Chapter 1
There’s a sheep on the bus.
No, it’s not something you see often. I’d have to agree with you there. Not even here in the Highlands of Scotland, where there are probably more sheep than people. Trust me when I tell you, I was just as surprised as you are, and I grew up here, so not a lot surprises me about the place.
The fact remains, though: there is a sheep on the bus, and it stares at me balefully as the bus leaves the outskirts of Fort William and creaks its way reluctantly up the coast towards Heather Bay. The sheep’s owner — an elderly farmer with an unlit pipe in his mouth — is staring at me too, as are the three teenage girls on the back seat, whose kohl-ringed eyes have been locked on me ever since I slunk apologetically into my own seat, head bowed as if that would somehow stop them seeing me.
It’s probably because of The Thing.
I mean, it could be that I’ve got lipstick on my teeth, or my skirt tucked into my knickers. Both of those things would be very ‘on brand’ for me — and don’t even get me started about the time I nodded off shortly after applying fake tan and woke up with a white hand-print on my neon-orange face.
They could be staring at me for any of those reasons, really.
But it’s probably because of The Thing.
It’s always because of The Thing.
The Thing is the reason I left Heather Bay in the first place. It’s the reason I swore I would never come back. It’s the reason Tam, the bus driver, greeted me by name when I hauled my suitcase up the steps, and it’s also the reason he accepted my promise to get my mum to pay him as soon as I got home. Tam knows my mum, you see. Everyone knows my mum. Everyone in Heather Bay knows everyone else. Which means everyone knows about The Thing; and, pretty soon, everyone will know that Emerald Taylor rocked up to the bus stop in Fort William, saying she had no money, but could she get a lift home, anyway?
Classic Emerald. Just classic.
That’s Ben’s voice in my head, by the way. He’s my ex-boyfriend of — checks watch — about 10 hours, and although he’s never been to the Highlands in his life, having been born and raised in Watford, he thinks he knows everything there is to know about the place, because he’s seen Outlander a few times, and it’s just like that, really, isn’t it?
But no. Not really. Well, not at all, actually. Or not unless you were to actually time-travel back to the 1800s, and I’ll let you into a secret: the standing stones are just stones, so you can’t do that. Sorry. Don’t tell anyone.
Heather Bay itself is pretty scenic, though — that much is true. It has a cute little row of pastel-painted cottages that people like to take photos of for Instagram, a picture-postcard harbor, and a small beach, fringed with seafood restaurants. There’s even a castle on an island in the middle of the loch, but it’s not mysterious or haunted, and, no, Jamie Fraser doesn’t live in it, so it’s always been a bit of a disappointment, really.
Non-haunted castles aside, I guess I can see why tourists like the Bay, as it’s known locally. I’d probably like it myself if I was one of them. But I’m not, more’s the pity. I’m the infamous Emerald Taylor, a.k.a. Heather Bay’s Least Wanted person — which is just one of the reasons my current situation is a bit of a bind, really.
The other reasons are all sitting there silently staring at me as if I’m an exhibit in a museum, and it’s making me so uncomfortable I really wish my phone was working, so I could pretend to be doing something very busy and important on it, in a bid to avoid the awkwardness.
Sadly for me, though, my phone died somewhere between London and Fort William — at about the same time as my will to live — so, instead, I have to make do with staring out of the grubby window of the bus, secretly waiting for the moment when you crest that final hill just outside Heather Bay, and see the town spread out before you, the pastel cottages reflected in the shining sea, and the mountains looming behind the town, their colors changing by the hour.
I’d deny it if you asked me, but it is pretty.
Beautiful, even, in a wild and rugged kind of way.
But I still don’t want to be here, and I’m determined to hate every second of my homecoming.
So there.
I jut out my chin and stare defiantly at the sheep, as if it was the one who dared suggest I might actually enjoy being home again. The sheep stares back as if I’ve hurt its feelings. The farmer turns around to glare at me accusingly, and, right at that moment, a loud roar drowns out the rattle and creaks of the bus as a bright red sports car goes screeching past us, forcing Tam to steer us right into the ditch at the side of the road.
