One Day (A Valentine Short Story) (3 page)

I tried not to flush like an idiot. “Hello, Stranger.”

“This is just weird,” he said, still grinning.

“How did you get here?”

“I was walking down the B9152 when that trucker,” he gestured behind him, “Pete, stopped and told me I was going to get myself killed.”

“He’s not wrong.” I frowned. “Why are you walking?”

He grimaced. “My car died just before Aviemore. I put it into a garage but it was going to take too long to fix it. I decided to walk.”

“I can’t believe you ended up here.” I stared around at the diner, avoiding his penetrating stare.

“Apparently the universe wants us to spend some time together.”

My eyes jerked back to his, surprised that he’d said just what I’d been thinking. I gave a huff of laughter. “Apparently.”

“What can I get you?” the waitress was back.

“Uh…” Liam glanced over the menu and asked me, “What are you having?”

“Full Scottish breakfast.”

“I’ll have the same.” He handed the menu to her. “Scrambled eggs. And a coffee, please.”

She took it from him without a word and walked away.

“Well it’s certainly a friendly diner,” I cracked.

“Yeah but Pete said the breakfast is really good.”

“My brother said the same thing. That’s how I knew where to find this place.”

“The same brother who owns the camper van?” Liam said almost cautiously, like he was afraid any personal questions might send me fleeing.

Oh what the hell, I thought again. “The very same. I’m running from life for a while. I was inspired by Valentine’s Day to do it.”

Appearing as though he were trying not to laugh, Liam said, “Is that so?”

“The day is cursed. For me anyway.”

“Sounds like an interesting story.”

I settled back in the small leather booth and stared at his too handsome face. “You want to hear my story?”

He mirrored my actions, relaxing in his seat. “Definitely.”

“Okay… first off I have had grand plans of being a feature writer in a newspaper magazine like the Herald or the Guardian since I was seventeen. I’m twenty seven and still writing an advice column in a woman’s magazine I myself would rather eat than read.”

Liam covered what I knew was a laugh with a cough.

“It’s okay, you can laugh,” I smirked, “It’s pretty pathetic.”

“You just… you have an amusing way of putting things.”

“Apparently that’s why my editor won’t promote me out of the advice column. It’s not being the advice columnist that’s really the issue. I’m quite an opinionated person; I quite like giving advice to people. But I get some great letters, from people with real, troubling problems, and my editor won’t let me respond to them. All we publish are saucy affair advice problems, and “my boyfriend or my cat ultimatums”…It’s frustrating to say the least.”

“So you hate your job and presumably loathe yourself for sacrificing your happiness for money.”

“Wow.” I narrowed my eyes on him. “You’re good at that summation crap, aren’t you?”

He grinned.

“Yes. I make good money writing my pithy, often sarcastic, bordering on insulting column, that for some reason our readers love. I’ve sold my soul for a mortgage and a Mini Cooper. That’s one of the reasons I’m taking a break from my life.”

“The other reason?”

“Fucking Valentine’s Day.”

Liam chuckled. “Explain.”

Our breakfast arrived before I could, and as we were both apparently ravenous, we were quiet a moment while we dug in.

Finally Liam swallowed a bite of haggis and scrambled eggs and said, “You were saying?”

“The dreaded VD.” I scowled just thinking about it. “Ten years ago I was dating a musician that was two years older than me. He dumped me on Valentine’s Day for another girl. Apparently she actually appreciated his music.” I made face at the memory. “Three years later my boyfriend of a year, sat me down on Valentine’s Day and told me he was gay.”

Liam choked on his breakfast and I shoved my glass of orange juice at him. He took it gratefully.

“I’m fine now,” I assured him as he looked at me with watery-eyed shock. “It was quite a surprise then and I did wonder why me for a while.”

Dropping his eyes to my chest, Liam said, “Yeah, you’d think he’d go for a more boyish type of girl.”

I was fairly well endowed in the boob area despite my slender frame. My sister, Heather, who was built like me but with a chest to match, often told me enviously that God had clearly loved me more than her when He saw fit to gift me with my figure. Heather was beautiful and had nothing to complain about her physical appearance. However, I always secretly thought that God probably might love me more but only because Heather learned to be a bitch at the age of seven, and over the years became proficient in it. She was now a raving bitch.

