My warning didn't stop her, and hers didn't stop me. She headed out for the highlands without a second thought, without even so much as a bag.
While she headed for the furthest reach of the island, I headed for the one place Rogan had told me he hated more than anything; Fairlie.
Fairlie was a small village on the west coast of Scotland, it had originally been a fishing town, but now it was little more than passing place for tourists on their way to Largs. Where a castle had once stood, there was now nothing more than a single square tower, surrounded by scaffolding, but the views from hills behind were splendid. How I had missed the sights I saw here.
But that was a long time ago, and a lot changes in 150 years.
I took a deep breath and remembered why Rogan hated this place so much.
"We took a family holiday there not long ago, stank of fish. I hated it."
I knew what he meant. The smell of fish and seaweed clung to the air, but I never came for the smell. People here were closer to nature, enthusiasts for outdoor activities.
It was in this little fishing town of Fairlie, that I learned to love again, to trust another human being with my heart.
He had been young, barely 21, but his soul was older than any I'd ever encountered. His name was Euan Irvine, and his father owned half a dozen fishing boats.
I was lost in my own thoughts when someone tapped me lightly on the shoulder. I turned to find a smiling young girl no older than nineteen. Despite her obvious youth, her left and was adorned with a simple wedding band and her stomach was large with child.
"You alright, Miss? You're not lost, is ya?" I smiled, and politely shook my head. I was at a loss for words as I looked at the girl in front of me. She looked so much like Euan that my heart hurt, but alas, Euan had been dead 74 years.
"The name is Ellie Irvine." I regained my focus at that name.
"Irvine, you say? Any relation to Euan Irvine?"
"He were my husband's great great great grandad. Died a long ago, why?"
"I found his name in an ancestor's journals once, she was madly in love with him, it seemed."
Ellie smiled widely, showing perfectly white teeth.
"You look like her, your ancesta, grandad inherited a picture off his grandad when he were a boy. Come to think of it my grandad still has Euan's journals."
I followed Ellie to her family home just around the corner and was greeted joyously by a small dog. Ellie shouted at the poor thing to get down, but I simply smiled and knelt down to fuss the creature. She was a ball of fluff on legs, Ellie said she was a crossbreed of Pomeranian and Shih Tzu, and they'd called her Pompom.
True to her belief, Euan Irvine's journals resided in her attic.
I was browsing through one he'd written in 1867, the year I'd met him, and couldn't help but smile when I came across the entry of the day he first met me.
June 3rd, 1867,
My god, she was a picture of heaven, an angel on earth. Nina Flynn, with her golden locks of hair and hypnotising blue eyes. She had the softest voice I've ever heard but her eyes ached with some unseen pain.
I didn't need to read any more of that entry, I remembered every word, every syllable, of that meeting. Tucked into the crease of the page was a drawing. It was faded and creased but I recognised it. Euan had drawn it for me on the beach that day, had spent hours hunched over his paper with charcoal in hand. It had made me smile to see a man light up with pure joy for what he was doing. When he had tried to hand it to me I had refused to take it, insisting he'd one day need it to remember me.
