Kiss and Cook in Scotland

By Tanja Neise

A romance novel from Tanja Neise thatʹll keep you on the edge of your seat!!!

Fiona lands in a foreign country without a job or money or a place to stay – sheʹs certainly found the change she was looking for.

Renowned musician Adam Ward leads a quiet life in a quaint Scottish village where no one suspects who he is, until one day feisty Fiona enters his life, turning everything upside down.

When Fiona winds up in danger, he sees that thereʹs more to her than her rebellious streak – and it arouses much more than his protective instinct.

Can these two conquer the shadows from Fionaʹs past? Does their love have a chance in the face of so much adversity?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tanja Neise
• Release date: Jan 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071524909

Book preview

Tanja Neise

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Kiss and cook in Scotland

For my family

I love you with all my heart!

Prologue

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A few months earlier

So, do you ever miss the old life? Asked John, taking a sip from his beer and watching the sun slowly sink in the Scottish sky.    Adam rolled his own bottle between his hands and considered the question briefly, although, really, he didn't need to. He was sure he'd made the right decision back then. No. Do you?

John laughed out loud. Never! Not even for a minute.

His friend—the guitarist in their former band—was visiting him in Scotland with his lovely wife Ally. The two loved each other so deeply, it was almost palpable. Adam was overjoyed for John—he'd fought long and hard to make her his wife.     Those were good times, but I'm glad that now I call the shots, what I do and when. John grinned mischievously and raised his glass for a toast.

Together, Darren, John, and Adam had been one of the top bands on the planet. Until they decided that it was time for a quieter life. That was five years ago—five very good years.   

There's also something to be said for not seeing your sorry face every day, John added.   

Laughing, Adam smacked him with one of the pillows from the sumptuous outdoor furnishings in his backyard. Alright, you idiot. I knew nothing good would come of us.  

Suddenly, John went serious and looked at his friend broodingly, as though he were actually thinking about the possibility of a relationship with Adam.

Hey, forget about it, I wouldn’t go gay even for you. Adam could hardly keep from laughing, but John evidently didn’t feel the same, which really spoiled the fun. Neither of them was attracted to men – that couldn’t be the reason John got so serious all of a sudden. He could take a ribbing and he was familiar with Adam’s humor.

Adam, for real. Sometimes I worry about you. John set his bottle on the table and turned to him.

About me? What kind of lecture  was he in for now?

Yeah, about you. You live alone and... don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely here, but it sure as hell is lonely. John’s forehead was creased with worry lines. I mean, not that you’re on your way to becoming an old fogey or anything...

What on Earth! His friend was acting like a regular mother hen. I’m fine and I’m glad for every minute I get to spend alone in this cottage. After all those years on stage and in the public eye, I need some peace. I couldn’t take the hype anymore.

He’d always been the quietest of the three band members, often turning inwards and indulging in his own thoughts. He had really suffered under the pressures of the limelight. The press had ridden them hard almost every day, as though they’d been a group of mass murderers or something. In fact, the only thing the paparazzi hadn’t done was search through their garbage. But, really, who could say they hadn’t?

Weren’t you just saying that it was so nice here in our little village you could imagine relocating?

Yeah, but I’m not alone, Adam. I have Ally. And soon I’ll be a father!A proud grin crept onto John’s face, who’d just learned the wonderful news a few hours ago. You’re lonely – I can tell. Hey, man, I’m just scared you’ll flip out and kill the village hottie.

Are you nuts? I have Tyler and, when I want more company, I go down to the pub. Adam was defending himself even though he didn’t really have anything to prove to his friend.

Irritated, John rolled his eyes. Tyler is a dog! John just didn’t understand him. Sure, John was worried. But they’d had this discussion, in one form or another, several times over the last few days. Ally agreed with him and had told Adam so. This type of seclusion couldn’t be healthy in the long run – even Adam knew that. Maybe John really would move here one day, even if just to keep Adam from going crazy. The thought made him smirk. Did he really look like he needed rescuing? Despite what he’d said earlier, he really did miss the guys from the Centerstarks a lot. Not the hype, no, but the – the male bonding, for lack of a better term. Talking a blue streak and laughing til they busted a gut – that’s what he missed here in Scotland.

Fiona

Such total bullshit! The suitcase was so heavy, she could hardly get it off the bus. The monstrous thing reached almost to her ribcage. And the stupid driver was just sitting there watching her in the little mirror above the windshield.

