Lingerie Wars (The Invertary books) (41 page)

This was the problem with living with her mother—she was constantly surrounded by a group of gossiping middle-aged women and there was no space to think. That and the fact she now slept on faded Barbie sheets and looked at old Take That posters when she couldn't sleep, which was all the time.

"Now that you mention it," Shona said, "she's really not the type for violence, is she?"

"Oh, oh, oh." Jean bounced on the old wooden chair, making the round table rock and mugs of tea spill. "I know what happened!"

The looks around the group said that no one believed that for a minute. Kirsty grabbed a cloth from the tiny kitchen at the back of her mum's shop and mopped up the mess.

"I bet," Jean said, "that Betty killed the parents and pinned the murder on Rainne!"

"We all know she's capable of murder," Shona said as she considered the latest theory.

Kirsty looked towards heaven and silently asked for more patience.

"Why would she kill Rainne's parents?" she asked her mother's loony friends.

"Why? To get Lake all to herself, of course," said Jean.

"We all know she thinks of that boy as a son," Shona said.

"Or as her evil prodigy," Heather said with a nod.

They looked at Kirsty for a minute. Heather blushed.

"Not that he's evil," she said quickly. "Just that Betty would like him to be. You know, so she can start an empire and take over the town."

There was nodding. Kirsty had heard enough. Any more of this and she was going to move back into her stinking flat. She didn't care if it was dirty, smelly and had holes in the floor. It was better than this torture. This was adding insult to injury. She'd been attacked, lost her business and home, Lake was nowhere to be found and now she had to suffer the insanity of Invertary's gossipmongers. Her head was going to explode if she listened to much more.

"I'm going for a walk," Kirsty told her mother, who was serving a customer at the front of her shop.

"It's snowing," her mother protested.

"Excellent," Kirsty said. "That means I might get some peace to think."

She wrapped herself in the ugly fur coat that had been a gift from her mother. It summed up her life that one of the few things to survive the fire was the coat she hated so much. She pulled on a borrowed woollen scarf, and borrowed woollen gloves, and went out into the high street.

The snow was coming down thick and fast. The hills around Invertary were shrouded in heavy cloud as fat snowflakes covered Kirsty's world. As she came to a stop in front of the burnt-out shell that used to be her home, she noted that the white frosting made even the desolation seem pretty. Kirsty stared at the mess before her. There was literally nothing left, and instead of despair, all Kirsty felt was a strange kind of acceptance. She hadn't had one panic attack since the fire. She'd spent nights lying in her old bedroom, listening to her mother snoring, as she tried to figure out where the panic had gone. Eventually she'd come to the conclusion that the source of her panic attacks was fear. Fear that everything she had would disappear. Now that it had actually happened, there really was nothing left to fear. She was still standing. She was still living day after day. As gut-wrenchingly awful as everything was, she actually felt hope.

"Staring at it isn't going to change anything," Betty said as she came up beside her.

Kirsty kept her eyes on the mess as the snow coated her from head to toe.

"Is he coming back?" she asked at last.

"Of course he's coming back, stupid lassie," Betty said.

"Is he staying when he comes back?" Her heart beat fast at the thought of it.

"I don't think it's my place to talk about that," Betty told her.

Kirsty turned towards her.

"Since when do you care about butting into other people's business?"

"That's a good point," Betty said. "But the man has a plan and I don't want you to ruin it, so I'm keeping my trap shut."

Kirsty grunted. She recognised the stubborn look on Betty's face and knew she wouldn't get the information out of her. Not without threatening her, anyway. She thought hard. Maybe a bribe?

"I'll buy you pies for a month if you tell me what's going on."

"Ha!" Betty said. "With what? You don't have any money. You don't have a business and you don't have a home. You didn't even have the sense to stop the police taking all those diamonds. It's pathetic. I mean, look at you—you don't even have a decent coat."

Kirsty looked down at the ugly fur coat her mother had given her, and then back to Betty's smug wee face. Something went pop inside of her, like a pin to a balloon. The colossal screw-up of her life was suddenly a black comedy. Without being able to stop it, she started to giggle. The look of surprise on Betty's face made her laugh harder. Betty started to chuckle, and together they held each other and laughed until tears were streaming down their cheeks.

"Well," Betty said as she wiped her face. "This is a bloody mess."

"And I have no idea what to do about it," Kirsty said with a grin.

"At least you're cheery," Betty said, and they started to laugh all over again.

"I think it might be hysterics," Kirsty said through her tears.

That made them laugh harder.

At last, gasping for breath, they calmed down. Kirsty felt lighter than she had since the fire.

"When you talk to Lake," she told Betty, "tell him that as far as I'm concerned the war isn't over."

Betty's eyes sparkled.

"And how exactly are you going to fight?" she said.

"I haven't figured that part out yet," Kirsty said. "Tell him that if he doesn't come back and fight like a man, I'll take that as a sign of surrender and will broadcast to the world that I won the war."

Betty grinned widely.

"Anything else you want me to tell him?" she said.

"Yep," Kirsty said as she stamped warmth back into her toes. "Tell him that cowards run and hide. Tell him that there's unfinished business here and I expect him to finish it."

"I'll do that, lass," Betty said.

"And you can also tell him that I'm seriously cheesed off with him," she added for good measure.

"You know," Betty said thoughtfully, "when you get rid of all the outward stuff, you and me are a lot alike."

That almost made Kirsty start laughing again.

"I don't see it myself," she said.

