“And tartan trousers.” She beamed at my clothing choice. “Your Grannie would be proud.”
“When in Goldloch,” I beamed back. “You’re looking great, as always. Katy says hi. Do you remember Eliza?”
Eliza held out a hand, but Fiona wouldn’t have a bar of it. She hugged her right away.
“Of course I remember Eliza. Your mum showed me some photos of you when she and Felicity came up here together about five years ago. All grown up, too. It’s great to see you.”
She turned back to me. “Margot was on the blower over the weekend, telling me you’d be here to show Eliza around. Who’d have thought the two wee girls from all those summers ago would be in charge some day?”
“I guess it’s always what Mum and Gran intended.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat.
Fiona grasped my arm. She radiated warmth and kindness, but she was equally no-nonsense and business savvy. Her laugh lines spoke of decades spent finding joy in small moments, and when she smiled, her whole face transformed into something that felt like home.
“They’d be so proud you’re here, carrying on the family name. In their absence, I’m proud.”
A tingle went down my spine as Fiona hugged me again, and I swear, for a minute, I got a waft of something familiar. Something floral. Was it Mum’s favourite perfume?
I glanced around over her shoulder, but there was nothing there. Or maybe there was, but I couldn’t see it. If Sage were here, she might. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck and my palms. I clenched my fists to regain control. I couldn’t spend the few days here looking out for actual ghosts. There were enough hiding around every corner as it was.
“Shall we give you the tour, then we can look at the books? I’ve asked Andrew to have everything ready, and he’s arranged passwords with Simona, so you have it all at your fingertips. Ronnie is joining us just after lunch, too. Got a dentist appointment this morning. Dicky tooth.”
Ronnie was Fiona and her husband Harvey’s second son, and also a key in Voss’s success here.
She rested her fingers on my arm. “I know Margot is keen to sell, and I understand why. But this business? It’s not ailing. It could do better, but there’s a solid foundation to make that happen. If you can do anything to keep it in the family, this whole factory would be grateful. There’s a lot of rumours and understandable nervousness ever since Margot started touring with potential buyers.”
I glanced at Eliza. “Your Dad’s already been here?”
A bitter pill of reality fizzed through my system. After sharing a room last night and listening to Eliza’s gentle snores, it was easy to forget she worked primarily for her dad, not for Voss.
She gave me a pained look. “I don’t know. He’s been absent for a few weekends, but he didn’t tell me if he did come here, I promise. He and Margot have been away a lot, I lose track of where they’ve been and where they’re going.”
I could just imagine the romantic weekend he and Margot had, followed by promises of the company. I pulled back my shoulders and took a deep breath. Eliza was compromised by her present. I was compromised by our past. Could this relationship ever work?
“Before we do anything else, shall we get a coffee?” Fiona asked.
It wasafter 5pm when we left the factory. Without a word, we both headed for the loch, just as we always used to as kids. The path down was exactly as I remembered. A dusty track worn smooth by decades of workers’ boots and summer visitors, winding between gorse bushes that caught at my tartan kecks with every step.
“Careful,” Eliza called from behind me. “That bush has it in for your left leg, even if it is cosplaying as a Scottish limb dressed in tartan.”
I turned and gave her a look. “I’m fully Scottish, as is my leg.”
Eliza snorted. “Your trousers definitely are.”
Our shoes kicked up small clouds of dirt with each step, the fine dust settling on everything. The air smelled of heather and something indefinably Scottish: peat, maybe, or just the particular sweetness that clung to spring afternoons in theHighlands. As we descended, the sound of the factory faded until all I could hear was our footsteps crunching on the gravelly path and the distant lap of water against the shore.
“It’s like stepping back in time.” I paused to catch my breath and take in the view. The loch stretched out before us, mirror-still except for the occasional ripple from a fish rising to the surface. Rolling hills carpeted in purple heather swept down to the water’s edge, and beyond that, mountains peaks were topped with wisps of cloud. The whole scene looked like something from a postcard, all impossible greens, and blues that seemed too vivid to be real.
“Even that old jetty’s still there.” Eliza pointed to the weathered wooden platform jutting into the water. “Remember when your gran dared us to jump off it that summer? Then she did it, and we couldn’t believe it?”
“We were both still too terrified to do it until the last day.” I smiled at the memory, brushing dust from my trouser leg. “Then we spent the entire afternoon launching ourselves off like tiny cannonballs.”
“Speak for yourself. I was extremely graceful.” But Eliza grinned as she said it, and for a moment she looked exactly like the 14-year-old who’d spent that magical summer convinced she could teach herself to dive.
The closer we got to the water’s edge, the more the years seemed to peel away. Nothing had changed. Not the stony part of the shore, not the fallen log we’d claimed as our private bench, not even the rope swing that still hung from the old oak tree. Somebody still used it, because the rope looked far stronger and newer than I remembered.
Without discussion, both of us started scanning the shoreline for the perfect stones. It was automatic, muscle memory from our childhood summers. I crouched down, running my fingersthrough the smooth pebbles until I found what I was looking for: flat, round, just the right weight in my palm.
“Still going for the tiny ones, I see.” Eliza hefted a stone twice the size of mine.
