November 28th

Damn that woman! Colin Anderson muttered yet again as he drove the main road from Ullapool. He'd spent four frustrating hours waiting for a delayed ferry and it would be getting dark by the time he reached the woman's cottage. From there, the drive back to Aberdeen would be done entirely in the dark, and there probably wouldn't be anywhere to get a meal when he got there.

How did I get involved in this mess anyway? he wondered. He'd wanted to fly Aberdeen to Stornoway and back, and then use his Range Rover to travel out to the remote cottage Shelagh Fraser lived in, but the pattern of flights meant he couldn't do that in the same time-scale, so he'd had to drive out to Ullapool and take the ferry.

Damn that woman! Of course, it being late November, there had already been several falls of snow on the east side of Scotland, and Aberdeen Airport had closed briefly a couple of times already. His Range Rover was well-prepared, and stocked against the coming winter weather, and the west side of Scotland had been clear, so the instruction had come from on high: go by car and ferry. We have to have that contract signed immediately. You're going to Stornoway, her cottage is 'just off' the trunk road, you've even been there, drop in on your way back.

Unfortunately, his previous visit had, although business-like, not been particularly cordial. Shelagh Fraser had treated him like something she'd fished out of her septic tank, and Colin hadn't needed any urgings to leave. I won't need any urgings to leave this time, either.

Colin had resented being told what to do by someone who had little idea of the conditions in the remoter parts of Scotland. As it was, he was running a calculated risk: if the weather worsened, he might get stuck on the road, however major a route it might be. It wouldn't be a huge problem, since there was sufficient traffic he could always get some help, even a lift from a trucker if need be. In fact, if that happened, he would be a double winner, since he would miss visiting the feminist author and would also be able to tell his bosses 'I told you so'. Unfortunately, the road remained clear, although the sky looked very ominous. Damn that woman!

He had stopped, briefly, in Inverness for a burger and coffee before pushing on. He had considered stopping overnight in Inverness, since the weather was coming from the east and there were already warnings on the radio of worsening traffic conditions near Aberdeen. But that would cause a delay that might make his life even more unpleasant, so he continued. Some miles further on, he turned off the trunk road onto one that struck south towards the mountains. He was off known territory now, but his map-reading skills were reasonable, and he'd eventually meet the route he'd used before. He turned east again, and threaded his way between snow-covered mountains. The sky was black ahead.

That's it! He recognised the name on the sign, where he had turned from the other direction on his previous visit. The name was in Gaelic; he had no idea how to pronounce it. Now he was on a single-track road leading to a couple of small villages and, eventually, a ski lodge and mountain rescue centre. The road, although narrow, had been well-swept, and only a thin layer of snow remained covering the surface. Colin considered stopping and putting his snow chains on his tyres, but decided against it for the time being. Flakes of snow promptly started to fall in front of his windscreen. Crap.

A huddle of houses appeared out of the gloom, the first village. Colin pulled over, got out, opened his boot and retrieved the snow chains, which he carefully fastened around all four wheels. He got back in, and decided to spend a few seconds having some coffee from his flask before continuing. It wasn't far from here, he could replenish when he got there. In conditions like these, how could he be refused?

It was snowing properly now, although he could still see his way, with difficulty. If something came the other way things could get awkward, although the vehicle's lights should just about be visible from one passing-place to the next. Several miles later he nearly drove past the cairn which stood opposite the track which led to Shelagh Fraser's cottage, as it was almost entirely buried in a snowdrift. He was getting higher in the mountains, and it had obviously snowed more here - a factor Colin hadn't taken into account. He backed up to the turning and considered the state of the track, which led off into the darkness.

There were tractor tyre marks going up the track, and it seemed that the vehicle had had a scraper, since the snow had been levelled off over the width of the track way, to a depth of about a foot. At the junction, the marks went both ways, so it was evident that someone had driven up to the cottage and back again to ensure the cottage wasn't cut off. Colin considered carefully, then decided he was already committed. If he turned round in the entrance, he only stood a 50/50 chance of getting back to a main road before conditions stopped him. If he got this far and then didn't get the contract signed it would probably be 50/50 that he kept his job, too. So he took a deep breath, engaged the lowest gear, and turned into the access road.

The snowfall had increased, almost to white-out conditions. Fortunately, the tractor that had cleared the way had left two deep, wide ruts and Colin concentrated on keeping his wheels in the ruts, ignoring everything else around him. The road climbed gently but steadily for four miles, then topped a notch in a ridge and started descending.

Colin remembered his previous visit to the cottage. It had been spring, and the scenery had been breathtaking. When he had got over the ridge, he had involuntarily stopped and stared. The road had meandered down and then followed a small burn for about a mile, before turning behind a crag. The burn had emptied out into a small, long loch which had Shelagh Fraser's cottage at one end and the other village at the other end. The cottage had been hidden behind the crag, and all he could see was the idyllic landscape laid out in front of him.

That's it. All I have to do is follow the ruts down to the crag, and turn the corner. Why am I doing this again? Damn that woman! The snow was now so thick that he had difficulty following the ruts, but it got a little easier as he descended. The fact that the walls of snow either side of the track were four feet high here also helped, but of course the cab of the Range Rover stood up much higher than that.

He followed the track down, with difficulty, and the crag loomed up above him, to his left. The track began to curve to the left to pass under the face of the rock. Things happened very quickly.

First there was a bang, and the front of the vehicle bounced in the air. When it came down again, there was another bang, and the Range Rover stopped abruptly. So abruptly, in fact, that Colin's upper body carried on going forward, to be met by the air bag coming the other way.

Colin became aware of a strange wailing noise. He was jerked back to full conciousness by the realisation that the noise was himself, screaming. The Range Rover had caught fire, and was well ablaze. Desperately he pushed at his seat belt buckle, finally releasing it. The buckle had already got very hot. His trousers were on fire. He clawed at the door, burning his hands in the process, but finally jerking the catch and shouldering the door open. He rolled out of his seat, but his arm got caught in the retracting seatbelt and he was spun round as he staggered down into the surrounding snow. As he freed himself and turned to run, the tank exploded and he was hurled bodily head-first into a bank of snow.

Shelagh Fraser had been waiting at a window of her cottage for Colin's arrival. Despite her antipathy towards men, her visitor was still a human being and the worsening weather made her concerned for his safety. She had also realised that he would have to stay the night, and had decided to try and treat him somewhat better than she had done on his previous visit. After all, the snow wasn't his fault. He had also telephoned from Stornoway and explained the circumstances, and a bad atmosphere wasn't going to help either of them.

When the headlights first appeared round the crag, through the driving snow, she breathed a sigh of relief. At least he's not stuck on the moor. She steeled herself for the act of greeting him, but that feeling changed into wonderment as the lights stopped moving, and a yellow flickering became visible behind them. After a few seconds the headlights abruptly died as the wiring burned through. With mounting horror, she realised that the vehicle was on fire. Rapidly, she jammed her feet into boots, grabbed her coat, and ran for the door.

Shelagh had got within fifteen feet of the vehicle before it exploded. She raised her arm against a sudden wave of heat, but still managed to see her visitor stagger out of the car and get flung into the dark like a rag doll. She ploughed through the waist-deep snow at the side of the track, trying to find where he had landed. Eventually, she located him, face down in a snowdrift, and managed to pull him out onto his back. With a finger, she cleared his mouth of snow, and was rewarded with a cough. With difficulty, she grabbed both arms and began pulling him over the snow towards the cottage, away from the fiercely burning vehicle.

