‘Who are you?’ he asked, stepping in front of her and blocking her exit. ‘Are you staying here? I can’t see any solo guests on the bed and breakfast list.’
She shivered, and the alarm in her head began to sound again, this time screaming its lungs out. Suddenly, this perfect little town, this lovely fairy-tale place, didn’t seem so welcoming.
She stared at him helplessly, her head pounding, a gale rushing in her ears. Her throat felt as if someone had threaded a drawstring around it and pulled it tight. The room began to swim around her and she shot out a hand and gripped onto the edge of a table to stop herself from falling.
She couldn’t answer his question, she realised, as she began to shake from head to toe. Because she didn’t know what her name was. She just didn’t know.
Chapter Six
Now.
BEN FINISHED THE last bite of his full Scottish breakfast and pushed his knife and fork together. He was stuffed but, with any luck, he wouldn’t need to eat again until early evening, which meant he’d be able to power through lunch. The burst pipe in one of the cottages last week meant renovations had fallen behind, and he needed to get a move on if he had any hope of finishing them on schedule. Come tourist season, he was aiming to not only have a new home but three shiny and updated lochside cottages as holiday rentals as well.
He pushed his chair back and stood up, picked up his plate and headed for the dishwasher.
‘You’ll not have another potato scone?’ his Aunt Norina asked, glancing over her shoulder from where she was cooking enough to feed an army. On the other side of the kitchen, the current guests of her bed and breakfast were sitting around the long pine table, hungry and expectant.
Ben shook his head.
‘Coffee, then? You like a good cup of coffee.’
He walked over to his aunt and kissed her on the top of her head as she flipped bacon over in the large frying pan.He had to bend a little to do it, seeing as he was six foot four and she was only four foot eleven, and then he headed out of the kitchen and across the hall.
He walked up the short, dead-end street where the B&B sat, past the Invergarrig Inn to the centre of the town, enjoying the comparative silence of the outdoors. He’d been back in his hometown for almost a year now. It seemed like an age. And while he was grateful to his Aunt Norina for giving up one of her rentable rooms so he could have a permanent residence, he’d been counting down the days until the renovations on his cottage would be finished and he could move in. Privacy … Breakfast without an audience. Sounded like bliss.
And now the day was almost here. There were a few more jobs to do, but some of those could be done after the move. If it were up to him, he’d have camped out while the work carried on – sleeping bag on the floor, propane stove for cooking until the electrics were done, but that wasn’t an option this time. He had Willow to think about.
First things first. Before he got started on fixing the new plug sockets to the wall in the second bedroom, he was going to have apropercoffee. The stuff his aunt ran through her filter machine was disgusting. His plan was to get a takeaway Americano and head down to the pier so he could drink it listening to the waves, watching the shifting reflections of the mountains on the loch.
He lifted his hand to brush his thick hair out of his eyes and realised that he still had pale-pink nail polish on one hand. If Rick, the local builder, saw this on his fingers when they met up for a quick pint at lunchtime to discuss a plastering quote, he’d never let him live it down. But Willow had wanted to give him a ‘glow up’ last night,and he found it hard to resist his five-year-old niece anything.
Just as he did every morning, he passed the newsagents, the whisky shop and three gift shops on his way down the High Street. He could recite the shop names in order, and who owned them, when he was lying in his bed at night, dreaming about sun-kissed beaches and lush rainforests. He supposed some people found comfort in this kind of monotony, and he was going to have to try, even if it nearly killed him.
He was a couple of doors down from The Thistle Café when he realised a commotion was taking place on the pavement outside. Rob, the owner’s son, was arguing with a woman. ‘You can’t leave,’ he was saying. ‘You’ve not paid!’
The woman, who wasn’t even wearing a decent coat, despite the chilly wind blowing off the loch, just stared back at Rob, her breath coming in short gasps. She looked like she was going to bolt down the street at any second.
Ben drew closer. He knew the tell-tale signs of a panic attack when he saw one. ‘What’s going on?’
Rob gestured towards the woman, pink in the face. ‘She’s trying to skip out on her breakfast!’
‘Is that right?’ Ben asked, and the woman turned to look at him, blinking, her mouth half-open, as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.
For a moment, the world stood still. ‘Lili …?’ Ben sputtered, his brain rapidly trying to process what his eyes were telling him.
Was it? Was it her?
And if it was, what was she doing here? In this place, in this town?
Rob’s eyes widened. ‘You know her?’ He turned to the woman. ‘You know him?’
She flicked a glance in his direction and shook her head, but she was still caught in the grip of the panic. Her own mother could have been standing there, and she’d probably have declared her a stranger. There was no way Rob was going to get any sense – or any money – out of her while she was in a state like this.
Ben pulled a ten-pound note from his pocket and handed it to Rob. ‘This should cover it.’
Rob didn’t look pleased, but he could hardly complain in front of a queue of waiting customers, so he disappeared back inside, shoving the money in the pocket of his apron. Ben put a gentle hand on the woman’s arm and steered her down the High Street towards the loch. When they reached the well-kept green just before the shore, he turned left towards the small stone pier.
When they were safely away from prying eyes, he talked to her in a low, calm voice, the same way he’d done for his sister more times than he could count. It was a struggle, but eventually, she began to regulate her breathing, seemed as if she was gaining a little control. ‘Th—thank you,’ she said hoarsely.