Silence.
Then a loud, indignant bleat as the sheep, who skidded all the way across the aisle when Tam slammed on the brakes, registers its unhappiness with the situation.
“Edna!” splutters the farmer, almost dropping his pipe as he stumbles towards the animal. “Are ye alright, Edna?”
Edna? The sheep’s called Edna? Is it… a pet sheep? Or did I just die in a bus crash, and now I’ve entered an alternate reality where everyone has some kind of animal familiar?
“Never mind Edna, Jimmy,” says Tam, who doesn’t appear to be remotely troubled by our current off-road situation. “It’s that Jack Buchanan ye want to get a look at.”
“Aye,” Jimmy replies, pulling Edna back to her rightful place by his side. “I thought that was his car, right enough. Flashy bugger, so he is.”
There’s a murmur of excitement from the three girls at the back of the bus, and, once I’ve established that I’m still very much alive, and that no real harm has been done to the bus or its occupants, I follow the direction of their gaze to where the red sports car has stopped a little further along the road. The driver — the “flashy bugger”, I assume — is standing beside it, deep in conversation with yet another farmer, who seems to have jumped off his tractor to see what’s going on.
(Not everyone in the Highlands is a farmer, by the way. I know it probably seems like that right now, but we also have our fair share of flashy buggers, apparently, so I can only hope the Outlander writers are taking note.)
I can’t see much of the flashy bugger’s face through the grime on the bus window, but what I can see of him is enough to tell me that this is obviously not a Heather Bay local. He’s wearing a camel overcoat over a navy sweater and dark jeans, his eyes are hidden behind a pair of designer sunglasses, and his immaculate suede brogues are going to be absolutely ruined by the mud he’s currently standing in.
I guess instant karma really is going to get you, huh?
“Isn’t he amazing?” one of the girls behind me sighs to her friends, and I forget I’m supposed to be trying to keep a low profile as I twist round in my seat to face her.
“Amazing?” I say, before I can stop myself. “The guy who just ran a bus full of people off the road, you mean? That guy?”
Okay, “a bus full of people” might be stretching it slightly. It’s six people and a sheep, and we slid gently into a shallow ditch rather than skidding off a treacherous precipice. But that’s not the point. The point is that if Tam hadn’t been so quick on the steering wheel — and if we’d been doing more than the usual 15mph at the time — this guy with his midlife crisis of a car and his stupid suede shoes could have killed us. And trust me, I did not survive the second-worst day of my life and travel all the way back to the Highlands just to die in a rusty old bus with a sheep.
“‘That guy’ is Jack Buchanan,” the girl who’d described him as “amazing” says, as if she expects this to mean something to me. “He’s the richest man in the country and the sexiest. And he’s basically the Laird of this entire area. So, yeah, he is pretty amazing, actually.”
She stares at me challengingly before popping her gum in my face to underline her point, and my “alternate reality” theory rears its head again.
As well as waking up in a different reality, it looks like I’ve also gone back in time a couple of hundred years, to when the Highlands were still ruled by ‘Lairds’ and all the maids in the village wanted to catch themselves one.
I knew it was a mistake coming back here.
Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I turn back to face the window, wishing I hadn’t spoken. Teenagers scare me, especially the girls. I’d rather face an entire army of vampires, say, than three teenage girls. Vampires can only kill you, after all; teenage girls, on the other hand, can totally destroy you. Don’t ask me how I know.
“I think Mr. Buchanan’s only the eighth richest man in Scotland,” Jimmy-the-farmer starts to say, but whether that’s true or not will have to forever remain a mystery, because before he can go on, the bus doors ping open, and a familiar figure steps through them.
McTavish.
Of course it’s McTavish.
“Jimmy,” he says cheerfully, nodding at the farmer. “Tam. Edna.”
