31 Days of Winter (52 page)

‘The Stag.’

‘Pete?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Ellie, from the island.’

‘Miss Ellie, what can I do for you?’

‘I’m so sorry to ask you on such short notice, but
could you get me to the airport as a matter of urgency?’

‘Today?’ he exclaimed.

‘Yes.’

‘But your flight’s not until Monday,’ he replied,
the confusion apparent in his voice.

‘Actually no, it’s tomorrow night, I hadn’t got
around to telling Dan I’d brought it forward, but I’m hoping I might be able to
get a cancellation seat tonight.’

‘Does Dan know you’re leaving early?’

‘No, but as you probably know he had to go away
anyway so we’ve already said our goodbyes, there’s nothing more I have to say
to him. If you can’t help me, can someone get me to the shore and have a taxi
waiting?’

‘I’ll come and get you, lassie. If you can’t get a
flight, I’ll get you back to the house.’

‘It’s ok, I’ll check into a hotel at the airport.’

‘There are no airport hotels, it’s a small rural
airport with parking, I’d need to bring you back.’

‘O,’ I let out a sigh. I’d worry about what to do
if I couldn’t get out later, but I wasn’t coming back here, that was for sure.
‘How soon can you get here?’

‘Can you give me an hour? Is that soon enough?’

‘That’s perfect, it gives me time to finish
packing, thank you.’ I put my iPhone on charge as I quickly started packing up
my laptop and ran to the bathroom to shove all of my toiletries into my wash
bag. ‘Take a deep breath and calm down,’ I told myself as I tried to take my
time and check each drawer for my items. I finished packing in under twenty
minutes and spent the rest of my time tidying up, making the bed with the
freshly dried linen and reorganising my handbag with my tickets for tomorrow,
passport and iPhone, shoving my charger in my carrier. I didn’t bother emailing
Brooke, I couldn’t face dealing with all of this again today. If I managed to
get back to London, I’d just check into a hotel and ring Brooke tomorrow.

I took one last sad look around, it was like a
fast movie of the last month of my life flashed before me, so many images of
Dan and I, which stung. I wheeled my case out, locked the door behind me and
made my way down towards the boathouse, holding the key to the house in my
hand. I checked Dan’s boat wasn’t tied up, just in case he’d returned, I didn’t
want a confrontation while I was still feeling so emotional and vulnerable. I went
to put the key through his letterbox and realised he didn’t have one.
What
the hell was I going to do with the key?
I noticed a small gap under the
front door and bent down and shoved it through, hoping he’d see it when he
returned. As I stood up, I heard a vehicle hooting. I turned around and looked
over at the clearing on the shoreline and my heart sank. It was a green Land
Rover. ‘
No, no, no!’
I groaned, it was too much, I couldn’t deal with
this now. I frowned and squinted as I looked at the guy who jumped out, he
wasn’t tall enough to be Dan, which made me heave a sigh of relief, it must be
Pete. It seemed Land Rovers were the vehicle of choice up here. I noticed there
was a trailer on the back with some kind of rubberised dinghy. Great, could this
day get any worse? Now I had to cross the bloody loch in some kind of tiny
death trap. I sat on my suitcase and watched as it was launched and make its
way over. I smiled to see it was Pete. He waved as he pulled up to the jetty
and turned off the engine, jumped out and secured it.

‘Miss Ellie. Do you need a hand with your case?’

‘No thank you, the case is fine, I’m just a bit
nervous about the water after …’ I gulped and he smiled.

‘I understand. Let me take your case first then
I’ll help you. I promise you’ll be fine. I’ll take good care of you and Dan had
already warned me to have a life jacket for you for Monday night, to make the
crossing a bit easier.’

‘You must think I’m so stupid,’ I smiled, feeling
confused that Dan had even considered my safety. I was really beginning to
wonder if he had a split personality for real, as well as a dual life. Married
man for four hours a day, woodcutting lothario for the remaining twenty?

