The windscreen wipers can’t keep up with the sleet hammering my rental car, and I’m gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles ache. Welcome to the Scottish Highlands in February, where even the weather wants you gone.
I should have turned back hours ago when the snow started. Should have listened to the petrol station attendant who looked at my cameras and city boots like I was heading to my own funeral. But I need these shots. Need them more than I need common sense, apparently.
The assignment brief sits crumpled on my passenger seat: Remote Highland landscapes for luxury travel magazine. Capture the untamed beauty. What it doesn’t say is that this is my last chance. Six months since the debacle in Iceland where I missed the Northern Lights shot that would have saved my career, and commissions have dried up like autumn leaves.
My phone hasn’t had signal for the past hour, and the road—if you can call this narrow strip of tarmac a road—winds through mountains that look like sleeping giants. Every turn brings another wall of snow, another gust of wind that shoves my car sideways.
“Come on, Maisie,” I mutter to myself, squinting through the windscreen. “You’ve photographed storms in Patagonia. You can handle a bit of Scottish weather.”
But Patagonia didn’t have ice. Patagonia didn’t have roads that disappear into white nothingness, or mountains that seem to lean in closer with every mile.
The satnav gave up twenty minutes ago, its cheerful voice replaced by a blank screen that might as well be mocking me. All I have now is this ribbon of road and the stubborn belief that it has to lead somewhere.
A sign flashes past—Glencoe—and relief floods through me. I know this place, at least from postcards and guidebooks. The glen that breaks tourists’ hearts with its beauty, where clans once fought and legends were born. In summer, it’s breathtaking. Right now, it’s terrifying.
The car lurches as a gust of wind catches it, and I ease off the accelerator. My camera bag shifts in the back seat, thousands of pounds of equipment that represents everything I have left of my career. The irony isn’t lost on me—I came here to photograph wild beauty, and now it might be the death of me.
A shape looms through the snow ahead. Another car? No—a stone wall, appearing out of nowhere. I yank the wheel left, feel the tyres lose their grip on the icy road, and suddenly I’m spinning. The world tilts sideways, white and grey blurring together as my car slides off the tarmac and down a slope I didn’t even know was there.
Time slows. I see my camera bag topple, hear the sickening crunch of metal against stone, feel the seatbelt cut into my chest as we come to a stop with a jolt that rattles my teeth.
Then silence. Just my heartbeat thundering in my ears and the wind howling outside.
I sit for a moment, taking inventory. Fingers wiggle. Toes respond. Head attached. The car is tilted at an alarming angle, nose-down in what looks like a drainage ditch, but I’m alive.
My hands shake as I unbuckle the seatbelt and twist to check my equipment. The camera bag has tumbled but looks intact. Small mercies.
The driver’s door won’t open—probably wedged against the embankment. I crawl across to the passenger side, push the door open, and immediately regret it as wind and sleet assault my face.
The cold hits me like a physical blow. I’m wearing my good wool coat, the one that cost a month’s rent but looks professional in client meetings. It’s useless against this Highland fury. Within seconds, my cheeks are numb and my eyes are streaming.
I grab my camera bag and handbag, sling them both across my body, and step out into the storm. The car looks pitiful, tilted into the ditch like a wounded animal. The front bumper is crumpled, and steam rises from under the bonnet. Even if I could get it upright, I’m not driving anywhere tonight.
The road stretches empty in both directions, disappearing into white. No other cars, no buildings, no signs of civilization except the tarmac under my feet. Panic flutters in my chest like a trapped bird.
Then I see it—a faint glow through the snow, maybe half a mile down the glen. A light. A house.
I pull my phone from my handbag with numb fingers. No signal, and the battery is down to fifteen percent. The glow flickers through the storm, barely visible but definitely there.
“Right then,” I say aloud, my voice snatched away by the wind. “Time to meet the locals.”
The walk feels endless. Snow fills my boots within minutes, and my jeans are soaked through by the time I’m halfway there. The light grows stronger as I get closer, resolving into warm yellow squares—windows. Real windows in a real house, with real people who might have a phone or at least a fireplace.
The cottage appears through the snow like something from a fairy tale, all white-painted stone walls and slate roof, smoke rising from a chimney into the dark sky. Light spills from the windows onto the snow, painting everything gold and inviting.
I stumble up what might be a path, my camera bag banging against my hip with every step. A wooden door, solid and weathered, with iron hinges that look like they’ve weathered centuries of Highland storms.
I raise my fist to knock, then hesitate. What if no one’s home? What if they don’t speak English? What if they’re the sort of Highland hermits who greet strangers with shotguns?
Another gust of wind nearly knocks me sideways, and sleet drives into my face like tiny knives. I’ll take my chances with hermits over hypothermia.
I knock. Three sharp raps that echo dully against the wood.
Footsteps inside, heavy and measured. The sort of footsteps that belong to someone who doesn’t get many visitors. A pause, as if whoever’s inside is deciding whether to answer.
The door opens, and I find myself looking up at a man who could have stepped from the pages of a Highland romance novel, if Highland romance novels featured men who looked like they could wrestle bears and win.
He’s tall—really tall—with shoulders that fill the doorway and dark hair that’s slightly mussed, like he’s been running his hands through it. His eyes are the colour of storm clouds, grey and intense, and they take in my bedraggled state with what looks like resignation rather than surprise.
“Car trouble?” he asks, his voice deep and rough, with an accent that’s definitely Scottish but not the soft Highland lilt I was expecting.
“You could say that,” I manage through chattering teeth. “I’m sorry to bother you, but my car’s in a ditch about half a mile back, and I don’t have any phone signal, and—”
“You’re soaked through,” he interrupts, stepping back from the door. “Come in before you freeze to death on my doorstep.”
I don’t need to be asked twice. I step into warmth that feels like a blessing, into a cottage that smells of wood smoke and something that might be soup. The contrast with the storm outside is so sharp it makes me dizzy.
He closes the door behind me, shutting out the wind and the cold and the fear that’s been building in my chest for the past hour. I’m safe. Wet, embarrassed, and probably about to drip all over this stranger’s floor, but safe.
“Thank you,” I say, setting my camera bag carefully by the door. “I’m Maisie. Maisie Campbell. And I’m really, really sorry about this.”
He studies me for a moment with those storm-grey eyes, and I feel heat creep up my neck that has nothing to do with the cottage’s warmth. Even soaked and shivering, I’m not blind. This man is beautiful in the way that Highland landscapes are beautiful—all rough edges and dangerous angles, but utterly compelling.
“Finn MacLeod,” he says finally. “And you’re not the first to underestimate a Highland winter.”
There’s something in his tone that suggests he doesn’t approve of my underestimation, or maybe he just doesn’t approve of unexpected guests. Either way, I’m in his cottage now, dripping on his wooden floor and grateful for any shelter from the storm.
Outside, the wind howls like a living thing, and I shiver despite the warmth surrounding me. Something tells me this is going to be a longer night than I planned.
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