His bright blue eyes pass over the teenagers before settling on me, and I shrink into my seat in horror as he beams in recognition, his wide smile revealing two black gaps where his front teeth should be.
When we were at school together, McTavish still had his teeth. Everything else about him is more or less the same ten years later, though, from his haystack hair to the goofy grin that always seemed to have me as its target.
McTavish was the boy next door, but not in a romance novel kind of way, so if that’s what you’re thinking, I’m going to stop you right there. For one thing, when I say “next door” I mean the McTavish farm might have technically been the closest building to my parents’ cottage, but it wasn’t exactly next to it. And for another, I’ve only ever been interested in men who don’t even know I’m alive, which puts the human Labrador that is McTavish firmly out of the running.
McTavish has been present for every important occasion in my life in Heather Bay, though, so it figures he’d be here now for my return.
“Emerald, is that really you?” he asks, looking genuinely delighted to find me here.
“Aye, it’s her,” confirms Tam, before I can speak.
“The very same,” nods Jimmy.
“I told you it was her,” hisses a voice from behind me.
(Edna says nothing, on account of being a sheep. But if sheep could talk, she looks like she’d be weighing in on this one, too.)
“She’s come back with no money,” Tam continues, as if I’m not there. I really wish I wasn’t. “Her mam’s going to come round and bring me the fare tomorrow, she says.”
I swear to God, Edna snorts in disbelief at this. Who knew sheep could be so sassy?
“Och, dinnae worry about that,” McTavish says, digging in his pocket and pulling out a handful of change. “Here, that should be right.”
“No, don’t,” I say, springing up from my seat to stop him, but McTavish just waves me away, grinning his toothless grin.
“It’s good to see ye again, Emerald,” he says shyly, looking at me from under his mop of yellow-blonde hair. “I didnae think ye’d be back here, after… well, ye know.”
An awkward silence descends, which Edna breaks by bleating loudly. I thank her silently, while giving McTavish my best attempt at a smile, even though smiling is the very last thing I feel like doing right now.
“Thanks, McTavish,” I say. “And thanks for paying the fare. I’ll get the money back to you tomorrow, I promise. It’s just, my bank card stopped working, and I only had enough cash on me for the train fare, so I—”
“Excuse me? Is there any chance we could hurry this up a little? I have somewhere I need to be.”
Even the sheep is silent as everyone turns to look at the driver of the sports car, whose head has appeared around the bus door, his ridiculous sunglasses failing to hide the deep crease of annoyance between his eyebrows.
Jack Buchanan — the flashy bugger who allegedly owns half of the Highlands — raises his wrist to consult what I’m pretty sure is a Rolex, and the bus itself seems to hold its breath in awe.
“Sorry, Mr. Buchanan,” McTavish says, sounding more sheepish than Edna herself. “I got distracted talkin’ to my friend here. She used to live in the village but —”
“That’s great,” says the mighty Laird, without even bothering to look at him, “But, like I said, I’m a bit of a rush here, so if you wouldn’t mind—”
Wow. So much for the whole “sexy Laird” fantasy the young women of the village have clearly been entertaining. I’d say this guy’s more Mr. Darcy than Jamie Fraser, but that would be very unfair to poor Darcy. At least he had some manners.
“Yeah, we can see you’re in a rush,” says a female voice, which I’m astonished to recognize as mine. “That’s how you almost killed us, just in case you hadn’t noticed. Oh, we’re all fine, by the way. Thanks for asking.”
There’s a single beat of horrified silence, then Jack Buchanan steps fully into the bus, ducking slightly to avoid banging his head on the low ceiling. I get a quick glimpse of even features and full lips under a head of dark, ruffled hair that looks like he’s been raking his hands through it in frustration, before I glance quickly away in embarrassment.
Why on earth did I say that? I don’t normally challenge strangers on buses — not even ones who’ve just run the bus in question off the road. What happened to ‘keeping a low profile’, Emerald?
