The Bothy

The cottage came into view just as the rain began.

I saw it first through the streaked window of the taxi — a low, stone building hunkered against the hillside like it had grown there, its roof mossy and uneven, smoke rising from a chimney that seemed too small for the sky around it. The driver pulled up along a dirt track that was more puddle than road, and I thanked him while calculating how fast I could get inside before the clouds opened fully.

I failed.

The rain caught me halfway up the path, sweeping across the valley in a curtain of grey. By the time I fit the key into the lock, my hair was plastered to my cheeks and my jacket had given up entirely. I pushed the door open, stumbled inside, and stood there dripping onto a flagstone floor while the warmth of the cottage wrapped around me like a slow exhale.

It was smaller than the photos. Cozier. A fire was already laid in the hearth, and someone had left a vase of heather on the windowsill — purple against the grey outside, so deliberate it made my chest ache. I'd been so desperate to get away that I hadn't let myself imagine what away would feel like. But standing there, water pooling at my feet, the smell of peat smoke and old wood settling into my lungs, I felt something in my shoulders loosen for the first time in months.

I changed into dry clothes, made tea I didn't really want, and sat on the worn velvet sofa watching the rain paint the landscape in watercolour. The Highlands unfolded beyond the window in layers — brown and green and purple, mist curling through the valleys like breath on a cold morning. There was no phone signal. No Wi-Fi. Nothing but the sound of rain and the occasional bleat of a sheep somewhere I couldn't see.

I'd chosen this on purpose. Complete and total escape. What I hadn't counted on was how loud the silence would be.

I stayed inside for the rest of the day, reading a book I'd brought but never truly turning the pages. My mind kept drifting — to the city, to the reasons I'd left, to the version of myself I was trying to outrun. I let the fire burn low and went to bed early, the wind moaning against the stone walls like it was trying to tell me something.

Morning came clear and sharp.

I woke to light pouring through the small bedroom window, so bright it took me a moment to understand what I was seeing — the rain had stopped, and the world outside was rinsed clean, every shade of green more vivid than I remembered colour could be. I dressed quickly, grabbed my coat, and stepped outside.

The air was cold and sweet. It tasted of grass and stone and something floral I couldn't name. I followed a path that led away from the cottage, winding along the edge of a burn that rushed over rocks with a sound like laughter. The ground was soft under my boots, and every few steps I had to stop and just look — at the mountains in the distance, at the way the light moved across them in slow, silver waves.

I walked until the cottage was a small white smudge behind me, until I could hear nothing but the water and the wind and my own breathing. I sat on a flat rock by the burn and let myself feel small. It was a relief, being small. In the city, everything made me feel like I was supposed to be larger — louder, faster, more. Here, the landscape asked nothing of me. It just was. And somehow, that let me just be too.

I don't know how long I sat there. Long enough for my fingers to grow numb. Long enough for the sun to climb higher and warm the back of my neck. Long enough that when I finally stood and turned back toward the cottage, I almost didn't see him.

He was standing near the edge of the path, maybe fifty metres away, holding a wooden staff and watching the same mountains I'd been watching. He hadn't noticed me yet. I had a moment — just a moment — to take him in before he turned.

He was tall. Lean. His hair was dark and unruly, pushed back from his face by the wind, and his jaw had the kind of sharpness that looked like it had been carved by the same forces that shaped these hills. He wore a thick jumper the colour of heather, sleeves pushed to his elbows, and there was something about the way he stood — grounded, unhurried — that made me feel like I was the one who'd been caught somewhere I shouldn't be.

Then he turned, and his eyes found mine.

They were grey. Not a cold grey — warm, like the stone of the cottage after the sun had been on it all afternoon. He didn't look surprised to see me. He just looked at me, steady and calm, and after a beat, he smiled.

"Good morning," he said. His voice was low, carried by the wind before it reached me. There was an accent there — not thick, but present, curling around the edges of the words.

"Good morning," I said back. My voice sounded too small against the open air.

He walked toward me, not quickly, and stopped a few feet away. Close enough that I could see the freckles scattered across his nose, the way his sleeves were damp at the cuffs.

"You must be the one at the Croft," he said. "I'm Callum. I look after the estate."

"Aren," I said. "I'm just — here for a week. Hiding."

The word slipped out before I could stop it. I felt my cheeks warm.

His smile deepened, just slightly. "Well, you've come to the right place for that, Aren. There's no better hiding spot in the world than these hills."

We stood there for a moment, the burn rushing beside us, the wind pulling at my hair. I should have said something polite and turned back. Should have made my excuses and retreated to the safety of the cottage. But I didn't move.

"If you've got the time," he said, "there's a view up the ridge that's worth the walk. Better than this one." He nodded toward the mountains I'd been admiring. "Only if you want company."