*****

November 30th

Pain. Light, dark. Struggling with someone. Warmth. Sometimes wetness. A soft voice. Pain.

Colin came to, his mind suddenly clearing. He opened his eyes, to see that he was in a darkened room. He was lying in a bed, his hands above the covers, his head and shoulders propped up by (he guessed) pillows. Over the lower part of the bed the covers were somehow tented up, as though a box had been put underneath. Facing the foot of the bed was a large dark wardrobe which had garments hanging from the front of it. On his left was a dresser with an oil lamp burning on the top. On his right, closed curtains hid a window. In front of the curtains was a long, low chest, and in front of the chest, sitting in a chair, leaning towards him -

"Welcome back, Mr Anderson."

The thoughts in Colin's brain swam for a moment, then stabilised. He opened his mouth, then licked his lips.

"Uh, Miss Fraser?" She inclined her head. "This is your cottage?"

"Yes. Do you remember what happened?"

A whole host of impressions flooded through his thoughts, most of them unpleasant.

"My car? It ran into something, I think. I don't remember much more."

"Ran into something? Well, it's going to be some time before we find out what. Your car is underneath a snowdrift right now, and could be there for weeks if not months."

"Underneath a snow - How long have I been lying here?"

"This is the third day since your accident. I saw the whole thing from the house, and ran out to try and help. You stopped about a hundred yards away. I saw you get out of the car, and then it blew up. You ended up buried in the snow, so I pulled you out and dragged you all the way back to the cottage."

Up to that point Colin had only moved his eyes and his tongue. He tilted his head forward, and realised that his hands were both bandaged. The dressing on his left hand went up his arm to the elbow. He raised his arms and rotated his hands to look at them.

"What happened? I got burnt?"

"Yes. I had to clean you up and put you to bed. You were in agony, so I found some painkillers and fed them to you, which is why you are missing a day. Your legs are also bandaged. Fortunately for you, I don't think you are too badly injured. The pain should pass in a few days."

"Painkillers?" he asked, dully.

She nodded. "I had some codeine left after a twisted ankle some time ago. It's lucky I remembered I still had some left, you were becoming... unmanageable."

"Oh. Thank you. You seem to have done quite a professional job."

The life seemed to go out of Shelagh's face. "Yes. In another life, I was a nurse." She gazed past his shoulder for a moment, then looked directly at him again. "I would rather," she paused, "not talk about it, if you don't mind."

Colin shrugged his shoulders. At that moment he hadn't really thought about his situation, his mind was still absorbing the fact that he was still alive.

"What can I smell? Is that food?"

"Yes. While you were sleeping yesterday morning, I made a pot of broth ready for when you woke. I expected you to wake up yesterday afternoon, actually. Are you ready to eat some?"

Colin, who hadn't had any food or drink for more than two days, suddenly realised that he was very hungry.

"Yes, please. But how?" He waved his bandaged hands.

"I'll have to feed you." Colin attempted to protest, but Shelagh said, "Don't be silly. You obviously can't hold a spoon, and it's no trouble. I'll go and fetch some."

Shelagh shortly returned with a tray bearing a bowl of broth and a spoon, and she began feeding him. Once he had started accepting the rich liquid she began speaking.

"Now. You must understand the situation we're in. The electricity is out, as you may have noticed. This happens all the time here, two snowflakes fall out of the sky and the power goes. It's not a problem, we have oil lamps and such, I'm quite used to it happening. No power means no phone. I don't have a normal land line, it's too complicated or something, not to mention too expensive. There's a microwave phone link from here down the loch to the village, but it relies on mains power both ends - and good weather. I also have a CB radio, but that's not working either. That's because my backup generator, which I did start when the mains went, for some reason isn't connecting properly.

"It hasn't stopped snowing since you came. I reckon, if it stops now, we could be up here for ten to fourteen days before anyone thinks to check on me. Don't worry, I have ample food to keep us going all winter, and huge piles of wood for the stoves around the house, even with two of us here. This sort of thing happens most winters, I prepare well beforehand."

"People might not be too worried about you," Colin objected, "but eventually they are going to notice me missing, and start a search party."

"Not necessarily. Your people knew you were coming here, didn't they?" Colin nodded, his mouth full of broth. "Then they are going to assume that's where you are. They'll know you are most likely safe, especially if they start phoning anywhere local around here."

Shelagh sighed. "I guess what I'm leading up to is, we're going to be stuck here together for a while. I treated you, well, unkindly, when you were last here. The cottage isn't that big, and you are going to need my services for some days yet, so I propose a kind of truce while you're here."

"I have to confess I cursed you all the way from Ullapool. It wasn't very gentlemanly of me, especially considering all you've done since. Perhaps we can start by using each other's first names. Would that be all right with you?"

"I - I suppose so," Shelagh said, somewhat hesitantly. Inside, part of her wanted to run, to bang the door shut and barricade it with furniture. Men had not treated her kindly when she was younger, and now she had a man in her house for possibly some time to come. She had every reason for mistrusting the male gender, and yet this one was different.

When she had dragged him into the cottage, and into the light, she had discovered that his hands and lower legs had been burnt. She had laboriously lifted him into the bed in the spare room, and her nurse's training had automatically taken over. She had cut off his ruined clothing and set water to boil to wash his wounds. While the water was heating, she had delved into her linen stores and selected a sheet to tear into strips to use as bandages. When she had returned to the bedroom, she had recoiled from the male body in front of her. No. This one is innocent. He didn't ask to be burnt. He needs your help. Woodenly at first, she began to clean his wounds and wrap them in the linen. Gradually her training had taken over, and she had let it push the revulsion in her mind down away from the surface.

Later that night he had woken, screaming with the pain. Shelagh had contemplated tying him to the bed to prevent him injuring himself, or disturbing the bandages, before she remembered the high-dose codeine tablets. With a combination of those and some other painkillers she had sedated him enough to be able to sleep a few hours. The following day she had changed the bandages, realising belatedly that she would have to clean and re-use the soiled ones or run out of sheets trying, so she had set more water on to boil.

She had finally got used to ministering to the semi-comatose body in the bed, and now he was awake, she would have to adjust all over again. Perhaps I'll make an exception just this once. He never did anything to me, did he? But what if he does in the future? How can I ever trust any man again? Only one way, I suppose, to find out.

"Yes, I suppose so," she repeated, "call me Shelagh. It seems silly to call each other Mister and Miss when it's likely to be just the two of us here for a while. You're Colin, aren't you?"

"I am. Colin Anderson, at your service," he nodded, as he couldn't do much else. After a pause he said, "Your excellent broth has filled me up and made me sleepy again. Do you mind if I drift off for a while?"

"By all means. I have to sort out your bandages before tonight, so carry on. Call if you need anything, I can hear you anywhere in the cottage. Do you want me to leave the light?"

"No, I'll be fine, thanks." He watched her pick up the lamp and put it on the tray, then walk with the tray to the door. "Uh, Shelagh?"

She turned at the door and looked at him.

"Thank you, Shelagh Fraser. Thank you for saving my life, and for looking after me."