The jerk could at least offer help! Thought Fiona. But not even her clearly helpless expression made the guy get up and come over. She’d just have to do this on her own.

Bathed in sweat, she stood there on the sidewalk as the bus drove away. It took all her self-control not to offer up an obscene gesture as the vehicle lumbered off. Her stomach was giving her problems – the bus was no place for people who suffered from car sickness. She’d been tormented by the constant rocking and the nervous excitement of starting a new life hadn’t exactly helped matters.

Curious, Fiona let her gaze wander and took in the pretty little village. Small cottages with well tended front yards, clean windows, and streets that were also as neat as a pin. The residents were obviously competing for the best window box – there must be a medal in the deal. Everywhere she looked there were potted arrangements in the most colorful palettes. There wasn’t a scrap of garbage to be seen. The village lay before her in all its picturesque quiet. Not a soul was to be seen – the villagers were apparently all taking a siesta at the same time. They were probably doing yardwork all morning, thought Fiona, amused. So this was her new home? The scenery was straight out of a Rosamunde Pilcher novel. Which was not a bad thing, for Scotland shone through in her books in the most lovely colors.

Fiona had always been a big reader, including of Pilcher books, even if she didn’t exactly brag about it. Most people formed an impression of her and put her in a corresponding category without making the effort to look beyond appearances. She was fine with that – it meant that people left her alone.

She was due to start working in a bakery somewhere right around here the next morning. She was already on the right street and just had to find number 28. Plucky and feeling ready for action, she grabbed ahold of her suitcase again. The house behind her was number 20, so it wasn’t far. She actually relished the short walk – finally, solid earth under her feet. She’d gone right from the plane to the bus and had been traveling for many hours.

Spring was unfurling its warming wings all around her, even if it was still quite cold. Her breath came out in little cloudbursts that rose up towards the sky. But the promise of warmer temperatures was in the air. Today was supposed to be the exception, the coldest day of the week, the coldest day of March so far, in fact, according to the weather report. Fiona was looking forward to getting to know her whereabouts in the springtime, when the yellow gorse would be blooming across the soft green meadows.

She found what she was looking for after just a few minutes. She came to a standstill in front of a little stone cottage painted white that was sporting the right house number in blue. It was right on the street and, unlike most of the houses in this village, didn’t have a front yard; it also looked empty and abandoned. Fiona was gripped by a queasy feeling when she discovered a sign in the front window. She approached to read it.

Her eyes widened in disbelief. Why had she been so stubborn? Her friend Melanie had told her in no uncertain terms that she thought the move was a bad idea, but Fiona had been convinced she was doing the right thing. Now, suddenly, this whole plan of landing a new job in Scotland didn’t seem like the greatest idea. How had she ever thought... ?

Boiling with rage, she read the sign again:

Closed!

We are grateful to our customers who have supported us over the years.

Wilson Bakery

Tomorrow was April first – maybe this was supposed to be some sort of early joke. But taking a closer look at the shop’s interior was not reassuring. It as an empty room – nothing but a countertop. There were ghostly squares on the walls where picture frames had once hung. This would have been a bit much for a joke.

Fiona had picked up all stakes in Germany when word had landed in her mailbox that she’d gotten the job. Aside from Melanie and Melanie’s mother, no one knew where she was at the moment. She hadn’t been running away, no, this was meant to be a new beginning. Her previous life lay in ruins back in Berlin. She’d had to get away, far away, before she went completely crazy. That’s why the help-wanted ad in the Berlin paper had been like a sign from God. A little bakery in a remote village of Scotland needed a baker with experience in the traditional German art. Well, okay, so she wasn’t exactly an artist, but she could definitely bake. She had even made a name for herself in the blogosphere; thousands of people read her weekly posts and she got positive feedback like you wouldn’t believe. Simply-baking had traffic like other sites only dreamed about and the ad income was nothing to sniff at. It wasn’t comparable to a steady paycheck, but it was a great side gig. She’d just started a YouTube channel and here, too, everything was really taking off.

This Mrs. Wilson had assured her over the telephone that she didn’t need any kind of formal training and had been downright enthusiastic about the YouTube videos Fiona had sent her. She was originally from Germany but had emigrated to Scotland for love more than 50 years ago. Where was Mrs. Wilson now? Fiona wanted to give her a piece of her mind – she had a signed contract, after all!

