The Runaway Actress. Victoria Connelly

      ‘No.’

      ‘Outside Glasgow then?’

      Connie nodded. ‘It’s near a town called Strathcorrie.’

      ‘Strathcorrie?’

      ‘You know it?’

      ‘Aye, I know it. That’s over a hundred miles. It won’t be a cheap fare, lass. You got the money to pay for it?’

      ‘Of course,’ Connie said. ‘I wouldn’t get in a taxi if I didn’t have the money for my ride.’

      ‘Just checking. I don’t want to be stranded in the back of beyond with a lass with no money.’

      Connie held back a hollow laugh. Money was certainly no problem for her but that didn’t necessarily mean she was happy. If she could buy some sort of happiness, she wouldn’t be there now, tired and lonely.

      The taxi left the airport and Connie felt her eyes closing. Transatlantic flights always took it out of her and she felt she’d been airborne for days rather than hours. A little sleep would do her the world of good.

      When Connie woke up, she was surprised to see that the sky had darkened.

      ‘You won’t need them glasses now,’ the taxi driver said.

      Connie took them off but kept her cap on in case she was recognised, but the driver didn’t seem to be interested in who she was.

      ‘Had a nice sleep, have you?’

      ‘Yes,’ Connie said. ‘Where are we?’

      ‘Just approaching Strathcorrie now.’

      ‘I must’ve been asleep for hours!’ Connie looked out of the window. The road was narrow and straight and there wasn’t a single house to be seen. The countryside had opened out into an elongated valley with a river silvering the land, and great mountains heaved up into the sky.

      ‘Welcome to the Highlands.’

      Connie smiled. She was here at last – the place that her mother had once called home.

      ‘Can we stop?’ Connie suddenly asked. ‘Just for a moment?’

      The taxi driver pulled up at a lay-by. ‘You feeling all right?’

      ‘Yes. Yes!’ Connie said excitedly, opening the door and getting out. She stood absolutely still, looking left, right, up and down, and then she smiled. It was three hundred and sixty degrees of loveliness and she was smack bang in the middle of it. The mountains soared majestically up into the sky and there was a bright waterfall in the distance that cascaded down to the valley below.

      The taxi driver switched the engine off and joined her.

      ‘Not going to be sick, are you?’ he asked.

      ‘No,’ Connie said. ‘Although I think I might have been if I hadn’t left LA in time.’

      His eyes narrowed. ‘American, are you? You sound English to me.’

      ‘It’s complicated,’ she said, pulling her cap a little lower over her face. She shouldn’t have said anything about LA; it was too much information. If he knew who she was, he’d most likely drag her off into the hills and demand a ransom for her.

      ‘It’s all so – so – big!’

      ‘Aye.’

      ‘Isn’t it amazing?’ she said, thinking how different it was from the manicured lawns and borders of hothouse flowers in Bel Air.

      ‘Well, it is that,’ he said.

      Connie took a last look around before returning to the taxi. The light was almost violet now and the colours of the landscape were beginning to drain into the night and, for the first time in years, Connie felt a real sense of peace.

      It was dark by the time they reached Lochnabrae and Connie peered out of the window. ‘Is this it?’

      ‘Aye,’ the taxi driver said. ‘That’s the B&B,’ he said, nodding towards a white house with a board swinging outside. Loch View. Connie gazed across the road. She couldn’t see any loch. ‘That is where you’re staying, isn’t it?’

      Connie nodded. She’d managed to ring ahead before leaving LA and had booked a room for a week to begin with. ‘What do I owe you?’

      The taxi driver told her the total and Connie dug through her designer wallet until she found enough to pay him. She wasn’t sure how much it came to in dollars – Connie hadn’t had time even to try and understand the conversion rate as she’d grabbed her cash from the LAX bureau de change and run to catch her flight. But, if it meant not having to worry about driving on the wrong side of the road and navigating her way along dark single-track lanes after a long-haul flight, it was definitely a bargain.

      ‘I’ll get your bags,’ he said, taking the wad of cash and stuffing it into his jeans pocket.

      Connie got out of the car and breathed in deeply. It was good to have finally arrived. She promised herself no more planes or taxis for at least a week. She’d walk – walk everywhere, that’s what she’d do. Nobody ever walked in LA – it was too big – but she’d walk here: by lochs, by streams, through valleys and up hills.

      The front door of Loch View suddenly opened, breaking into Connie’s thoughts.

      ‘Ms Gordon, is it?’ the elderly lady greeted her. ‘I’m Isla Stuart.’ She had a sweet face completely caked in white face powder and her cheeks were two perfect circles of scarlet. ‘I’ve been waiting up for you.’

      ‘Oh, I’m not too late, am I?’

      ‘Och, no! But I do tend to nod off in the evenings if there isn’t someone to take care of. Now, I expect you’ll be ready for a cup of hot chocolate and a wee slice of Dundee cake?’

      ‘Thank you,’ Connie smiled, wondering what Danny would say to that and wondering what on earth Dundee cake was anyway.

      ‘And your driver too?’

      ‘Not for me, thanks all the same,’ he said, struggling with the cases. ‘I’ve to get back and it’s a fair drive.’

      A few minutes later, Connie’s cases were all lined up neatly in her room on the first floor at the front of the B&B.

      Once back downstairs in the hallway, Connie gave her driver a big tip to thank him for all his patience.

      ‘You know,’ he said as she walked to the front door with him, ‘there’s something familiar about you.’

      ‘Really?’ Connie said, still wearing her baseball cap and exaggerating her English accent once again.

      ‘You’re not on the telly, are you?’ he asked.

      Connie laughed nervously. ‘You know, I’m always being asked that. I guess I’ve just got one of those faces,’ she said.

      He continued to stare thoughtfully at her a moment longer. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘best get back to the city. You have a nice time, lass.’

      Connie watched as he left and then closed the door.

      ‘Now then,’ Isla said, ‘how about that hot chocolate and cake?’

      She led Connie through to a room at the back of the guest house. ‘I don’t often get to invite people here,’ she said. Connie smiled as she saw that a fire had been lit and a small table set with cups and plates. ‘I do like a real fire,’ Isla said. ‘It cheers the place up, doesn’t it?’

      ‘Smells wonderful,’ Connie said, sitting down in an old armchair next to it. ‘Really homely, isn’t it? I’ve never had a real fire. Wouldn’t dare in my house.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘White carpets!’

      ‘Ah, well,