In the end, he decided that since I would be no help in the decision process, I would be allowed an hour to explore Princes Street while the men went and collected the new equipment.
No argument from me. I didn’t have any available funds, but at least I could window shop. And besides—hadn’t Claire spent time in Edinburgh looking for Jamie on her return in DRAGONFLY IN AMBER? It wasn’t technically an OUTLANDER detail, but trying to puzzle out the location of Jamie’s print shop would be a fun way to kill time.
As we drove toward the city over the Forth Bridge, Sandeep had Ashwin pull off and took over the driving. Ash grinned at me and slid into the back seat.
“It’s a madhouse drivin’ this city,” Sandeep muttered, and I had to agree. It took us almost an hour to get into the heart of the city, mostly due to construction and slow-moving traffic.
As we wove through the city streets, I kept my nose glued to the window, watching for a glimpse of the castle. Soon enough there it was, looming through the misty day like a huge guardian on its mammoth pile of granite above the city. I craned my neck to look for the bar where I’d first met Hamish, but it was lost in a puzzle of streets running off at strange angles. I was pretty sure I’d never be able to find it again.
Sandeep’s van pulled up to a red light right beside a huge, soot-blackened structure on Princes Street. He pointed out the window.
“Tha’ ugly thing is the Scott Monument,” he said. “This should only take me an hour, but with traffic it could be as long as two. So how about we meet right here at four, to be safe?”
“I’ll be here,” I said, and hopped out of the van. He honked moodily and rolled forward a couple of feet before stopping again. I walked by his open window.
“Damn tram lines,” he said, and shook his fist at the sky.
I waved goodbye and headed along Princes Street. It was Edinburgh’s main street, filled with shoppers despite the dreary day.
I stared at all the lovely spring outfits and shoes that I could not afford in the shop windows and thought about Hamish, delivering car parts today somewhere far north of me. We both were in the same boat, in a way, earning money to go to America. Except he was desperate to go, and I—I wasn’t so sure any more.
I didn’t want to think that way. I’d found my Fraser, right? A big, beautiful Scot—not really a red-head, but close enough. And if he wanted to see my homeland, too—all the better. After all, Jamie and Claire had ended up in America, and for both of them it had been the most foreign of lands.
I leaned against the cool stone of a shop exterior, and pulled my copy of OUTLANDER out of my pack. Flipping open the cover to look at the map, I was horrified when it came away in my hand. I stood there on the street, staring in blank shock at the naked book in one hand and the torn cover in the other.
“Ye can git another jes’ oop the street, lass.”
The man speaking to me was sitting on the ground, leaning against a pole. His dog was asleep on his lap and propped against one knee was a sign that read Destitute and Hungry. I took a moment to be impressed with his facility with the written word, Austenesque capitalization and all, but then he spoke again.
“Wha’za matter? Ye deef? THERE’S A BOOKSHOP JES’ OOP THE STREET.”
The sheer volume made me jump back a little. “Yes—ah—thank you, sir,” I babbled, backing away. I jammed my hands in my pockets and hurried off, embarrassed that I hadn’t had the presence of mind to drop a coin in his cup.
Two doors up I discovered the well-educated panhandler was correct. It was a bookshop. I stepped inside, feeling just as torn as my copy of OUTLANDER.
Of course I could buy another copy. But this copy had brought me all the way here from Chicago. It was filled with my notes. It held Gerald’s map, folded neatly in between the pages. Inside the torn cover, it held my own travel plan in passionate purple ink, alongside the signature of the author Herself.
I couldn’t bear to give it up.
But maybe one of the clerks would have some tape I could use. I wandered over to the front desk, to find the cashier talking on the phone.
“An God, he was SO drunk, I tell ya I laughed me arse off …”
She caught sight of me and put her hand over the receiver. “Can I help yeh?”
“I’ve just torn the cover off my book—do you have any Scotch tape?”
“Nah—sorry. Got some cello, if ye want it.”
She slid a roll of what was clearly Scotch tape over to me and turned back to her phone call. I spent ten minutes carefully repairing the damage. When I was done, it looked like it might hold, but most of the tape was gone. As I slid the dispenser back across the desk to the cashier, I remembered Claire’s quest.