“Okay. Right. Thanks,” said Lissa. But she didn’t want anywhere in the Highlands. She wanted here.

Well, it was worth asking. Maybe getting back to London would make her feel more homesick; she’d always assumed that she would be. Once she saw all her friends and got back into her commute and with her life there . . . feeling lonely among crowds, making herself busy because somehow not being busy was associated with failure, cramming her calendar full of events she didn’t really want to do, because she lived in London and how else was she supposed to manage?

No more wandering down into the village on a morning when she could see the changes from the day before: the new colors and flowers pouring out of the sides of the roads, the trees getting thicker every day, the loch mist burning off before she’d had her second cup of coffee. The noisy quiet of the countryside—the birds and the occasional growl in the woods, the sound of the wind in the fireplace—and the sweet smell of burning whisky wood. Pigeons eating old McDonald’s leftovers didn’t have quite the appeal of the herons that took off from the very tip of the loch like ballerinas.

Well. There was a lot happening. A lot coming up. She should just get through it a bit at a time.

Chapter 59

Lissa looked around the little cottage. It was as if she’d never lived there at all, now that she’d neatly packed her black carry-on case and emptied out the jam jar full of wildflowers.

Why, she found herself wondering now, had she not put up a picture? Set the books up on shelves rather than scattering them underneath her bed? She must have been in such a bad state when she arrived. The cottage was beautiful, and she could have made it even lovelier. Especially now that she knew Cormac wouldn’t have minded.

She thought about him briefly, imagined him walking in. In her head, he was alternately very tall and very short and stocky; sometimes he had a beard and then he absolutely didn’t—nurses never had beards anyway, in case they had to do mouth to mouth. Also, if he’d been in the army . . .

He hadn’t mentioned Yazzie again, might even still be seeing her anyway. And she hoped he hadn’t discussed her with Jake . . . They wouldn’t, surely? They were Highland blokes—surely they’d just be discussing who’d won at the shinty.

She realized she’d actually had the conscious thought Who’d won at the shinty. God, she had changed.