can’t get the video to work.’
Jenna tried not to laugh. She’d been video-calling Cameron Munro several times a week for ages. They both worked for the not-for-profit organisation End-to-End, helping walkers and cyclists undertake the longest route in the United Kingdom – from the very top of Scotland to England’s south-westerly tip – to raise money for charity.
Jenna was based in the Land’s End head office at the ‘toe’ of Cornwall, while Cameron lived in the village of John O’Groats, in the far northern tip of Scotland. Helping people to make this challenging journey and raise awareness for thegood causes and charities they supported made Jenna happier than almost anything.
Approximately twenty per cent of their calls began with Cam’s voice emerging from her laptop screen, usually frustrated, sometimes resigned – but always sexy. Not that she would everdreamof telling him, or anyone else, that she found his Highlands accent sexy. It would be highly inappropriate in the circumstances, even if every syllable conjured up images of rugged moorland, granite rocks covered in velvety lichen and soft rain falling as an autumn day drew to a close.
‘Sh—’ Cameron bit back the expletive and Jenna could hear furious tapping from the laptop. ‘Aha! All righty. Here I am. Sorry for the scruffy appearance. I literally just got back from a run.’
‘Literally?’ Jenna raised her eyebrows.
Cameron blinked at her from the screen, shoving a damp lock of toffee-brown hair off his face. ‘Yes. Obviously I’ve had a shower first, otherwise it would have been weird. I was all sweaty.’
All sweaty.Hmm. Jenna rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t know why you bothered. Teams hasn’t created a multisensory video call function yet, as far as I know.’
‘Thank God.’
He peered into the camera, treating her to a close-up of the light sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
‘Um. Jenna.’
‘What?’
‘You have – um – some cream on the end of your nose.’
‘What?’ Jenna grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk and dabbed hastily at the tip of her nose. ‘Sorry. Very unprofessional of me. The boss bought us all 99 ice cream cones to celebrate the Big Teddy Bear Hike to support thehospice in Cardiff. They raised over fifty grand and were delighted with the feature we got on breakfast telly.’
‘I saw it. Great result and lucky you. No one bought me anything to celebrate and besides, I’ve no boss and it’s not ice cream weather. It’s lashing down outside and blowing a hoolie. It’s more like December than late May.’
‘Oh. It’s quite breezy here, but it always is. Being Land’s End, of course,’ Jenna added. ‘I’ll send you a virtual ice cream up to Scotland anyway.’
‘A virtual hot chocolate might be a better idea. With a dram in it.’
Jenna laughed. Cam gave his trademark lopsided, half-ironic smile. They chatted a little more about the weather, how the bluebells were almost finished in Cornwall while Scottish primroses had just begun to show their yellow faces on the wild moorland around John O’Groats.
Then they moved on to the purpose of the call: updates on the current End-to-End challenges they were coordinating. The iconic route was officially 874 miles by motorway, but many people taking on the challenge followed the scenic route, which increased the distance to well over a thousand miles.
Some ran, some walked. On foot, it took two to three months along rugged trails and country roads, though a keen runner had once done it in under ten days.
Others chose to bike, usually spending two to three bum-numbing weeks in the saddle. A few took to unicycles, tricycles, penny farthings – one man had even pogo-sticked the whole route. It was their choice whether to do theJogle– from John O’Groats to Cornwall – or theLejog– starting at Land’s End and ending up in John O’Groats, with its scattering of gift shops, cafés and apparently a beautifulVictorian hotel clustered around a tiny harbour. Not that Jenna would know.
As well as helping to coordinate the journeys, Cam did his best to greet every end-to-ender, cheering them on, taking photos and trying to get as much press and online coverage as he could.
Unlike Jenna, who worked at the much larger Land’s End attraction, which drew in thousands of tourists every day in the summer, Cam worked freelance for the End-to-End organisation. He’d told Jenna over their many calls that he lived in a cottage along the coast, half a mile from the tourist attractions yet within a ten-minute walk of the village, where his parents and his sister, Hannah, and nephew, Lachlan, were based.
He’d left his tech job in Edinburgh to head back home to John O’Groats and work for End-to-End. Since Jenna’s boss had met Cam at a tourism conference and suggested they work together, Jenna’s job had got a lot easier. He just seemed to get that they needed to be quick to respond, that the job would be busy ... and, well, it wasn’t a straightforward nine to five.