Furious, Fiona yanked at her suitcase and felt like taking off through the streets of the tiny village. But where was she supposed to go? First things first, she had to find accommodations, which the lovely Mrs. Wilson had also promised her. Room and board had been part of the arrangement and she would also have gotten a nice salary. Woulda coulda shoulda! She felt so thrown over, she could have screamed.

Suddenly the little village no longer seemed picturesque and quiet, but lonely and desolate. Where was everybody? Did anyone actually live here? Did the bakery close because there just wasn’t anyone here to buy?

As soon as she’d found someplace to stow her suitcase, Fiona would be on the hunt for the inhabitants of this backwater town and especially the old hag who’d lured her in. And then, whether she liked it or not, she had to consider her options for a place to stay.

Once more she laid her forehead on the cool glass of the shop window and stared into the interior, but everything was still the same. It was bleak and hardly imaginable that there’d ever been a bakery here at all.

Are you looking for someone? Overhead a pretty woman was leaning out a window and regarding Fiona skeptically. Her long blond hair mixed with the flowers in the flower box. She was wearing a little too much makeup – pink lip gloss and blue eyeshadow generally horrified Fiona, but, really, she was one to judge, she thought to herself.

Yes, I was hoping to get into the bakery, she hazarded in a friendly tone in an attempt to melt the woman’s icy exterior a bit.

See for yourself – they closed up shop. The woman muttered something else as an aside but Fiona couldn’t catch what it was from the sidewalk before she disappeared back into the apartment. Probably the very apartment that Fiona had been promised. Such total bullshit!

Adam

Adam shut off the machine and was enveloped by silence. He relished it thoroughly – to be able to lean into it, to relax and not have to worry about this or that concert date or press junket hanging around his neck. He was master of his own time here; he could do what he wanted and let everything else slide. Even after these last five years, he was still totally content and glad to have chosen this life. How had he ever lived a life in the laser-focus of fame? People had been intrigued by everything he did, whether it was the food he ate, where he lived, or the sex he had. These days, the life he’d once led seemed almost unimaginable to him.

Scotland and particularly Kinloch Rannoch had become his home. And, except for the Christmas holidays, which he spent in Aspen with his old bandmates, he kept to himself and enjoyed the peace and quiet. In the past year, John and Ally had visited him once, two weeks in the cottage together. That had been great and yet he’d enjoyed being alone again after their departure. He was a lone wolf, as Darren had always called him. The lead singer of their former band hadn’t minced words – he’d made it abundantly clear that he found it odd that Adam liked his own company so much. Surely he had been the one to inspire John to start acting like a concerned mother hen.

This tiny village was so far off the map, not even the teenagers had heard of him and his band. The inhabitants had grown to accept him as one of their own, even when Adam himself hadn’t even wanted to belong. But that had changed, for he had changed. Sure, he lived alone and kept to himself, but he was still part of a community, a card-carrying member of Kinloch Rannoch and that filled him with unexpected pride.

His cottage was one of the largest in the area, but it hadn’t always been so. The addition that he’d had constructed had been incomprehensible to many, which had led to wild speculation. Just one person and so much space? That was suspect. Driven by curiosity, some of the townspeople had knocked on his door, but Adam had never revealed the secret behind the thick doors at the end of the hallway. The townspeople had been suspicious of him, but over the course of these five years they’d put up with him and his hermit ways, even grown to accept him. None of them suspected that he was the keyboardist and songwriter for the Centerstarks who’d composed songs for many famous bands and singers. And that’s just the way he wanted it. Here in this forgotten corner of the Earth he wanted to lead a normal life – unrecognized.

The two added rooms had been outfitted as a recording studio – this was his sanctuary – his secret working space where, at the moment, he was wrapping up a song for an ambitious young American singer. The piece was just missing some finishing touches, but he’d done enough for today. After he’d polished it up a bit, he’d send the file off to his friend Darren, in Germany, with whom he collaborated under the label Jam Beats. This was also privileged knowledge – actually, no one knew. Jam Beats was well known in the business, but nobody suspected the true identity of the men behind it. At press junkets they were represented by their spokesman Bobby Dawson, who’d also worked for the Centerstarks in a past life.

Darren had perfect pitch, which only a few possessed, and he was put on this earth to produce the best music possible. When he sang, even hard-bitten types were brought to tears.

Having decided to put down his