I laughed at Liam’s brazen ogling, putting thoughts of Heather out of my head. “Right? So… yes, surprised. But I got over it. And then a year later I was dating this wannabe bad boy, a bit like the first boyfriend. He was shagging a friend of mine,” I fluffed the truth a little, not wanting to open that can of worms, “I found out on Valentine’s Day. Two years after that, having still not gotten over my attraction to the idiot bad boy, I got dumped by my second musician when he decided to go with his band to the US. Having finally realized I was getting nowhere with the bad boy I started dating good guys. Unfortunately the first bored me to tears so I ended it. Finally three months ago I started dating a scientist. He was nice enough, quite good in bed, so I thought it might work out.”

“I’m guessing it didn’t,” Liam mused.

“Nope. He told me he loved me a few weeks ago. I didn’t say it back because I didn’t feel it yet. He knew about the other Valentine’s Day disaster dumpings so he kindly told me last week that he was breaking up with me now to save me from the humiliation of a fifth VD dumping. I decided then it was a good time to take a break from my life. Gather some perspective and get to know my country better while doing it.”

Liam stopped eating to stare at me. “You do realize that VD also means venereal disease?”

“I do. I think it’s quite fitting for Valentine’s Day. But just to be clear, I wasn’t dumped because I had VD.”

Laughter in his voice, he said, “Thank you for sharing that.”

“Do you have VD?”

He choked again, banging his fist against his upper chest. His words were hoarse, “That might be the weirdest, most intrusive question anyone has ever asked me.”

Surely not the weirdest, I thought. “Do you think gay porn starring Arnie and Sly would be hot?”

“I stand corrected. That was weirder. And very disturbing.”

I shrugged, grinning. “I’m kind of a strange person.”

Suddenly his eyes gleamed with humor and if I wasn’t mistaken, a little bit of sex. “Strange can be good.”

I didn’t understand what he meant exactly, but there was definitely flirtatiousness in his voice. “Did you just say something dirty to me?”

He threw his head back in laughter but didn’t answer.

I continued to eat my breakfast, my eyes narrowed on him. To be honest I was excited he might be flirting with me, but I was also wary. After all it was fucking Valentine’s Day. And Liam Brody was too charming for his own good.

“Are you a bad boy?” I suddenly asked.

His expression sobered and I saw a glimmer of pain in his eyes before he lowered them. “Not even in the slightest.”

Hmm. There was a story there. But before I could ask he said, “So, have you found what you’re looking for on this break of yours?”

“Not yet,” I said, disheartened by the thought. I’d hoped that by some stroke of luck or magic I’d stumble across life’s answers. However, I’d come to the conclusion that life wasn’t really like that. There was stumbling involved but it was through life.

“Where are you headed to next?”

“Fort William, but I thought I’d stop at Laggan first.”

His study of me was suddenly intense. I almost squirmed in my seat.

“What?” I said eventually.

He shrugged. “Well… I’m making my way to Fort William. To climb Ben Nevis to be exact. But I could stop in Laggan.”

“You’re just looking for a free ride,” I teased.

“I could get that from Pete.”

“The bearded truck driver you just met?”

Liam grinned. “We have a bond, Pete and I.”

Chuckling I shook my head at him. “I’m not sure I should offer a free ride to such a charmer. It can only end badly.”

“You think I’m charming?”

I sighed as if I found his charm insufferable. “Only in the worst way.”

“There’s a bad way to be charming?”

“On fucking Valentine’s Day, yes.”

“Well… what if I promise you that I hate Valentine’s Day, and that I’d like to spend the day with a woman who shares my revulsion?”

Smiling and curious, I cocked my head in curiosity. “Why do you hate it?”

“Because…” he seemed to hesitate, as if unsure whether to share with me, “a woman upended my life a few weeks’ before Valentine’s Day. I’ve disliked the day ever since.”

“Kismet,” I murmured, feeling a thrum of energy heat my blood at his confession.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I shook my head, trying to control the sudden pounding of my heart. “Just something my brother would say.”

