Faith - Lesley Pearse [247]
Glancing in the mirror to check the road was clear, she spun the car round in a U-turn. She had to go back and find him.
20
Back at Taynuilt, Laura took the turning off to Kilchrenan she’d spotted earlier in the morning as she left the guest house. She found it to be a narrow, winding lane, but after going through some dense woodland she came out on a hill and she could see Loch Awe below her.
The scale of her map suggested it was around five or six miles from Taynuilt, though it seemed to her that she’d already gone that far. There weren’t many houses on the road, but she stopped at all of them which were in a poor state of repair, looking for anything that might suggest it could be Stuart’s.
He had said it was by the loch, which to her meant right on the bank, but then she realized he might have said it had a view of the loch, and almost all of these had.
The village of Kilchrenan turned out to be tiny, just a school, a post office and a few cottages, but she couldn’t see anyone to ask for directions, and she was anxious now as according to the map the road ended when it came to the loch.
Just as she reached the loch, the sun broke through. She pulled up and stared in wonder, for it was more ravishingly beautiful than any other lochs she’d seen. It wasn’t very wide – she could see a lone house on the opposite side very clearly – but it was so vast lengthwise she could see no end to it. Pine and fir trees grew on the hills around it, going right down to the water’s edge, but between them were other deciduous trees – elms, rowans and beech. The early frost and the brisk wind were making the leaves tumble, and the ground was a carpet of yellow, orange, russet and brown.
The road she’d come by led only to a hotel, but to her right was a single-track lane along the loch bank, so she turned that way. Some of the houses she passed were rather grand, with large, well-kept gardens and small jetties on the loch, others were tiny and looked like holiday homes, but she could see nothing as dilapidated as Stuart had said his was and she was beginning to lose hope.
Ahead was a dense copse of fir trees, the track curling around them away from the loch. But as she came to the end of the copse, there, some hundred yards ahead, she saw a traditional stone croft, and a man was up on the roof mending it.
A surge of absolute joy welled up inside her. Even though the sun was in her eyes, preventing her from seeing the man clearly, she knew it was Stuart by his shape alone. She would recognize those broad shoulders and slim hips anywhere. It was ironic that he should be on a roof as he was when she’d first met him, and her heart began to pound with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
A dark blue estate car was parked by the croft, so she pulled over by the copse and got out.
Stuart must have heard the car engine because he turned, holding on to the chimney pot with one hand. The sunshine on his hair turned it to burnished copper, and although it was no longer the length it had been all those years ago, the image was still the same.
‘Laura?’ he called out tentatively.
She giggled with nervousness. ‘Surprise, surprise,’ she called back.
He sat down and slithered down the roof towards a ladder, and a second or two later he was on the ground and bounding towards her. There was no doubt she was welcome for he opened his arms wide and ran the last few steps to her, picking her up and swinging her round.
‘I can’t believe it,’ he said breathlessly. ‘How did you find me?’
When he put her down she was so dizzy she nearly fell over, stopped only by him catching hold of her.
‘Elementary, my dear Watson,’ she gasped. ‘Look for the nearest pub by Loch Awe and ask if anyone had seen you.’
‘In Taynuilt?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I haven’t been in there.’
‘But a man who delivered timber to you was,’ she giggled.
She felt like a teenager. Although he hadn’t actually said he was glad to see her, she knew he was. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’ she asked.