Free To Scotland With Love by Patience Griffin Page B

and stone orders, and the difficulty of bringing in day laborers from Fairge and Lios this time of year.
Christmas!
Cait wanted to scream it into oblivion. Instead, she marched up the pub stairs and slammed the door.
    Where was Graham when she needed him? If he were here, she’d at least have somebody to talk to, a friend who’d listen while she griped, and a shoulder to lean on. And he could lean on hers, too.
    She paced about, her emotions bouncing around like racquetballs, battering her insides. Each new thought of Graham caused another jolt. She needed sleep. Instead, she yanked her notebook from underneath the mattress, but found she’d filled it up. She dug out a new one.
    Cait wrote down everything that had happened with Graham and Precious and Deydie. Cait was one of thosejournalists who had to put pen to paper before putting fingers to keyboard.
    Her article about Graham had grown into a novella. She flipped through the pages, cringing, feeling awful about betraying him. But writing this story was her salvation, her way back to real journalism and her way out of her dead-end job of freelance editing. Wasn’t it more important that she recover her identity, her
self,
than for some bigwig actor to hide out? Yes. She’d submit the story to
People
magazine as promised, and then she’d be able to write her own ticket. Maybe get a regular feature in one of the big magazines.
    She lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, the whole room accusing her of being a traitor and a weasel. The more she got to know Graham, the harder it became to separate her personal feelings for him from the business of selling his story. She rolled over and began sifting through her notes of what she’d learned about him so far.
    She had a hard time reconciling the Graham she’d discovered here in Gandiegow with the one she’d seen on the big screen. He’d always stayed at arm’s length from the media, not a real person but a superstar living a charmed, glamorous life surrounded by a bevy of beauties—usually one on each arm and a few following behind. Here he was an everyday guy who loved his dog, cared for his neighbors, and hurt just like the rest of the world. Just like her.
    Damn.
It wasn’t as if she were one of those slimeballs who’d chased Princess Diana to her death. She’d just be letting the world in on where he hides out. Cait rammed the pages under her mattress and grabbed her coat. Shehad to get out of here and regain her journalistic perspective, take a walk and clear her head.
    The late-afternoon wind barely registered as she tramped along, not getting perspective at all, but worrying about Graham’s grief. She found herself walking down the boardwalk, past the businesses, toward his home on the bluff. But outside Deydie’s house, her feet stopped.
    No windows stood open this time, but there was a light on inside. Cait recalled Graham’s advice not to let Deydie be alone for too long. She looked out to the horizon for guidance.
    It seemed more enticing to dunk herself in the wintery cold sea than to deal with her frosty grandmother right now.
    She kicked a clump of snow. Graham was right. Deydie needed Cait whether the old woman knew it or not.
    Cait knocked and waited, hearing slow shuffling steps on the other side of the door. When Deydie opened it, her gran had a crisp clean apron wrapped around her wide body, an irritated glower on her face, and a gleaming butcher knife in her hand.
    Cait had seen this movie. It didn’t bode well for her, but she pressed her luck anyway. “Let me in. I’m not selling vacuum cleaners or encyclopedias.”
    Her gran rolled her eyes and stood back, making room for Cait.
    The first thing Cait noticed was a green-and-gold Christmas dish towel draped over her own sewing machine. For a moment, she felt her insides went marshmallowy, thinking her normally prickly gran had laid the towel there to protect her