Page 65 of The Highland Fling

“I’ve been planning to move out for a while. I even went to see a place on my thirtieth birthday, right before you dropped a certain bombshell. After learning you were pregnant, I put the idea on hold, but maybe that was stupid. The property I was looking at is easily big enough for me, you, and the bairn. Maybe it’d be perfect for us?”

“Aidan, I—”

“I know it’s a lot. We can still be sensible and go slowly—I’m not suggesting we force this thing between us. But we are having a baby together, and I can’t see how else this is going to work, so maybe we should give things a proper shot? You don’t have to say anything just yet. Take some time to let the idea sink in. We’ll have a look around the place, then we can chat.”

My heart rate has picked up—I wasn’t expecting this. Yes, we’ve been talking every day for a while now, but these last few months, I can count on my fingers the number of days we’ve spent in each other’s company and still have a few fingers left over. To go from that to moving in together is crazy, isn’t it?

But I don’t immediately shoot the idea down. Aidan asked me to think over it before replying, so that’s what I’ll do.

“The place you saw on your birthday is still available?” I say instead.

“Aye, it is, and I know the estate agent, Finlay Cochrane, pretty well. Earlier, when I left you with Maw and Iona, I went to see him and convinced him to let me give you a private tour.” Aidan pulls out a set of keys and jangles them. “I’ve got these for an hour, even though Cochrane and Munro Estate Agents is technically closed today. Finlay did mention there’d been some interest from another party recently, so no pressure, but if you like it, we may have to move quickly.”

“Great,” I murmur. “So I can take time to think this over, but just not too long?”

Aidan chuckles and kicks some snow. “Aye, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. As I said, let’s start with a tour, then we can chat.”

The snowy track broadens out into a clearing, and I get my first glimpse of the house. Still, gloomy, and nestled against a backdrop of snow-dusted trees, it’s hauntingly isolated. There are no streetlights nearby, and with day now turning to night, the entire landscape will soon be shrouded in darkness. Why on earth would Aidan want to move here?

He leads me to the front door, fiddles with the keys, then opens up and searches for a light switch. Finding it, he grins and beckons me in. “A quick warning: you will have to use your imagination. A lot of the decoration has to be modernised, and a good deal of the furniture will need to be changed too, but there’s so much potential. This could be a really amazing home.”

Maybe I also have to use my imagination to picture some neighbours or the house being in a completely different location, but I keep that thought to myself.

Aidan takes me through the cold, quiet property, showing me the living room and large kitchen then ushering me upstairs to see the three bedrooms and bathroom. He talks me through his vision—he’s already decided which room will be ours and which the nursery, and he’s got some ideas for the last room, although he’s not yet certain what to do with it. He suggests we could come up with a plan together.

I listen but say nothing. I don’t understand why he’s so enthusiastic about this place. It’s all wrong.

Tour completed, he takes us back to the kitchen and plonks himself on a sofa that supposedly looks out to the garden and the forest beyond, except it’s even darker outside now, and with the light on in here, it’s hard to make out much at all. If there were someone out there in the trees, peering in at us, they’d be able to see everything, while we wouldn’t even know they were there. My skin crawls with the thought.

Aidan pats a spot beside him on the sofa, and I reluctantly sit.

“Well, what do you think? Isn’t it crazy that you rent a wee box down in London, and yet we could own all of this?”

“Hmm.”

“There’s a public footpath that runs from Bannock to Duntreath, and it goes right past the house. It’d take close to an hour to walk to Maw’s from here, but . . .”

He trails off. Maybe he can see in my expression that I’m not impressed. He bites his lip.

“I don’t think this place is at its best in the winter. When I saw it in the autumn, it was stunning. There was an amazing view of the trees from here, their leaves turning golden. And, oh, just imagine it in the spring or the summer. It’d be perfect!”

I scoff. “Perfect?”

“Crap. You really don’t like it, do you?”

I shake my head. He grimaces.

“But if we did it up, made it our own, and—”

“I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’d ever live somewhere like this.”

After Mark, I swore I wouldn’t fall back into the trap of giving up my own needs and wants for someone else’s. On this issue, I’m putting my foot down.

“Hypothetically, were I to move up north, it’d be to stay in Bannock, not a place as remote as this. I love that Emily and David are just a few minutes’ walk from each other. It’d be nice to be able to pop out my front door and visit them or nip into the bakery or the pub or Bannock Stores. There’s also the sense of community: the church on Christmas Day, the lights brightening the town, the fact everyone knows each other . . . that all has a certain appeal.

“But you’re instead suggesting we live apart from all that and by ourselves. Like you said earlier, you’ll be working seven days a week throughout the summer, so . . . what? I’d be stuck here, alone, with a baby? Why would I want that? Yes, I stay in a box in London, but I’d rather be in a tiny flat somewhere that has a bit of life to it than in a big house in the middle of nowhere.”

Aidan wrings his hands. “Fuck, this wasn’t how I was expecting this to go.”