‘I don’t think that at all, Dan said you were
under for a while, enough to scare anyone,’ Pete advised. He returned with the
bright orange life jacket, secured it around me and offered me his arm as he
led me along the jetty, keeping me in the middle to ease my nerves, then helped
me down into the dinghy. I grasped the sides as it rocked and he gave me
another reassuring smile as he started the motor and pushed away. I kept my
head down, I couldn’t bear to see the house or boathouse for the last time and
kept running through all the reasons I hated Dan to stop myself from crying. and
to keep from worrying about the water below me. I breathed a sigh of relief
when we made it safely to the other side. Pete helped me out gave me a hand up
into the Land Rover. I looked at him surprised when I saw a padded cushion on
the seat. ‘Dan made me laugh telling me how you bruised your arse on the seat
of his, so I thought I’d bring something to soften the blows.’

‘That’s so sweet, thank you,’ I nodded and bit my
lip as he passed me the seatbelt and shut me in. I watched in the mirror as he
unhooked the trailer and hopped in. ‘You’re leaving your boat?’

‘I’ll pick it up on the way back. Right, hold
tight.’

I nodded and was grateful that we travelled in
silence. I assumed that he’d sensed I wasn’t in the mood to talk, my puffy eyes
probably gave away my state of mind. It was nearly six by the time we got to the
airport and Pete helped me out and handed me my case.

‘I’ll go and see if I can get a seat and come and
let you know,’ I advised.

‘Ok. See you in a while, lassie,’ he nodded. I
smiled, wondering if he knew he was effectively calling me a dog by using that
endearment. I mean, Lassie was a really sweet and wonderful dog, but a dog all
the same.

‘Sorry Miss Baxter, the flight to London’s full.
You still have your reservation for tomorrow,’ the ticket desk assistant told
me.

‘I really need to try and get home earlier, do you
have flights anywhere else? Anywhere I could try and get a connecting flight
back?’

‘We only have two other flights going out tonight,
one seat on each. Either to Glasgow or Edinburgh, both are major airports, you
may have luck that way.’

‘Which is the earlier flight?’

‘Edinburgh. It leaves in an hour.’

‘Can I buy a ticket then, please?’

‘Of course, but your one to London isn’t
transferable again.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ I smiled. I paid up and
headed outside to find Pete sitting in his car.

‘Going back to the island, then?’

‘No,’ I replied with a shake of my head. ‘I
managed to get a flight that’s leaving shortly. How much do I owe you for all
your trouble?’

‘Nothing, I owe Dan a few favours and I promised
to look after you for him.’

‘That’s so kind of you,’ I sighed. ‘Thank you so
much, and I really enjoyed your Hogmanay, I’ll never forget it.’

‘Miss Ellie, forgive me if I’m speaking out of
turn, but you seem rather sad.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Dan’s going to be upset he missed you.’

‘He wasn’t going to see me before I left on Monday
anyway, and I’m sure he has his hands full with too many other … things, to
even think about me.’

‘I doubt that, he was very fond of you.’

‘Sure,’ I sighed. It seemed he had everyone
fooled, not just me. ‘I’d better go. Thanks again Pete, Happy New Year.’

‘Happy New Year, lass.’

I waved him off and headed to the single departure
gate, showed my ticket and made my way into the small departure lounge. There
was only a little coffee shop with a gift section and a large open plan lounge
with the one gate out onto the tarmac where people were already climbing the
steps to a tiny plane. It seemed everyone for any flight queued in here. I went
and got myself a coffee and a tin of shortbread for Brooke and found myself a
quiet corner away from everyone else with a view of the plane preparing to
depart. I sipped my coffee slowly, it was vile, but I needed something to keep
me awake, something to focus on other than how ripped apart I was feeling
inside and read a book on my phone. It wasn’t long before I saw a small plane
touchdown and people started disembarking. I checked my watch and figured it
must be my flight. A voice came over the tannoy system.

‘Paging Miss Ellie Baxter, Miss Ellie Baxter,
please go to the white courtesy phone by the coffee shop and dial one.’

I looked around startled and prayed they hadn’t
screwed up and were calling to tell me that there wasn’t actually a seat on the
flight for me. I wheeled my case over and picked up the phone.

‘Hello, this is Ellie Baxter.’

‘Ellie.’ I froze as I heard his voice. ‘Ellie, are
you still there? I need to talk to you. Please come out.’

