Page 19 of Love Bomb

He pushed the truck door open and crisp winter air rushed in. “Could you get some⁠—”

“Chocolate sauce,” he finished. “I know. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who smothers chocolate cake in yet more chocolate. I’ll make sure I get some.”

Then he shut the door and walked through the snow to get the demon her sugar fix. Hopefully, it would calm her down.

They ate in the truck, looking out over the loch as snowflakes fell onto the water and disappeared. The hills around the loch were white. The was sky a luminous shade of grey that you only ever saw when it was snowing, as though the clouds were lit from within and sitting very close to the ground.

Bain had popped into the pub behind them and came back with two huge takeaway mugs. Coffee for him, tea for Rona. He’d thought about getting her a hot chocolate, but in the end he couldn’t do it. She was already eating a slice of cake that was as big as her head, not to mention the side serving of chocolate sauce she’d poured over it. Not that he wanted to police her. Hell, if she’d wanted cocoa too, then that was on her. He just wasn’t sure he could watch that level of chocolate consumption without feeling nauseous.

Thankfully, the cake bribe was working, and Rona had become more peaceful with every bite she ate.

“Dougal said you went to boarding school in England after you left here,” he said as he sipped his coffee. “Was it crap?”

She shook her head, making the corkscrew curls bounce around her face. She had on the same purple coat and boots she’d worn the day before, but her white knitted hat was on the seat beside her.

“It wasn’t bad,” she said. “Just a bit regimented. They had rules for everything and even planned your weekends. But they were good people, and I got a decent education. And nobody forgot me during the holidays. All in all, it could have been worse.”

“I thought you’d go to school in Edinburgh,” he said watching her cheeks warm from the heat of the car.

“So did I, but my parents forgot to enroll me, and it all went to hell when I tried to enroll myself.”

Bain’s coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth. “They forgot to enroll you?”

“It’s no big deal, it was a long time ago. Basically, they’d arranged for me to live between their two houses, which would have been fine. But, as you know, they aren’t great at communicating with each other. So, just before the school year began, Mum went off to Switzerland for a spa retreat with a bunch of her friends and Dad went yachting around the Mediterranean. They each thought the other was looking after me.”

Bain squeezed the cup so tight that the lid popped off. He relaxed and fixed it back on.

“Please tell me you weren’t locked out again,” he said evenly.

“No. I had keys to both places by then. Anyway, school started and I wanted to go, so I looked up the best one nearest my dad’s house, because that’s where I was living that summer, and turned up on the first day. I figured I’d just enroll myself and get on with life.” She rolled her eyes at him. “The headteacher saw it differently.”

“Because you were barely fourteen,” Bain said.

She pointed at him with her plastic fork. “Bingo. They tried to get hold of my parents but couldn’t, which I’d told them would be the case, because I couldn’t get in touch with them either. So, they called my grandfather.”

“Bet that went down well.” The old bastard was the worst of the lot of them.

“Better than it could have gone.” She poured the rest of the sauce over what was left of her cake, making Bain cringe at the sight. “He was in New York, working on a major business deal and couldn’t come back to Scotland. He sent his secretary to handle everything.”

Bain very much wished the old man was still alive so he could tell him what he thought of that move.

“The school wouldn’t let the secretary sign anything because she wasn’t family,” Rona said. “In the end, social services turned up and I was taken into care for a bit.”

“What the hell?” Bain squeezed the cup hard, the lid flew off, and coffee sloshed into his lap. “Damn.”

“Here.” Rona tossed her serviettes at him. “Did you burn yourself?”

“No, it wasn’t that hot anymore.” He mopped at the wet patch with irritation. “How long were you in foster care?” he said through gritted teeth.

“About a month. Grandfather eventually wrapped up business in America and came home. Then he sent people to find my parents. There was a huge fight when everyone got together, and I was sent to boarding school in England because I was deemed too troublesome for Edinburgh.”

“Why didn’t you call someone in Invertary?” Bain demanded.

He was aware he sounded angry, but it wasn’t at Rona. She’d just been a kid. It was her parents he wanted to strangle.

Big green eyes met his. “I don’t have any family here, Bain,” she said simply. “Nobody in town could have done anything to help me.”

Bain had to swallow down his protests. She damn well did have family in town. Lots of family. They would have rushed to her side.