LITMIR.BIZ

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air. Care to join me?’

      Elspeth felt a shiver as Fraser draped an arm around her shoulder and tried not to think what anyone watching might be thinking. Maybe it was better that they thought they were sneaking out for a quickie or a snog, than realising that she was sneaking away with a very nice bottle of champagne.

      He was using his body to shield the bottle from view, she reminded herself as her own body warmed beneath his touch. That was the only reason for him to be standing so close that it was making the hairs on her arms prickle.

      Elspeth stepped out onto the decking and wrapped her arms around herself as the chill of the Scottish evening hit her.

      Fraser grabbed a blanket from a pile that had been left in a basket by the door and draped it around her shoulders. She looked up and met his eyes, and only then realised how close they were. The sun was hitting the horizon behind him, making the light on the deck golden and glowing.

      At her wedding they’d have been having photos taken now, she remembered. Her ex-fiancé, Alex, was a keen amateur photographer, and had scheduled a number of photography sessions into their day.

      She shook off the memory of Alex, and the hurt on his face when she’d finally called time on their engagement. By then he’d known as well as she had that a marriage between them would never work. He’d wanted her to choose. To put him at the top of her priorities, even above her family.

      But she was the one who’d actually ended it. Who had said that the compromises he wanted from her weren’t going to happen. That she couldn’t let anyone else take care of her family. That if he wanted to be with her he would have to accept that he would have to share her.

      She took a step back from Fraser, breaking the connection between them and walking out across the deck.

      ‘So, do you want to tell me this long story?’ Fraser asked, following behind her.

      ‘I thought you were meant to be cheering me up,’ she replied, turning and looking over her shoulder as she reached the railing, leaning on it and looking out over the botanic gardens. ‘Trust me, talking about things isn’t going to be cheery for either of us.’

      ‘Ah, but we have this to help us,’ Fraser said, slipping an arm beneath the thick woollen blanket he’d wrapped around her and taking the bottle.

      He ripped the foil from the neck of the bottle and started untwisting the wire cage around the cork.

      Elspeth eyed the bottle. ‘We’ll need more than that.’

      Fraser lifted an eyebrow as he twisted the cork, then pressed his thumbs beneath it. ‘Sounds ominous.’

      ‘Well, let’s just say that today has come with a massive sense of déjà vu. Or future vu, or something weird like that.’

      ‘You had a vision that you’d be stealing champagne from a free bar with a stranger in a kilt?’

      She grinned involuntarily. ‘Yes, this is what I planned for my Saturday night. Attending my own wedding as a guest and stealing the booze.’

      ‘Your wedding?’

      Elspeth let out an ironic laugh, wishing her tongue wasn’t so easily loosened by alcohol. God, maybe she should just say it. Burying it and pretending these feelings didn’t exist wasn’t making the day bearable. Time to try something different.

      ‘I was meant to be getting married today.’

      She stated it baldly, with as little emotion as she could manage, but even she could hear the waver in her voice. Fortunately the cork popped out of the bottle with perfect comic timing, and Fraser directed the spilling white foam into her glass.

      ‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that,’ he said, slightly flustered, in the classic manner of a man who has just been hit by an emotional confession he hadn’t expected. ‘Quick—drink,’ he added, as the bubbles reached the top of the glass and threatened to spill over.

      Elspeth drank, seeing no better course of action, and spluttered slightly at the tickle of the exploding bubbles in her nose. She laughed, fully out loud this time—the first genuine laugh she’d managed all day.

      Correlation wasn’t causation, and all that, but maybe Fraser was on to something, encouraging her to talk about what was going on. She did feel a little better. A willing ear from a stranger could be as good as therapy—and cheaper.

      ‘I was meant to be getting married here, actually,’ she went on. ‘I called it off a few months ago and the day after my boss got engaged. She offered to take over my reservations…save me losing my deposits.’

      ‘Wow,’ Fraser said, holding the champagne bottle hovering just above his glass, frozen in the second of pouring.

      ‘You said that already,’ Elspeth remarked, raising her brows as she took another sip of wine, enjoying having him on the back foot.

      He had been so cocksure, swaggering up to her, asking her to dance, suggesting they get into trouble together. It felt good to turn the tables: see him lost for words.

      ‘And you decided you wanted to come because…what? You’re a sadist?’

      ‘I think that would make me a masochist, actually.’ She dropped the word casually, as if her sudden thought of kinky sex with this gorgeous stranger had had absolutely zero effect on her heart rate. ‘And, no, sorry to disappoint, if that’s your thing, but I’m here because the bride is my boss and I was invited.’

      He nodded sagely, thankfully not acknowledging her veiled question about his sexual kinks. She wasn’t sure it would be good for her to hear exactly what he was into in the bedroom. Her mind was having plenty of fun making up the details by itself.

      ‘Some big promotion in the offing?’ Fraser asked, and it took Elspeth a moment to remember what he was talking about.

      She took a sip of her drink and nodded. ‘Something like that.’

      ‘You’re a doctor?’ he said, after clearly searching through his memory banks for the bride’s profession.

      ‘A GP, yes. Well, a trainee, and hoping for a job when I finish.’

      ‘Why did you want to be a doctor?’

      Elspeth couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked her that. And she didn’t have a good answer. To her, it had never seemed like a choice. All she knew was that it had been a decision made long before she had chosen her exam subjects as a teenager. Probably around the time she had been sitting by her baby sister’s bedside, incapable of doing anything that could help her other than sit there.

      She’d trained as a doctor because she wanted to help people like Sarah. Be their advocate in the healthcare system and ensure that every single one of them got the best outcome that they could. Because she had seen the miracles the medical profession could perform. Keeping her sister alive, getting her home, giving her independence with an electric wheelchair and communication aids, among the million other ways it had helped her over the years.

      And now Elspeth had the skills and the knowledge she hadn’t had when Sarah was a baby, which meant she could be cared for by her family rather than by strangers. But her care responsibilities meant careful planning for the future, especially given that her mum had been in her forties when Sarah had been born, had arthritis herself, and wasn’t going to be mobile, or even around, for ever.

      But that was way more detail than anyone needed to know—especially dangerous-looking men in kilts brandishing bottles of champagne.

      ‘I liked science and I wanted to help people,’ Elspeth said, giving the standard medical school application answer.

      It wasn’t really much of an explanation, but it was all he would be getting. She had watched her relationship with Alex dissolve around her because he hadn’t been able to reconcile family and romance, but she had no desire to go into the details. Perhaps talking about this wasn’t the good idea she’d thought it might be.

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