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“Cheers!” she says.

“Slàinte mhath!”

“Slan . . . ja . . . va? Did I get that right?”

“Sounded good to me. Don’t go testing me on my Gaelic, though. It’s pretty basic.”

We drink.

“Mmm,” Emily says. “It’s pretty special to be drinking a Glen Garve in Glen Garve.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about it like that before, but I suppose it is. Maybe I should have ordered a whisky too.” I take another sip of my lager.

“Ally, I get the impression you’re a pretty private person. Am I right?”

I nod, wondering where she’s going with this. “Aye.”

“Well, I’m normally the complete opposite, a total extrovert who loves talking about myself and who loves being around other people. This?” She points to herself. “This is new territory for me. So how about we switch roles for the night? I’ll play the quiet person who prefers asking questions to answering them, and you can play the extrovert who just can’t shut up. What do you think?”

“Sounds terrifying.” I lift my glass and take a very long swig of beer. “But what the hell, let’s give it a shot.”

Emily’s eyes sparkle with delight. She leans in closer. “All right, let’s start with something easy. Have you lived in Bannock all your life?”

I nod.

“Didn’t you ever want to try living somewhere else? Somewhere bigger?”

“Hmm. Growing up, I had a few pals who couldn’t wait to leave Bannock, who felt it was too small. Not me, though. I always knew I’d spend my life here. I love Bannock: it’s home. Having said that, I was supposed to tour the world with Aidan—explore other countries and cultures before coming back here and settling down—but . . . that never happened. Well, Aidan went, but I . . . couldn’t.”

I take a big gulp of my lager before putting the glass back down with a little more force than I intended.

Her expression changes from amusement to concern. “That was supposed to be an innocent question, but I’ve already touched on something sensitive, haven’t I?”

I spot Maisie coming over with Emily’s wine, so I don’t answer straight away, instead taking a few moments to gather my thoughts. Only once Maisie has left again do I speak.

“I should be able to talk about it. I mean, it’s been five years. If I can’t talk about it now, I’ll never be able to.” I take a deep breath. “Well, you already know my maw and da are dead—I told you that. It was a car crash. Jamie was in the back—he survived—but Maw and Da didn’t.”

“Oh my God!” Emily covers her mouth with her hand. “That’s awful.”

“Aye, well, obviously the trip with Aidan couldn’t go ahead. One day, I had a maw and da. The next, they were gone, and suddenly I was responsible for both the hotel and my three younger siblings. Jamie and Cat were still teenagers at the time, and Jamie was left with these injuries and a long recovery period . . .”

I take another gulp of my beer. “The extension you saw today? The one that’s unfinished? It’s been like that since the day I lost my parents. Adding a function room was something they’d wanted to do for ages, and since us four kids were all getting older and less reliant on them, they were finally doing it. They had this plan to upgrade the rest of the hotel too afterwards. They were so excited about it, excited about the future. And then . . .”

I shrug. “Well, I told Aidan he’d just have to tour the world by himself. Since then, I’ve done my best for my siblings and the best I can for the business, but it’s not what I’d planned for my life. As for Maw and Da’s big upgrade plans, it was hard enough for me to keep my head above the water with the day-to-day running of the hotel and with looking out for two brothers and a sister, especially Jamie with all his hospital appointments. There was no way I could think about an extension and a refurb too—my head would have exploded. So I put a stop to all that stuff.”

I look down at the table and scratch my stubble. “Shit, we’ve not even had our starters yet. That got heavy quickly. Sorry.”

Emily reaches across and places a hand on top of mine, her touch soft and gentle against my skin. I raise my gaze to meet caring eyes and a supportive expression. She withdraws her hand again, but I continue to feel a warm sensation where she touched me.

“Don’t apologise, and thank you for sharing that with me. I know I said the game was that I ask the questions and you answer them, but if it’s okay with you, I’d like to share something. It’s not as big as what you just told me, but it’s a regret that sometimes weighs on me.”

“Aye, of course.”

So she tells me about how, when she was young, she and her father came to Scotland each summer. He loved getting away from the city, escaping into the countryside, doing outdoorsy things.

“Whenever I think of Dad at his happiest, I picture him on those holidays. He always had the biggest smile. But the year we came here to Bannock was the last time we came to Scotland together. Back then, my friends were going with their families to the continent to sunbathe, eat fine European cuisine, see the sights. I told my dad I was sick of going to Scotland and wanted to go on the kind of holiday they were going on.

“I had him wrapped around my little finger, so of course the holidays to Scotland stopped, and we visited the continent instead: France, Italy, Portugal, to name just a few places. I loved those holidays at the time, but they were never Dad’s cup of tea. He wasn’t good in the heat, and he got restless on days when I wanted to do nothing but lie by the pool or sunbathe on the beach.