Authors: Davie Henderson
“Until you met me.”
Finally the man did smile again. “I don’t have to say what I’m thinking with you, do I? Am I really that transparent?”
“Quite the opposite, in fact you’ve suddenly got me all confused. How can you be working for Yeoman Holdings and yet not know who Tony Carling is or what he’s got planned for the glen? Are you some kind of freelance photographer on contract to him?”
“I’m a freelance photographer, but not on a contract to this firm Yeoman Holdings or anybody else. I was just taking photos for the love of it. That’s something I’ve not done
for a long time, and I’d forgotten how good it could be.”
“You have nothing to do with the plans to buy the glen?” Kate asked.
He shook his head.
“You’re not the man with a camera Finlay confronted earlier this week, then?”
Again he shook his head.
“I’ve made a bit of a fool of myself, haven’t I?”
He nodded.
Suddenly they were both laughing.
“Kate Brodie,” she said, reaching out her hand. “I don’t have the nerve to say ‘Lady Kate’ after the way I’ve just behaved. In my defense, though, I’ve only been a lady for a couple of days.”
Kate saw his boyish smile again. It was wider this time, and accompanied by a sparkle in his eyes. Her heart skipped more than one beat and her chest tightened at the thought that she didn’t have to hate him.
As the tall man shook her hand, he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself earlier, but—”
“I just got wired into you and didn’t give you a chance, did I?” She covered her face with her free hand and said, “I feel so embarrassed. Goodness knows what you must think of me.”
He gently prised Kate’s hand away from her eyes. Looking straight into those eyes, he said, “You read my mind a couple of times before; let’s see if you can do it again and guess what I think of you.”
Kate blushed, and the man didn’t just smile this time, he laughed. It was a quiet sound that made Kate happy, and suddenly the two of them were laughing together.
When they’d stopped, Kate said, “I did it again, too, didn’t I?”
“What?”
“Interrupted you before you had a chance to introduce yourself.”
He nodded. “Now that I do have a chance, I better take it. I’m Cameron Fraser, and I was looking for a place called Jamie’s Crag. It’s on The Cranoch Estate, so we must be neighbours.”
Kate smiled with a happiness she hadn’t felt since before the meeting with Archie Cunningham. Then she remembered that meeting. Her smile faded, and she said, “We’re neighbours for now, at least.”
“I take it this is where Tony Carling and company come in?”
Kate nodded. “Yes, this is where Tony Carling and company come in.” She turned from Cameron to look around the glen, and said, “Can you believe, they want to turn this into a ski resort, and Greystane into a glorified souvenir stall selling ‘tartan tat’. He actually had the nerve to say that to my face.”
“But they can’t do any of that if they don’t own it.”
“I own it, but not for much longer.”
Cameron’s puzzlement at why she’d give up a place she obviously loved was clear on his face.
“I can’t afford to keep the estate,” Kate explained. “I feel obliged to tell you, in case you had any ideas of maybe rebuilding Jamie’s Cottage. The chances are you won’t be looking out on this view for much longer but on a ski resort instead. Maybe that’ll make your property worth more. I hope so. I hope you’re not another of the many people I seem destined to let down.”
Cameron Fraser reached for her hand again, this time not to shake it, just to hold it. “If you’ve got to sell, you’ve got to sell. It’s not the end of the world.”
“It’ll be the end of this little part of it, though.”
“No other offers on the table?”
Kate shook her head. “I can’t afford to keep it on the market for long, either. Apparently the estate’s dead on its feet. It would take a small fortune to get it back in working order as a sporting estate, and even then it would need to be subsidized to keep it going.”
“What about running it as something other than a sporting estate?”
“I’m open to ideas, believe me. I’m going to have a meeting with the crofters—Carling wants to turn them out, of course—to see if they’ve got any ideas. You’re welcome to come along. I could do with all the support I can get.”
“Just let me know where and when.”
“It’ll be in the hall at Greystane—that’s the little castle on the crag opposite your cottage,” she told him, pointing to the far end of the glen. “I’m sorry, I don’t know the when, yet. I’m just about to go around and see the crofters now,
see what time suits them. Do you have a phone number I can call when I’ve fixed a time?”
