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Really Really Experienced
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2009
- Posts
- 430
"Heidi, my ass," Callum Donnell muttered.
He'd been sitting at the kitchen table since dawn. There were still no sounds of life or movement from Heidi's bedroom.
The sun had been up for hours. He'd watched the first light of the new day steal across the horizon, looking out at the lonely, deserted landscape, the gorse, the heather, nothing else out there whichever way he looked; how the hell did I get to be her last living relative? He had to wonder about that.
Yesterday, the long drive from the airport in his ancient Land Rover had been more of an endurance test than a homecoming. Top speed, forty-five, with everything rattling and shaking. At least it had stopped her talking too much, kept conversation to a minimum.
After the airport and the city they'd hit the four lanes, then the two lanes, finally the single-tracks, unpaved, with grass growing in the middle, up and down, twist and turn, like a roller-coaster through a green, rolling landscape with hardly even a tree to look at. He'd seen the disbelieving look come into her eyes. It must have been quite a wake-up call coming from her background.
"There's no TV, satellite, telephone or cell-phone coverage,' he'd told her. She'd stood beside their ride struck dumb with a kind of stunned expression looking at her new home for the first time. "Power comes from a generator out back."
He'd carried her things inside, more luggage than he'd ever seen. Pink, matching luggage; now he'd seen it all.
Now, from the sunlit kitchen, he could see her things still sitting piled in the hallway, maybe she was waiting for room-service to put them in her bedroom.
He'd been sitting at the kitchen table since dawn. There were still no sounds of life or movement from Heidi's bedroom.
The sun had been up for hours. He'd watched the first light of the new day steal across the horizon, looking out at the lonely, deserted landscape, the gorse, the heather, nothing else out there whichever way he looked; how the hell did I get to be her last living relative? He had to wonder about that.
Yesterday, the long drive from the airport in his ancient Land Rover had been more of an endurance test than a homecoming. Top speed, forty-five, with everything rattling and shaking. At least it had stopped her talking too much, kept conversation to a minimum.
After the airport and the city they'd hit the four lanes, then the two lanes, finally the single-tracks, unpaved, with grass growing in the middle, up and down, twist and turn, like a roller-coaster through a green, rolling landscape with hardly even a tree to look at. He'd seen the disbelieving look come into her eyes. It must have been quite a wake-up call coming from her background.
"There's no TV, satellite, telephone or cell-phone coverage,' he'd told her. She'd stood beside their ride struck dumb with a kind of stunned expression looking at her new home for the first time. "Power comes from a generator out back."
He'd carried her things inside, more luggage than he'd ever seen. Pink, matching luggage; now he'd seen it all.
Now, from the sunlit kitchen, he could see her things still sitting piled in the hallway, maybe she was waiting for room-service to put them in her bedroom.