‘Hi, Kathy. I’m Deb. I’m working at the castle for a few weeks, organising the May Day party this year,’ Deb explained.
‘Nice tae meet ye. Let us know if ye need any help wi’ the caterin’ fer the party. Rory’s great and we’ve helped before.’ Kathy pointed to a wine on the list. ‘I recommend this one.’
‘Looks great. Thanks, and I’ll definitely bear that in mind.’ Deb nodded, pleased to be making some more local contacts. The people of Loch Cameron were all so keen to help her out. She liked that. She liked their kindness, which wasn’t something you found so much in big cities, where people could seem like they were more focused on themselves. ‘Oh, this is Kyle Abernethy, by the way.’
‘A pleasure,’ Kyle said, a little guardedly.
‘I recognise ye. From the housing development, aye.’ Kathy shook her head. ‘My friends aren’t happy with ye, no’ at all.’ She made atsknoise at Kyle.
‘Sorry to hear that,’ Kyle said, in a tone that implied he wasn’t sorry at all. ‘Perhaps you should tell your friends to come along to the next open community consultation, rather than blocking the end of my access road for no reason.’
‘Listen, I’m no’ getting’ involved.’ Kathy held her hands up in a defensive gesture. ‘I hardly have time tae do ma grocery shoppin’, what with workin’ here an’ finishin’ ma PhD. Ye can all fight it out amongst yerselves,’ she told him with a shrug.‘However, when I see the group, I’ll tell them there’s a… what did ye say? Community consultation?’
‘Yes. There was actually one before the project began, but I thought I should probably hold another one, since there has been such virulent local opposition to the new houses. Which, I might add, will be affordable and sustainably built.’ Kyle met Deb’s eyes. ‘It was good advice. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Deb was surprised that Kyle had taken in what she’d said. She was uncomfortable at being seen by someone from the crochet coven with Kyle, though: even though Kathy seemed all right about it, she could only imagine what June and Mina and the rest of them would say. Deb was immediately on edge. She couldn’t relax, knowing that Kathy might recount everything she and Kyle did back to the group.Ah, they looked very cosy, Deb imagined Kathy saying.I doubt there’s many secrets between them. We cannae trust that one, aye. Sleepin’ wi’ the enemy.
‘All right, well, let me get yer wine. An’ …point taken.’ Kathy nodded, and retreated behind the small corner bar.
‘Sorry, if I was a bit terse, just then,’ Kyle said with a sigh. ‘I just get really annoyed with all of this negativity around the project. I’ve done everything by the book and people just seem to want to make up their own version of the truth.’
‘That’s okay. I guess I’d be frustrated if the same thing had happened to me.’ Deb smiled thinly, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what Kathy might tell the crochet coven.
‘Hmm. You okay?’ Kyle gave her a penetrating look. ‘That didn’t upset you, did it? It’s just business. It’s not personal. I don’t want you to think… I dunno. It looks bad for you to be seen with me.’
Deb was surprised at Kyle’s intuition of what she was thinking.
‘I don’t think that,’ she said, not entirely truthfully. ‘It’s just… I do want to keep the crochet coven on side, while I’m working on the May Day party. They do seem to be quite influential.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I feel like they could make things difficult, if they wanted to.’
‘No kidding. I can’t relate to that at all.’ Kyle rolled his eyes. ‘But, listen. Don’t worry. I’m the big bad wolf here, not you. Okay?’ he reached for her hand across the table.
‘Okay.’ The warmth from Kyle’s hand lent a glow of pleasure to hers: she didn’t want him to take his hand away.
‘Shall we change the subject? You were saying you played a lot of rugby at school?’ This evening, Kyle was wearing a fitted dark blue jumper and black jeans. Deb had definitely noticed how good he looked in both: the jumper wasn’t by any means skintight, but it skimmed his large, muscular arms and shoulders and made her look at his corded, strong neck. For some reason, just looking at his neck made Deb think about what was under that jumper.
For goodness’ sake, she berated herself.What are you, a teenage boy?
But I want to strip that jumper off him and kiss everything underneath, her inner horny teenager whined.It looks so gooooood.
Deb allowed herself a small half-smile: she’d had a good look at the menu and had had somewhat the same reaction to the fillet steak. She was, in fact, thinking about Kyle more or less like a piece of meat. She’d never thought this way about a man before, but… she actually didn’t hate it. Goodness knows where it was coming from – maybe she was in the midst of a perimenopausal hormone rush, butdamnshe wanted to jump on that fine looking man.
Deborah. Really.She tried to discipline her thoughts, while also trying not to giggle. Hormones definitely made sense,actually, in a way, though she’d kept her ovaries in the hysterectomy. You could have them removed, and that would cause immediate menopause: her gynaecologist had advised that she might as well keep them, as that wasn’t where the problem was for her.
But maybe there was something in the fact that she suddenly wasn’t in pain, or uncomfortable, or constantly bleeding anymore. Whatever it was, it was a revelation.
‘Yeah. I like to stay active.’ He smiled as Kathy brought over the bottle of wine and a basket of aromatic, yeasty bread. ‘That looks awesome. Thanks.’
‘Welcome.’ Kathy nodded. She shot Deb a friendly smile, which made her feel a little better. Kathy didn’t seem to have a problem with Deb. Maybe she wouldn’t gossip to her friends about her and Kyle – or, if she did, maybe she would be kind. ‘Can I take your orders?’
They both ordered the steak, which amused Deb. She broke off some of the warm bread and sighed happily as she put it in her mouth. It was completely delicious: soft on the inside, with a salty, buttery crust.
‘Okay, then. Tell me about why you’re single,’ Deb said, her mouth full of bread.
‘You’re really interviewing me here.’ Kyle frowned.
‘You don’t have to answer, if it’s too personal.’ Deb folded her napkin into a tight square, purposefully looking away from him. ‘Sorry, I can be too inquisitive, I guess. Force of habit.’
‘I was seeing someone until about a year ago. Right person, wrong time, maybe. I don’t know.’ He looked away. ‘Sorry. I don’t really want to talk about it. Bad breakup.’
