Finding Fraser Read online

  The truth was, the entire month of April had been a blur, with one terrible job morphing into another. I’d had two—no, three—jobs, all of which I’d had to run away or be fired from.

  The fishmonger job had looked perfect at first, apart from the whole fish angle, until I went to wash up at the big sink in the back after a shift and found my shift supervisor doing the same.

  Except he was not wearing his uniform—or anything at all, really.

  It became immediately clear that our expectations on my job description differed.

  Luckily, since one of us was naked, it only took me ten minutes or so to lose him on Crown Street. The fact that he didn’t seem worried about chasing after me through his neighborhood, crying and calling my name—while stark naked—led me to believe it may have happened before. The public thoroughfare didn’t slow him down any, either, but once I made it onto the Albert Bridge, I could no longer hear the telltale sound of his junk whacking against his legs as he ran. Who knows? Maybe his feet got cold …

  I’ve said it before. Fish make people crazy.

  Running through the streets of Glasgow in my bloody apron had left me sweaty and freaked out, so I spent the rest of the night in an all-night diner, going through the classifieds of a discarded Daily Record. I thought about going to the police, but decided that my own illegal employee status might not make me the most credible witness.

  The lone waitress in the place came up with her coffee pot and filled my cup. “Ye want anything to eat?” she asked, giving my apron the side-eye.

  “No, thanks.” My stomach was still in knots from the unexpected, lurid street-race.

  She shrugged and went back to filling saltshakers. By the time she made it around to my table again, I’d crossed off just about every listing. My only area of expertise was working at a coffee shop, and there wasn’t a single job listed.

  “Is there another paper?” I asked, as she refilled my coffee cup.

  “Yeah. But no’ much in the way o’ work, aye?”

  I sighed. “I tried being a fish monger, but it didn’t really work out.”

  “Ah. That explains the smell then.”

  “Oh—yeah. Sorry about that.”

  In the end, the waitress had taken pity on me and sent me off to a “fella” she knew who was running a deal to sell science fiction magazines door to door.

  A week later, though, he’d given me the boot, since I hadn’t sold a single subscription. The Scots were canny about value, and everyone I’d approached indicated puzzlement as to why anyone would buy a magazine when the facsimile was available online.

  I’d had no good answer.

  So.

  I’d run away from paycheck number one. Struck out on paycheck number two—“Commission only, luv”. My last attempt was a job I had managed to land only that morning. It involved holding a cardboard sign mounted on an unfinished wood stick, entreating passersby to eat ‘New York-Style’ pizza. I also had leaflets to hand out.

  I rubbed my eyes, and thought about logging on again, to take advantage of my last couple of minutes of time online. I’d only come in because my feet were sore, anyway. But my comments had dwindled. Even the faithful HiHoKitty had been silenced by my increasingly desperate posts, so I needed to think of something optimistic to say. Maybe I should consider a post on how to run from a naked employer?

  I’d just flexed my fingers to type again, when a shadow loomed over me. It was the Internet café manager.

  “Oi! Wot’s that, then?” he demanded.

  “It’s my sign.” I tilted it so he could see. “I’ve tucked it in out of the way.”

  “No, no, no. Yeh cain’t have tha’ in here, aye?”

  “I can’t …?”

  “No soliciting on the premises.”

  “Oh, I’m not …”

  “Out wit’ yeh. And mind yeh don’t leave any of them flyers behind. I know yer kind—leavin’ that crap all ower the place. Out wit’ yeh!”

  I took my flyers and fled.

  Outside, I crossed the street and sat on a bench by the bus station. I stacked the flyers neatly on the seat beside me, and tilted the sign against the back wall. The gray mist of Glasgow settled onto the flyers, which began to curl at the edges almost immediately.

  In front of me, a bus pulled up. Emblazoned on the side was an ad with a very large man in a kilt throwing some kind of huge stone boulder into the air. Behind him the sun shone with a warm yellow glow. Above the man’s swinging kilt was printed Gather Your Clan At The Nairn Games.

