Highland Fling by Emma Baird

Author:Emma Baird [Baird, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sweet romance, romcoms, really funny chick lit, stories set in the Highlands, Outlander, Jill Mansell, Sophie Kinsella, Jenny Colgan, funny stories about women, Highlander, chick lit, Kirsty Greenwood, Jamie Fraser
ISBN: 9781999773830
Publisher: Pink Glitter Publishing
Published: 2019-04-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Today’s ‘to-do’ list included 1) Stop Fancying Unavailable Men and 2) Throw Yourself into Your New Job.

If only Jack hadn’t sent me a text the morning after our night out. “Enjoyed sharing my twelve-inch with you. Gotta love a greedy girl. Have a nice weekend.” He’d added emojis after the greedy girl bit in case I took offence, and I decided not to. I wished he hadn’t put the ‘love’ in there. The logical bit of me tells me that taken in context, the word means nothing. The illogical bit, and often I wonder if I’m far less governed by common sense than most, screams he loves me, loves me!

Kirsty phoned on Sunday and asked if I’d spoken with Jack. She sounded tearful, and the sound of her choking back tears as she reiterated how dreadful the split with Jack had been guilt-tripped me into telling her about Big Donnie’s offer for the painting.

“And he said no!” she says, the cheerfulness level cranked up one hundred percent on one side of the conversation and plummeted by the same on the other. “Goodness me! He was always telling me that five grand would help him enormously with the marketing of the tours.”

I concentrate on throwing myself into the new job. On Saturday, Dexter sent me an email asking if he could meet me in Ardlui on Monday morning. He was there doing a two-day mindfulness and yoga retreat, so if I could drive there, we could discuss the design work I’m doing for Blissful Beauty. Not much of a retreat, I thought, if you’re sneaking out to send work emails. But Ardlui is only a fifty-minute drive from Lochalshie, so much easier to get to than Glasgow. And meet-ups with our biggest client were Melissa’s number one reason for letting me work away from the office.

Relaxed Dexter, I decide when I meet him later, has a hypnotic trance-like state to him I find unnerving. Ardlui sits at the top of Loch Lomond, and it makes Lochalshie look like a metropolis. All I can see as I drive up is a few houses and a lot of wooden lodges that nestle behind lush green trees. I dump my car in the park outside the reception. The woman at the desk directs me to chalet number four, which is the biggest one in the place—three floors, a porch big enough to hold a table for ten and chairs, and a garage. It’s here that Zen-like Dexter greets me.

“Gaby!” he says, the exuberance dialled down three or four twists. He plants his hands in prayer position and bows. I do the same back and then hate myself. I am an idiot.

“Come in, come in!” he waves me through the door. “We have so much to discuss.”

“How was your retreat?” I ask. He looks the part—dressed in baggy linen trousers and a loose white tee shirt, no shoes and his hair tied back in a ponytail at the crown of his head. His bare feet hold no horrors such as dirty toenails, freakishly long toes or hobbit hairiness.

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