He shook his head.
“How can I get in touch with you? You can’t be staying at Jamie’s Cottage; it’s a bit of a ruin from what I’ve seen.”
“I’ll be around there for a few days in the camper, seeing how much work needs done and getting an idea if I can afford to do it,” he told her. “I might well be in the same boat as you, but without even a buyer. This firm Yeoman hasn’t made any approach to me.”
“If it did, would you sell?”
“Not unless I had to, after what you’ve told me about their plans for the glen.”
“What would you do if you were me?”
“Same answer, I suppose. Sometimes you’ve got to just bite the bullet, though. Looking on the bright side, at least you’d get enough money from selling this place to set you up in style somewhere else,” he said.
“I’m sure it would, but no amount of money could buy me a clear conscience.”
The man stiffened at those words and a troubled look flitted across his eyes. Again Kate experienced the strange mix of knowing what he was thinking one moment, and the next moment feeling like he was looking at something she couldn’t see, something from a profoundly troubled past. She remembered what Archibald Cunningham had said about the man standing in front of her: that he’d resigned his commission in the army at considerable personal
cost, and how that probably meant he was either a bit of a saint or some sort of sinner. Cameron’s expressions, and the words that had triggered them, suggested it was the latter. However, Kate found it difficult to reconcile that notion with his quiet, gentle manner. She found herself wanting to do something to ease the hurt he was obviously feeling and make him forget whatever it was that troubled him. Before she’d even thought about what she was doing, she said, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Suddenly all his attention was on her again, his eyes were smiling, and one eyebrow was slightly raised.
She playfully punched him on the arm and said, “Houses. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
He laughed. “Deal,” he said. “I’ve got a feeling I’m about to be embarrassed, though.”
“How come?
“Yours will be much bigger than mine.”
“What if I promise I won’t laugh at you?”
“Like you’re not laughing at me now?”
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m just laughing because I’d forgotten how good it feels to flirt with a man.” She’d said what was on her mind without thinking what the words would sound like when they were spoken aloud. Putting a hand over her mouth, she mumbled through it, “Whoops! Told you more than you needed to know there, didn’t I? Nice one, Kate. Now
you’re
laughing at
me.”
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing because I’d forgotten how much fun it is to flirt with a woman … And
how sweet and pretty a woman can be.”
“Wow,” Kate said, feeling a kind of happiness she hadn’t known for far too long. “I can’t imagine I did too much to remind you when I was winding up to slap you a little while ago.”
“You didn’t remind me then of sweet, but you reminded me of pretty, even when you were angry.”
Not believing she was going to do what she was about to do, but not able to stop herself from doing it, Kate got on her tiptoes, put her arms on his shoulders and kissed him lightly on the cheek. The kiss lasted barely a heartbeat, and then she took her arms from his shoulders, settled back on her heels and stepped away from him. “Now do you consider yourself welcomed to Glen Cranoch?” she asked.
“So warmly I don’t think I’ll ever want to leave.”
“You might change your mind when you see your cottage.”
“Looks a bit like these, does it?” Cameron asked, his mood changing again as he pointed to the blackened clusters of cottages scattered around the edge of the lochan.
Kate nodded. “At least, that’s what it looks like from a distance. I haven’t had a closer look yet.”
“You talked earlier as though you had.”
“I’ve just heard a bit about it. Have you?”
“I don’t know anything about it at all. I got a telegram out of the blue saying I’d fallen heir to a derelict cottage, thanks to some relative I’d never even heard of. It came at a time when I wasn’t sure what direction to go in next,
just that I wanted to go in a different direction. So here I am. Talking of directions, what’s the best way to get up to the cottage?”
“I think if you follow the track you were on, then turn right at the foot of the crags, there’s a place where the stream that runs into the lockhan—”
He smiled, and Kate asked him why with her eyes.
“It’s just funny to hear a Scottish word spoken in an American accent,” he told her. “Are you going native?”
“Yes, I think I am. I don’t think I got that word quite right, though. How would you say it?”
“Lochan.”