  I hadn’t seen a man wearing a kilt since I’d arrived in Glasgow. My heart lurched.

  The door of the bus opened, and I stood up. Didn’t even look back at the flyers or the ‘New York-style Pizza’ sign.

  “Where’re ye headed, young lady?” said the bus driver, as I stepped inside.

  I pushed off my hood and wiped a handful of wet hair away from my face.

  “Nairn,” I said, and paid the fare.

  It only took me a minute or two to sort out the controls. If I’d known driving a carriage was this easy, I’d have picked it up long ago. But even though I held on tightly to the leathers—and who knew reins would work exactly like my Xbox?—the horses still raced toward the cliff.

  I looked behind me for help, but both Elisabeth Bennet and her mother were dead on the floor. The door to the carriage burst open and the entire rest of the Bennet family was there, all screaming at once. I leaned back with all my weight on the reins and the carriage slowed a little, the wheels skimming just inches away from the cliff, shooting pebbles off the precipice. Iron-gray seas thrashed in foamy fury below.

  One of the reins snapped in half and Mr. Darcy screamed like a girl.

  Fried Food…

  10:30 am, May 1

  Nairn, Scotland

  I have been trying so hard to do the right thing while I am here. To follow my map. To stick to the plan. But the plan has a way of not working, somehow.

  Last night, I got onto a bus and left Glasgow. And today, I’m in Nairn, a seaside village in the Highlands; a place of great beauty and deep history. I’ve had a deep-fried Mars Bar for breakfast, which has banished the terrible Jane Austen dreams that came as a result of last night’s mystery meat sandwich, and am about to embark on a research session to learn more of this place. Of its people.

  Of the Nairn Highland Games.

  Plan be damned. My journey is now back in the hands of fate.

  Wish me luck!

  - ES

  Comments: 23

  SophiaSheridan, Chicago, USA:

  Wish you luck as you put yourself into the hands of fate? Emma, you’ve really lost it. After a month of trying, you can’t even manage to hold down a job to earn the money to get home? I just can’t read this any more. The stress is too much.

  Jack Findlay, Inverness, Scotland:

  Been buried in final galley corrections for the new manuscript, so I’m just catching up on your adventures today. Wonderful to see you back in the Highlands again, though I’m not sure the job prospects will be any better than Glasgow, to tell you the truth. At any rate, wanted to wish you a happy first day of summer, such as it is. May the sun shine down on your adventures while you are here.

  Jack

  (Read 21 more comments here…)

  I shook my head and looked out the window of the library. It was May Day—how did that translate to the first day of summer? Jack had to be nuts—or making some kind of twisted Scottish joke.

  That had to be it.

  But he was right about one thing. The sun was shining in this wee town, and it was so good to be out of the Glasgow gray.

  The dream I had awakened from on the bus had been brutal. And the inside of my mouth had tasted like a grease-slicked fry pan. But a wander through the town in the crisp, early sunlight had cured so much of what ailed me. Over my odd breakfast, I’d read through my copy of OUTLANDER yet again.

  I couldn’t recall if Claire had ever made the journey to Nairn, and
I wanted to check it out. I had flipped pages, scanned and read some more, but the text of OUTLANDER proved no help. Claire had obviously not made Nairn a stop in her travels, at least in the first book. The map inside the cover was even less help, since the town name was nowhere to be found, and at that moment, I wasn’t quite sure exactly where I had ended up. Had I taken a bus to nowhere?

  Luckily, the man at the chippy had handed me a creased and dog-eared copy of a leaflet cheerily titled ‘Welcome to Nairnshire’. The back half of the leaflet was missing, but it at least gave me a place to start. Then he pointed me to the Tourist Center, which shared space with the town library and actually offered use of a free Internet terminal for visitors.

