Alicia Martinez is determined to keep a low profile. After a tough year, she deletes all of her social media and retreats to the small coastal town of St Andrews in the hopes of starting over - and avoiding her tumultuous past.
Oliver Hogarth is a...
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Alicia Martinez hadn't meant to break the golf club.
Truly, she hadn't.
She stared down at the broken Callaway driver mournfully. Damn. That was going to cost a mint to replace. She could probably convince her boss, Steve, to take it out of her weekly salary, but still. It was a nuisance.
Alicia sighed, laying the broken club on a table. Outside, the Old Course was pulled taught as a green quilt, the flag poles sticking out like pins. Cars clattered over the cobblestones outside the shop, and she could hear someone shouting in a Scottish accent. Something about a birdie. Or maybe it was, "don't burp me."
She hoped for the Scottish man's sake that it was the first one.
Alicia turned back to the club. Maybe she could glue it? No; that was a terrible idea. She would simply have to come clean.
She began arranging a stack of monogrammed tea towels. The golf club incident hadn't even been her fault, really; she had simply been trying to clean it when a customer walked in. The bell on the door had tinkled. Alicia stood up. And then she had jumped, cracking the driver on the counter.
Because for a moment — just a moment, mind you — she thought it had been him.
The man that she was trying to avoid.
The reason that Alicia had fled to St Andrews in the first place.
It wasn't, obviously; it was a lovely French man named Paul who had been after a shot glass for his wife. But the damage was done. And now Alicia was standing in the store, ignoring the broken golf club.
Stupid, sodding club.
The door tinkled. Steve stumbled through, weighed down by boxes filled with emblazoned polo necks and caps. The Glaswegian man's foot caught the doorstep, and he cursed creatively, running through a number of words that Alicia didn't understand. She caught "get tae hell" and "ye wee shite." Or maybe it was "ye willy's shite." You never knew, with Steve.
She rushed forward to take the boxes. "They were late again, then?"
"Fecking delivery people," Steve growled. "If they dinnae turn up on time next week, I swear I'll—" He froze, his eyes landing on the driver. "What the hell is that?"
Ah. Oops.
Alicia set the box down slowly. "Well, Steve, I was cleaning it, and then I—"
"Ye know what?" Steve shook his head. "Ahm pure done in." He retreated towards the back office. "Unpack that lot and then go home."
"Really?"
"Really." He smiled. "And dinnae worry about the driver, Leese. Just shite luck, int it?"
Alicia felt a rush of relief. She had the sudden urge to throw her arms around Steve, but she restrained herself. Firstly, because Steve was her boss. And secondly, because she had given him a birthday card last month, and Steve had stared at it for thirty seconds before explaining to her that he was uncomfortable with displays of affection.
