Poor Signal: A Highland Affair

Esme took the night train north to get away from the wedding. Her fiancé stayed in London. David Stanton was already in the lounge car.

Fifty-eight. Widower. Her father's oldest friend. The man who taught her knots and never took off his wife's ring. Esme is twenty-six and still wearing hers.

His cabin door is off the latch. The berth is too small to pretend it was a mistake. By morning she is still full of him.

Then the cottage on Skye collapses and he has a lodge with an east room he offers like a spare berth. Poor signal.

Hiking, she tells Pete. Sometimes she even goes up the hill.

She came off the pill for the wedding cycle. He asks once. After that he stays in.

One night the call connects. Twenty seconds. Pete talking. David does not stop.

She says I do in October with David three rows back. By spring Pete has both hands on the bump and calls it theirs.

She knows whose it is.