Authors: Michaela Wright
Barry mumbled to himself as he Googled Garrett’s recent ‘success.’ “Oh, she’s right fit, ain’t she?”
Garrett smiled. That she was.
“Well, did ye get her number? Are ye seein her again?”
“I hope so.”
“Ye hope so? What bloody rubbish is that? Bloody hope so? Ring her up. Send her a text. Go in the loo and shoot off a quick pic of your cock for her to remember ye by.”
“Shut it, will ye?” Garrett hissed, but he was smiling. “I don’t have her number in me phone, yet. It’s in the shop.”
“Well, fuckin off ye go then! Christ on a bike, marry that woman, will ye? Can’t tell ye how grand it would be havin my best mate married to a millionaire.”
“Married? Jesus Barry, get your shit sorted, will ye? We just spent the night together.”
Barry gave him a skeptical look. “I’ve known you since primary. I’ve never seen ye lookin like ye were when ye walked in here. Light in the bloody loafers, as they say.”
“As who says?”
“I dunno. Some American sayin, I believe. Well, do tell. Did ye get a proper blow job then, ae?”
An elderly woman gasped at the table beside them, but as Garrett turned to apologize for his friend, he recognized the lady. “Oh, don’t act scandalized, Mrs. Ferguson. I know the books you’ve been readin.”
She blushed bright red and buried her smiling face in her tea.
Garrett turned back to Barry. “And you, ye prick. Keep yer fuckin voice down, ae?”
“Well, did ye?”
Garrett glared at him, fighting to keep his face straight.
Barry could read him too well, and he beamed. “Aye, ye did! Well done, lad. Was it good?”
Garrett covered his face in his hands. “Will ye shut it, for fuck’s sake?”
“Bout bloody time, mate. Bout bloody time. Get her tae move up here tae the middle of fuck all nowhere. I’d like to meet this randy minx.”
Garrett shook his head. “Nae, I’m leavin. Ye know it.”
Barry sighed, feigning to put his headphones back in.
Garrett sighed right back. “What would ye have me do? Stay here for bloody ever? There’s nothin keepin me here now Mum’s gone.”
“I’m here, ye dick.”
“You’re no here! You’re off travelin the bloody world. I’m stuck in fuck all Inverness, constantly worryin I’m gonna see Nicola if I so much as leave the flat. I’m done with the North. I’m gone.”
Barry frowned at him. “I’m not always travelin.”
Garrett tapped the back of Barry’s laptop. “Ye are. It’s winter, so you’re home for what? A month?”
“Two months!”
Barry worked much of the year as a travel writer. He’d seen the coolest breezes on tropical islands, watched African tribes perform welcome dances, and even set up for a few weeks at the base camp of Mount Everest. Barry was living his dreams ten months out of the year. The other two, he expected Garrett to entertain him in Inverness wh
ile he was home for the Hogmanay.
“When do ye leave, anyway?”
Barry frowned. “Week from Saturday.”
“Ye fuckin bell end.”
“What? I like havin ye here. Have ye had any interest in the shop, then?”
Garrett took another sip of his latte, thinking. “I have. A few leads.”
They sat a moment in silence, letting the constant hum of people in Costas fill the empty space between them.
Finally, Barry set his headphones back on the table. “You’re really leavin, then?”
Garrett stared across at his oldest friend, and nodded.
Garrett’s mother – Frances Catherine Graham – beat breast cancer when she was in her thirties. When it returned halfway through her sixties, she was content to let it take her, despite leaving Garrett and his father, Greig MacCauley, behind.
“Dad’s down in London now. There’s no reason tae stay. Fer fuck’s sake, I only kept the shop runnin for her.”
“Thought ye loved the shop.”
“I do,” Garrett said. “Just not here. Time tae shake off the ghosts.”
The door to the coffee shop opened, blowing a gust of frigid air across Garrett’s back. He shivered, checking his phone. Half past twelve – Georgia would have another two or three hours before she’d arrive in Edinburgh.
And Fionnula would be livid.
Garrett jumped up from his seat. “Shite! It’s fucking half twelve.”
“Aye, ‘tis. Did ye not know that?”
“Was due at the shop half hour ago, wanker. Chat later, aye?”
