Off Kilter (A Scottish Highlands Mystery, Band 1) - Softcover

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Hannah Reed is the national bestselling author of the Queen Bee Mystery series, as well as the Scottish Highland Mysteries. Her own Scottish ancestors were seventeenth century rabble-rousers who were eventually shipped to the new world, where they settled in the Michigan Upper Peninsula. Hannah has happily traveled back to her homeland several times, and in keeping with family tradition, enjoyed causing mayhem in the Highlands. 

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Queen Bee Mysteries

Scottish Highlands Mysteries

CHAPTER 1

Sometimes my best friend, Ami, can go way overboard. Like earlier this month, when she presented me with her gift of a round-trip ticket to Scotland. With a return date six months out! What had she been thinking?

“I hate to appear ungrateful,” I muttered under my breath as we stood beside a security checkpoint in one of Chicago O’Hare’s international terminals, “but going away from July to December is just too long. I shouldn’t have agreed to this craziness.” I was seriously reconsidering how easily I’d caved to Ami’s whims. It was the story of our friendship, really, her bossing me around—though the truth was, her whims were usually pretty good ideas in retrospect. That’s also probably why she was such a successful businesswoman. And she’d been so adamant—pushy is more like it—when she set out to take full advantage of my fragile state of mind with her surprise gift. I’d tried to turn it down, but it had been too late. She’d taken care of all the arrangements in advance. I was stuck.

“You can come home to Chicago anytime you want to,” she repeated now, just as she had every time I’d expressed regrets out loud. “You don’t have to stay all six months, but you wouldn’t make it through customs without a return ticket. Thank God for smart travel agents. According to her, the max you can stay on a tourist visa is six months. I didn’t know what to do, so I went for it.”

What kind of logic was that? “You could have asked me first.”

“I was flustered.”

“You’re never flustered. Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Of course not. I’m looking out for you. Stay six months or come home next week, it’s your choice. But for now, relax and enjoy, Eden. You deserve it after what you’ve been through.”

What I’d been through was the year from hell—I was thirty-eight years old, freshly divorced after six years of marriage, almost one year to the day after my husband had filed, and two days after I’d buried my mother, who’d finally given up a long, ugly battle with MS last month. For a long while she’d stabilized, but over the last five years I’d watched her fade away and finally pass on peacefully. After I’d witnessed the extent of her suffering, the end had been a welcome relief for both of us. I’d gotten married right before my mother took a turn for the worse, and while I’d felt responsible for her, my husband had resented the attention I’d given her instead of him. We never really had a chance. And now those two events, the loss of my mother and the finality of the divorce decree, each right on top of the other, had rocked my world. And I don’t mean that in a good way, either.

What exactly was I to do next? And more importantly, what was the point of it all?

I’d been awarded my mother’s small life insurance payout as a consolation prize, and my ex-husband bought out my share in the condo we’d owned together, although there hadn’t been much equity in it. After he’d filed last year, I’d moved into my mother’s small apartment to care for her, leaving all the furnishings we’d purchased together behind, taking only my personal belongings. I hadn’t wanted constant reminders of what had ceased to be.

The unexpected bit of cash allowed me time to pause and examine my life up to now. Not much of interest to report, I’m afraid. Nothing concrete to fall back on. I’d done some freelance editorial work in the past, as well as one ghostwriting gig, and had really enjoyed both, but as my mother’s condition had worsened and my marriage imploded, I’d put aside my ambitions. Until now.

“Look,” BFF was saying over the airport din. “You can do this.”

I nodded, toying with my boarding pass and passport. “Of course I can do it. But why should I? I’m having second thoughts. Third and fourth thoughts, actually.” Numbers five and six flitted through my mind as well. But there was also something else. Was that excitement underlying the pounding of my heart? Or simply a nervous response to an uncertain future? Was I ready for this?

Ami went on cheerleading. “You had to fly free eventually. And I mean that figuratively as well as literally. It’s time you stopped working special projects for me and started working for yourself. You’re more than talented enough. . . . You are. Don’t look at me like that!”

I studied my longtime, dearest, most loyal friend, who had been with me through thick and thin since our good old college days. How much fairer she’d weathered the storms. Ami Pederson wore her marriage to her beloved husband, Brad, like a diamond necklace, while even before my divorce I’d worn mine like an albatross around my neck. She hadn’t married the wrong guy or had to care for a terminally ill family member. Nothing so common for Ami Pederson. Yes, that Ami Pederson—the bestselling, prolific, world-famous historical romance author. Millions of copies sold of every single novel, dozens of exotic foreign translations. I’d lost count of how many by now.

Ami could grace the cover of one of her own novels. She’s tall and slender, with long-flowing locks, and always perfectly groomed as though perpetually ready for a television interview. Lights, camera, action: that’s Ami from the moment she rises in the morning to the time she wraps up her writing late at night.

Me? I was already feeling rumpled and wrinkled, and I hadn’t even boarded the first leg of my journey yet. I’d memorized the drill: seven-plus hours in the air, arrive in London in the wee hours of the morning, a lengthy layover at Heathrow, then a flight to Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, then pick up a rental car for a short drive to my final destination, a small town called Glenkillen. Ami had been to the village once and highly recommended it.

I shifted my carry-on from one shoulder to the other, resigned to whatever fate awaited me in the Highlands.

Ami must have sensed my surrender, because she gave me a warm, wide smile, and said gently, “Remember why you’re going to Scotland in the first place. Because you just happen to be under contract to a New York publisher to write your fabulous book!”

The thought did give me a blush of pride, which I quickly damped down. “Which I couldn’t have accomplished without your help and connections.” Not to mention that Ami had been extremely involved in the outline for the story and had suggested the Scottish Highlands setting.

“Nonsense!” Ami said. “You’re a great writer. And you’ve been hanging around me long enough to learn all the ins and outs of writing romances. All I did was help you brainstorm and then get your work in front of the right editor.”

Ami’s comment about my familiarity with romances was true enough. I’d read every one of her books, along with many by her contemporaries. I was a romance junkie from way back. And to be fair to myself, I had written my opening chapters without Ami’s input. Right this minute, though, I was feeling a little fearful. The publisher was taking a chance on me mainly because of my friendship with Ami. I didn’t want to let her or the publisher or myself down. That was a lot of pressure.

“Another wonderful reason for your trip comes to mind,” Ami continued....