For two days Stuart and Elle played hermit and practically never left the house. After the first night, Stuart had driven her into the pub where she checked out and thanked Glenda for all her help, collected her bags and handed them to Stuart to load into the back of his car.
She’d made a quick stop at the post office to pack several more sketches into long canisters and send them to Aila and Grace to be framed.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d sold your sketches?’ Stuart asked, when she told him what she needed to do at the post office.
‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged, feeling that damn red flush beginning to warm her cheeks once more. ‘I guess I was still in shock. And, I mean, it’s not like I’ve made a fortune or anything,’ she said, trying not to feel like a traitor to herself. She didn’t need to hear Lilly to feel her disapproval and realise that she’d been right. Elle did put her art down. It had become a habit, and one she needed to break. ‘Actually, now that it has sunk in, I’m really excited about it. Which is why I’m sending more sketches up there.’
‘Congratulations,’ Stuart said, before he disappeared into the pub and came back out with a bottle of champagne, which they opened when they got back home.
‘Do you have any plans?’ Stuart asked now as they sat together at the kitchen bench, eating pancakes.
Plans. She sighed. There was that ugly word again. ‘Not really. Why?’
‘I thought you might be having sketching withdrawals and you’d like to take a look at another old ruin not far from here.’
‘Really?’ Again with the whole intuitive thing. She had been feeling like she wanted to grab her pencils and draw something.
‘If you want to, that is,’ he added.
‘I would. That sounds great.’
The ruins of Duntulm Castle, perched on the edge of a cliffside overlooking the ocean, were barely more than a handful of rocks that only vaguely resembled what would have once been a very impressive, fortified castle. But the moment Elle saw the site, she was mesmerised.
Look at that, Gran, she said softly in her head, but there was no response. Elle liked to imagine Gran wandering aimlessly; exploring somewhere on her own whenever she went silent for long stretches, something that was becoming more and more frequent.
While there were countless beautiful, awe-inspiring castles scattered across Scotland, there was something about ruins that spoke to Elle. Maybe it was the way they made her use her imagination to conjure up an image of what it would have once looked like, or maybe it was the lingering ghosts that seemed to remain about the site. Not actual ghosts, more memories. Whatever it was, there was definitely something she could feel around ruins, and Duntulm Castle was no different.
‘This was once an early castle of the MacLeods,’ Stuart told her. ‘Until the castle was taken over by the MacDonalds of Sleat in the seventeenth century. Apparently it even had a royal visit from James the fifth in 1540.’
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the history and age of everything over here.’
‘I guess we take it for granted; at least I always did when I was younger. It’s only been since my grandparents have both gone that I’ve really started to appreciate it.’
As they strolled along the narrow sheep track that led to the ruins, avoiding sheep poo as they went, Stuart held her hand securely and she felt an unexpected contentment settle inside her. The wind blew her hair around her face and stung her cheeks, but inside she felt as gooey and warm as melted chocolate. How had this man become so important to her in such a short time? Was it real? Maybe what she was feeling was just a trick, a happy afterglow of good sex. She didn’t have a great deal of experience in these kinds of things, so perhaps it was a completely normal side effect. But it felt like more. She knew enough to realise that a casual one-night stand didn’t make you want to spend the next day, and the next, with a person. It kind of defeated the point of having a one-night stand, if it went longer than one night.
But what was she supposed to make of it? This hadn’t been on her itinerary. Mentally she went over it: complete Gran’s bucket list, meet her long-lost relatives, see some castles, take Gran to Stormeil and go home. The list had definitely not included: have a bit of fling with a sexy Scotsman. And yet here they were.
They stood for a moment to take in the breathtaking view of the coastline before them. The hilltop where the castle stood had been separated on the land side by a deep trench, but that was no longer there and so the steep hill that ran down from it fell into a rugged stretch of rock that now, being somewhere between low and high tide, was a scattering of rockpools, before dropping into the sea beyond it. The views were phenomenal.
‘What’s that land out there?’ she asked Stuart. The long line of mountains seemed to stretch forever as a faint shadow in the distance.
‘That’s the hills of Harris.’
‘This place is beautiful.’ Every time she thought Scotland couldn’t get any more amazing she found another view that took her breath away.
‘They certainly knew how to choose the best real estate,’ he agreed. They found a spot on the grass to sit and Elle took out her sketchpad. Stuart braced his back against a rock, and settled her in front of him. For a moment she found herself distracted by the warmth of his body behind her, but as soon as she put her pencil onto the paper, everything else disappeared and she found herself concentrating on the image forming on the blank page before her.
As she stopped drawing, she tilted her head critically.
‘That’s impressive,’ he said from behind her, and she smiled over her shoulder at him.
‘Thank you.’ She was happy with the landscape she’d drawn, capturing the ruins in the forefront with the ocean stretching out beyond.
She got to her feet and took more photos for inspiration later in case she wanted to do some more sketching, but she knew the image of this place would stay with her for a long time without the need to look at photographs.
They walked back to Stuart’s four-wheel drive slowly, hand in hand, and Elle savoured every minute, tucking the memories into a safe little corner of her mind to reflect on later. She didn’t want to waste time analysing everything now—when she knew that very soon she would need to make some big decisions.