Shelagh said nothing, merely dipping her head once, and then walking into the dark beyond the room. Shortly afterwards, the door was closed, but by that time Colin was already asleep.

He came to suddenly and completely. The room was completely dark, but a small gleam of light filtered under the door from beyond. Colin called out.

"Hello! Shelagh!"

There were sounds from beyond, but it was nearly a minute later that Shelagh appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a nightdress under a thick wraparound dressing-gown. In one hand she carried the lamp, the other was brushing the long blonde hair out of her face while she yawned prodigiously.

"Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were asleep. What time is it anyway?" he asked.

"It's around seven in the evening. Us country folk tend to go to bed early, especially in wintertime. Do you need something?"

"Yes, I need to use the toilet, and fairly soonish, if that's possible". To Colin's complete surprise, he could see Shelagh blush deeply even in the low light of the oil lamp. "Oh. Did I say something wrong?"

"No! No, it's nothing you've done. At least, not consciously." She put down the lamp and came to the side of the bed. "If you need to go, we had better get you out of bed. It'll have to be the privy, I'm afraid. I do have a proper flush toilet here but it needs the electricity to work, and it's probably all frozen up by now, anyway. Here, lift your arms, let me pull back the covers."

She pulled the covers back and Colin had another surprise. Around his hips and leg tops was wrapped a large towel, folded and pinned like a nappy! Shelagh stammered an explanation, obviously embarrassed by the situation.

"Your body didn't stop functioning, just because you were sedated, you know. I've had to clean you up three times, once at the back and twice at the front. You've cost me a lot of extra washing and nearly ruined the mattress. Let me pull the covers right back, then I can remove the box."

She had found an old cardboard box, cut one side and most of the ends away, and used it as a tunnel so as not to allow the blankets to cause pressure on his legs. When she lifted it off he saw that his lower legs were both bandaged from ankle to knee. He swung his legs one by one onto the floor. When he put his arm on her shoulder for support while he stood up, he realised that she was trembling as much as he was. She draped his arm over her shoulders, so that his hand wouldn't touch anything, and held him by passing one of her arms round his waist. As far as he knew, it was the first time she'd touched him since he'd been conscious, and he was very aware of her hand on his body, supporting it. Although his legs stung like crazy, he felt confident enough to walk through the cottage with her support. Picking the lamp up with her free hand, she guided him out of the bedroom.

They walked through the cottage in the near-darkness, both shaking, and Colin began to feel the cold. Apart from the towel, the only thing he was wearing was his vest. Although the temperature of the air in the cottage was not that cold, it wasn't particularly warm either. The floor felt chilled beneath the soles of his feet. Fortunately, most of the floors in the different rooms were covered with rugs, but that in the passage was not.

At the other end of the house, Shelagh led him to a wooden door, and through that to a store room. At one side were two large freezers and shelving stacked with packaged food, on the other were piled boxes and crates of all sizes. In front of them were two doors, and cold winds blew under both of them into the house. Shelagh pointed to the right-hand door.

"That's the privy. I'll have to come in with you, since you can't take that towel off by yourself, and you'll need the lamp in any case."

It was Colin's turn to flush scarlet, but it faded when he realised that she had already washed his body a number of times. She opened the door and they entered.

"Gosh, it's colder than when I used it earlier. Since I had the flush toilet installed, I don't use this one very often. I should have brought you a blanket or something."

Bodily functions dealt with, she led him back to the bedroom, with the towel this time wrapped round his waist, and helped him back into bed. Leaving him alone temporarily she returned with a shawl, which she wrapped around his upper body.

"Now would be as good a time as any to change your bandages. This may not be very comfortable for you, but you'll get a chance to see what the damage is."

She made a couple of journeys to fetch fresh linen strips, a cloth and a bowl of hot water. Deftly, she started unwrapping the dressings, easing them away with the cloth dipped in hot water when the linen stuck to his skin. Once his hands were released, Colin carefully flexed his fingers.

"Good! You must do that every time I change the dressings. You'll notice that your hands are mostly burnt on the palms, and at the finger tips. I assume that was when you opened the door?"

"I suppose so. I don't really remember much."

"If that's the case, it's a hot metal burn, not naked flame, so the damage to underlying tissue won't be so great. It'll hurt for a while, then the burnt skin should blister off and new will grow."

"You seem to know about such things."

"I told you, I was a nurse." Shelagh stopped, took a deep breath, and resumed, "However, one of my friends got burnt and I saw how it affected her body, so I did a bit of reading on the subject, seeing as I was in the trade, so to speak. Now, try to flex your fingers every time I do the dressings. That will help make sure that any new skin isn't too tight for your hand, or you might end up with clawed fingers. I don't think it will happen, but it never hurts to be prepared. Perhaps we should leave those to air while I look at your legs."

She peeled away the linen wrapped around his legs. The markings revealed looked dark, red and angry. She cleaned the wounds with water and patted them dry with the cloth.

"They look bad, but I think you got lucky with your legs as well, although in my view they are worse than your hands. Your trousers were obviously on fire, looks like they melted. See these marks here? That's where I had to pick strings of plastic out of your skin. But you were wearing some long woollen socks, and that's what saved you from much worse damage. You are going to be scarred, I think, but no-one will see that under your trousers. It's all at the front, too, your calf muscles look mostly undamaged."

She made sure his legs were dry, then wrapped them carefully in new strips of linen. His hands she wrapped again in the same fashion. Before she bandaged his left arm, Shelagh pointed to a dark ring round his wrist.

"That's where your watch was. The watch is destroyed, I'm afraid, but I've kept it in case you need to make an insurance claim. You can see where the metal strap has sunk in. You'll most likely have a permanent scar there as well. Fortunately I don't think it's deep enough to have damaged any tendons."

She finished securing the dressings and then arranged the bedding back over his body. She carried the washing bowl and the old dressings out of the bedroom, returning with two bowls of broth on a tray. Alternating spoons and bowls, she fed both of them with the steaming liquid.

Noting that Shelagh seemed tense, despite the companionable silence, Colin eventually asked, "Miss Fraser? Shelagh? Is something the matter? Something I should know about?"

Her spoon clattered into the bowl, and she drew a breath.

"Yes. I'm finding this very difficult, and I'm also not finding it as difficult as I thought I might have done." She paused, then added, "There... are... issues. Issues which are to do with me, not with you. It's just bad fortune that you happened to come here when you did, and that you won't be leaving for a while. If things had worked out the way they should have, you would have been gone in an hour, and none the wiser." She grimaced. "I have a poor reputation so far as men are concerned. In fact, that's why I moved all the way up here, to get away from them."

She held up a hand to forestall the inevitable protest. "I say again, it's nothing to do with you, you're an innocent party. I don't wish you ill while you're here, I want our relationship to be as civilised as is possible under the circumstances. Please forgive me, I'm being a poor host." She smiled, wanly, "I'll try and treat you as well as you should be treated, as well as you deserve. Do you think you can put up with that?"

Colin nodded slowly. "I've heard stories about you, but I have to tell you I didn't believe most of them. In fact, I'm not sure I believe any of them. My presence here is obviously causing you some stress. I'll try not to do anything that might increase that stress. However," he added gently, "I have heard that sometimes it's good to talk." Shelagh looked alarmed. "Not just yet, perhaps, but in a day or two, once I'm up and about. You are going to let me get out of this bed, aren't you?"