“My apologies,” Jack Buchanan says stiffly, sounding like he’s reading the words from a script. “I’m glad to hear you’re okay. Really. I didn’t mean to… I just—”
He reaches up and pushes his sunglasses up onto his head, revealing the kind of bright blue eyes I’d probably admire if I wasn’t still seething with anger at the cheek of this man. Behind me, there’s a collective sigh of admiration from the teenage contingent.
“Look, I really am sorry,” Buchanan goes on. “I thought I’d given you plenty of room when I overtook, but, well, obviously not. I’ll pay for any damage — you have my word.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right then,” I say, surprising myself again. “I guess you can drive as dangerously as you like, as long as you can pay for the damage you cause. What’s the going rate for a broken leg these days, anyway? Just out of interest?”
The baby blue eyes narrow almost imperceptibly.
“Sorry,” he says, sounding anything but apologetic. “I don’t think I caught your name?”
I open my mouth to answer, but before I can speak, my fellow passengers start clamoring to assure him that it’s perfectly fine that his terrible driving could have caused a serious accident — Why, we positively enjoyed being thrown into this ditch, M’Lord! — and I sit back in my seat, my arms crossed mutinously across my chest to signal my displeasure. Jack Buchanan spends a few minutes assuring everyone how incredibly sorry he is, but his eyes keep darting back to me, as if I’m a problem he’s trying to solve, and by the time all the fawning has started to die down, I feel a bit like I’ve been locked in a silent argument with him the entire time.
“Right,” says McTavish as the ‘Laird’ finally disembarks. “If ye all just sit tight, I’ll get my tractor and pull ye out of this ditch. Then I’ll see to Mr. Buchanan. It’s a good job I was working this field when ye passed.”
“I’d love to see to Mr. Buchanan,” giggles the gum-popping girl, her eyes wide with admiration as she watches the object of her affection retreat. The red sports car is still stuck in the mud on the other side of the narrow road, and I suppress a small smirk of satisfaction as I watch its owner frown as he attempts to wipe the mud from the suede loafers that probably cost more than the rent I pay to Ben every month.
Used to pay to Ben every month.
I won’t be paying rent any more, of course, given that Ben dumped me this morning, almost as if I was just another item on his ‘To Do’ list.
01 – Cancel Netflix subscription.
02 – Dump Emerald.
03 – Abruptly leave town, effectively making her homeless in the process.
04 – Refuse to answer questions about any of the above, not even the Netflix thing.
I’ve no idea what the rest of the items on Ben’s list might have been, though, because I was too busy hurriedly throwing my stuff into a suitcase and checking the train times to even think about why he might have ended our relationship and handed back the keys to his flat in less time than it takes me to drink my morning coffee.
And now I’m here. And making enemies already.
I close my eyes against the wave of exhaustion that suddenly assails me, and, when I open them again, the bus is being heaved backwards out of the ditch, then shunted forward until it’s almost level with the sports car.
As we pass it, Jack Buchanan glances up, and I stare through the window at his pretty-boy face, roughened up by a hint of stubble. He looks a bit like James Dean might have done, if James Dean had lived in modern times, and held off on the hair gel a little. This is actually quite inconvenient for me, because James Dean is my secret imaginary boyfriend, who I love unreservedly, and this Jack Buchanan is… well, a Grade A asshole, it would seem.
What a waste.
As the bus moves past the car, our eyes briefly meet through the dirty window. He scowls, as if the very sight of me has offended him, and I instantly scowl back, treating him to my fiercest grimace; the one Ben says makes me resemble a pit bull on steroids.
There. That’ll show him.
I sit back, refusing to drop my gaze until he finally drops his, turning away with a look of disgust on his face.
I win.
Well, if you consider pissing off a random stranger in the remote Highlands to be “winning”, that is.
It’s a small victory, to be sure.
A minuscule one, in fact.
It is, however, all I’ve got for now, so I’m counting it.
And, if the look on his face is anything to go by, Jack Buchanan is counting it, too.