Welcome to Craigmore Croft
The rain had started somewhere north of Inverness and hadn’t stopped since. By the time Sasha Bennett turned her black Mini Cooper onto the single-track road leading towards the croft, the sky had dissolved into a solid sheet of grey misery, and her windscreen wipers were fighting for their lives.
“This,” she informed the universe, gripping the steering wheel hard enough to whiten her knuckles, “was not in the brochure.”
Bubble huffed from the back seat, all seventy kilos of black-and-white Newfoundland taking up approximately the same amount of space as a small sofa. Beside Sasha, Squeak planted two enormous paws over the centre console and onto her thigh, one blue eye fixed suspiciously on the endless stretch of moorland beyond the windows.
“You are violating several traffic laws,” she told him.
Squeak ignored her completely.
The satnav had given up twenty minutes ago.
Her mobile signal had vanished somewhere around a village with exactly three houses and a post box.
Now the road had narrowed to what looked less like a road and more like an aggressive suggestion.
Rain hammered the roof of the Mini.
The boot was crammed with everything she still owned after selling most of her furniture in a fit of reckless determination and mild emotional collapse:
Two suitcases
Dog food
Enough hoodies to survive the apocalypse
A kettle
And one framed photograph of a horse she absolutely refused to leave behind
Ebony. The only sensible decision she’d made in months.
Sasha squinted through the rain as another sheep appeared in the middle of the road like a badly timed hallucination.
“Oh, come on.”
The sheep stared at her.
She stared at the sheep.
The sheep won.
With a sigh, she slowed the Mini to a crawl while it wandered off at the approximate speed of continental drift.
Her shoulders ached.
Everything ached.
Mostly the part of her she’d spent the last six weeks pretending didn’t exist.
She hadn’t cried when she’d packed up her house in Derbyshire.
Hadn’t cried when her ex-boyfriend, Daniel, finally admitted the truth with all the emotional depth of a damp sponge.
It had started as a joke with his mates. A bet. Could he get the loud, curvy horse girl to fall for him?
Apparently, yes.
Hilarious.
She still remembered the exact feeling in her chest when she’d overheard it. Not heartbreak exactly. Something worse.
Humiliation.
Like every stupid insecurity she’d ever had about herself had suddenly stood up and started clapping.
So she’d done what any rational woman in emotional free fall would do: bought a croft in the Scottish Highlands after two glasses of wine and an internet connection.
The tyres skidded slightly over wet gravel.
“Absolutely thriving,” she whispered.
Ahead, through the rain, a crooked wooden sign emerged from the mist.
CRAIGMORE CROFT
The lettering leaned slightly to the left. An omen, probably.
Sasha pulled in slowly, the Mini bumping over potholes deep enough to hide small livestock. The headlights swept across a stone cottage with whitewashed walls, a sagging fence line, and what appeared to be several aggressively determined weeds growing out of the guttering.
The roof looked tired.
One gate hung sideways.
A rusted wheelbarrow lay upside down in the grass like it had simply given up.
“Oh no.”
Bubble sneezed.
Squeak made a low noise in his throat.
Sasha stared at the croft in dawning horror.
The estate agent’s photographs had been… optimistic.
Very optimistic.
“Right,” she said after a long moment. “Maybe we’re embracing character.”
The wind immediately slammed rain against her driver-side window hard enough to rock the car. Somewhere in the distance, a cow bellowed.
Sasha let her forehead thunk gently against the steering wheel.
“What have I done?”
Bubble responded by drooling heavily onto the back of her seat.
“Thank you,” she said flatly.
She killed the engine.
Silence settled for half a second before the storm reclaimed everything again.
Rain.
Wind.
The faint rattle of loose metal somewhere near the barn.
Sasha inhaled deeply, shoved open the car door, and instantly stepped ankle-deep into mud in bright white trainers.
“Oh, you actual—”
One trainer stuck with a horrible sucking sound.
The other foot slid sideways.
Arms windmilling wildly, she managed to catch herself against the side of the Mini before fully face-planting into the puddle.
Behind her, Bubble woofed once.
Which sounded suspiciously like laughter.
“I hate this already.”
A deep male voice cut through the rain behind her.
“That’s usually a bad sign.”
Sasha spun so quickly she nearly lost the other trainer too.
A man stood beside the gate a few yards away, one hand resting casually on the gatepost as rain soaked through a dark wax jacket. Tall didn’t quite cover it. He was massive. Broad shoulders. Dark hair damp from the weather. Thick stubble shadowing a sharp jaw. And eyes so dark brown they looked almost molten against the grey afternoon.
He looked unfairly good standing in a storm. Which felt personally offensive, considering Sasha currently resembled a drowned scarecrow with one shoe trapped in Scottish mud.
One eyebrow lifted slightly as his gaze dropped to her mud-covered trainers.
“Well,” he said mildly, his Scottish accent rough around the edges, “ye’re settling in nicely.”
Heat flared straight up Sasha’s neck.
Fantastic. Exactly the impression she’d wanted to make.
She straightened with as much dignity as possible while half-submerged in mud.
“I’m fine.”
“Aye. I can see that.”
His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Worse somehow.
Squeak pushed out of the car immediately, white fur already dampening in the rain as he positioned himself between Sasha and the stranger.
The man’s attention shifted instantly. Not nervous. Not intimidated. Assessing.
“That your shepherd?”
“Yes.”
“Protective.”
“Very.”
“Hm.”
Squeak stared him down another second before, bizarrely, settling.
The man looked back at Sasha.
“You’re the new owner?”
She lifted her chin. “I am.”
A pause.
Rain drummed against the roof of the Mini.
Somewhere behind the cottage came the angry honk of what sounded like an unreasonably furious bird.
The stranger glanced towards the sound with the expression of a man already exhausted by someone else’s nonsense. Then his gaze returned to her.
“You bought Craigmore?”
There it was. That tone.
Not openly rude. Not exactly mocking.
Just deeply unconvinced.
Sasha knew that tone. People used it when they saw blonde hair, curves, and city trainers and assumed decorative rather than capable.
Something stubborn sparked hard inside her chest.
“Yes,” she said crisply. “I did.”
His eyes flicked briefly over the overloaded Mini.
The dogs. The chaos. Her muddy trainers. The obvious disaster unfolding in real time.
Then back to her face.
“You know anything about crofting?”
“Nope.”
At least that earned a proper reaction. One slow blink.
“You bought a croft,” he repeated carefully, “without knowing anything about crofting.”
“When you say it like that it sounds impulsive.”
“It wis impulsive.”
Sasha folded her arms.
“I can learn.”
The wind whipped her long blonde hair straight across her face. She spat out wet strands immediately.
The man watched her for a long second, expression unreadable. Then, finally:
“Hamish MacLeod,” he said. “Local vet.”
Of course he was. Of course the intimidatingly attractive man judging her life choices was the local vet. Naturally.
“Sasha Bennett.”
“Aye.” Another almost-smile. “I gathered.”
Before she could ask what that meant, another furious honk erupted from somewhere near the barn followed by aggressive flapping.
Hamish sighed.
“That’ll be Gordon.”
“Who’s Gordon?”
“The devil in a feather coat.”
As if summoned by the description, a large white goose rounded the side of the cottage at alarming speed. Directly towards Sasha.
“Oh my God—”
The goose spread its wings.
Sasha screamed.
Hamish laughed. Actually laughed. Deep and warm and completely unhelpful as Sasha attempted to yank her trapped trainer free while an enraged goose charged across the mud towards her like an avenging spirit.
Welcome to the Highlands.