Shelagh rallied, "Of course! Now you are taking note of what's around you I want you out of that bed, starting tomorrow. We need to get everything aired, in any case." The brisk nurse's tone came back into her voice. "Have you had enough to eat?" she asked him.

"Yes, thank you." He decided against asking her if broth was all she was going to feed him, in case she took it the wrong way. She's quite near the edge, and I have no clue why. "I've been sleeping for days, and I'm still tired, I don't know why. Perhaps I can get a better night's sleep now I've had some food."

"It's mostly shock. You can't go through that kind of physical experience and not suffer for it. So we'll be taking it gently for the next few days. Let me tuck that shawl round you, and then I'll bid you good night."

"What time does your day start?"

"Don't worry about that. You sleep as long as you need. Just call out when you're ready for breakfast - or another trip to the privy," she added. With that, she picked up the lamp and let herself out, bidding him "Goodnight," as she closed the door.

*****

December 1st

Colin woke, in the faint light of the dawn. The wind was whistling and moaning around the timber parts of the roof, the sound oddly flattened by the blanket of snow he knew lay outside. He felt refreshed, and although his hands and legs still hurt, he felt up to the challenges of the coming day.

"Shelagh! Miss Fraser!"

She came fairly promptly, already dressed in thick jumper and jeans. She went to the window and pulled the curtains, showing the unearthly glow of low cloud over banks of snow. He could see that it was still snowing, although nothing like the volume it had been when he had arrived at the cottage.

"Good morning to you. How are you feeling today?"

"Much better, thanks. I don't know what you put in that broth, but it's certainly done the job."

"That's what I want to hear. Ready to get up?"

"Yes please."

Shelagh pulled back the blankets, and Colin looked around for the towel.

"Oh! Wait a minute, you won't be needing the towel." She bustled out of the room and returned clutching his boxer shorts. She felt the edges carefully.

"Hmm. The top edge is still slightly damp, but I don't think that's going to matter too much. Let me pull the covers off you so I can slide them up your legs."

How did she? Oh. When I did 'bodily functions' before I woke up. She must have washed them.

She carefully manoeuvred the shorts up his legs over the bandages, and when they got so far up, he swivelled his legs onto the floor and stood, so that she could pull them up to his waist.

"Ready? Let's put the shawl round your shoulders, there. Put your arm over me, like you did last night."

She helped him out of the bedroom and along the passage to the parlour, the big room which occupied the whole of one end of the cottage, nearest the loch. This room had been the kitchen once upon a time, and still had a range along one wall, but Shelagh had decided to modernise it when the cottage became hers.

An oak table stretched across the room in front of the range, used both for preparation and consumption of food. In an opposite corner, a wood stove glowed. Ranged around it were two antique chairs and a two-seater settee. In the fourth corner stood a small desk bearing a computer.

The end wall of the house had originally contained two small windows. Shelagh had had them taken out and a large opening made which held a triple-glazed patio-style full-height sliding window that currently looked out on to a sea of snow. Colin squinted at the blaze of whiteness pouring through the big window. She guided him to the wooden door, in the wall next to the desk, and Colin realised he was in for another trip to the privy. Afterwards, she cleaned him up, then guided him over to the wood stove.

"I'll sit you in Nan's chair, it's a bit more upright and you should find it more comfortable." She eased Colin into the chair, and then went over to the range. "Breakfast is porridge, of course, and I can make you either tea, or coffee. I'm sorry, there's no bread until I get time to make some."

Porridge was fine, and so was tea to follow. Shelagh put his cup on the oak table when he'd finished and came to sit in the other chair, her face both thoughtful and anxious. She took a deep breath, and then began.

"You, I mean we, have a problem the size of which I hadn't really registered till last night, when I took you to the privy. To put it bluntly, you have nothing to wear. In fact, you have no possessions at all, full stop, except the two garments you currently have on. Everything else you had on was damaged by fire in some way, and I had to cut most of it off. Standard A&E procedure," she explained, "once I got you inside my training just took over."

Colin nodded, "And am I thankful you had the training! I did briefly wonder, last night, about clothing, but decided that it wasn't important at the time."

"While you were in bed," she agreed, "it wasn't. But now you are up, it is. You can't go round wearing just those two things all the time, for several reasons. Firstly, it's not quite warm enough in here, and if I have to put more wood in the stove to make it warmer my wood stock probably wouldn't last the winter out. Secondly, this is the fourth day you've worn that vest and I can tell that from the aroma. The shorts have already been washed, the vest very definitely needs washing, and it'll take at least a day to dry each time, since it will have to be done indoors. I don't think you can spend all your time wrapped in a blanket, either."

"What about the car? I had an overnight bag full of clothes."

"Your car was a shell by the time I'd pulled you back to the house. I shouldn't think anything survived. Look, I'll not beat about the bush. There's no men's clothing in this house. In fact, if there had been, I'd have got rid of it, I want, wanted, no reminders of, well, never mind. I have some jeans, but the legs are so narrow they'd never go over your bandages, and I suspect they'd be both too short, and too tight round the waist. I have a practical alternative, and I emphasise practical, but it might make you think twice about how you view me and about what you've let yourself in for."

"Surely not," Colin protested, "I've trusted you with my life up to now, I see no reason to stop."

He trusts me? I suppose he does. I haven't given him any reason not to, yet. Let's press on.

"What I am talking about is skirts. I have two or three long skirts which will probably fit you. They will leave your legs free, won't get in the way of bandages, but still keep your lower half warm. What do you think?"

Colin understood the logic of the situation. "I understand why you'd be cautious bringing the idea up. I don't think I can object too much, though, do you? After all, there really isn't much alternative."

"Very well. It's going to be an unusual situation for both of us, so we'll have to try to be practical about the whole business. I also have drawers full of jumpers and tops, but again, the sleeves of most would never fit over the bandages on your hands. So what I am proposing for your upper half is actually blouses or shirts. Some of my collection, rarely worn these days, I have to say, have largish sleeves that will go over the dressings easily. And for a vest, I can't do a direct substitute but I do have some cotton tank-tops which might do." She ended with the first slight hint of humour Colin had noticed since he had first met her, "It seems that as well as sharing my home, and my hospitality, you'll also be sharing my wardrobe!"

It doesn't matter what I wear out here, cut off from everyone else. And it will be practical. But what's going on in her head? She's a feminist, is she trying to prove something? Set me up? Or am I looking for motives where none exist? And what is she afraid of?

"Wait a minute," he replied, "I personally don't have a problem with your suggestions, but have you thought this all the way through? Are either of us about to do something that either or both of us might regret in the future? What I mean is, I've no fear of looking a laughing stock in front of you, after all, you've tended my injuries, bathed me, fed me, and now you're offering quite openly to clothe me from your own resources, for which I am rightly extremely grateful. But this cottage won't always be isolated, some time soon someone will appear to check that you are all right. If they find me here in a skirt, will you be worried that you or I might be the subject of public ridicule and rumour, and that our reputations might be ruined?"

"I'm sure my reputation amongst the sisterhood has already been destroyed by the mere fact that you stayed here, and over several nights already, too. I don't think the locals will be too concerned, though. Once they understand that you had no option at all, because everything was destroyed, there won't be much trouble. The people who live in these parts tend to be very practical folk. There might be the odd chuckle in the village bar for a day or two, but it'll soon blow over. Don't forget, also, that you'll soon be long gone, and what folk say up here won't matter to you any more."

