dressed-down life of the village and the beginning chill of even the sunniest of Highland evenings, she stood out like a rare orchid. It wasn’t a look Lissa could have ever worn herself, but she couldn’t help but be impressed at the commitment it took. Ginty’s huge pneumatic lips were polished to a high sheen, and her eyebrows were perfectly shaded brown geometric shapes that looked carved into her forehead.
“Hi, Jake,” she said seductively, tossing her hair over her shoulders.
Lissa smiled. She clearly expected Jake’s tongue to unravel like a cartoon fox’s.
Jake, meanwhile, had been having a profoundly disappointing evening. By now, in his personal schedule, Lissa would have been incredibly impressed by how he knew everyone, she’d have been terrified on the very high ride and he’d have had to comfort her with an arm around her, and she’d have thrown her arms around his neck when he’d easily won her the biggest toy in the fair, and well, it was a pretty short trip from there back home, he reckoned. But it was worse than that. His entire gift of the gab had deserted him. He’d always found it easy to chat with women; they always liked him. He had treated it like a game, and it had worked.
Lissa hadn’t felt like a game, and that had made it absolutely impossible. He couldn’t think straight. And now Ginty MacGuire was throwing another wrench in the works.
“Hi, Ginty,” he said, in a resigned tone of voice.
“Who’s this?” said Ginty, as if she didn’t know.
“Oh, you know . . . this is Lissa? She’s doing Cormac’s job?”
“Where are you from?” said Ginty.
“London,” said Lissa, putting her hand out. The other girls looked at that and sniggered.
“No, I mean, where are you really from?” said Ginty.
“London,” said Lissa shortly, bristling. The evening, which had started so promisingly, had taken a sour turn. The brightly painted machines and stalls of the fair suddenly looked tawdry, chipped under the bright lights, grubby and cheap.
“Mm-hmm,” said Ginty, undaunted. She liked to think of herself as someone who was straight with others and told them what she thought of them to their faces. Not everyone saw this as quite as much of a virtue as she did.
“So, Jakes, are you coming down to the bonfire? Everyone’s going.”
Too late, Jake remembered that the previous year he had spent the evening of the fair—several evenings, in fact (it wasn’t as if there was so much entertainment that came to Kirrinfief that anyone went only once)—down in the sand dunes, rather close to Ginty. Extremely close, in fact.
“Um . . .”
“What’s the matter, didn’t have a good time last year? Don’t you remember?” Ginty was pouting now. She turned to Lissa. “Jake and I have always been . . . friends . . .”
The other girls sniggered on.
“They’ve lit the bonfire,” Ginty went on. She bit her lip seductively. “It’s pretty hot down there.”
Jake was absolutely scarlet.
“Do you know,” said Lissa, “I’m feeling pretty tired.”
“I’ll take you home?” said Jake desperately.
“But you’ll miss it!” said Ginty.
Lissa looked up. “You know what?” she said. “It’s okay. You go.”
Chapter 56
The music of the fair faded away as Lissa made her way along the still-light road, stopping to watch a baby rabbit make a desperate plunge across it in front of her. She smiled, then pulled out her phone, then put it away again. He was on a date. With Yazzie. She shouldn’t be even thinking about him. It was just that she didn’t know him, that was all. And she was in a strange place and dealing with a lot of crap in her life, and of course she’d glommed on to the nearest person who seemed okay and not a terrible loser. She knew nothing about him, not really, didn’t have a clue even what he looked like. It was a fantasy in her head, that was all, and starting talking to him at ten P.M. on a Saturday night was . . . well, it was ridiculous. A conversation that had started about someone else’s snake.
She had pulled out her phone again and was looking at the screen when, to her amazement, a text popped up.
Hey?
She replied with fumbling fingers. Hey.
Cormac had been staring out over the lights of London. He was amazed how electrified he was to hear from her. He’d texted Lennox too—they’d picked up Robbie, who had apparently gone to work with a will. Fingers crossed it would last. The news had made him feel