Somewhere New (Isle of Doughnut #1)

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

ASTER

‘ T his is fucking incredible. Those hills. Or are they mountains? Whatever. Those huge rock formations over there. That’s snow on top of them, right? Are you seeing this?’

I turned to the fit Black guy who captained the ferry to and from the island I’d affectionately renamed Doughnut. Several failed attempts to pronounce its real name had resulted in ill-concealed snickers from the people standing behind me at the ticket office back on mainland Scotland.

Captain Errol edged away. He’d been doing that a lot while I chatted—I always welcomed a partner in conversation but didn’t find one necessary—about the waves crashing over his rustic vessel and the epic sea birds wheeling overhead and the freaking dolphins playing in our foamy wake.

He wasn’t impressed by any of it. Maybe living on Doughnut had dulled his senses to the wonders of nature.

Or maybe it was the monologue. I was fully aware my motormouth was unusual. Normally people only rambled this much if they were drunk or horribly nervous. My dad joked that if I was conscious and breathing, I was speaking.

The plan on coming to Doughnut, a remote Scottish island made up of a ring of hills/mountains around a big-arse loch, was to reinvent myself. But trying to control the stream of consciousness that came out of my mouth was a hopeless cause. I wanted to make changes, not alter the fabric of reality.

‘They’re mountains.’

I blinked away from the confirmed geological phenomena, but Captain Errol’s lips were a tight line once more.

‘You spoke to me.’ A smile crested over my face like the waves crashing into the front bit of the boat as we bobbed closer to the beloved-pastry-resembling island. ‘You corrected my woefully lacking geographical knowledge.’

More edging away. I would say this guy needed to pull on his big-boy panties, but I was fairly certain he wore those every day. He’d informed us we’d have a still crossing today and my knuckles, which hadn’t felt the passing of blood since we kicked off from the harbour, had something to say about that. If this was still, I never wanted to be ferried by Captain Errol when he considered the passage rocky.

‘We’re friends now,’ I announced. ‘Which is great, because I was worried I wouldn’t have anyone to hang out with for the next three months. You like video games, right? What consoles do you have? I couldn’t bring any with me, so we’ll have to use yours.’

Even more edging away, accompanied by a whole lot of wide-eyed staring. If I wasn’t looking at my new best friend but instead at a stranger I’d steamrollered into a friendship with me, I would have called the look on his face horrified.

‘I need to get ready to dock.’

‘You didn’t deny it,’ I called after him. People often had this reaction when I first extended a kind hand of friendship in their direction. Eventually, they all came around. I might have recently had my romantic ego dented rather severely for the third—and final—time, but I could do friendship. I was a friend-catch. A platonic ten.

With my new buddy gone, I had way too much time to roam around inside my head. Which was a problem, because as fast as words spewed out of my mouth, they pinged to life ten times faster in my brain. One of the joys of ADHD. No external distractions meant the barely controlled theme park in my mind—complete with roller coasters and spewing kids—opened for business.

Even the objective beauty of Doughnut couldn’t distract me. Frankly, the scenery since I’d hopped on the train from London to head north after a tearful goodbye with Dad and my best friend, Lucas, had gotten better and better. I wasn’t as immune to the wonders of nature as Captain Errol, but I was less awed by Doughnut’s mountains than I had been by the first range I’d sped past.

The current theme inside the carnival brain of Aster was the secret mission I’d come up with when I’d received confirmation from my dissertation supervisor that my field trip had been approved. I’d contacted the right person on Doughnut, booked my tickets, and a mere thirty-six hours later, here I was. Ready to start my new life.

A new life devoid of heartbreak.

Lucas had been right—the look of surprise when I’d told him that was priceless—when he’d said I was using this trip to run away from my problems. The only thing I’d disagreed with was that I had problems. Plural .

I had one problem. Apparently, something about me screamed, Please go ahead and trample on my heart.

No more. I couldn’t think of anywhere better than a remote Scottish island to reinvent myself so I returned to London fresh and new. No longer overlooked and cheated on and dumped on a random Saturday afternoon just after shower sex.

That last example was quite specific. Ho hum.

No one on Doughnut would distract me from my mission. Sure, Captain Errol was a certified hottie with his wildly broad shoulders and smooth brown skin, but I’d clocked the gold ring on his finger before he tugged on a pair of stained gloves. He was off the market. And what was the likelihood a tiny island would contain anyone else of equal hotness?

Low. Very low indeed. Which meant my life of self-imposed celibate-tude would get off to a flying start. I’d learn here—surrounded by craggy Scots and their world-famous pygmy goats—that being alone was an almighty adventure. I’d return home purged of the need for mutual orgasms and cuddles and romance. I would become, to one and all, a sexless bro.

