Page 15 of Highlands Summer Wedding

I pretended to review wedding notes while Caitlin leaned toward Angus. Something about the whole interaction nagged at me. I looked out at the water.

“What was that about?” Caitlin asked him.

“Just photo hunters.”

“Obviously. But why you specifically?”

Angus tossed his long dark hair. “My devastating Highland charm, clearly,” he said with theatrical vanity.

Caitlin playfully swatted him. “Over the sea to Skye?”

“Sure.”

The car hummed beneath us as we headed for the crossing to Skye.

CHAPTER 7

Ifelt a shift as soon as we crossed the bridge. The kind of thing that makes you understand, viscerally, why people up here invented so many stories about mythical islands, wee beasties, and the Good Folk.

Skye was more epic and beautiful than I could’ve ever imagined. Our car hugged the curves of narrow roads where sheep dotted the landscape, and it wasn’t long before the Old Man of Storr, that ancient stone sentinel I’d only seen in photographs—and countless movies, of course—appeared on the distant horizon.

“We’ve got to get some pictures here!” said Angus as he pulled the car to the side of the road.

I held the car door as a shield while Caitlin expertly wriggled back into the wedding dress.

“Looks muddy,” said Caitlin as she slipped her feet into her purple combat boots, which looked beyond adorable with the gown. “I don’t want to mess up that nice woman’s dress.”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll help you hold it up,” I offered.

Angus slipped on his own boots with his kilt, and we started hiking up the steep hill into the mist.

It was a rugged, steep climb, but somehow Caitlin managed to climb with grace, even with me holding the bottom of the dress carefully with each step.

Angus took a deep breath and savored it. “Beauty of a day for hillwalking.”

We continued upward, looking down at the rolling green hills and the water below.

I was glad I’d bought rainy-weather hiking boots. The path was uneven and steep, slick from recent rain, and the mist wasn’t helping.

I tried not to think about Max.

The higher we climbed, the more the world unfurled. Rolling hills melting into the horizon, those strange stone formations rising like ancient castles from a fairy tale, and the entirety of Skye spread out below us. I half expected to see a film crew capturing it all.

The happy couple looked epic in their wedding finery and mud-caked boots. I found myself reverting into director mode. “Hold hands. Now look back.”Click. The wind caught Caitlin’s tartan sash, making it ripple like a fairy flag, and Angus’s hair danced wild against the towering silhouette of the Old Man of Storr.

They summited together, his arm around her waist, and I snapped picture after picture as the mist crept over the rolling green hills and the scene transformed into something out of a BBC historical drama.

The mist thickened around us, swallowing the hills, until we could barely see ten feet ahead. We scrambled down the hillside, our boots slipping on wet grass, and tumbled into the car just as big, fat raindrops began hammering against the metal roof.

“Perfect timing,” I laughed, breathless from our descent. I held up my phone, flicking through the images I’d captured. “Worth every muddy step though.”

Caitlin leaned over to have a look. “Wow, you clean up pretty good, Angus!”

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” he replied and kissed her forehead. Angus glanced down at his mud-spattered kilt. “Time to track down our lodgings and change into something less ceremonial, aye?”

Rain hammeredon the windshield as Angus pulled the car up to the inn.

Caitlin pressed her face to the window. A white inn sat on the water’s edge, gardens just visible through the rain, and even from inside the car, I could smell the peat smoke.