‘Go to hell, Dan,’ I hissed and slammed the phone
down with shaking hands.
How the hell had he found me here?
Pete! He
must have rung him to tell him. What did he want? To try and apologise and make
himself feel better? Why couldn’t men who fucked up just admit it and move on?
Why should the women they chose to hurt be expected to forgive them? If we were
that important to them in the first place, they shouldn’t have screwed it up. I
stormed back to my seat in the corner, we were due to take off in ten minutes,
hopefully we’d be boarding soon. Just as I thought it, the tannoy system came
on again.

‘All passengers for Edinburgh, boarding is about
to commence.’

‘Thank God,’ I sighed. I got up and pulled my
ticket and passport out of my bag and swore as I heard my name being yelled. I
scanned the lounge and saw Dan standing with his hands on his hips looking for
me. He wasn’t hard to spot, given he was a good four inches taller than
everyone else. My stomach turned, I wasn’t sure if it was that delicious
flutter I’d always got when I looked at him, or if it was roiling in preparation
for me being sick. Our eyes met and it was like a punch in my stomach. I willed
my feet to move, to help me run from him as he strode over with a look of
determination on his stubbled face, but they weren’t listening.

‘How did you get back here?’ I demanded.

‘I purchased the last remaining ticket to bloody
Glasgow. You’d better be on the same flight. We need time to talk.’

‘No we don’t. I said all I had to say to your
answer machine.’

‘You don’t understand, Ellie,’ he groaned with
frustration as he rubbed his face. ‘It’s not what it seems, give me a chance to
explain.’

‘So you’re going to tell me that you’re not
married?’

‘No, I am married,’ he responded with a heavy
sigh. ‘We haven’t been physical in over three years, I never lied to you about
that and I never said I was single.’

‘O thanks, thanks for not lying, but choosing to
deliberately conceal a pretty important bloody fact. You know that your boss
had a file made on me, nearly every single detail of my bloody life? There was
even a report on my … on my parents that
I
hadn’t even seen. You saw it
all before you even met me, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ he sighed. I swayed on my feet to have my suspicions
proved right.

‘Just go away, Dan. I thought Zac had treated me
badly, but you have no idea how much more this hurts. I told you I never wanted
to see you or speak to you again and I meant it. You said you couldn’t be with
me and I should have listened. I have a flight to catch.’

‘Stay one more night Ellie, I’ll explain everything,’
he nodded as he reached out and grabbed my hand. I snatched it back from him,
hit with both the feeling of unmistakably sexual chemistry whenever we touched,
and the bile rising in my throat.

‘I want to get as far away from you as humanly possible.
Somewhere that you can’t hurt me anymore with all your lies, deceit and
bullshit. You know I really fell for you? Stupid Ellie, falls for a married guy,
yet again
. I bet you found it really funny that I had no idea. Is that
what made me a challenge for you? Was it all just a game?’

‘I didn’t find it funny, and why do you think I
left the other morning? I panicked when I woke up and saw you asleep in my arms
looking so happy. I had no idea how I was going to tell you the truth without
hurting you, so I thought it would be easier if I just left. I was never
playing games with you Ellie, and I’m sorry.’

‘Well you
have
hurt me, Dan. You, Matt
and
Zac. I don’t know how I’m ever going to trust another guy again.’ I reached up to
wipe a tear away from my eye and heard him wince and saw his hand move closer
to my face. I jumped back and looked around as I heard my name being called. It
looked like the rest of my flight had already gone through.

‘Shit, you
are
on a different flight. Ellie,
please
.’ I didn’t look around at him, just grabbed my case and started
walking quickly away. ‘Ask me question, ask me lots of questions, any questions
and I’ll answer them,’ he called. I bit my lip and kept my focus on the desk by
the exit door and flashed my ticket and passport. As I stepped out I couldn’t
prevent myself from taking a final look back at him. He was slumped in one of
the chairs holding his forehead as he watched me leave. I felt tears starting
to pour down my face. I was more confused than ever. Why had he come to try and
stop me? What could he possibly explain that would make everything better and
take away how badly he’d wounded me? I crossed the tarmac, stopped at the bottom
of the steps to the plane and quickly wiped my face and tried to pull myself
together before climbing up them and leaving Dan behind me forever.