Wanting. PENNY JORDAN

meal. ‘We’ll load the Mini tonight, so you can get an early start.’

      True to Jennifer’s prediction, her mother arrived just as she was putting the finishing touches to the table. She kissed both girls warmly, stretching up to hug Heather, both of them laughing. Like Jennifer, her mother was small and dainty, and when the two of them were together Heather felt like a giantess. ‘It’s freezing out there,’ Lydia Murray announced as Heather served the soup. ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, Heather? I’ll worry about you, driving all that way.’ That was one of the nice things about her aunt, Heather thought warmly. She never differentiated between her own children and Heather, her love for all of them was unbounding. ‘I can’t understand why you want to go to Scotland,’ she fretted.

      ‘She’s running away,’ Jennifer said mischievously, adding with a sly grin at her cousin, ‘from a man.’

      Her mother looked startled. ‘Jennifer!’ she expostulated as though unable to believe what Jennifer was telling her.

      ‘I said a man, Mother, that’s a… M-A-N.’ She rolled her eyes and laughed. ‘You know, the sort that makes you weak at the knees, a bit like Clark Gable,’ she teased her flustered parent, ‘and he’s finally made Heather realise that she’s human. Heather,’ she announced, disregarding the bleak look Heather was giving her, ‘has finally woken up and discovered sex appeal—with a vengeance—and now she’s running away.’

      ‘Jen, you mustn’t tease Heather like that,’ her mother protested, ‘and I’m sure she’s doing no such thing. She’s far too sensible.’

      Sensible! A wry smile twisted Heather’s mouth. If only her aunt knew! All her life, because of her height and more serious nature, she had been dubbed ‘sensible’ and ‘practical’, but since her meeting with Race Williams she had been feeling neither of those things—far from it. And Jennifer was far too acute She was glad she was getting away from London, she wouldn’t put it past her to try and engineer another meeting between them if she stayed. Of course she wouldn’t do it from malice, Jen wasn’t like that, but to her there could be nothing more logical than for Heather to want to pursue her acquaintanship with Race. Jennifer thought her reluctance to see him again sprang from embarrassment and the discovery that she wasn’t immune to him. Her cousin had no conception of the fear and anguish rioting inside her; the sheer terror she experienced each time she remembered how he had made her feel. As long ago as adolescence she had told herself that no man was ever going to have the power to hurt her ever again, and that was the way it had been until… until Race Williams touched her and sent her up in flames, all her carefully constructed barriers turned to ashes at her feet.

      She went to bed early, knowing she was going to have a long drive ahead of her, and was touched when both her aunt and Jennifer got up to have breakfast with her, coming to wave her off as she headed north.

      Once on the motorway some of the tension that had been with her since she woke up disappeared. There had been a sharp drop in temperature overnight and she drove carefully, taking her time, stopping for lunch just before she reached the Lake District, the quiet village pub she found almost deserted.

      The food and rest replenished her energy, but she hadn’t realised just how far she was going to have to drive, she reflected ruefully as she glanced at the snow-covered peaks of the Cumbrian mountains, brief flurries of snow dancing against the windscreen. The further north she got, the worse the weather, and when she eventually pulled off the motorway she felt concerned enough to check at the motel she came to, on the state of the roads and the weather forecast.

      ‘We’ve had it bad,’ the pump attendant told her. ‘Heavy snowfalls twice this last week, and they say there’s been more up past Fort William, but the roads are still open. Where are you going?’ Heather gave him the name of the village closest to the cottage. ‘Mmm—it’s pretty remote up there, hang on a sec, I’ll check with the weather centre. Why don’t you go and get yourself a cup of coffee, it won’t take long.’ When Heather thanked him he shrugged. ‘Better to be safe than sorry. We get too many inexperienced motorists coming up here, not realising how severe the weather can be. That last bad winter several lives were lost, partially through carelessness. Come back in about a quarter of an hour and I should have found out something for you.’

      The coffee she ordered came quickly and was hot and reviving. After fifteen minutes had passed Heather returned apprehensively to the forecourt. Having come all this way she didn’t fancy having to turn back.

      ‘You’re in luck,’ the attendant told her. ‘But I hope you’re planning more than a weekend stay? There’s a blizzard on the way. Should hit tomorrow, so you’ve got plenty of time to get there.’

      Thanking him for his kindness, Heather paused to check her tyres. She wasn’t going to take any chances. He smiled approvingly at her as she drove off, giving her the confidence to hold the small car steady on the thin black ribbon of road, alarmingly bordered by unending vistas of white.

      It was dark before she reached Fort William, barely pausing there in her anxiety to reach her destination. She thought about staying overnight and then remembered what the garage attendant had said about the blizzard. It would be better to finish her journey tonight, tired though she was than risk having to turn back in the morning. And besides, it was only another twenty miles or so.

      They must be the twenty longest miles in existence, Heather thought tiredly after what seemed like hours of driving through the darkness; the road almost deserted, the white silence of the countryside around her; the starkness of the scenery all combining to make her unusually edgy and nervous, Ben Nevis and the surrounding mountains towering above her, the pass along which her small car crawled unnervingly deserted. At last she found the signpost for the village, disturbed to find the road climbing steeply, but fortunately free from the snow which was banked high either side of her. The village, when she eventually came to it, was no more than a small cluster of houses, and a small shop, and garage, the latter illuminated. Thankfully Heather pulled into the forecourt. She wasn’t going any further until she had made absolutely sure of her directions. Even as she opened the door snow started to whirl down around her, and the man who emerged from the small office was quickly covered in the thick flakes as he strode towards her.

      ‘So it’s the MacDonald cottage you’ll be wanting?’ he asked in the soft sing-song of the Highlands. ‘I doubt you’ll get there in your Mini, lassie. The road’s been closed these two days past.’ Something of her disappointment must have shown on her face, because he said, ‘I’m not promising, mind, but it may be that the Land Rover will make it. Staying long?’

      ‘Two months,’ Heather told him. ‘It belongs to a friend of my cousin’s. I’m—I’m a writer….’ she added, feeling that some explanation for her sudden appearance was necessary. She knew all about village life and village curiosity from the Cotswolds where her aunt and uncle lived.

      ‘If you’ll just bide a while I’ll close up here and we’ll load your stuff into the Land Rover. Come well prepared have you?’ He peered into the Mini and grunted approval as he opened the boot. ‘Aye, it’s a good seven mile on foot down here to Mrs Mac’s shop, but I see you’ll not starve. A writer, you say… now there’s a coincidence.’ He didn’t say what the coincidence was, as he lifted one of the large cardboard boxes from the back seat of the Mini and deposited it in the battered Land Rover. ‘I’ll garage the Mini down here for you,’ he offered, ‘get someone to bring it up when the weather lifts. Who did you say your friend was?’ he added gently, but Heather wasn’t deceived and hid a small smile, knowing he was checking up on her, and why not? It was all part of the obvious neighbourliness of the villagers.