“Oh Morag, you’re terrible!” Janet shook her head and grinned at her best friend’s story. She had met the rascally redheaded Morag three years past when she’d first started working as the liaison between her firm and the whiskey distillery in Nairn. The duo had hit it off famously and had been inseparable ever since. “Did he really call it…” She waggled her eyebrows and chuckled. “…a love hammer?”
Morag snorted at that. “Yea he did. Can you imagine? That wee bitty thing…having the nerve to call it a hammer?”
Janet stretched her arms above her head as she yawned, absently thrusting her breasts outward. Many a man in the pub noticed and appreciated the view, but as usual, she was oblivious to their perusal.
Her green eyes sparkled playfully. “I’ve never seen it,” she grinned, “but you’ve told me enough about it that I’d have to agree with you.”
One red eyebrow shot up mockingly. “More like a lovepencilI’d say.”
The women laughed together, then moved on to another topic. Morag waved her fork through the air, punctuating her words as she spoke. “So are you going to take that promotion or no’?”
“I don’t know.” Janet sighed, her demeanor growing serious. “It would mean a great deal more money, but it would also mean that I wouldn’t be traveling to Nairn every few weeks anymore. I’d be at corporate headquarters instead.”
Morag’s chewing ceased abruptly. Her blue eyes widened. “You wouldn’t be coming to Scotland?”
Janet looked away. “No. Not very often.”
“How often?”
She shrugged, though the gesture was far from casual. “Once or twice a year,” she murmured.
“Once or twice a year?” Morag screeched. “Oh Janet, that’s no’ verra good news.”
She could only sigh at that. “I know.”
The women sat in silence for a few minutes, both of them lost in the implications of what it would mean to their friendship if Janet took the promotion her company was preparing to offer her. They’d hardly see each other. And they both knew it.
“Well,” Morag said quietly after a few more heartbeats had ticked by, “selfish or no’, I’m hoping you don’t take the offer.”
Janet’s tawny head shot up. She searched her best friend’s gaze for answers. “What will I do if they fire me?”
Morag thought that over for a minute. “We’ve talked about going into business together more than once,” she said hopefully.
“True.”
Morag grinned. “Sounds like the perfect time to do it then.”
Janet’s lips curled into a wry smile. “I hadn’t considered that option.”
“Then consider it.” Morag glanced down at her watch. “But consider it as we walk back towards the inn. I’m on duty for the late shift tonight.”
“Oh of course.” Janet stood immediately, having momentarily forgotten that it was her best friend’s job to run the small cozy inn her family owned and operated in the middle of Nairn. But then Morag didn’t typically work nights. She only was this week because her brothers were off visiting friends in Inverness.
Janet didn’t particularly care for either of Morag’s brothers. In her opinion, they treated their twenty-five-year-old sister more like a worker bee than as a sibling and an equal partner in their deceased parents’ heirloom of an inn. But Janet had never said as much to Morag. She figured if her friend wanted to talk about it, well, then she knew she was always willing and happy to listen.
The women paid their tabs and said their goodbyes to the other pub patrons, then made their way towards the door. Janet pulled on her cloak and buttoned it up after the brisk Highland winds hit her square in the face, underscoring the fact that the temperature had plummeted in the little time they’d been squirreled away inside of the tavern.
“It’s foggy out there tonight,” Morag commented as she donned her own cloak. “More so than what’s normal.”
Janet studied the tendrils of mist with a curious eye as an inexplicable chill of uneasiness coursed down her spine. Shrugging off the bizarre feeling, she closed the pub’s door and followed Morag outside into the dense cloudy formation.
“Yes,” she agreed as they walked down the street. “It’s strange out tonight.”
* * * * *
“Morag,” Janet said as her eyes struggled to penetrate the surrounding mist, “I can’t tell which way is up let alone which way heads east toward the inn.”
“Neither can I.” She sighed. “Good God Janet, this fog is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
