A Little Something Extra

Rachel narrowed her eyes at her father as she shut the door behind Isobel. “Oh, no. It’s just beginning.” She looked at Callum. “And I’ll deal with you later.”

He held up his hands. “I was going to tell you. He’s the one who came here under an assumed name. I’m innocent in this.”

“Of course you are.” She sat down and crossed her legs before glaring at her father. “Start at the beginning. Why exactly do you need Benson Security’s help?”

“Oh, it’s much worse than that, darling,” her father said. “I need your help.”

Valentine’s Day at Glasgow School of Art

This story takes place six months after the end of Can’t Stop the Feeling.

It was Donna’s first Valentine’s Day as a married woman, and she’d hoped for a romantic evening with Duncan. Unfortunately, a Glasgow School of Art faculty meeting meant he was busy, and she was stuck entertaining her sister Mairi, who was visiting from Campbeltown. It was not how she’d planned to spend the evening. And it was going downhill rapidly.

“I’m going to get into so much trouble,” Donna said as she led Mairi down the worn stone steps into the basement of the Mackintosh building. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

“You can’t?” Mairi said. “Really? You can’t believe you were talked into this? Say that again so I can film it for Aggie and Isobel.” She held up her phone.

Donna stopped on the stairs below her sister. “Do you want to go to the life drawing class or not?”

She hurriedly tucked the phone back into her jeans pocket. “Do I want to sit in a room with a hot naked man and pretend to draw him? Yes. I definitely want to do that.”

Donna groaned. She should never have shown her sister the drawings from her last class. The model had been a post-grad student who played rugby in his spare time. To Donna, he’d been a chance to study defined muscle form. To her sister, he was a chance to perv over a hot, naked guy. There was no way this evening was going to end well.

“This is so wrong. Life drawing isn’t about perving over the model. It’s about drawing the human form. Artists don’t even see the model as a person. They might as well be drawing a bowl of fruit.”

“You mean like a banana and two plums?”

“You’re sick in the head. You do know that, right?”

“And proud of it.”

They turned the corner out of the stairwell and headed for the basement studio that housed the early evening life class. The newly painted white walls on either side of them were art free, but that would soon change as students pinned up their work. Then, in another six months or so, they would need a new whitewash and the cycle would start all over again.

“What does Keir think you’re doing right now?” Donna said. “Because you definitely didn’t tell him you were pretending to be an artist just to ogle the model.”

“I told him the truth,” Mairi said. “That I was going to Glasgow to spend some quality time with my sister in order to find out more about her new life as an artist.”

“And he believed you?”

“Keir and I have an understanding. I tell him what I want him to believe, and he has to figure out what the reality is. It’s like a game. It keeps things interesting.”

Mairi’s relationship was a mystery to her sisters.

“Didn’t he wonder why you weren’t spending Valentine’s Day with him?” Donna wished she was spending it with Duncan.

“No. He knows what I think about it.”

She was almost afraid to ask. “Which is?”

“It’s all about sex. You eat chocolate, drink champagne, and talk romantic crap to each other—all in the hopes of getting laid. Keir knows I’m a sure thing, and that makes Valentine’s Day a waste of effort.”

“That has to be the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” Donna said sarcastically.

“I should write for Hallmark,” Mairi agreed.

They pushed through the heavy wooden door—scarred and splattered with paint from years of use—and into the plain white windowless room. There were already several people inside. Some stood chatting while others dragged their stools into position or set up easels. They called out their hellos to her and Donna smiled back. There was no way to feel like an outsider in this group. There were eighteen-year-olds straight from school, and people in their sixties studying in retirement. There was every background, class and color. And they all had one thing in common—a passion for art.

“Where do we sit?” Mairi stage whispered. “Will the model pose on that stool in the middle? Which way will he be facing? I want to be in front.”