“Hot toddy,” said Lennox. “Warm you up.”
She took another sip and let the gentle peaty warmth flood through her.
“Oh yes,” she said. “That is very nice.”
“You look pleased with yourself.”
She glanced up at him. “I am pleased with myself,” she said. “I saved those lambs, and now I’m lovely and cozy in front of a fire, drinking whiskey with a nice dog. I consider this to be a very good night!”
She set the cup down. Lennox smiled broadly.
“Okay, fair enough,” he said. “Don’t fall asleep in front of the fire, though.”
But it was too late. Nina’s head had already nodded down onto her chest, and before she knew it, she was fast asleep.
“Well done tonight,” Lennox added, but she didn’t hear him.
Chapter Fifteen
Nina ended up sleeping till nearly lunchtime in Lennox’s house.
She woke up on the modish cream corduroy sofa, covered in a cream cashmere blanket, the sun streaming in through the windows, and at first she had absolutely no idea where she was. Gradually the night before came back to her, and although she still felt groggy, she realized she had to get up before Surinder stomped out hollering her name.
There was no sign of Lennox or Parsley. Nina wondered if they’d slept at all. She smiled a little, thinking of grumpy Lennox putting a blanket over her. Then she felt a bit embarrassed about it, too: one sip of whiskey and she was out as if she’d been felled. Obviously not built for country living, he must be thinking.
The sun beaming in so strongly through the window made it feel like she was somewhere hot, like Spain, until she opened the door and the cold wind rushed right through her, the clouds scudding across the sky as if they had somewhere more important to be. She smiled.
“Morning, Scotland,” she said out loud.
She’d left her Wellingtons at the back door, and she put them on and crossed the yard, saying hello to the chickens pecking here and there, and wondering how her lambs were getting along. She also wondered if she’d be allowed to name them, until she remembered what they were for—what farms were for—and told herself off for being so naive and sentimental.
At the door to the barn was a little basket. She bent down. It was full of eggs, still warm. Some of them had funny crumped shapes; not at all like you’d find in the shops. She smiled unconsciously and picked them up. Lennox must have left them.
Surinder was half dozing on the sofa, which felt like a bit of a waste of the lovely mezzanine bed, as well as the lovely day. Nina put the coffee on.
“Have you been out already?” said Surinder sleepily. “This isn’t like you. Normally on the weekends you need to get three hours’ reading in before you can even go to the corner shop for a package of bacon.”
“Um,” said Nina. “First, it’s after eleven. And second, actually, I didn’t come home last night.”
Surinder sat bolt upright.
“TELL ME,” she said. “You ran after the train and caught up with it in Edinburgh?”
Nina shook her head, pushed down the French press and cut some bread. She was completely and utterly ravenous.
“Scrambled eggs?” she said happily, surprised she didn’t feel more tired. “From the chickens in the farmyard.”
Surinder narrowed her eyes and looked at a particularly plump specimen who was marching up and down outside the picture window.
“You want me to eat something that just came out of that hen’s butt?” she asked.
“You eat eggs! You eat them all the time!”
“But this one is warm! From a hen’s butt!”
“It doesn’t come out of its butt. It comes out of its—”
“Foofoo,” said Surinder gloomily. “Man, that’s even worse.”
Nina burst out laughing. “Seriously! You are so weird. Where did you think they made them, a cake shop?”
“No,” said Surinder.
“How about I take the shells off them?” said Nina. “So they don’t have any foofoo stuff on them.”
“Yes. Do that.” Surinder shut her eyes again. “And don’t make me watch you cook them.”
Nina threw a couple of portions of the local bacon into the frying pan—it smelled absolutely amazing—put some bread into the expensive designer toaster, and finally brought two groaning plates of breakfast over to the scrubbed wooden table. Surinder, forgetting her horror of fresh eggs, started burrowing into her plate.
“Oh my God,” she said suddenly, stopping. “What have I been eating all these years?”
Nina added some more creamy local milk to her coffee. “What do you mean?”
“These eggs! That bacon! I mean, this is awesome! You don’t get this down at the convenience store!”
“Yeah,” said Nina. She looked regretfully down at her plate. She’d been so furiously hungry, she’d basically inhaled breakfast without tasting it. “Yes. It’s good.”
“It’s better than good! They’d charge about a million quid for it down at the organic café! Is it all from around here?”
“Of course,” said Nina. “This is what they do ‘around here.’”
Surinder blinked at her. “You know,” she said faintly. “Everyone thought you were a complete and utter lunatic for coming up here.”
“You tell me that now?” said Nina. “Really? Everyone? I thought everyone said I was awesome for being so brave and heading off and changing my life and all that.”
Surinder rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, they’ve got to say something. Remember when Kelly married that French bloke she met down at the market?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Nina. “Yeah, we totally pretended we thought he was awesome.”
“We did.”
They chewed in silence for a moment.
“You know, he wasn’t even really French,” said Surinder.
Nina grinned. “Oh GOD, I forgot about that part.”
Surinder grabbed another piece of toast and waved her hand at the big windows.
“But now . . . look at this. I mean, I think you might actually be a genius.”
“It’s sunny today,” said Nina. “But it’s not sunny very often. Well, every ten minutes. Then it rains, then it snows, then it hails, then it’s sunny again.”