What would be gained by telling Catriona any of it now? He hadn’t been able to tell her back then, when it might have made a difference – when a more adult approach might have seen him approaching the McAllisters, having them reassure him, laying his fears to rest, giving him and Catriona their blessing. He wouldn’t have cared what his father thought, if that had happened. But instead, he’d panicked, the thought of destroying what Catriona knew about her life too much for him to bear. So, believing it to be the best decision for Catriona, he’d broken up with her, and had run away instead.
As he walked Catriona to the door, she studied him, her brow furrowing as she did so.
‘This has been good. I’m glad I called you.’
‘So am I,’ he said.
‘You’re beginning to turn it around, you know, in the village. Did anyone ever tell you what they used to call your father?’ When he shook his head, she said, ‘The ogre. They’ll never say it to your face, obviously.’
‘But you have.’
‘Yes, but I don’t consider myself to be a local any longer, not really. My life is in Aberdeen, and that suits me very well.’
‘I’m happy for you, Catriona. I never wanted anything but the best for you, I want you to know that. And I handled things so very badly, back then. I’m so sorry.’
‘I don’t think we would have worked, anyway. We were way too young to know what we really wanted, and now I’ve found it, with Greg, I can see that this—’ She waved a hand around to indicate their surroundings. ‘This would never have been right for me.’
‘I wasn’t sure it was right for me, either. But now …’ He wanted to tell her how he felt about Jess, how she’d made him feel about the castle, but he stopped short. He wanted to keep those emotions to himself, for now at least. ‘Well, suffice to say I’m going to do my best to set this place straight.’
‘Rather you than me,’ she said, her nose wrinkling as she grinned. ‘I’ll see you around the village over the next few days, I expect.’
Catriona took her leave and, as she headed away from the castle, Sebastian took shelter back inside the building, keen to find Jess. With no sign of anyone in the dining room, he made a circuit of the downstairs, eventually locating the rest of the family in the breakfast room, where they were watching the children take turns on the rocking horse.
‘Where’s Jess?’ he said, looking from one person to the next. Nobody seemed to have any idea, not even Vivi, who was watching him closely.
‘Maybe you should go and find her,’ she said, an edge to her voice he hadn’t heard before.
When he realised there was no sign of Digby either, Sebastian dialled Jess’s number, frowning as he stuck his unanswered mobile back into his pocket. Heading outside, he tried Robbie’s cottage, then trudged to the village, cursing his footwear as he slipped through the snow and wondering why Jess had walked so far when a simple leg-stretch would have been enough for the dog.
On the bridge, Sebastian shook the snow from his shoulders, shivered and looked around. He had a relatively good view from here, but he couldn’t see anyone, let alone Jess and Digby.
He tried to call Jess again, frustration morphing into concern when she still didn’t pick up. He checked his phone – there was a decent amount of signal, the call was ringing through, so why wasn’t she answering?
Not knowing what else to do, he messaged her, then stuck the phone back in his pocket. He was about to head back, maybe try his luck in the wood, or out towards the waterfall, when he thought he caught sight of something other than the muted landscape of greys and browns and snowy whites. Something right down by the autumn sheep pastures, where the ground dropped away steeply, and boulders hid the extent of the gradient. It was navy blue, and human-shaped. Waving with both arms high and outstretched.
It was Jess.
Sebastian took the most direct route, out past the tarmac road and down the farmer’s track. The frozen ground was rutted beneath his shoes, slowing his progress, while to either side ran strands of barbed wire pinned to wooden posts and dotted all along with tufts of dirty grey wool. He picked up the pace as best he could when the track turned to open ground. Jess waved until she was sure he had seen her, then she dropped to her knees, with her back to him – as though she was looking for something. Where was the dog? Was it Digby she was searching for?
The situation became all too clear as he drew close, and he sucked in a sharp breath.
‘What happened?’ he said, dropping onto his haunches beside her.
‘I don’t know. I suppose I should know better by now than to let him off the lead, but I wasn’t really thinking straight. One minute we were stomping along, and the next he sort of scrabbled in the snow and disappeared. It was like something out of a nightmare. And then I dropped my phone when I tried to call for help – it’s lost down there somewhere.’ She gestured to the thick covering of snow beyond the dog, disfigured by footprints and what looked like frantic, random digging. ‘I’ve looked, but I can’t find it, and I’ve tried to pull him out, but every time I pull he makes this terrible noise and I’m frightened I’m hurting him even more.’
The dog had managed to get himself wedged head-first between a couple of low boulders where the ground dropped away. He must have gone in like an arrow; his little body was utterly wedged in the gap, with his back feet protruding – the space tailor-made for a wayward cockapoo.
Without the snow, there wouldn’t have been a problem – both human and canine would have seen the boulders, and the hole between them, and would have avoided them accordingly. But hidden under a layer of ever-thickening snow, it was no wonder the little dog hadn’t noticed his footing, or lack of it, until it was too late, and had slipped into the gap.
Sebastian rounded the other side of the stones; the gap this side was even narrower than where Digby had fallen in. He could make out the dog’s face, glimpses of the panicked whites of his eyes, lips pulled back in a frightened snarl. ‘Hey little man. Don’t worry, you’re going to be all right.’
‘He’s totally wedged. I tried pulling at the boulders,’ Jess said, distress catching in every word. ‘But I can’t move them. I’m worried he can’t breathe properly.’
She was doing her best to hold it together, but he heard the sob as she said, ‘What if he dies? Vivi will never forgive me – she says she owes him her life; he wouldn’t let up barking after she fell and broke her hip, didn’t stop until the neighbours called the emergency services. He can’t die, Sebastian. He can’t …’
‘We need some help,’ he said. ‘I’ll call the farmer. He’ll be able to move these rocks.’ Sebastian hoped he sounded convincing, but the truth was it was perfectly possible that the parts of the rocks they could see were simply the tips of two enormous granite icebergs, and that, even with ropes and the pulling power of a tractor, the dog might remain stuck. He called the farmer, grateful when the man said he’d head straight out. And with Jess’s focus on calming the dog, Sebastian dialled her number and cleared snow to try to locate her phone. Eventually he heard it ring, celebrating a small victory when he pulled it free from the snow and handed it to her.
‘What possessed you to head out this way? I almost didn’t see you at all,’ he said.
