A Little Something Extra

Claire sniffed and smiled up at Grunt. “Next time, we have to have girls.”

“Sons and daughters. I like that.” Grunt’s face softened as he leaned forward to kiss his wife.

“Next time?” Megan looked around the room, and everyone seemed just as shocked as she felt.

“We’re going to need a better plan,” Lake said.

“And perhaps a different hospital,” the doctor muttered.

Grunt lifted his head from his wife and beamed at everyone. “I’m a father,” he announced again, then frowned. “When did you all get here?”

As everyone groaned, Megan hooked her arm through Dimitri’s. “Okay,” she whispered, her eyes on the babies. “I’ll think about it.”

The smile he gave her made her concession worthwhile. It also made her want to get out of there and practice for their future. Their distant future. While everyone explained to Grunt why they were so beaten up, Megan and Dimitri slipped out of the room. But not before she grabbed her go-bag.

Who knew when she’d need it again.

The Day Donna Became Housekeeper at Kintyre Mansion

Two years before the start of Can’t Stop the Feeling.

It was common knowledge around Campbeltown that the owner of Kintyre Mansion was getting rid of staff left, right and center. Which meant he had vacancies, and Donna Sinclair was just desperate enough to apply for one of them.

“Are you sure about this?” her older sister Agnes asked as they drove up the sweeping drive to the imposing Georgian mansion. “This guy is notoriously hard to work for. He’s fired six people in the past month alone.”

“He’s only lashing out because he’s in pain.” Duncan Stewart had lost his young wife a few months earlier, after a lengthy battle with cancer, and by all accounts, he wasn’t coping well. “People need to have a little patience with him.”

“No, they don’t,” her youngest sister, Mairi, said from the backseat. “What people need to do is keep far, far away until he’s done grieving and stops lashing out. Seriously. Would you go near a lion with a thorn in its paw? No. Because you’d get your head bitten off. Self-preservation is how the species survives.”

“You forget who you’re talking to,” Agnes said. “If there were an injured lion within a two-hundred-mile radius, Donna would want to cuddle it until its boo-boo was healed.”

“I would not. You guys always paint me as some sort of bleeding heart. I’m not, you know. I can be just as hard as the next person.”

Agnes and Mairi burst out laughing.

“Say that again,” Mairi said as she held up her phone. “I need to film it for Isobel. She’ll be gutted she’s stuck at home with the kids and missed it.”

“Funny, very funny.” Donna frowned at them, but her attention was stolen by the sight of the Georgian mansion house as it came into view. It looked like a massive stone cube with windows. There were three stories, with the windows on the top floor being smaller than those on the other two. There was an equal number of windows on either side of the vast front door and a sweeping stone staircase leading up to it—complete with wrought iron handrail.

“It looks very. . .” Intimidating? Scary? Haunted? “Grand,” she said at last.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Agnes said.

“We need the money, Aggie.” That was the understatement of the year.

The four sisters pooled every penny they made to cover Agnes’ university tuition and to pay off the loan Isobel’s ex-husband had taken out—with a guy who broke legs if he didn’t get his money.

“I’m earning now.” As usual, Mairi was texting as she talked. “I can take on another couple of online boyfriends and up my hourly rate. You don’t need to work for the Devil of Kintyre. You can wait and find a decent job in town.”

Donna let out a sigh. Her eyes still fixed on the imposing building. Georgian architects sure liked symmetry. “I appreciate that. I do. But jobs are hard to come by right now. I haven’t seen another vacancy in a bank since my branch closed down.”

“Recession.” Mairi gave a knowing nod.

“It isn’t recession, dimwit,” Agnes said. “It’s the fact we live in the middle of nowhere. The only way off the peninsular is by boat or a five-hour drive to Glasgow. It isn’t exactly a commutable location.”

“Remind me,” Mairi said sarcastically. “Why do we live here again?”

“Because our parents thought the world ended at the borders of Kintyre and we can’t afford to move anywhere else,” Agnes told her for the millionth time.