The merry-go-round inside my head quietened as we neared Doughnut and details of its one and only village became clearer. A long row of terraced cottages curved around a picturesque bay that, from above, looked like someone had taken a bite out of the island’s delicious crust. Each building was painted a vibrant colour, ranging from bright blues to rusty oranges to baby pinks.

For the next three months, I could see myself returning to one of these idyllic cottages after a long day of recording undisturbed flora. I’d kick off my boots—bought on my frantic shopping trip after I’d booked my train tickets and realised I had absolutely none of the essentials needed to live anywhere wilder than Hampstead Heath—and make myself a hearty meal. I’d light a fire and read a book, maybe hang out with my new bestie Captain Errol, and I’d be happy. I wouldn’t feel like anything was missing at all.

The boat swayed as Captain Errol swung it expertly into a modest harbour. I held on to the rail until the last rope was secured, then pried my claw-hands from the positions they’d taken up when we’d set off. A combination of sensible fear for my life and cold had turned them into curved beasts. I shoved them into the pockets of my fleece—the last pink one in the shop—as I walked over to the luggage racks.

‘See you soon,’ I called to Captain Errol as I disembarked on the health and safety nightmare wooden gangplank and hopped gratefully onto dry land. The few other passengers shuffled past me as I made the shape of a phone next to my ear.

The captain blinked from behind the boat’s wheel.

Besties. One hundred per cent.

Shifting my heavy backpack more securely onto my shoulders and dragging my wheeled suitcase with one claw-hand, I followed my fellow passengers up the slipway towards a road that ran along the front of the cottages. The colours of the houses were more glorious up close. I hoped the lime-green one on the end of a row would magically turn out to be mine.

At the top of the slipway, I paused. Bonnie Armstrong was meant to meet me. She was the mayor and my contact on the island. I’d been emailing back and forth with her for months to arrange this trip. She’d told me to come any time approval was granted, and hadn’t seemed fazed when I’d contacted her just over thirty-six hours ago with my arrival time.

A battered four-by-four idled a little way down the road. Since the other boat passengers had all scuttled off and Captain Errol was doing something complicated with a length of rope, I tugged my suitcase towards it. If it wasn’t Bonnie, most likely they’d know her. The person inside the car tapped at their phone, long curtains of shiny black hair hiding their face from view.

I knocked on the window. ‘Hi, I’m Aster. Are you Bonnie?’

Their head shot up as the window wound down. ‘Aren’t you from London? Don’t you know you’re never meant to volunteer your name when you’re waiting for a lift? What if I’m a murderer waiting for my next victim?’

I gaped at her, temporarily speechless.

My theory that a tiny Scottish island could statistically only contain one hottie had been proved categorically wrong.

The woman currently glaring at me, her breath misting in the frigid air, was the definition of scarily gorgeous. Clearly lean and muscular under the layers covering everything but her extremities, her high cheekbones and flawless skin were normally reserved for air-brushed make-up adverts.

She drummed on the steering wheel, drawing my attention to the platinum band around her ring finger.

Okay. So apparently a teeny island could have two hotties. Even if there were more, if they were all firmly attached then my mission could go ahead unimpeded. Something in my brain switched off once I knew a person was involved with someone else. That wasn’t the case for everyone—I’d learnt that in an immensely humiliating and unforgettable way—but right now it was helpful. I needed this trip to cure me of my desperate need for romantic companionship. That couldn’t happen if I had anyone to lust over.

‘Are you a murderer waiting for their next victim?’ The temporary lock on my vocal cords burst open as this woman became firmly lodged in the future friend category.

She rolled her eyes so dramatically it looked vaguely painful. ‘Get in the car, Aster.’

I scrambled to obey, throwing my bags in the boot before hopping into the passenger seat. With the driver’s side window closed, the car became a warm haven from the wind that had increased with every centimetre north I’d travelled.

I groaned, then fumbled my seat belt into place as the driver/murderer/Bonnie thrust the four-by-four into gear and bombed along the thankfully deserted road.

‘Do you need a drink or anything before we head into the mountains?’

I snapped away from the multicoloured houses flashing past the window. ‘Into the mountains?’

The woman presumed to be Bonnie looked away from the road for far longer than necessary, impressing on me exactly how tedious she found every utterance out of my mouth. ‘Yes, Aster. Into the mountains.’

I dropped my face into my thawing hands and rubbed at the sore skin around my eyes. Making life-altering decisions followed by mad shopping sprees, tearful goodbyes with your loved ones, then hours on crammed public transport drained a person.

