Eli hadn’t known what to expect, but a ramshackle cottage on the outskirts of a tiny village nestled in the bottom corner of the Highlands wasn’t it. The village was miserable grey stone brooding under a miserable black sky; the cottage roof was sagging in the middle like Rob’s most ferocious scowl, and weeds were battering the garden wall in an affronted wind. The lights shining out of the cottage did nothing to help the bitter exterior, and—quite frankly—it all looked intensely f*****g depressing.
“It’s very…Scottish,” he said finally as they got out, the wind immediately ripping at his hair.
Rob laughed.
“It’s not. They’re not, anyhow. Foreigners, s’what the locals think. Aunt Stella’s from London—her first hubby was a Scot but he dealt down there for years before they came up here a