I should have said no. I'd come here to be alone. I'd chosen this place specifically because I wanted to disappear. But the silence in the cottage had been so loud, and his voice was nothing like silence at all.

"Okay," I said.

We walked for an hour.

The path grew steeper, the ground more uncertain, and he moved ahead of me on the narrow sections, reaching back to offer his hand without making it feel like a gesture. I took it each time — his palm warm, his grip firm — and each time, I let go a little slower than I needed to.

He talked as we walked, but not the way city people talked — not filling space with noise. He pointed out the names of the mountains, told me which burns held trout and which were too cold for anything to live in, showed me a ruin tucked into the hillside that had been a shepherd's bothy two hundred years ago. His voice had a rhythm to it, steady as the tide, and I found myself wanting to hear more of it just to feel that rhythm settle into my chest.

When we reached the top, I understood why he'd brought me here.

The valley opened beneath us like a held breath — green sweeping into green, a loch shining in the distance like a mirror someone had set down and forgotten. The sky was enormous, domed and endless, and for a moment I couldn't speak.

"Told you," he said quietly.

I turned to look at him. He wasn't watching the valley. He was watching me.

Something passed between us in that moment — wordless, weightless, but present. I felt it in the space between heartbeats. So did he, I think, because he looked away first, clearing his throat.

"There's a bothy further along," he said. "I sometimes stop there for tea, if I'm out this way. You're welcome to join me."

"I'd like that."

The bothy was smaller than my cottage — one room, a hearth, a wooden table, a single chair. He lit a fire with practised ease, filled a kettle from a stream outside, and produced a tin of biscuits from a shelf like he'd done this a thousand times. Which he probably had.

We sat on the floor by the fire because there was only one chair, and he wouldn't take it while I sat on the ground. So we sat side by side, shoulders almost touching, our tea steaming in mismatched mugs.

"Why are you hiding?" he asked.

Not accusatory. Just curious. Like he had all the time in the world to hear the answer.

I stared into my tea. "I was engaged."

He didn't react. Just waited.

"He ended it. Three weeks before the wedding. Said he wasn't ready, which apparently meant he'd never been ready, just too afraid to say so until the last possible moment."

"Three weeks," Callum repeated. "That's a particular kind of cruelty."

I looked up, surprised by the precision of the word. "Yes. That's exactly what it is."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want sympathy," I said, and I heard the edge in my voice. "I just — I needed to be somewhere that didn't remind me of him. Everywhere in the city reminded me. The coffee shop we went to. The park where he —" I stopped. Breathed. "I needed to be somewhere that had never known him."

Callum nodded slowly. "This place has never known anyone," he said. "That's what I love about it. It doesn't remember. It just goes on being itself."

I looked at him — at the firelight moving across his face, at the way he said love like it was the most natural word in the world.

"How long have you lived here?"

"All my life," he said. "Left once, for university. Came back after a year. The city made me feel like I was wearing shoes that didn't fit."

I laughed. It surprised me. "That's exactly how I feel there."

"And yet here you are." He looked at me, his eyes catching the firelight. "Shoes seem to fit a little better here."

I held his gaze. "They do."

The fire crackled. The wind pressed against the stone walls. And between us, something shifted — a current I could feel but couldn't name.

We walked back as the afternoon began to soften into evening. He left me at the cottage gate, his hands in his pockets, his breath forming small clouds in the cooling air.

"If you want to walk again tomorrow," he said, "I'll be at the bothy around noon. No pressure."

"I might."

He smiled — that same slow, warm smile. "Good."

I watched him walk away until the path curved and took him out of sight. Then I went inside, lit the fire, and sat on the velvet sofa with my book. I didn't read a single page. I just sat there, replaying the sound of his voice, the weight of his hand in mine, the way he'd looked at me like I was worth seeing.

I went back the next day.

And the day after that.

On the fourth day, the weather changed.

I woke to a sky the colour of bruises and wind that rattled the windows like it wanted in. By the time I reached the bothy, I was soaked through, my cheeks numb, my fingers too cold to form a fist.

Callum was already there. He took one look at me, pulled me inside, and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders before I could say a word.

"You're foolish," he said, but his voice was soft. "You should have stayed home."

"I wanted to see you."

The words came out before I could stop them. Raw and unguarded and true.

He went still.

I stood there, wrapped in a blanket that smelled of smoke and him, dripping onto the stone floor, my heart hammering so loud I was sure he could hear it.

"Aren," he said. Just my name. But the way he said it — like it cost him something.

"I'm not looking for anything," I said quickly. "I'm not — I don't expect —"

"I know." He stepped closer. "I know."

He reached out and brushed a strand of wet hair from my face. His fingers lingered against my cheek, cold at first, then warming against my skin.