‘Can we start over?’ I asked as we passed the last of the cosy cottages. The road swung upwards, weaving between stunted trees and slabs of grey rock. ‘Hi. My name is Aster.’

Something that could have passed for a smile but had far too much in common with a smirk creased her flawless features. ‘Hello. My name is Bonnie, known murderer always waiting for her next victim.’

I grinned. ‘You’re funny. I love it. We’re going to have a great time living together.’

Bonnie smirk-smiled some more. ‘I’m sure we would, but you’re not going to be living with me.’

‘Oh.’ I deflated. I thought I’d be staying with the one person I had a pre-existing relationship with. ‘I’m not?’

‘Nope.’ She popped the p with apparent relish. ‘You’re into undisturbed flowers, right?’

‘That’s an incredibly reductive way of describing my master’s thesis, but essentially yes.’

‘If you want undisturbed, even out here in the back end of literally nowhere, then you’re going to have to stay with Callum.’

‘I can’t live in one of the pretty cottages?’ I wasn’t above begging, not if it meant quality pics for the ’gram. ‘I’m honestly a great roommate. I’m clean, pretty tidy, will only watch porn when you’re out of the room.’

The expression on Bonnie’s face inched closer to a smile. ‘All exceptional roommate qualities, I agree, but staying with Callum is honestly the best bet for finding all the right flowers for your project.’

I regretted the flowing emails I’d sent Bonnie over the last few months, detailing exactly what I was looking for and fangirling over how the extreme isolation of most of Doughnut fit the bill.

‘The cottages are cute, but for miles around them the land is trampled to fuck,’ Bonnie continued her stay-with-Callum campaign. ‘I guarantee all those people on the boat with you are ramblers and they’ll be up with the sun tomorrow morning, stomping over every inch of the island they can reach.’

I winced. The thought of the innocent flora walkers trampled on a daily basis was something I had to push right to the recesses of my mind and throw down a deep well. ‘But up with Callum, there’s none of the stomping?’

‘No stomping at all. Just miles of wilderness and hundreds of pygmy goats.’

‘Goats are infinitely more respectful of the land than people.’

‘I agree.’

‘Who’s Callum?’ I finally zoned in on what perhaps should have been my first focus when Bonnie announced I would be staying in the remotest part of a remote island with a stranger for three months.

The seventy per cent smile, thirty per cent smirk on her face dropped. ‘He’s my brother.’

Please let him be at least twenty years older and more akin to a goat than his ridiculously gorgeous sister , I begged whichever deity might have their ear turned to Earth at this moment in time.

‘Do you not get along?’ I asked.

She swung the car around a particularly large rock formation, then shrugged. ‘To be honest, I don’t know. He doesn’t come down from the mountains much, isn’t a people person. If you could convince him the occasional coffee with his loved ones won’t kill him, that would be great.’

I rubbed my warming hands on my thighs. Apparently their ability to produce nervous sweat was unimpeded by their recent freezing. ‘He’s okay that I’m staying with him, right?’

‘It’s fine,’ Bonnie said quickly. If I had a lie detector attached to her pulse point, I wouldn’t have been surprised when the needle jumped.

I was about to start an interrogation around exactly how she’d ascertained her brother’s fine-ness over my crashing in his home when she swore under her breath and brought the car to an abrupt halt. She jumped out, slamming the door behind her.

It wasn’t too hard to figure out the problem. The road ahead cut into a section of mountain, and the mountain had decided to fight back. The bumpy track was blocked with huge chunks of glistening rock.

I climbed out of the car. Bonnie had taken the keys with her when she left and without the heaters blasting, the interior couldn’t be much warmer than outside.

‘Wrong.’ I shoved my hands into my pockets as I skipped over smaller rocks to where Bonnie stood examining the biggest. ‘So very wrong.’

If the wind down in the harbour had been cutting, then this was next level, Kill Bill sword shit. I could practically hear the air particles scratching across my skin, stealing any warmth I’d regained in the car.

‘I can’t get past this,’ Bonnie announced. She looked up the road beyond the road-blocking boulders. ‘Callum’s cabin isn’t too far. You just have to follow the road and it’s the only house you’ll see.’

‘You’re not coming with me?’ I didn’t care about the whining edge to my voice. Wandering alone in the mountains to find someone I was fairly sure did not want to be found was not my cup of tea. Actually, nothing was my cup of tea. Tea sucked.

Apparently, so did Bonnie. ‘I need to go down to the village to get help to clear this. You’ll be fine.’

There was no brokering with her. Bonnie strode over to the car and hauled my bags out of the boot like they were weightless. Waving cheerily, she executed a perfect three-point turn and sped off.

I stood huddled into myself until the car disappeared behind swaying trees.

‘Fuck.’