Page 9 of Scotlander

What all of her up close and personal contact had taught her was that sometimes people really are good actors.

Beyond that, the simple truth was, movie stars didn’t fall in love with entertainment producers from backwoods Oregon.

Ever the practical puss, she rolled her eyes at the brochure’s exquisite example of A Rugged Highland Male and huffed out a very worldly, ‘Yeah. As if.’

She tapped the Wishes Letter and said to Gabriel, yet another perfect male specimen who would come with a catch, ‘Please feel free to take this opportunity to share anything that isn’t allowing you to live your “hashtag” best life.’

Gabriel looked at her, the will, the drinks in front of her, then took the spare shot and threw it down his throat.

Chapter Five

‘Alright, you two rascals.’ Brandi, now on a first-name basis with them and well assured of an abscholutellllyyyEeeeNORMousTip, was waving them to the door. ‘Your car is here. Fancy,’ she added as she helped Willa hitch her tote more securely on to her shoulder. Then, with a wink, sing-songed, ‘Make sure you do everything I would do!’

Willa rolled her eyes. As if she’d try to do anything sexy with the drop dead gorgeous, deliciously tipsy Gabriel with whom she was going to be spending the next two weeks.

And that’s when it hit her.

This was a set-up.

This was Valentina matchmaking from heaven.

She tried to summon up a moment when Val may have been drugged up enough to think Willa and Gabe would be a good match, and lucid enough to Google an immersive Scottish holiday for two.

Nope! Nothing doing.

Which meant Valentina must’ve genuinely intended for them to go on vacation together. For what purpose? Was it really romance?

A ratty text from her boss asking Willa where her planning notes were hadn’t sobered her up, but this did.

Willa and Gabe? (He was Gabe now. Anyone who’d shared not one, but two rounds of Rocky Mountain Bear Fuckers with her required a monosyllabic name.)

Gabe and Willa?

‘You okay?’ Gabe’s voice rippled down her spine like warm butterscotch.

‘Ummm.’ Not any more! ‘I just need to go to the Ladies.’ She crossed her legs and made a pained expression because obviously the edible adult male across from her would have no clue as to why a woman who’d just had multiple highly alcoholic shots needed to go to the bathroom.

He nodded and slid on to a barstool to wait.

Like an idiot, she waved goodbye and tried her best to walk in a sophisticated catwalk style that probably made it look a lot more like she was desperately trying to hold it in.

Once in the stall, she propped her elbows on her knees and had a think.

Was this actually, genuinely one of Val’s very unsubtle set-ups?

Despite having shared loads of childhood stories over the past few hours (Val’s homemade piñatas, her childhood dream of becoming a mermaid, her first attempt at making abuela’s flan), she still knew very little about Gabe himself and, more importantly, whether or not he was single. If this was a set-up, it would be good to know if his slate was clean.

Unsurprisingly, Willa’s was an immaculate whiteboard of possibility.

Especially now that she didn’t have Val to mark her dates out of ten. In her usual forthright way, Valentina macheted her way through the chaff when examining Willa’s online prospects. (He gives me the shivers, mija. I bet he has a ventriloquist dummy, for example.) Over the years, Val had abandoned subtlety and taken to planting options in front of their backyard barbecue alongside Diego as ‘preferable alternatives to career-track guy/beardy-weirdy guy/waaaay-too-into-learning Klingon guy’ etc, etc. To which Willa had said, ‘Not everyone can be a Diego, Val,’ to which she had said, ‘True, mija. But they should at least be trying.’

The thing was, deciding she was fine with being single meant not having to go through the time suck that was online dating, and, more importantly, she didn’t have to endlessly apologise about the fact that her life was busy. Between her bestie dying, the gym, some sporadic volunteer work she did at a local dog shelter, near mandatory mani-pedis, remembering which day to move her car out of the way of the street cleaner, remembering which day to put the garbage bins out, which exercise trends to sweat through, bucket list moments with Val (Dollywood, riding an elephant, eating all thirty-two flavours at Baskin Robbins), and, of course, her actual job, her days were full. Cramming a boyfriend and the ancillary things that went along with it – waxing, sexy lingerie, updated blow-job techniques, pretending to know the rules of ice hockey, pretending to care about ice hockey, and all of the other latest dating requirements – were nigh on impossible and most of the time she felt, and very likely looked, utterly frazzled. So at this point? Her one nod to a relationship involved rechargeable double As.

Gabe, on the other hand, looked as though he could handle anything and anyone and demanded as much from his partners in return. She had no doubt he would be as comfortable with a multi-lingual Sports Illustrated swimsuit model as a shockingly beautiful UN ambassador for children. Most likely on his terms, but, saying that, he exuded an aura of calm (control?) that she bet drew people to him.

Having been the recipient of his full attention for over three hours, she completely understood why celebrities came to him for ‘reinvention’ in the way they’d once flocked to gurus for inner peace. A few years older than her, and clearly miles ahead in the career-development trajectory, his energy was both charged and mesmerising.

Once he loosened up, he was funny, engaging, told great stories about ‘the set’ out in Palm Springs – including one about how he’d once had to coax one of the Kardashians (he refused to say which one) not to run down Main Street wearing nothing but an inflatable flamingo.