  I walked out into the street, feeling hopeful for the first time in what felt like weeks. This was, after all, the land of the hardy Highland Warrior. The Nairn Games. Another chance to complete my journey. Forget the ghosts that Gerald had me chasing—I needed to find my very own Fraser. Mind you, I needed to find a laundromat first. If I did come across my Jamie, he’d probably like me better in clothes that had been recently washed.

  But still. I felt so welcome already.

  Inside the library, I learned that the town itself had a population somewhere north of 8,000 people, and that the locals considered their wee metropolis to be the center of golfing excellence, with two large courses nearby and more than forty others within a sixty mile radius. I wondered briefly about a golf-playing Jamie, and then rejected the thought.

  I needed a guy who had time for noble pursuits. Like the pursuit of Emma, for example.

  The brochure went on to note that other than being a seaside village with many popular tourist amenities, Nairn also hosted one of the largest competitive games events in the Highlands.

  Of course. I’d known that from the kilted man on the side of the bus. Seeing as there were fewer clan wars in the twenty-first century, and cattle poaching had become almost unheard of, the Highland Games seemed as good a place as any to carry on the quest for my personal version of Jamie.

  Unfortunately, a quick search of Nairn - Highland Games brought me a more complete story. While it turned out the dog-eared little brochure from the chippy man was correct, and there were Highland Games in Nairn every year, they were held in late summer. Which made perfect sense. It can’t be easy to toss a caber while slogging through a muddy field.

  I logged off the computer with a sigh.

  At least some of my commenters had returned. But aside from the cheery note from Jack and the diatribe from my sister, all the comments came from overseas readers. All asked, in a range of dialects and with varying degrees of subtlety, when the hell I was going to find my Highlander and fall in love, already.

  Since my last experiences with men had been a naked fishmonger and an irate café owner, I obviously needed more practice.

  So there I sat, months away from the Games that drew the muscle-y Highland boys, one of whom might be my own personal Fraser. I had no idea what to do next. From the way my comments were going, it was clear the outside world was losing patience in my quest. And the dwindling contents of my wallet were dragging me down worse than the light blog traffic.

  I decided to take a look around the place, anyway. I was, after all, deeper in the Highlands than ever before. I could at least allow myself a day to play the tourist before addressing the twin evils of facing up to my financial situation and heading back south to find work. And who knows? Maybe there would be a singles bar in Nairn.

  Beside the computer terminal was a tourist information bulletin board, which was speckled with bent pushpins and old messages. After reading every torn page, it soon became clear there was no hostel in the town, or at least not one open in the off-season. Since the bulletin board and the computer desk were the full extent of the tourist information section, I wandered up to the library front desk and picked up a pamphlet detailing local accommodations.

  Even at off-season rates, there wasn’t a bed and breakfast anywhere that could match hostel rates.

  Finally the lady behind the desk leaned forward on one elbow and looked up at me over her glasses. “Try Missus McGuinty, down Lochloy Road,” she said, with a serious nod. “I’ve heard she’ll give travelers a special rate in springtime, especially those who are willing to look after themselves.”

  “My budget is just ten pounds a night,” I repeated.

  “You try her, pet. She’s got a lovely spot out there, facing the firth. Ye won’t be disappointed, I promise.”

  It felt like destiny.

  On the library lady’s advice, I tried to banish my bad memories of earlier experiences and rented a bicycle from a garage across the street. After a twenty-minute ride into the teeth of an extremely brisk wind, I found myself at a deeply rutted driveway marked with the McGuinty’s B&B sign.

  Ominously, beneath the name, a little wooden plaque reading NO had been hooked on before the word Vacancy. I hopped off my bike, anyway, and pushed it carefully into one of the mostly-frozen ruts in the drive.

  Inside the fenced yard off the lane, an epic struggle unfolded before my eyes. A squat old man, his iron-gray hair slicked back from a face the color of a fire engine was fighting a losing battle with a giant orange bull.

  I’d never seen anything like this animal before. Huge horns on either side of its head spread out as wide as the handlebars on a Harley. A mane of long, curly red hair cascaded down the creature’s forehead, obscuring its eyes. Completing the picture was a comparatively small pink nose, which at the moment was blowing twin bores of steam straight into the face of the small farmer.

