Page 21

“Mum, like I say, I wasn’t planning to—”

“Why don’t you want to go?”

I don’t have an answer for that—at least, not one I can tell her—so I let out a quiet sigh and sink into the other chair.

I take a long sip of my tea. “All right, fine. I’ll go, but I don’t need your—”

“The money is a gift! If you don’t want to spend it on your fare, it can be your laundrette fund, seeing as you don’t have a machine of your own. And I insist. It’s yours now.”

I shake my head, but I know from experience it’s easier to accept than to argue. “Thanks,” I murmur.

I realise I don’t sound grateful—and yes, she is trying to be nice—but she’s got this way of making me feel like I can’t look after myself. It’s always annoyed me, but now it really gets to me because if I can’t look after myself, how am I supposed to look after a baby?

CHAPTER NINE

AIDAN

Today is my thirtieth birthday. To mark the occasion, I’m viewing a property, a secluded house a ten-minute drive from Bannock, accessed via a dirt track off the main road. Although it’ll require a fair bit of love and care, it’s a beautiful place with more than enough space inside for a bachelor like me. In fact, if I moved here, I’d need to think what to do with a few of the rooms. It comes with some land too, plus it’s nestled at the edge of a forest and surrounded on all sides by nature.

It’s long past time I moved out. The business is bringing in some money now, and I’m entering a new decade of life—that’s the kick up the arse I needed to sort out my living arrangements. As much as I love Maw, I can’t go on staying with her.

Earlier, the estate agent, Finlay Cochrane, showed me around, but I’m now taking in the property by myself while he waits outside. He has assured me there’s no rush.

I gravitate back to the kitchen, which is the largest room and the one in which I reckon I’d spend most of my time. There’s a cosy living room at the front, but the kitchen has the view of the forest, and it’s a stunning sight. As well as a window above the sink, there are French windows leading onto the garden, with a tired sofa facing them. That’d be a nice spot to chill and read a book or scroll on my phone, occasionally glancing up at the trees, on the lookout for wildlife.

The previous owner couldn’t take a lot of his furniture with him, as he’s moved into a much smaller retirement flat, so the property comes with a fair bit of his old stuff. Some of the items have seen better days and would need to go eventually, but the kitchen is home to a beautiful oak table. I’d definitely keep that.

Like the sofa, the table would be a nice place to sit, in the morning with a coffee, reading the news on my tablet, or for dinner with guests. I could make something for Maw and my sister, Iona, when she’s up visiting. Plus, Ally has confided in me that Emily’s expecting a bairn, so I could have them over on other occasions. I’m sure they’d appreciate someone preparing them a meal, and there’s plenty of space for a high chair.

And when it’s just me, it’s not as if I’d live like a hermit. At the weekend, I could go into Inverness and pick up a lass then bring her back here. We could drink wine, chat, flirt, maybe get up to a bit of mischief, eventually have sex by the crackling wood burner . . .

Aye, that’s what I need. Since I got home from my travels, living with Maw has seriously cramped my style. For my sex life more than anything else, I desperately need my own place.

I open the French windows and head out into the garden, which has a gate at the end that takes you straight into the woods. Aw, it’s just perfect. The wilds have always called to me—that’s where my passion for outdoor sports comes from. But although in Bannock I grew up surrounded by countryside, I love the idea of living in nature, not removed from it the way you are in a town. Here, that’s what you get. There are no other houses about—just a beautiful landscape.

As well as the woods, there’s the River Garve, which passes close by. Some days, I could catch a fish for my dinner, and I could get into foraging too. I love the idea of going back to some hunter-gatherer basics.

By the wall of the house, there’s a log store. Every year before winter, I’d need to chop plenty of wood and fill that up, then drive to the shops and stock up the cupboards too. The snow could render the track off the main road impassable, possibly for days at a time. Some people would hate being stranded and cut off from everything, but for me, there’s a sense of adventure about the idea.

Anyway, even if my car got stuck, I could hike to Bannock. The evening Ally sent me on a jog—the same jog on which I found Grace Adefope sprawled at the bottom of a hill—I came out this way. The public footpath that links the towns of Bannock and Duntreath passes the property, just a short distance into the forest, although far enough in that the trees provide some privacy. Walking, it’d take about an hour to get to my maw’s, door to door.

Aye, this place ticks every box. It’s time to go have a chat with Finlay.

I head around to the front of the house, where Finlay sits in his car, checking his phone. Glancing up and spotting me, he comes out, grinning widely. He was two years above me at school and is tall with ginger hair and a friendly manner.

“Well, what are you thinking?” he asks.

“I love it,” I say honestly. “Now I need to see if I can sort out a mortgage.”

Because the house is remote, the price is a lot less than what you’d pay in Bannock itself. And because it needs a bit of modernisation and upkeep, it’s more affordable still. But I like the idea of putting my own stamp on the place, and I could do with a project to keep me busy in the evenings, especially as Ally will soon be a husband and a da and will have little time for hanging out outside of work.

Each to their own, but settling down with a wife and kids isn’t my scene. But pottering around here and turning it into somewhere really special? Aye, that sounds a pretty damn brilliant hobby.

The one difficulty could be that Bannock Adventures is still new. Even if I can prove I’ve got enough coming in to make the monthly payments, banks are wary of start-up businesses. Hopefully, I can find some sort of solution—I can’t live with Maw indefinitely.

Finlay claps my back. “Keep me in the loop with how the mortgage hunt goes, okay? But for now, if you’re done here, I’ll lock up, then we can head off.”

We only took the one car out: Finlay’s. We know each other, and Cochrane and Munro Estate Agents is just down the road from my maw’s. It’d have been silly for us to both drive.