Colin considered, and then said, formally, "Then, Miss Fraser, I agree to your proposal."

Shelagh stood up and left the room, returning with an armful of clothes, which she placed on the settee.

"Lean forward and hold your arms up so I can get that disgusting vest off you. Easy, there! Now, this top is not far different from a vest, just pop your arms through there, and - ah, it fits better than I expected." The tank top she had chosen was a pale blue. "Oh. How are we going to do the blouse? I think you'll have to stand, so I can come behind you."

She helped Colin up, and she carefully worked the sleeves of the white blouse over his bandaged hands and up his arms, and settled the garment on his shoulders. Seating him again, she buttoned the front up, and fastened the cuffs of the full sleeves, which reached to just above the elbow. Then she undid the zip of a bias-cut A-line green tweed skirt and worked it over one leg at a time. Finally she got him to stand while she pulled it up to his waist and did up the zip, tucking in the blouse.

"I am astonished," she said, "given the difference in our heights, I didn't think anything of mine would fit you. Apart from a larger gap between the hem and the floor, the skirt is just about right, even the waist. The blouse had to be a short-sleeved one because of the bandage on your left arm. It looks like I am going to be able to clothe you as long as you need, although some of the colour combinations might be a little strange."

Colin sat down again, and Shelagh arranged the shawl around his shoulders to provide additional warmth.

"I feel like a little old lady," he said.

"Actually, you look a bit like a little old lady, dressed like that, and especially sitting in that chair. Only your hair lets you down."

"My hair?"

"Oh, of course, you haven't seen your face, have you? I'll get a mirror from my bedroom." She bustled out and returned with a large hand-mirror, which she held up for him.

"God, I look terrible! Just like Queen Elizabeth. The English queen, I mean, Good Queen Bess."

The fire had singed all the hair off his face, and from the front part of his scalp, up to a line from ear to ear across the top. The tip of his nose was red, as were parts of his forehead and the edges of his ears. His hair was normally auburn, but with the combination of smoke and scalp oils looked almost black in parts.

"Looks like what's left of my hair needs a wash, too." He gently rubbed his bandaged fingers along his jawline. "Funny, it's been four days since the accident. I can't feel any stubble." He brushed under his chin. "Oh, yes, there's some there, wonder why there's none on my face?"

"Possibly shock, again. It sometimes happens after trauma that hair stops growing for a while. Do you mind if I check you?"

"No, go ahead."

She gently ran a fingertip across his face, over his top lip and under his chin, then transferred her touch to his scalp. He could feel the rasp of the stubble under his chin and on his throat, but everywhere else seemed smooth, even on top of his head.

She commented, "Odd, that. It helps, though, since the razor I have only gets used once a month to do my legs. I doubt if it'd last very long with you hammering it every morning."

Colin held up his bandaged hands. "If I tried to shave at the moment, I'd probably cut myself to ribbons. No, I think we'll leave facial hair for now, if you don't object."

"Fine by me. Look, now I've got you dressing and undressing, perhaps you ought to have a bath tonight, before bed. I'll take off your bandages, you can have a good soak, we can do your hair, and then I can dry you and put clean bandages on. That seem a good idea?" He nodded. "Now, are you comfortable? I have a lot to do this morning, so I'll have to leave you for a while."

"Lot to do?"

"Yes! There's last night's dressings, this morning's dressings, this horrible thing," she held up his vest fastidiously between two fingertips, "and my own washing to do, not to mention some soiled sheets and towels I didn't have room or time for yesterday. Thanks to you, I've been busier these last three days than I have been the previous three months."

With that Shelagh carried the offending item out of the parlour and off to the bathroom. Colin was left alone with his thoughts. He realised abruptly that he could actually do very little, apart from stand up and wander round the cottage. He couldn't read a book from the several bookshelves full against the walls of the parlour. There was no TV, not out here, no evidence of a radio set either. There was no electricity, so he couldn't even amuse himself with Shelagh's computer, or listen to the small tape/CD player on one of the bookshelves. Finally, the warmth of the fire combined with the inner warmth of the porridge to gently send him off to sleep.

The clattering of the mugs as Shelagh washed them and put them on the draining board woke Colin. She heard him stirring, and called, "Hello again! Would you like some tea? I've just put the kettle on."

He yawned. "Yes please. What time is it?"

"About eleven, I think. I don't bother too much about clock time here. I just fancied a cup of tea."

Colin yawned again. "I know what you mean. I'll try not to ask you the time too often in the future, although my stomach may disagree with that policy."

Shelagh made two mugs of tea and brought them over to the sitting area. Putting hers down, she fed half of Colin's to him, then sat in the opposite seat and regarded him over her own mug.

He said, "I realised when you left just how useless I am at the moment. With these bandaged," he wiggled his hands, "I can't do a single thing. Would you be offended if I suggested we talk to one another? I mean, I don't want to stop you doing things, especially as I am the cause of all your extra work, but I wondered if you would welcome a little conversation now and then."

"Of course! Even though I'm quite self-sufficient out here, it's nice sometimes to have a chat with someone. And you shouldn't worry about the work, either. For some strange reason, I'm finding it quite therapeutic. Your unexpected presence here has shaken my usual boring routine and I find I'm enjoying the challenge, hard work though some of it is."

"Okay, and I promise to try and keep off sensitive subjects. Fair enough?"

They talked, then, about many subjects, and the tea that was left in their mugs got cold. After more than two hours, Shelagh realised that she was hungry and got up to organise food. She had, before Colin had woken that morning, got some cubed beef out of the freezer and browned it while she made some dumplings. She had placed everything into a cast-iron dish, together with some fresh vegetables and what was left of the broth and put the dish in the "slow cook" oven.

She set the table and helped Colin to sit at it, seating herself next to him so she could feed him. The meal was delicious, but Colin still felt terrible at being so helpless and unable to even feed himself, although he tried not to let anything show. Afterwards as he made his way back to the chair, Shelagh made another pot of tea.

"Shelagh? I'm going to have to ask you to be creative again, I'm afraid."

"How so?"

"My feet are cold. It's not so bad over here, where I'm on a rug, and next to the stove, but sitting at the table my feet were on the flagstones, and they're not that warm."

"Footwear! No, I'm afraid I haven't had a chance to think about shoes or anything like that." She walked over to the stove and looked at his feet. "Your feet are going to be too big for anything I wear. I doubt you could even squeeze into any of my outdoor socks, and they're practically the size of sleeping bags. Let me think about the problem while I pour the tea."

She returned, and put the two mugs on one of the small tables which were either side of the settee.

"I don't think I'm up to making proper footwear, even though I do some of my own sewing," she mused. In her mind's eye, she saw the dressmaking scissors she had used to cut his burned clothes off. "Ah! I have an idea, and in fact you provide the material." She left the room and returned with the winter weight fleece he had been wearing during the drive. The sleeves had been cut from cuff to shoulder, and then across the front to the opening. The left sleeve was almost burnt completely through up to the elbow.

"God, you went to town on that!" Colin said, "It cost me a fortune, too. Still, the insurance should pay up. What's your plan?"

"I'm going to try and make you a pair of slippers out of this material. I know I had to hack it about to get it off you, but there's still some pieces big enough to use, especially if I cut the soles out of the back."