With that Garrett waved Barry goodbye and hustled down the dozen yards to the book shop. Fionnula had opened the shop and set about the morning’s business, alone. That was something she was quite capable of doing. Still, she liked to know in advance when she would be doing it.
Garrett rushed into the shop, quickly settling behind the counter as he sloughed off his jacket. “I’m so bloody sorry, Fionn! Lost track -”
“It’s fine, dear. I know ye were here late, last night. Everything is taken care of; trash went out, mail’s brought in, last of the signed copies are put away -”
“Where’s the little notepad that was here?”
Garrett watched Fionnula putter about behind the bookshelves, putting away the morning’s new order arrivals.
She made her way over to glance at the counter beside the register. “Do ye mean the wee scraps of paper, there?”
“Aye, I do.”
“Well, they went in the bin this mornin.”
Garrett spun for the door, letting his jacket fall to the floor. He rounded the alley behind the shop and flung the cover to the bin open. There were three familiar plastic bundles resting atop the mounds of paper goods. He tore up the first bundle and began rifling through it.
Fionnula appeared at the end of the alley. “Garrett, what on earth are ye doin?”
“The pieces of paper. Do ye know which of these bundles they’re in?”
“They’re no in there,” she said, stuffing her hands into her coat pocket. She was watching him, warily.
“Well, where are they, then?” Garrett’s tone was growing agitated, and he had little concern for how she might feel about that.
“They’re in the big bin.”
“Well, why are they bloody in there?” He asked, flipping open the cover to the sour smelling waste from his shop and the unfortunate Dentist’s office that was nestled upstairs. He scanned the surface, searching for white to betray their presence. Before he could reach inside, Fionnula spoke.
“There were a few half empty coffees when I arrived. I spilled one of them. Didn’t know it wasn’t empty. The notepad was ruined, so I tossed it with the rubbish.”
Garrett ran his fingers into his hair, holding his breath. “Were there numbers on the paper?”
“Nae, no that I know of. Blank paper, looked like.”
Garrett spotted the corner of the scratchpad tucked along the edge of the bin. He snatched it up, holding the soggy object between thumb and forefinger. If there’d been writing on it once, it was gone now. Georgia’s number was gone.
Fionnula stood watching him as he languished a moment by the festering bin. He was searching for an idea of how to fix this clusterfuck. “Right.”
Garrett marched back into the store, followed closely by Fionnula. Her usual gruff demeanor was softened now, clearly aware that something was amiss in the world of Garrett MacCauley. Garrett marched behind the counter, giving a quick nod to a customer that had found his way into the shop while both employees were out inspecting the rubbish.
“Is there anything I can do, then?” Fionnula asked, folding her sweater over her arm.
Garrett stared down at the counter and the empty space where Georgia wrote her number for him the night before. “No. Not at the moment. Though, if a Georgia ever calls in to the shop, get her number for me, ae?”
“Georgia? Of course. Will do.”
With that, Fionnula went to help the browsing customer, and Garrett began searching his address book for his contact at Georgia’s publisher. Even Georgia’s assistant’s number was gone – lost to Fionnula’s determined cleanliness.
Garrett found the number and turned for the phone. He met with the exact message he expected. “Sorry, sir. We don’t give out that information, but I can pass along your contact information.”
God damn it, why hadn’t he called on his cell?
“Fionn, I need to do something in the back. You alright?”
She waved him away, and Garrett flew into the back room, settling in front of the computer in his office to pull up Georgia’s web site.
International Bestselling Author Victoria Mason shot him that familiar grin and he startled at the sudden butterflies it gave him. She’d just left, but the image still riled him. He skimmed the page for contact info – Agency, Booking, Interviews and Press. There was no Cassandra listed anywhere. Garrett pulled up the Agent’s contact info and sent Sarah Elise Mayweather a quick email.
They’re not going to answer you, he thought. You look like a bunny boiling lunatic to these people. Christ on a bike.
The phone burst to life on the desk beside him and he lunged for it. “Burns Book Shop, how can I help you?”
“Is this Mr. MacCauley?”
Garrett slumped back into his chair. It wasn’t her. “Aye, it is.”
“This is Martin Greer. Have a bit of good news for ye.”
“Is that so?”