  The bull, massive testicles swinging, was pulling the man backwards by virtue of a rope harness the farmer had somehow tangled around the animal’s head. The other end of the harness was clutched tightly in the hands of the farmer. The old man had his heels dug deeply into the mud, but I could see by the twin channels in the dirt behind him that the bull’s tactics had proven successful for quite a distance already. The farmer’s jaw was set, though, and there was no aura of defeat about him. I stood beside my bicycle, not sure what to do, but he didn’t spare a glance for me.

  “Ye’ll no beat me, yeh wee bastard,” the man hissed, but the bull pulled him steadily on toward the open gate to the road.

  “Would you like me to shut the gate?” I called out, helpfully. I certainly wasn’t going to offer anything else. That bull was a monster, taller than the farmer by nearly a foot.

  “O’ course I dinnae want ye to close the blasted gate. Jes’ get yerself and yon bicycle ou’ of the bluidy way.”

  By this time, the bull had picked up a bit of speed, as far as slow-motion tug-o-war contests went, and I could see the man’s arms shaking as he clutched the harness for dear life.

  Reasoning that I could be more help if I went up to the farmhouse to fetch Mrs. McGuinty, I did as the old man said, and pushed my bike further along one of the deep ruts. I could hear the bull blowing and the man grunting with exertion behind me as I hurried up the lane.

  But when I got to the house, no one came to my desperate knock.

  I heard a cry behind me and turned to see the bull had pulled the harness at last out of the old man’s hands, but instead of the animal running along the road, it was charging up the hill into the field beyond. The old man, having closed the gate behind the animal, was stumping up the laneway toward me.

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t find anyone to come and help,” I said, as the farmer strode up and began cleaning his boots on an enormous iron scraper beside the front door.

  “No help to be had or needed,” he said, and having scraped his boots, put a hand on the door. “I manage on mah own jes’ fine, thank-ye-very-much.”

  The bull, still trailing the rope harness, was by this time frolicking up a small hill behind the farmhouse. The farmer stared up at the bull, a smile of satisfaction on his still-rosy face. “Did tha’ wee bastard right,” he said, chuckling a little.

  “How did you get him to go that way?
” I asked. “I thought he was going to head straight out onto the road.”

  “’Sa kissin’ gate,” the old man said. He tapped his temple with a muddy finger. “It’s all abou’ the brains, y’know. The young fella wouldnae gone through that gate for any money, less I told ’im he wasnae welcome.”

  “So—you pulled him along to convince him he wasn’t to go that way?”

  “Aye, did that, indeed. And yer the sharp one to figure it out, aren’t yeh?” He nodded at me approvingly. “Sure enough—lookit him up there. He’ll be safe up away from the ladies down ta lower pasture until he’s welcome.”

  “What about the harness—won’t he trip himself on that?”

  The old man opened up the front door of the cottage and shrugged out of his overcoat. “Nah, nah—won’t hurt the wee bastard for an hour or two. Be needin’ to halter train ’im for the show this summer, anyroad. ‘Reinhardt’s mah prime stock, for all his stubbornness.”

  “Reinhardt?”

  “Aye. After an ol’ beau, an all.” He paused and looked me up and down.

  “What’ll you be needin’ then? Directions to Nairn?”

  I came back to myself. “No—no. I think I’m at the wrong spot, actually. I was told to find Mrs. McGuinty’s place. There’s no hostel in Nairn and I’m looking for somewhere to spend the night. I heard she offers good rates.”

  The old man jutted his jaw at me contemplatively for a moment. “Lookin’ fer a place, are ye?”

  “Uh—yeah. But the library lady told me to speak to Mrs. McGuinty, actually.”

  “She did, eh? That Katy is full of well meanin’, now, ain’t she?”

  By that point I was starting to think the lady at the library hadn’t been so well meaning after all. “I guess so. If you can just point me in the right direction …”