She laughed and asked, “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Get the ‘och’ in your lochan.”
“You managed it there yourself.”
“That’s just because I was doing a comedy impersonation of you.”
“You should hear me say ‘sporran’, that would really give you a laugh.”
“It just did. What an earth is a sporran?”
“It’s the dangly purse a Scotsman wears over his kilt.”
“You know what question’s coming next, don’t you?” Kate said, a mischievous smile on her face.
“I think I can guess.”
“Well, what’s the answer?”
“I’ll leave it to your imagination.”
Kate threw her head back and laughed, then said, “So,
have you got a kilt, then, Mr. Fraser?”
“Not any more, but I find myself wishing I still had.”
“Was it part of your uniform?”
His smile slowly faded, and again Kate got the sense of someone who wanted to leave the past behind, not be reminded of it.
For a moment Cameron said nothing, and then he asked, “How did you know I used to wear a uniform?”
“Archibald Cunningham mentioned it when he told me who my neighbour was going to be.”
“And what else did Archibald Cunningham happen to ‘mention’?”
“Just that you were a soldier, or had been. He maybe got that wrong, though, because you said you’re a photographer.”
“Not all soldiers carry guns.”
When he didn’t elaborate, Kate said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I was prying.” Guessing that a change of subject—or, rather, a return to the one she’d sidetracked him from—was in order, she said, “Back to the lochan—”
“You’re a quick learner: you got more ‘och’ in your lochan that time.”
“Aye, I did, didn’t I?” she said in a passable impersonation of Finlay’s lilt.
Cameron had to laugh.
“Anyway,” Kate turned back to face the far end of the glen, “there’s a place at the bottom of the two crags, where the stream—”
“The burn. A wee stream is known as a burn in this
part of the world.”
“I’ve got to learn a whole new vocabulary, don’t I, as well as just a comedy accent.”
“At this rate, just give it a week and nobody’ll be able to tell you weren’t born here.”
“Aye, well,” she said, doing another Finlay McRae. “There’s a place where the burn looks shallow enough to ford, and I think you can follow the track around the front of Jamie’s Crag, and up around the back of it to your cottage at the top.”
“When you asked if I’d heard anything about the cottage … There was something in your voice: just what exactly have
you
heard about it?”
“How can I put this?” Kate said, pondering out loud. Finally she settled on, “Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Fraser?”
“You’re kidding me … a haunted house?”
She nodded. “Apparently so. Do you know anything about the man the cottage is named after … Jamie Chisholm?”
“Just that he’s a very, very distant relative.”
“Maybe it’s not my place to tell you.”
“As if you could help yourself,” Cameron said.
Kate laughed. “Now it’s your turn to read me like a book, huh?”
“It’s pretty obvious you’ve got a story you can’t wait to tell.”
“Apparently he fled the field in disgrace at some old battle—Cullodeon or something.”
“Culloden,” Cameron said quietly.
“Yeah, that’s it. Anyway, he was spotted fleeing from the battlefield, and never seen again. His portrait hangs facing the wall in Greystane, and his old cottage is supposed to be haunted.”
Cameron looked thoughtfully up at Jamie’s Crag, and Kate got the feeling he’d almost forgotten she was even there. Wanting to remind him, she said, “So, do you believe in ghosts?”
“Not that kind.”
“What other kind is there?”
Cameron didn’t answer, just kept looking at the crag. Kate didn’t know if he hadn’t heard her question or just chose not to reply. She didn’t push it because, although she was more intrigued by him with every moment, she didn’t want to intrude. She just watched him, studying his profile, liking the slight curl of his hair and wanting to run her fingers through it, liking the straightness of his nose, the smooth plane of his cheeks, wanting to trace his clean jawline with her fingertips.
“I’ve never seen a haunted house,” she said finally.
He turned from the crag back to her and said, “Would you like to see mine now?”
“I’d love to, but I have to go around to the crofters and arrange that meeting I mentioned.” As she said it she realized with surprise that for the last few minutes she’d forgotten all about the meeting and why she had to hold it—things she hadn’t been able to get off her mind for the
last day or so, no matter hard how she tried.