Garrett stared at the face of Victoria Mason, still smiling from his ancient computer’s screen. He searched her expression, wishing he could celebrate in whatever secret joy she was reveling in. He listened to Martin Greer prattling in excitement, taking in the news that he found strangely disconcerting. He wanted to feel joy. He couldn’t find it.
“Are ye there, Mr. MacCauley? Hello?”
“Aye, I’m here. That’s grand, Martin. Really grand.”
Martin continued, but Garrett couldn’t hear a word of it. His brain was shutting down to the world, overwhelmed by this sudden upending news. He wanted Georgia at that moment for reasons he couldn’t convey in words - and he had no way to reach her.
“Can ye come by this afternoon to go over the paperwork?” Martin asked.
“Sure. Absolutely. I’ll be there.”
Garrett hung up the phone and slumped back into his office chair, searching every detail of the open wood beams of the ceiling and the ancient bookshelves.
They’d sold the shop. It was done.
Garrett took a deep breath. “Fionnula. Can ye come back here a minute?”
CHAPTER SIX
The first call came on a Sunday night as she lay awake in bed at the Four Seasons in Chicago.
“Is this that slut, Victoria?”
“What?” She’d said, waiting on a second longer to hear the man’s deep voice break into new and elaborate insults.
The second call never came, because there was no counting after the first call came through. They came from all over the world – voicemails, text messages, incessant call. Some asked for money, some proclaimed her damned in the eyes of God, and others fangirling all over her voicemail, squealing their love and affection. All this because someone had successfully hacked her phone and posted her private phone number to the internet.
One Twitter retweet turned into hundreds, and she was getting crank calls from all over the globe. Georgia answered a few before realizing what was happening, and before Cassie signed into Twitter the next morning to discover the number plaster across the screen.
This seemed surreal to Georgia. Yes, her book was doing unusually well, and yes
Woman In White
was featured in a dozen magazines, but the thought that this many people had so little to do that they would call and harass a novelist on a Sunday night, Monday morning, Monday afternoon – it just seemed absurd.
“You do know that Stephen King has a wrought iron gate around his house, right?”
Georgia scoffed. “Yes, but that’s Stephen King.”
Still, Cassie made the call to the cell company, demanding a new number and an explanation as to how someone could get Georgia’s information like that. Within three days, Georgia was sporting a brand new phone number, and a sudden creeping sense of loss.
“Oh my God, his middle name is Douglas, Gigi. Just call him.”
Georgia fought the smile that crept across her face to hear Cassie say this, but she’d been fighting the urge for several days now. Almost a week of keeping her phone just inches from her at all times. Even if Garrett MacCauley was her idea of the perfect man, with each passing hour since she left Inverness, the perfect man still wasn’t calling.
He wasn’t calling or texting - nothing.
“Well, maybe he’s been really busy?” Cassie offered.
“Busy is just code for ‘I don’t care enough.’ It’s the excuse of unworthy men, Cass.”
“God, when you say it like that, you condemn every guy I’ve ever dated.”
Georgia frowned. It was ten in the morning and she was sitting in the International Terminal of Logan Airport in Boston waiting for her flight to Los Angeles to board. “No, hon. Their behavior condemns them all. Were they the right guy, you’d still be dating them.”
Cassie tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear as she tapped away at the screen of her new iPhone. Georgia scanned the crowd, her eyes flitting from head to head and face to face. She found herself lingering a little longer on the men with brown hair, sporting two day stubble and a decent height. Sadly, Boston wasn’t known for harboring a tall population, and she found herself standing shoulder to shoulder with most of the fellows she crossed paths with.
“All I’m saying is even if he tried to call you now, he wouldn’t get through.”
“I know.”
“And what do you have to lose? You don’t know until you try, right?”
Georgia sat silent a moment. She didn’t want Cassie to know she knew the number to The Burns Book Shop by heart now, having Googled it once or twice a day for the week. Still, he’d said he would call – he’d said he would text while she was on the train, that he wanted to know she’d arrived safe in Edinburgh – yet he hadn’t done so. She’d encountered a man like that before. She wasn’t about to sign up for another round of Walter Timlin.
Georgia had suffered enough disappointment for one life.
“Look, I’m happy to call for you? Do you need me to get all official?”
“No! No. It’s fine.”