Free Finding Fraser by kc dyer Page A

is to weep.

 
    - ES

 
    Comments: 43
    HiHoKitty, Sapporo, Japan:
    Miss Emma! How can you not say the whole
story? Agony in my heart!

 
    Burns’ Bairns, Victoria, CA:
    Checking in at a very late hour from the
Wet Coast of Canada to cheer you on, Emma. Our poetry collective are all huge
Jamie and Claire fans. Last night we toasted your journey with a dram and the
leftover haggis from Burn’s Night. Slainte!
    (Read 41 more comments here …)

 
    It
had been pitch dark as I made my way along the street to the bus station the
morning after losing my Fraser. Turned out there
was a direct train from Waverly, Edinburgh’s main train station, but at double
the price of the bus ride, and after an unplanned two-night stay in Edinburgh,
my finances were feeling stretched. Heading north at seven am by bus was my
only option if I wanted to make it all the way while it was still daylight.
When I checked the map, it looked like a fairly short distance compared to the
journey from Chicago to New York. But even with no stops along the way, it
would still be nearly a four-hour trip.
    I slumped into my seat and dozed for a
while, and then surfaced long enough to post the brief note to my blog. I tried
several times to find the words to write more, but they just wouldn’t come. The
truth was, I mostly mulled over the loss of the cute guy. Already, in my mind’s
eye, I could see his face bathed in a kind of golden glow. Fair hair just
verging on scruffy, and his crinkly smile as he sat down to talk with me. Apart
from the whole blonde highlights thing, he was physically very similar to
Jamie.
    Kind. Considerate. Very, very cute. A spasm
of something akin to pain shot through me at the thought that I hadn’t even
offered to stay connected by email.
    I mean—it’s not like I was about to
hand him my card.
    But there in the cold, hard light of a
Scottish spring morning, on the bouncy back seat of a CityLink transit bus, the
memory of the fleeting feel of those long, square fingers as they brushed mine
was still enough to make my knees weak. I stared out the window into the
darkness, feeling my face suffuse with heat. Get a hold of yourself, Sheridan.
    The bus shuddered and lurched around a
corner, and slowed to a stop at the on-ramp to the freeway – the
MOTORway.
    He was
just a nice young man, welcoming a visitor to his country , I thought, brooding.
    With
his well-muscled forearms.
    Reaching down, I yanked my pack onto my
knees. I needed to think of something else. Time to look at the map again. I had
just pulled out my copy of OUTLANDER from the bottom of the front pocket, when
I felt someone slide into the seat beside me.
    A merry face, creased as an old tortoise and
topped with a greasy brown abomination of a hat, smiled into mine.
    “Here from awa’?” he inquired, indicating
the map inside the book with a nod and gently spraying my face with spittle.
    I nodded back and fished a suspiciously
crumpled napkin from my pocket to use when the old fellow turned away.
    He didn’t.
    I smiled damply back at him, and scrunched a
little further down into my seat as he began to stub his thick finger onto
locations on the map and narrate the entire history of Scotland, beginning with
the Picts.

 

 
    Inverness in February is … well, safe to
say it’s pretty gray. Strangely enough, it was not terribly cold. Not
seventeen-blocks-in-wintery-Philadelphia cold, at least. But now that I knew
the complete history of the place from its role as an early stronghold of the
Picts, through the
likely-less-evil-than-Will-Shakespeare-would-have-had-you-believe reign of
MacBeth, to the current standing of the Caley Thistle football club, it almost
felt like I was returning home.
    My seatmate, Alan MacLeod by name, squeezed
my shoulder fondly as the bus slowed to a halt outside a downtown hotel.
    “Ye know where to find me, lass, if ye have
any questions. And mind ye keep that wee card…” he nodded at the scrap of paper
I had safely