Page 18 of You, As You Are

The decline fell steeper.

The wrapper caught on the one random tuft of grass in the middle of the trail, and Maisie snapped it beneath her boot, momentum swaying her forwards.

“Maisie—”

“I got it!”

The skin of her heel bit with a sting.

Then the ground got her.

“Maisie!”

She landed in a mound of grass and bracken with a hard thud.

“Oooouuuuuch …”

Five seconds later, Iain panted above her as if he’d run down the trail too. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I think.” The plastic crinkled in her hand as she held it up. “I got the wrapper.”

Eyes digging holes into hers, Iain actually sighed. Clearly, he was mad at her for being so idiotic, but after living in a city for her whole life and suddenly being catapulted somewhere that was so picturesque, dropping litter was the last thing that she would ever do.

Maisie blinked up at him. From down here the view was even better: his broad shoulders and quite impressive thighs. Her traitorous mind wandered to some place not far fromsmutville, especially when Iain’s mouth twitched for more than a millisecond under his neat moustache. It felt like a win. Maybe the view of her from up there had put similar thoughts in his mind too.

She wouldn’t ever know, though, since brow movements were pretty much the only method of expression that Iain had locked down.

He extended out both of his giant hands, she assumed, to help her up, then snapped them back.

Her eyes bounced between those hands and the look in his eyes like she was turning green. “What?”

“You might want to get up slowly,” he said.

“What? Why?”

“Because that’s not bracken, Maisie.”

It certainly looked like it was?—

“Those are nettles.” The pinch of Iain’s face was apologetic and grim.

Maisie gulped as her stomach sank a few inches lower. “You mean …”

“You’re sitting in a bed of stinging nettles.”

CHAPTER SIX

IAIN

No matter what he did,a pair of bright, hazel eyes and head of thick red curls had haunted Iain since Saturday. In the clarity of the sunshine bouncing off of Cardigan Bay’s waters, those eyes had been so vibrant he’d had to force himself to look away from the traps they’d been setting for him too many times to count.

His friends from his rugby club always taunted him about how he enjoyed walking the countryside with a bunch of retirees, but they never took up his offer to join. Most of them had partners and kids to spend their weekends with instead, anyway, so it was a surprise to see someone his own age come along. He’d been caught so off guard by the woman falling out of the minibus that he hadn’t thought to askwhoshe was until five minutes later, when he’d done his best in the cramped space of the only two seats conveniently left to give her room. A stranger.

Maisie Moss.Ms Vera’s vibrant granddaughter. She looked a little younger than him, maybe around thirty. His thirty-fifth birthday had been in November, so it wasn’t as though there was a huge difference between them.

Before they’d even said one word to each other, he’d been forced to put his hands on her. With only a blink to react, they’d gone without any thought at all to above her waist, all becausehis dopey dog couldn't resist one whiff of someone else’s food. She’d looked embarrassed, so he’d done the polite thing – therightthing – and brushed it all aside.

The showroom where he worked was so silent this Tuesday morning that Iain didn’t have anything else to do other than tap a pen to his desk and replay the three hours of conversation he’d had with Maisie at the weekend.

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