Face the Wind and Fly Read Online Free Page B

plantation, a dark, ugly wood that had been planted in the Sixties for commercial timber. If the wind farm went ahead, these trees would probably be felled, which would be one good outcome at least. Ibsen abhorred the stiff, close-planted trees, for all the world like serried ranks of foreign soldiers. This wasn’t wildlife, it was nature on an industrial scale. The path here became narrower and very steep but a wooden stile across a dry stone wall marked the end of the plantation and the beginning of the rough moorland at the top of the Law. Stone and earth made way for moss and heather, and where small songbirds had flitted shyly in the branches, the clear expanse of land became a hunting ground for kestrels and buzzards and sparrowhawks.
    At the top, Ibsen sank onto a flat boulder. Summerfield Law was the highest point in this part of the county and the climb was worth the effort. The Firth of Forth made a dark blue slash across the canvas of grass and moor and hill spread out in front of him. He could just glimpse the tiny white triangular sails of a flotilla of yachts, scudding in the wind way out on the deep waters. His stomach knotted. They can’t build a wind farm here. It would be utter sacrilege.
    A figure emerged from the woods into a puddle of sunshine. A woman. A walker, by the looks of her – properly clad. She looked tiny, a couple of hundred feet beneath him, a pinprick in the landscape.
    As she neared him, he saw that it wasn’t just an illusion, she actually was small, and she was attacking the hill with energy and a step so light she was almost dancing. Nice.
    He called, ‘There’s room for two on this rock,’ and patted the space beside him invitingly.
    The woman stopped a few feet below him and looked up, frowning. Her eyes were like sloes, dark and shiny, and her hair was cropped so short that it barely ruffled in the wind.
    ‘I don’t bite. Neither does Wellington, I promise you.’ Ibsen’s hair was fanning out behind him, the stiff breeze tugging at the rubber band that held his ponytail in place. ‘I’ve got coffee, by the way.’ He patted his shoulder bag, which still had his flask in it, untouched.
    The woman’s smile transformed her face. The small frown – concentration? irritation? – vanished and she looked eighteen, though the spray of fine lines that trailed from the corners of her eyes marked her as older.
    ‘Is that a bribe?’
    ‘It’s an offer.’
    She clambered the last few yards and sat down beside him. ‘Hi.’
    ‘I don’t have milk. Sorry.’ He filled the top of his vacuum flask with steaming coffee and handed it to her. ‘But there again, I don’t have germs either.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    He shrugged. ‘I’m fit as a fiddle, always have been.’
    She accepted the cup. ‘Well in that case, Mr Germinator, your tee shirt is lying.’
    ‘Sorry?’
    She laughed and looked down. The bottle-green tee shirt he’d pulled on that morning bore the legend The Germinator! accompanied by a child’s drawing of a cheerful plant in a pot.
    ‘Aha. Not germs. Germination. I’m a gardener. Ibsen Brown, nice to meet you.’
     ‘Unusual.’
    He was conscious of the warmth of her thigh, pressed close against his as they perched together on the small rock. He groaned. ‘No wisecracks, please. I’ve had a lifetime of ribbing. My father is self educated, and passionate about reading. And if you think Ibsen is an odd name, spare a thought for my sister.’
    ‘Hedda?’
    ‘Good guess. Most people have no idea who Ibsen was – but no, she’s called Cassiopeia.’
    ‘Beautiful but arrogant?’
    ‘You are well educated. Actually, she was named after the star constellation, not the Greek goddess.’ Wellington put an insistent nose in his lap and he fondled the dog’s silky ears. ‘We call her Cassie.’
    ‘That’s a relief. Ibsen’s good, though. I like Ibsen.’
    He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out an old tennis ball. ‘Here boy, fetch!’ His arm arced