Finding Fraser (36 page)

Fondness in the Fields…

12:15 pm, August 3

Nairn, Scotland

Since I have little to discuss of my own
life except that I am feeling better, I thought I’d share a quick story about
someone else instead.

This person, whom I will call Mary, has
title to her own farm here in the Highlands. Livestock, a huge garden and a few
acres of crops. She’s pretty much self-sufficient, and she works very hard,
especially at this time of year, getting ready for the harvest.

No time for anything else, aye?

The neighboring farmer has a field of
spring wheat that is harvested early in August each year. We’ll call him Henry.
Since I’ve been here, Henry and Mary have little more to do with each other
than any other neighbors would. They help each other out with equipment once
and a while, and that’s about it.

Yesterday was Mary’s birthday, though,
and in the morning, as I walked the bull up to his pasture, I noticed something
odd. Henry’s field of spring wheat had been plowed. But only part of it. Only
the middle.

In the shape of a heart.

When I pointed it out to Mary, she
shrugged and suggested I was inventing things. I replied that I was not, it was
clear to anyone with eyes in their head that the field had been partially plowed,
and the wheat that had fallen was in a heart-shaped pattern. She then insisted
that it was I who was love-obsessed and it was making me see things. I then
noted that the object of my affections had been unexplainedly absent for the
duration of my severe and disfiguring illness.

Her response was only to make that very
Scottish noise in the back of her throat and stomp off.

There the matter might have rested, had I
not returned late last night to her kitchen, with an aim to steal one of the
sugary doughnuts she had inexplicably produced in the afternoon. As I opened
the kitchen door, however, I spied the following:

·
     
one lit candle, jammed in old
wine bottle, centered on large wooden table

·
     
one new wine bottle, red, open

·
     
two wine glasses, filled

·
     
one plate piled high with
afore-mentioned sugary doughnuts

And finally…

·
     
the backs of two heads, tilted
together, voices pitched low in conversation.

 
I leave you to draw your own conclusions…

- ES

Comments: 14

HiHoKitty, Sapporo, Japan:

True love for Mary and Henry. Hooray!
Glad that you are well, Miss Emma. Perhaps you may become a Scottish farmer
yourself. You even start to sound the part…!

(Read 13 more comments
here
…)

The
day before I was to return to work, Morag had actually agreed to let me take
the bike out for a test ride.
So, naturally, I’d
headed straight for the library.

Katy had come over and offered me a polite
hello. My shocked expression must have been evident, because she’d looked a
little embarrassed and told me that I’d been missed. I’d grinned at her and
headed straight over to the computer terminal, my head held high.

Writing about Morag and her neighbour Hendry
(okay, okay, so I didn’t do a great job of inventing aliases) took my mind off
Hamish’s disappearance. But it hurt. It hurt and I wanted him back. I still had
that note he had signed with a heart. That had to mean something.

My spirits sank further when there was no
email from Jack, but I chastised myself for it. It was Hamish I needed to concentrate
on. I might be writing about romance Scottish-farmer style, but what I really
needed was romance, Hamish-style. After I finished posting, I decided to walk
across the street and talk to Geordie.

When I stepped inside the office of the
garage, Geordie was there already, going through a pile of invoices. As soon as
he caught sight of me, he quickly moved over to stand behind the desk.

“I’m not catching,” I insisted. “The scabs
have all fallen off.”

“Charming,” he said. “But there’s no use you
hanging about. Hamish is in Dores—has been all week.”

“All week?” I said, relief washing through
me. So
that
was why he hadn’t been to
see me, at least for the past week. He hadn’t even been in Nairn. “Why?”

“It’s a—a big job,” said Geordie. He
gathered his papers into a pile and scurried into the garage without even
saying goodbye.

Which didn’t explain why Hamish hadn’t
called or sent flowers. But it was something.

Fair Form…

12:15 pm, August 4

Nairn, Scotland

Back to work for me today, and feeling
fine. Things are starting to feel normal again.

Almost
completely normal.

- ES

Comments: 0

I
didn’t really have time to post, and only put something up because I was in
checking for comments.
But the site had fallen
strangely silent.