She found some paper and traced out the shape of his feet. Then, measuring and cutting, she sewed the pieces into rough shape, testing them against his feet as she went. The end result was effectively a pair of thermally-lined moccasins.

"Mmm. That makes quite a difference. Something else I have to thank you for."

Colin woke up with a start. The room was almost dark, but he could hear Shelagh moving around near the range.

"Hey, every time you feed me, I fall asleep! Are you slipping me something to keep me quiet, Shelagh Fraser?"

"And good evening to you too! No, of course not, it's your body busily repairing itself. I wouldn't be too worried about it. The time to be worried is when your energy returns, which will be in a few days, but you still won't be able to do much because your fingers are too tender." She added, "I think it might be a good time to get you in the bath. If I take your dressings off, you can have a dip. By the time that's done with it'll be supper time, then after that I can put new dressings on and get you into bed. It'll give your skin a chance to get some air."

Shelagh lit two oil lamps and took them into the bathroom, then returned and helped Colin in. While the water was running into the bath, she carefully removed his clothing and then got him to sit on the edge of the bath while she unwound the bandages.

"This room seems a bit out of character with the rest of the cottage," he remarked.

"When I inherited the cottage, just like every new owner before me, I made improvements," Shelagh replied, "As I had no need of the extra bedroom, I decided to get some mod cons put in. So, a proper toilet bowl, a washbasin and a full-size bath. There's a hot-water cylinder in that cupboard, fed by the new range that's installed in the parlour. Bit of an improvement on what was here before. When I used to come as a child, we had to use a jug of water heated up on the range, or several jugs poured into a tin bath."

As she helped Colin get into the bath, Shelagh froze. Fighting herself the whole way, she helped him to sit down, and then began soaping him. What on earth is happening to me? I've spent days handling him, I ought to have got over it by now.

Colin discovered that, in the warm water, his hands weren't quite so sensitive, so he could handle the soap himself, if he was gentle. What happened to her when she came to sit me in the bath? She was a lot more friendly today, and now this. Is it me, or is it her?

Shelagh was virtually silent as she helped him to stand, and then started to dry him with a towel. Colin had discovered that his hands were too painful out of the water to handle the towel, so he had to let her dry all of him. He could sense that things had changed somehow, and decided just to remain passive until he could find out if there were some way of improving the situation. The situation will probably only improve from the moment I wave goodbye. But if that's the case, why did we have such a good time today?

When he was mostly dry, she wrapped the bath towel round his waist and made him bend over the washbasin so she could wash his hair, wrapping it in another towel. She then left the room, and returned bearing a knee-length short-sleeved cotton nightdress.

"I'm sorry, it's all I can offer you. You obviously can't wear pyjamas, not that I own any." She helped him into the garment, then, moccasins on feet, he followed her back into the parlour.

Supper was a subdued affair, even though Shelagh once again appeared to relax. Colin had a number of questions, but he decided to leave them for another day. Supper finished, he watched her clean up the kitchen area before she led him first to the privy, and then to the bedroom. Winding a fresh set of dressings around his hands and legs, she helped him into bed before saying "Goodnight," and closing the door.

*****

December 2nd

The wind sounds louder than yesterday, thought Colin as he wakened fully. He lay there puzzling over yesterday's events until Shelagh came to get him up. The previous routine was followed, except that she brought him a lemon-coloured cotton tank-top, a dark green short-sleeved blouse with a gathered yoke and a full-length straight dove-grey wool skirt to wear. Breakfast was again porridge and tea. She indicated two large bowls at the other end of the table, each covered by a tea-towel.

"I decided to leave the washing for a bit, and sort out some dough for bread," she said, "I've had to double my usual amount. One of those usually lasts me three to four days, but your appetite might be greater than mine, so we'll have to see how far they go."

"I doubt mine's greater," Colin replied, "You're doing all the work, after all."

After breakfast, he got up and went to the big window and looked out.

"Is it me, or is the wind stronger today?"

"I think it is. I think the snow's easing up, too. I went out into the yard before you got up, to fetch some more logs for the range, and it seemed to me that there's less snow. The wind direction might have shifted, as well, round to the north. The thermometer that's out in the yard said minus eight. If you're in the wind, it'll be a great deal colder."

"You said, the evening I woke up, that we could be here for some time. How long have you been snowed in here before, then?"

"Year before last, seven weeks, most of January, half of February. That's the longest so far. Usually it's a week, couple of times a winter, maybe. Last year was warm, so I didn't get cut off at all. A few years back I went four weeks or so. It's unusual for it to happen this early in a winter, though."

I could be here seven weeks? Ouch. "Can you tell how long it's likely to last?"

"Not at all. Sometimes there's as much as there is now, and it stays for weeks. Other times, if the weather changes and we get a day of rain, all this could disappear overnight. It's pure chance what happens."

He stared out into the featureless whiteness until spots started dancing before his eyes, then went and sat in the chair. Within five minutes he had fallen asleep. Shelagh, still in her dining chair at the oak table, watched him moodily. How is it I can bear the sight of him now, and not last night? Is it the sight of him naked? Can't help that, at the moment he needs Nurse Fraser and that's that. How is it part of me wants to see the back of him, and part of me wants him to stay for the company? And I like the extra work he's given me. What's that all about? Speaking of work, time to do more washing.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Despite the snow, there was not very much light coming into the cottage, and the gloom affected both occupants. Lunch was canned soup. Shelagh put the loaves into the oven after lunch, and the cottage soon filled with the smells of fresh bread. They had talked during the afternoon, mostly about topics connected with the literary world, but Colin could sense that she was not as forthcoming as she had been the previous day, and kept the conversations light. Supper consisted of fresh bread and cheese, followed by fresh bread and jam. The wind was still howling when they retired to bed.

*****

December 3rd

Colin had managed to lift, awkwardly, the covers back on his bed, so that he could get himself up. He walked into the passage and, hearing sounds from the open bathroom door, poked his head around it.

"Good morning, Shelagh!"

"Well done!" she replied, her arms submerged in a bath full of soapy water, "And good morning to you! I wondered whether you'd manage to get yourself up. Go through to the parlour, I won't be a minute with this lot."

He sat at the table, and shortly she came into the room, wiping her arms with a towel.

"Just let me get the porridge going, and I'll be there to do your dressings."

"How are you managing with the washing?" he asked, since he had surmised that was what she had been doing.

"I'm keeping abreast of it," she replied, "It's been a lot easier since you got up. I've still got a pair of sheets to do, it's going to be difficult finding some way of drying them."

"No tumble dryer? Oh, stupid, no electricity. Ignore me, I'm a man."

She eyed him, uncertain about his humour. "You're right, actually. There is a washer/dryer in one of the outbuildings, but I can't use it in this weather because the pipes will be frozen. I don't think I could run it on the generator anyway, even if I got that fixed. So until the electric people come to fix the line, which could be weeks, it's all got to be done by hand."

"I'm sorry I've caused you all this extra trouble."

"Stop apologising! That's what friends are for," Shelagh said.

"Are we friends, Shelagh?" Colin asked.