In order to stay in Scotland, Elle needed to secure a job—she couldn’t live on the leftover money from Gran indefinitely, and the United Kingdom was a very expensive place to live. What she didn’t know was whether staying on meant staying on … here.
That evening as she and Stuart cooked dinner in his beautiful kitchen, inside his even more beautiful house, Elle knew she had to bring up the subject they had both been avoiding, but as she went to open her mouth, Stuart spoke first.
‘Do you have any plans for tomorrow? If not, I was thinking maybe you might want to come along and help me with some sheep work.’
‘Sheep work?’
‘I need to move some stock up before the cold weather sets in, and there’s a few other jobs I need to take care of. I could use a hand.’
‘Oh. Sure,’ she said, surprised by his request. ‘I mean, I’m not exactly experienced, so I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but I’d like to give you a hand.’ How could she say no? It was her fault he was falling behind on his jobs because she’d been holding him hostage in the bedroom for the past few days. And then there was all the tour-guide work he’d been doing. She owed him at least a day of labour for all that.
‘I was thinking I should probably get back on the road soon,’ she said, reaching for another carrot to chop as they worked companionably across from each other at the huge island bench.
‘Where were you planning to go?’ he asked, after a moment passed in silence.
‘I’m not exactly sure. I’ve got a few more things I’d like to see, but I’m thinking I’d like to stay on in Scotland a bit longer, so I’ll need to find a job. I thought I’d probably head back up to where my family are in Portsoy.’
‘I see.’
‘I was originally flying home in a few more days, but the longer I think about it, the more I’m just not ready to go back yet.’
‘You could stay here,’ he offered, holding her gaze for a moment, before Elle dropped hers to take another carrot.
‘I can’t,’ she said with a sad smile.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you hardly know me. It’s been unexpected and … incredible,’ she said, lifting her eyes back to his with a smile. ‘I wasn’t expecting any of this when I set out on this trip, but I can’t just stay here indefinitely.’
‘What if you worked for me?’ he suggested, concentrating a little too hard on the potato he was slicing.
‘Worked for you, how?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Nothing dodgy,’ he added quickly. ‘I mean here, with me. It got me thinking the other day when you were talking about the woman who got backpackers to help out. I could use some help; you’re looking for a place to stay and a job …’ He let the sentence hang in the air as he watched her face expectantly.
‘But I don’t know anything about farming,’ she said slowly.
‘I’m not sure many backpackers would come with farming experience either,’ he said with a smile. ‘It wouldn’t have to be farming work. You could do some cooking, help out with the house … whatever needed doing.’
‘I don’t know, Stuart,’ Elle said with a wary shake of her head. ‘I’m not sure I’d feel right about it.’
‘You were going to work for food and board with the other place, how is this any different?’ he asked.
‘Well, I wouldn’t be sleeping with the boss at the other place,’ she pointed out.
‘Which is why this offer is much better,’ Stuart countered.
He did have a point.
‘It was just a thought,’ he said after a while, when she didn’t readily reply. She sensed he was a little hurt that she hadn’t jumped at the idea. ‘I know you have other places you want to see.’
‘It’s not that I want to leave this area. I love it here. It’s beautiful. I guess it’s just this whole thing with us …’ She tried to explain, but the words were all sticking together. ‘I mean, we’ve never really talked about … what this is between us. We kind of just fell into it without really thinking everything through.’
‘What do you think it is?’ he asked slowly, careful not to look at her.
Elle wasn’t sure. She’d been trying to work it out since day one. ‘I guess it was just a happenchance kind of thing that we met and hit it off,’ she said with a small shrug.
She heard him give a quiet scoff-type grunt as he continued to gather the ingredients for their meal.
‘I mean, I came here looking for Stormeil, and I found you,’ she said lightly. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’
He looked up and the gentle expression on his face made her heart thud slightly out of rhythm. ‘Neither was I.’
‘I’ve loved being here with you, Stuart,’ she said softly.
‘I’ve loved having you here,’ he replied. ‘I never realised how quiet this place was before you got here. This has been the first time in, I don’t know how long, since I’ve taken time to stop and appreciate the moment. I’ve been so busy trying to end my old life and start a new one that I forgot what it was like to just enjoy someone’s company.’
‘You’ve had a lot to do. You’ve got a lot invested in the success of your farm.’
‘It’s been good to stop and take stock of things for a while.’
‘I’m glad you have.’
A quiet kind of peace fell between them for a moment and the soft thunk of slicing and dicing on a chopping board was the only sound in the kitchen.
‘Think on it a bit,’ he said when they’d finished. ‘There’s no hurry to decide.’
Elle did think on it—she couldn’t stop. It would be so easy to take Stuart’s offer and let things continue as they had been, but she worried that she would simply be putting off making a hard decision down the track. This wasn’t real life—even if they did have some miraculous future together, it wouldn’t be like this forever. Reality would step in. The farm would need Stuart’s full attention and eventually stress and long hours, bills and the demands of a farming life would change what they had right now and make it, well, ordinary. At the moment it was fun and exciting and new, but what if they didn’t like each other when reality replaced what they had now? It would only end up messy and complicated. Maybe it was better in the long run for both of them to have these memories … memories of a beautiful holiday romance that was brief, but perfect.