So, yeah … pretty much nothing felt normal. My
relationship with my Highland warrior was over before it had really begun, and
I hadn’t breathed a word of it online. I had become a serial blog-liar.

Things picked up a bit once I started work,
though. The cafe was busy all morning, and at one point there was an actual
line-up for coffee.

My public had clearly missed me.

But the best part happened right in the
middle of the lunch rush. The bell on the door jingled, and I looked up to see
Hamish.

I rushed over for a hug, but he side stepped
me.

“Keep it professional, aye?” hissed Ash, as
he brushed by me to wipe off one of my tables.

Sandeep rolled his eyes and held up one
finger at me, which I took for permission to go into the back for a minute with
Hamish.

When we got into the kitchen, he took my
head in his hands and gently kissed me—on the forehead.

“I’d heard you were a
wee speckled hen,” he said. His voice sounded so wonderful, I thought I might
cry at the very sound of it. But then the words sank in.

“They won’t scar,” I
said. “The doctor promised, as long as I don’t scratch, and I’ve been super
careful.”

“Aye,” he said,
thoughtfully. And then again. “Aye.”

I gazed up at his face,
brown with the summer sun beneath his baseball cap. “I so missed you,” I
whispered. “Why didn’t you call?”

“Ach, it’s been rare
busy,” he said, and patted my arm with two fingers. “I must get back
—
Geordie only gave me a minute,
aye?”

I nodded. “Yeah, me too.
But when can I see you again? I’d really like to talk. Can we make a plan?”

“Oh, soon …” he said,
his voice trailing off. “Maybe we could go to the gym sometime. Have ye been at
all, yet?”

And suddenly, everything
became clear.

He waved goodbye, and I stood
at the back door and watched him walk across the road. A sudden hot fury swept
through me, and I leaned out into the street.

“Claire never went to a
gym in her life,” I yelled so loudly it hurt my voice.

But the garage door had
already closed.

I knew I wouldn’t see him again soon, and
I didn’t. He didn’t come in the café next day or the day after that. And when I
rode my bike past the garage, his truck was never there.

The anger carried me for
the next three days. I threw myself into my work at the café. I scrubbed every
corner of the place, adorned every latte with cinnamon masterpieces. But sometime
on day four the doubt began to creep in. I admit it. I’m weak. It got so all I
could think about was the feel of those abs under my fingertips.

And then…? It became an
obsession. Even
though I was feeling myself again, I
lost all focus except to try to find a way to make it work with Hamish. I spent
every spare hour haunting the library, mostly staring at other women’s
abdominal muscles on the Internet.

In a way, Susan—or Gail or whatever
her real name was—had saved me, because if I’d still had my laptop, I
would never have left my room.

He had kissed me. We had nearly been together.
We could be still.
I just had to
figure out how. I had so little time left—how could the time have gone so
fast? How could I go home, knowing I had blown my chance with the only Fraser I
had managed to find?

As days passed, a pattern began to develop.
When I wasn’t at work, I spent as much time as I dared scrolling through image
files at the library. The only thing limiting me was my fear that Katy would
think I was downloading porn. (I don’t know how people watch porn. Even after
only a week of looking at women’s midriffs, they all began to look the same…)

At night, I stood on a milking stool I’d
stolen from Morag’s barn, in order to get the right angle to stare at my own
stomach in the tiny mirror above the bathroom sink.

Then I’d lie on the floor, cry, and eat
chocolate.

I’d had a boyfriend who wanted to take me
away and live in California. As long as I managed to whip my abs into shape.
And once my problem areas were spray tanned. And yet, even with all the
obsessing, I still hadn’t managed to find the time to make a trip to Hamish’s
gym.

Instead, I’d drag into work, sleepwalk
through my shift, cross over to the garage on my break. Geordie (or the other
guy, Jimmie, who only fixed transmissions and had one eye stuck in a permanent
squint) would tell me Hamish was on the road or working in Dores. I’d go back
to the cafe, finish my shift, then ride up to the library and monopolize the
computer until Katy closed the place and I was forced to ride home and spend
another night staring at my stomach in the mirror.

I’m not sure how long this pathetic circle
of self-destruction would have continued—maybe forever—but one
night, a little more than a week into my grim and blurry world of self-loathing,
two things happened to change everything.

The first was Katy.