"I-" Shelagh stopped. 'That's what friends are for' was a common enough saying, and she had said it without thinking. But the current circumstances were far from common. "I think that 'friend' is probably too strong a word to use right now," she said slowly, "We've been pushed together by circumstances, after all. But I begin to think that I would not object to having you as a friend in the future, Mr Anderson. We'll have to see how things pan out."

After breakfast, she brought out today's wear, consisting of a white cotton sleeveless top with a lace infill between the straps, a white long-sleeved fitted shirt, and a mid-calf full skirt in the Fraser hunting tartan. The long sleeves, which were fairly voluminous, she rolled up back to Colin's elbows. Colin held his arms out and twirled round to make the skirt bell out.

"You're enjoying yourself, aren't you?"

"I suppose I am. This is something I've seen girls do, and of course women also do it in films and on TV. I just never imagined in a million years I'd be able to have a go myself."

Shelagh rolled her eyes. "Simple pleasures are sometimes the best," she said, thinking, Well, he's a man, it's probably all a complete novelty to him, "You've had a skirt on three days now, how do you feel in them?"

"As you said, practical," Colin replied, "but I really like the freedom as well. It feels sometimes like you're not wearing much at all below the waist, but at the same time you know you're well covered. I've noticed that the cut of the three you've lent me are all different, and they all feel different to wear. And skirts are warmer than I expected, although this one feels different somehow. This one doesn't feel so smooth."

"Ah, that's because the first two were lined, this one isn't. What you need is a waist slip, I'll see if I can find something suitable." She went and fetched a white slip with an elasticated waist, which she pulled up his legs under the skirt, and over his boxer shorts. "That better?"

"Thank you. I'll have to move about a bit to get the feel of things." He walked over to the big window, and stared out.

"Do you know, I don't think it's actually snowing out there," he said, "I think what I'm seeing is just drift being blown about by the wind. And the sky looks much brighter, too. Perhaps the storm has gone over."

"It's still blowing a gale out there," she replied, "so there's no chance of help arriving yet, I'm afraid."

"Fortunately, I don't think my situation's urgent any more, so I'm quite content to wait. Nurse Fraser seems to have it well under control."

"Nurse Fraser has it under control, does she? Ha! More like Nurse Fraser has been running round, waiting on you hand and foot for a week. Nurse Fraser can't wait for her patient to be discharged, so she can get her peace and quiet back," retorted Shelagh.

Colin threw his hands in the air. "I can't win. She won't allow me to apologise, then she tries to make me feel even more guilty." He looked at her. "Besides, yesterday you told me you'd enjoyed the change in routine."

"I did! And meant it, too." She paused. "Right, I have to do last night's and this morning's dressings. Amuse yourself for a while."

When she came back, she found him dozing in front of the stove. On hearing her come back he revived, but just sat there watching her prepare dinner and put it on the range to cook. She noticed him watching.

"Do you cook at all?" she asked.

"I can do, but because I'm spending so much time on the road I don't get enough opportunities to make my own meals. When I get fed up with the usual road burgers and suchlike I can usually find a decent restaurant somewhere nearby, at least I can be sure of some healthy food then." He added, "When I get the use of my hands back I'll cook you a meal or two, if you like. You seem to have a decently stocked larder."

"A promise! I'll keep you to that, if I may. You don't sound too sure about your job."

Colin sighed. "Like, I suspect, a great many jobs, it seemed a good idea at the time. They needed someone to cover Scotland, and they knew I had Scottish roots, so they asked me. I thought it would be a good chance to come and see some of the old country, but I didn't realise just how far apart everywhere was."

"I thought you were English, I didn't realise you had roots in Scotland."

"Yes, both my parents are Scottish. Dad was an aircraft engineer and went south in the eighties when his job moved. I was actually born in Edinburgh, at my grandmother's house, but was brought up in Hertfordshire. We used to go back to Edinburgh every year for holidays, so I know that area reasonably well. When the job offer came, I accepted, little realising that Head Office had no idea how awkward my job would end up up here."

"You have any family?"

"Mum still lives in Hertfordshire. Dad died of lung cancer six-seven years ago now. Got an older brother, Andy, he's in London. Oh, do you mean a w-, er, partner? No, I've been on the move too much since I moved up to Scotland again. Perhaps one day. What about yourself? Your accent is about as Scottish as mine."

"Oh, well, my family was from Dundee, but my father is in the military, so I moved all over the place following him. My accent changed every time he got posted. Mother died of cervical cancer four years ago. Father is in Afghanistan currently, he's a senior surgeon. No brothers or sisters, unfortunately."

"You father is a surgeon, is that why you decided to become a nurse?"

He's getting a bit close. "Yes," she said, "but I don't think it would be a good idea for me to talk any more just now, let me concentrate on getting this meal right." If I tell him any more, he might ask- But a little background either way can't hurt, can it? Shelagh turned away, to inspect and stir her pots.

After lunch, they talked about the different places that they had lived when younger, Shelagh carefully avoiding her student nursing time. Colin noticed this, and kept the conversation to childhood times.

By mid-afternoon, the sky had cleared completely, and was a deep blue. The wind had dropped considerably. As the sun disappeared behind the mountains Colin got up and wandered to the window, as the light had moderated enough to allow him to look outside without his eyes watering. The sky was almost visibly darkening as he surveyed the small valley in front of the window.

"I can see a light!" he exclaimed. "Two lights, down there. I didn't know you had neighbours this close."

Shelagh came to stand beside him at the window. "Oh, yes, that's Saobhaidhe. It's not so easy to see it in the summer because of the trees that grow in the shelter of the mountain."

"That's the village? And no, I'm not going to attempt to pronounce it. There's only a couple of lights."

"Most of it is round the corner of the mountain. It's not that big anyway. Because of the shadow of the farther mountain, it gets darker over there first, so they have to put lights on before we do. Looks like they've no power there, either. That looks like oil or gas lamps."

"But if the village is just there, then why does your access road go way back the other way, miles over the moor? Why not over there?" he asked.

"What you can't see because of the snow is that the mountain slope either side of the loch is all loose scree. It's far too dangerous to go from here to Saobhaidhe most of the year. It would have cost more money than this whole estate is worth to make a road over there, even though it's only about two and a half miles or so. I can't even walk there in the summer, for two reasons. It would take me all day, picking my way over the scree slope, and any noise I made on the way would bring down more of the stuff. I have walked to the village, but I have to climb up to the top of the mountain first, and then walk along the ridge, and then down again. In fact the scree is falling all the time, I think the loch used to be much wider when I came here as a child. Eventually I suppose the loch will fill up and there will just be a valley."

"Oh. Then you'll lose your view."

"It's still an excellent view. Now, listen. I said it's too dangerous to go to Saobhaidhe most of the year. This is the time of year when it is possible, because I can just ski down the centre of the loch. I can't ski over the scree slopes for fear of causing an avalanche, but the middle of the frozen lake is okay. If the wind dies completely, I think I will attempt to get over there tomorrow, if that's all right with you, then I can let someone know that you are here, and what state you are in."

"You'd leave me here on my own? How long will it take you?" He held up his bandaged hands. "I still can't do anything at all, so supposing something happens?"

"It's only just over two miles or so, so it shouldn't take me any time at all. I doubt if I'll take an hour for the round trip, if the weather stays good. I'll leave your hand dressings off tomorrow, and we can set things up so you will be able to look after yourself if there's an emergency, or if I'm delayed. I don't think you'll come to much harm, but we don't have to take unnecessary risks. How does that sound?"