He threw his napkin on his empty plate. “So? Do you want to spend the day with me pretending it’s just another day?”

“What the hell.” I shrugged, throwing my napkin on my plate too. He grinned, pleased. “Just remember,” I said, “I have my penknife on me at all times.”

He slid out of the booth, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. “You know, you don’t need that knife to force seduction on me.” He winked at me.

And before I could respond to his flirtatious remark he strode away to pay for his breakfast. I had just reached the counter to pay for mine when he turned around and took hold of my hand. “Put your money away.”

“You paid for my breakfast?”

“Of course,” he said gruffly.

“Uh… thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He led me to the other side of the diner to where bearded lorry driver Pete sat with another man. “Hey, Pete, I need to grab my stuff.”

Pete looked from Liam to me and grinned widely. “So I see. Got another ride, did you?”

Ignoring the insinuation in his tone, I waited as he handed his keys to Liam. “Bring them right back.”

Still holding my hand, Liam strolled outside toward a smaller truck parked at the opposite end of the car park. “Do people always automatically trust you?” I said, referring to the fact that Pete had given his keys quite happily over to the American, and I’d let him into my van this morning.

He threw a cocky smile over his shoulder at me. “I just have one of those faces.”

“Tell me about it,” I murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

When he let go of my hand to jump up into the lorry for his huge rucksack, I tried not to feel bereft at the loss of his touch. I should have been annoyed that he was holding my hand. It was after all completely forward of him to do so!

But I wasn’t annoyed.

Damn.

“Where are you parked?” he said as he locked up Pete’s lorry for him.

“Behind that big artic.” I pointed.

“Okay, I’ll meet you there.” He threw me another quick, crooked smile that made my belly flutter, and hurried back inside the diner.

“You’re in trouble,” I muttered as I walked to my camper van. “Big trouble. Biggest.” I slammed into the van, half excited, half annoyed at this whole kismet thing and at Johnny for always talking about crap like fate.

Thanks to him there was a possibility that I might lose my knickers tonight.

Suddenly the back of the van opened and I craned my neck to see Liam’s huge rucksack getting thrown in. And then he was getting into the passenger side beside me.

He stared at me, smiling with those gorgeous eyes.

Yup.

There is a definite possibility I will lose my knickers tonight.

***

Boating was a bad idea. I knew it from the moment we got in the damn boat.

It turned out Laggan was a tiny village with very few buildings interspersed throughout the gorgeous surroundings. There were stores—a quaint, beautiful old building with a white painted sign that declared it LAGGAN STORES. There was also a country hotel up the hill, and a few homes here and there. But mostly there were green rolling mountains as far as the eye could see, dipping down into the beautiful valley that homed the River Spey.

Liam had suggested we hire a canoe boat and take in the scenery from a new vantage point.

I tried to tell him I was useless with a paddle.

“You keep veering toward the bank,” he said, grinning at my uselessness.

I huffed, “Well dear God man, you’re stronger than I am. Surely you can stop me.”

He laughed. “I don’t think an army could stop you if you put your mind to something.”

“I’m not exactly putting my mind to paddling us in the wrong direction.” I looked down at the paddle in my hand. “How is it possible to be getting this wrong?” I dragged it out of the water.

“Look, I’ll show you.” The boat wavered as Liam leaned over toward me.

“Don’t do that!” I cried.

“Nothing is going to happen.”

He moved again toward me and the boat wobbled even more. My instinctive reaction was to try and stabilize it with my own body and I moved to center myself.

However, I completely forgot I had a large paddle in my hand, and as I moved the paddle came up out of the water.

“Hazel, shit—”

My heart rammed against my chest as I realized the paddle was coming for Liam’s head. I was about to drop it but his reflexes were faster. He ducked to avoid it, overthrowing his balance, and then—

SPLASH!

Horror moved through me. I had no idea how deep the river was, how good of a swimmer Liam was, and I suddenly realized I might have to jump in there to save him!

“Liam!”

I moved to do just that when the water rippled and splashed again as Liam soared up out of it and onto his feet. He stood, the water at waist level, and wiped the river water off his face.

I eyed his dripping clothes in guilt. “It’s shallow water here, then?”