Free Return to Butterfly Island by Rikki Sharp

the fate of us all in your hands.”
    China pulled a thoughtful face. Frank’s wild ideas certainly added up. She really wanted to let him on to her own short-term plans for the Grange, risking her own money, but Mrs. Baxter’s words from the previous night came back to her . Trust no one. Besides, the first person she should be explaining her wild ideas to was Donald, rather than awake that legendary temper of his.
    Whistling for Morgan, who had gone scrounging around the back of he cottages, she began the long hike up to the Grange, the fresh air blowing the residue of her hangover away. She reveled in the view, sights like a lone kestrel hovering in the air over the rock-strewn fields below, dotted with the odd farm house or cottage. The trees swaying on the crown of the hill, all but obscuring the Grange, except for its four chimney stacks, which were probably in urgent need of repairing, too.
    In her head she hoped she was not making a big mistake with putting money into the ancient building. In her heart it seemed the obvious choice. She loved the place already, the years since her sudden departure from the island melting away. Sooner rather than later she was going to have to ring work and extend her time off. Then would come the big decision, to stay or to go.
    That little life-changing event rather depended on a certain Mr. Dart and how their rekindled friendship developed.
    She was red-faced and out of breath by the time she reached the path that led through the wild trees and up to the Grange. Nothing had changed about the place since her last visit. The grey building still looked lost and in need of a little love. That , thought China, covers both of us . Her team-supreme was waiting for her, sitting on a collapsed garden wall exchanging ribald jokes and sharing cigarettes.
    “That will stunt your growth!” said China, pointing at the cigarettes.
    “That’s not what my misses says!” Handy Andy was back in a flash.
    “You’re married? Poor woman!” Which brought a guffaw from the two other men. As a group, China Stuart new how to handle men; it was in the one-to-one department that she tended to struggle.
    Quickly, she outlined her vision. A quick, professional job to make the Grange water tight again, then time could be spent estimating what other jobs needed doing and how much it was going to cost. Hopefully by then the mysterious will would have materialized, or she’d have to take a serious look at what James McKriven had to offer. After her conversation with conspiracy nut Frank Bellamy, she was going off option two by the minute.
    Handing out the cash convinced her three builders that she was serious.
    “Young Donald’s done a great job so far, and the scaffolding being in place is a grand start, but there are parts of that old roof just waiting to cave in,” confirmed Handy Andy.
    “I’ve seen a couple of outbuildings that are overgrown and are a wreck, Miss Stuart. If we can cannibalize their roof slates, that will save time and a lot of money,” said the tiler, Daniel White.
    “Like that line of thinking. And for goodness sakes, fellers, it’s China . Miss Stuart makes me feel about fifty!”
    “All I can say is, thanks for the work, M– China,” Jackie Kolodzeijski put in his few words. “It means I can spend more time with my girlfriend on West Uist.”
    “That’s good. Let’s hope there will be a lot more work on this project in the future if my idea has legs. Girlfriend, eh? Long distant relationships are hard.”
    “Even harder up in the Hebrides. It’s not like I can hop on a bus to come and visit Irene, and I have to earn a living on the bigger islands.”
    “Irene the school teacher? I know her, she seems nice.”
    Kolodzeijski, a grand Scottish name of the Polish clan, gave her a broad grin. “She is nice, especially to me! Shall we get cracking, boys?”
    Leaving the men to start work on the roof, rolling back the flapping sheets of blue plastic Donald had covered