"Well," Betty said mischievously. "We both like a good fight. We both don't have a clue when we're beaten. And we're both pretty stubborn."

Kirsty smiled with surprise.

"I guess you could say that," Kirsty said. She thought about it for a minute. "But I'm not evil," she said as an afterthought.

"There is that," Betty agreed before she tottered back over the road to Lake's shop.

"I thought I'd find you here," Caroline said.

Even though it was New Year's Eve and technically a day off work, Caroline was still dressed for her job. She marched primly over to where Kirsty was sitting beside the loch. Kirsty was huddled under a blanket while sipping tea from a flask she'd brought with her. She offered it to Caroline, who shook her head.

"I couldn't stand the noise any more," she told her friend. "It's like living in a cage of budgies. I never realised how much those women talk until I was forced to live my mother's life."

Caroline produced a plastic bag from her handbag and placed it on the log next to Kirsty before she sat down. Then Kirsty had to wait while Caroline adjusted her grey woollen coat, which she wore over her grey woollen suit. It occurred to Kirsty that her friend was practising for being a spinster. A classic one from the 1950s. Next there would be cats and crocheted tea cosies. Actually, now that she thought about it, she couldn't see anything at all wrong with that life. Maybe she'd join Caroline and they could embrace it together. Because it didn't look like her love life was going anywhere. There was still no sign of Lake.

"I have news," Caroline said.

She beamed at Kirsty.

"You secretly took out insurance on my shop and I can rebuild?"

"No." Her face fell.

Kirsty squeezed her hand, regretting her flippant words.

"Okay, what's the news?" she said.

"Well," Caroline said, her eyes sparkling again, "my phone has been ringing off the hook."

There was a pause. Kirsty was confused.

"That's the news?"

Caroline frowned at her.

"No. The news is that there are magazines, and shops and models all interested in your new lingerie line."

Kirsty sat up straight. She suddenly didn't care that her bum was beginning to freeze on the old log.

"I don't have a lingerie line," she said. "Everything went up in smoke. My work, my sketches, my ideas. Everything."

"Not everything." Caroline motioned to the ugly fur coat.

"No, not this." Kirsty stopped dead. "The lingerie from the show is still in the caravan."

Caroline nodded excitedly.

"We forgot all about it. Now you have something to start with. Plus, Helena called. She spoke to the fashion editor at one of the women's magazines and showed her the photos from the fashion show." She grinned widely. "They want to run a spread on you and your work."

"Holy moly!"

Kirsty stood up because it seemed the right thing to do. People liked her designs. They wanted to do a story on her that didn't revolve around her mishaps. It blew her mind.

"I got calls from two shops wanting to know how they can order the lingerie," Caroline said as she stood beside her. "I didn't know what to tell them. I didn't even know the name of the design label or what you called the tartan range." She paused as she told Kirsty off in a look. "I felt really stupid. If I'm going to keep getting these calls then you need to give me information."

"I don't have any information," Kirsty said as she threw up her hands in exasperation. "I told you, I don't have anything at all."

"Nonsense," Caroline said. "You have the tartan lingerie. You have the photos from the show and the information on your website. You have a brain and a memory. Now all you need is a sketchpad, a pencil and a phone to make some calls. Your mum and the women in her group will donate materials and a sewing machine. I don't see the problem."

From the look on her face, she really didn't. Kirsty beamed at her and pulled her into a tight hug.

"You are fantastic," she told her friend.

Caroline's face turned a deep shade of beetroot.

"It's not me. All I did was answer the phone. You're the one with all the talent."

Kirsty nudged her with her shoulder before looking out over the loch. It was a start. A good start. She'd been so focused on what to do with the shop and where to live. Heck, on what to tell the bank when they opened in the new year. She hadn't once thought about the lingerie from the show.

"You deserve it, you know?" Caroline told her. "You work so incredibly hard and you keep bouncing back after all the terrible things you go through. You really are the most courageous person I know."

Her eyes teared up, which made Kirsty do the same.

"Courageous?" She smiled at the word.

Caroline nodded sombrely.

"Always have been," she said. "I wish I had half your courage."

Kirsty really couldn't get her head around that.

"I'm so proud," Caroline said, and Kirsty gave her another hug just for good measure.

"Now." Caroline cleared her throat. "What about a name for your designer label? Or are you just going to call it Lingerie by Kirsty Campbell?"

Kirsty shook her head. A new start needed a new name.

"Okay." Caroline sat back down on her plastic bag. "What about Phoenix?" She looked pretty excited. "Underwear that rises from the ashes."

"As in underwear so hot it burns your boobs? Or lingerie that stinks of smoke?"

Kirsty looked out over the pale grey loch that blended into a pale grey sky. More snow coming.

"What about Highland Hotties?" she said in triumph.

Caroline shook her head.

"It sounds like a range of pies."

Kirsty was stumped. She wrapped an arm around her friend.

"It's going to be okay," she told her.

"I never thought otherwise," Caroline said.

They stared out over snow-covered hills. All the colour had been bleached out of Invertary.

"There's something else," Caroline said. "Because of everything that happened, we never finished the fashion show properly. Dougal and I have been talking and we think that it would make a good New Year's Eve event." She took a deep breath. "The dance school will perform the routine they never got to do and we'll announce the winner of the Battle of the Bras. We want you to be there for the announcement."

"No way," Kirsty said. "What difference does it make who won? And I, for one, don't want to relive that night."

"You won't be reliving it," Caroline said. "You'll be finishing it. Think of it as closure."