"I've been walking these hills my whole life," he said. "I never met anyone I wanted to share them with. Until you."

I closed my eyes. When I opened them, he was still there, still looking at me like I was something precious.

"Kiss me," I whispered.

And he did.

His mouth was warm against mine, gentle at first, like he was asking permission. I answered by pressing closer, my hands finding the damp wool of his jumper, holding on like I might fall without him. The blanket slipped from my shoulders and neither of us reached for it.

He deepened the kiss slowly, his hand moving to the back of my neck, his fingers threading through my wet hair. There was no rush in him — none of the frantic energy I'd known before. He kissed me like he had time. Like he wanted to memorise the shape of me.

When we broke apart, I was breathless.

"Stay," he said. "Tonight. Let me take care of you."

I should have thought about it. Should have weighed the risks, remembered why I'd come here, considered what it would mean to open myself to someone again so soon. But standing there in that tiny bothy, with the storm raging outside and the firelight painting his face in gold, none of it mattered.

"Yes," I said.

He built the fire higher and spread his coat on the floor in front of it — a makeshift bed, soft enough, close enough to the flames that the cold couldn't reach us. He brought out another blanket, a bottle of whisky from a shelf, and we sat facing each other, the fire between us and the world.

We talked for hours. About his mother, who had taught him the names of every plant in the glen. About my father, who had taught me how to fix things with my hands. About the dreams we'd let go of and the ones we still held loosely. The whisky warmed my chest and loosened the knot I'd been carrying since the engagement ended.

At some point, I reached across the space between us and took his hand.

He turned it over, slowly, tracing the lines of my palm with his thumb. The touch was light, but it travelled through me like he'd touched something deeper.

"You have kind hands," I said.

He looked up. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know. They just feel — safe."

He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. The gesture was so simple, so tender, that my eyes stung.

"Aren." His voice was low, roughened by the whisky and the fire. "I want to be close to you. But I need you to tell me if this is too fast. If you need more time."

I shook my head. "I've had time. I've had nothing but time. What I haven't had is someone who made me feel like this."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."

The fire popped. The wind howled. And he leaned in and kissed me again, slower this time, his hand cradling my jaw like I was something fragile and precious.

We lay down together on the coat, the blanket pulled over us, his body curled around mine. The fire crackled beside us, casting shadows that danced across the stone walls. He kissed my shoulder, the curve of my neck, the space behind my ear that made me shiver.

"Is this okay?" he murmured.

"Yes."

His hand moved slowly down my arm, tracing the line of my collarbone, resting at my waist. Each touch was deliberate, unhurried, as if he was learning the language of my body one word at a time. I turned to face him, my hands finding the hem of his jumper, and he lifted it over his head without breaking eye contact.

The firelight painted his skin in amber. I touched his chest, felt the warmth of him, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat under my palm. He closed his eyes, exhaled, and when he opened them again, they were darker, full of something that made my breath catch.

"Tell me what you want," he said.

"You."

He kissed me again, deeper now, and I felt the restraint in him — the careful control, the way he held himself back even as his hands grew bolder. I wanted him to let go. I wanted to be the reason he did.

"Don't hold back," I whispered against his mouth.

He made a sound — low, almost pained — and pulled me closer.

What followed was slow and deep and achingly tender. He touched me like I was sacred, whispered my name like a prayer, moved against me with a rhythm that matched the rise and fall of the fire. There was no urgency. Only the slow, patient language of two people learning each other in the dark.

Afterward, we lay tangled together, his arm around my waist, my head on his chest. The fire had burned down to glowing embers, and the storm outside had quieted to a gentle rain.

"Don't leave," he said quietly. "Not when the week is over. Stay."

I lifted my head to look at him.

"Callum —"

"I know it's too soon to say this." He brushed his thumb across my cheek. "I know you came here to heal. But I also know that I've been waiting for someone to walk into these hills and change everything. And now you're here."

I rested my forehead against his. "I can't make promises tonight."

"I'm not asking for promises. I'm asking you to think about it."

I closed my eyes and let myself feel the weight of his arm around me, the warmth of his skin, the quiet certainty in his voice.

"I will," I said.

On my last morning, the sun rose clear and golden over the valley.

I packed slowly. Left the heather on the windowsill. Walked the path one last time, the dew soaking through my boots, the mountains standing silent and familiar like old friends.

He was waiting at the bothy.

I didn't knock. I just opened the door and stepped inside.

He looked up from the fire, and the smile that broke across his face was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

"Come back," he said. "When you're ready."

I crossed the room and took his face in my hands.

"I'm ready now."

And I kissed him, there in the bothy, with the fire crackling and the mountains watching and the whole of the Highlands holding its breath around us.

I didn't catch the train that afternoon.

I stayed.