Colin considered, then nodded. "It will stop people running round trying to dig me out of snowdrifts, I suppose. After all, the last sight anyone had of me was a burger bar in Inverness. I just dropped off the map after that, although the office did know I was coming here."

"Good. We'll have to get up a little earlier tomorrow, then, because I want to get away as soon as it's light enough. Again, no unnecessary risks, I don't want to be coming back with the light fading behind me."

When getting Colin ready for bed Shelagh discovered a light fuzz on top of his head. It appeared his hair had got over the shock of the accident.

*****

December 4th

When getting ready for bed the previous evening, Shelagh had taken Colin's boxer shorts and washed them, hanging them over the range to dry overnight. She had discovered in the morning that they hadn't dried enough for Colin to wear them again, so he had offered to 'go commando' until they were dry again. Shelagh was forced to agree, since she had decided that, although he was wearing a lot of her clothes, lending him a pair of her briefs was getting a bit too personal. She compromised by getting him to wear a waist slip again, to provide the skirt with a little bit of extra protection.

She washed Colin, fed him, sat him on the privy and cleaned him up afterwards, then dressed him in the green tweed skirt and white short-sleeved blouse he had worn the first day out of bed. Then he was left to watch the day break while she went and climbed into her ski wear. She came back in a powder blue one-piece suit and carrying her boots, gloves, a lightweight helmet and a dayglo-orange backpack.

"Skis are by the front door. I'll wait a few minutes until it's really light before I go. How do you feel?"

"Fine, if a little tired. I think these hands are getting better. There's not so much pain any more, and I think the damaged skin will dry up and flake off in a couple of days."

"Do you think you can handle food and drink, if I'm delayed at all?"

"Maybe. Can you put some bite-sized bits and pieces on the table for me? And something to drink, water will do fine. I don't think I'm going to be doing any food preparation just yet."

"Can you manage a spoon, do you think?"

"I don't know. I don't think today is quite the right time to find out I can't, though."

Shelagh nodded. "Of course. It'll be just bread and cheese and odds and ends, then. Will that be enough? I intend to be back before lunchtime, anyway."

They stood by the big window and watched the day develop. When Shelagh judged it light enough, they walked out into the hall where she put on the rest of the gear. Cracking open the front door, she gingerly pulled it wide. Outside, the snow rose up in banks, but right next to the house there was almost none, since the overhanging roof mostly protected the cottage, and the crag also sheltered it to a certain extent. She picked up the skis and walked outside, Colin following her. Already the sun was bright enough to make him squint against the snow.

"You ready for this? The first thing I'll do is tell someone you're here. Then even if something happens to me, you should get some help up here pretty quick. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Colin returned inside, and Shelagh pulled the front door shut. Pulling her snow goggles over her eyes, she gave one last glance at the cottage, and then set off. Colin walked to the big window in the parlour and watched her slowly get smaller in the distance, till the strengthening light forced him to turn away from the scene.

I suppose it's not much of a risk, Shelagh going to the village. It's just awkward I still can't do anything at all. I'd have been a lot more worried if she had had to go to the other village, over the moor. That must be six-seven miles. Although I suppose, on skis, she can cut straight across the moor, be a bit shorter that way.

What happens if someone turns up while she's gone? They'll think I've done her in, and that I'm some kind of pervert who gets his kicks wearing her clothes. Actually, now I think about it, I do quite like wearing her clothes. Not because they're hers, maybe, but... I've got used to them now, and I quite like the comfort, and the fit, and the freedom. And who would have guessed that not wearing boxers would make such a difference? The feel of the slip against my hips and thighs is quite... interesting, and the lining of the skirt does the same to my legs.

Colin sat on the settee and soon dozed off, waking about an hour later. He drank a little water and decided to wander round the cottage to stretch his legs. The cottage was almost symmetrical, with the parlour at one end and the main bedroom at the other, each taking up the whole width of the building. Connecting them was a passage, and a cross-passage in the centre led to the front and back doors. From the main passage, at the parlour end, doors led to the bathroom and opposite it a pantry. At the bedroom end of the passage doors led to Colin's bedroom with a store room opposite. He also knew there were outside buildings built against the back wall of the cottage, but apart from the room with the freezers that led to the privy, he had no way of exploring further.

Returning to the parlour, Colin inspected the books on the shelves, identifying a number of them as being either Shelagh's or belonging to one of the other authors his publishing house had acquired when they had bought out her feminist publisher from administration. He had done his research on her titles before he had paid his previous visit to her, so he knew that they were fierce stuff: All Men Are Bastards. Does a Woman ever need a Man? Man, the Dysfunctional Gender. Rebalancing the Female-Male Continuum. Colin was slightly puzzled. He had read part of her first book, All Men Are Bastards, and given up, shocked by the level of rage it contained. The other three titles were less virulent, but still tough going. But the person who had taken him in, looked after him and talked to him didn't quite seem to be the same person who had written those books. Sure, she had an axe to grind, but she was going out of her way to be pleasant to him personally. What on earth had happened to her originally to make her that way? What had happened to change her now?

After two hours Colin was beginning to get a little fidgety. The day was still fine, but a little very high cloud was beginning to take the edge off the brightness. He decided to nibble a little food, out of boredom, then thought better of it, since it might have resulted in a tricky solo trip to the privy.

A some time later he realised, gradually, that he could occasionally hear a faint noise somewhere in the cottage. He searched for it without success, listening at the doors of rooms he couldn't open. Giving up, he returned to the parlour and succumbed to the bread and cheese, washing down each careful mouthful with a little water. Presently, he spotted a skier in the distance, poling along the snow-covered surface of the loch with economical cross-country strides. He soon recognised Shelagh from her outfit, and she reached the end of the loch and began climbing the slope to the shelf on which the cottage stood. Shortly, the front door was opened and she appeared, tapping her skis gently on the step to dislodge loose snow, before bringing them in and shutting the door.

"Whew! That was some trip! I'm sorry I was so long, I'll explain in a bit. But first of all I have a job to do," she said to Colin, who was standing where the two passages crossed, "Have you managed okay?" she asked, taking off her backpack, her helmet and her ski boots.

"Yes, thanks," replied Colin, "But I'm glad you're back."

Shelagh glanced at him sharply, before heading towards the back door. Just inside were her normal winter boots, and she put them on before opening the back door. "I have a job to do, and I might as well do it while I'm togged up, then I'll be back," she said before going out the back door and closing it.

After a while there was the sound of hammering, and then Shelagh opened the door to bring in a twelve-foot birch pole to which she had nailed a large piece of old reddish cloth. She closed the door, and then opened the front door and took the pole out. Colin followed her out, and he watched as she took the pole over to the crag and used the end to probe into the mound of snow which hid his car. Satisfied she had located it, she drove the pole into the snow bank, so that the flag stood about four feet above the surface. She returned to the cottage and gesticulated to Colin.

"Look at that!" she said, pointing to a telephone pole at the loch end of the cottage. He turned and saw that whatever equipment was at the top of the pole was hidden under a mass of ice, some forming long icicles, topped off by a 'head' of snow which looked like something off a huge ice-cream cone. "That's why I've got no phone."

The two of them returned to the warmth of the cottage, and Shelagh began to take off the rest of her ski wear. Smiling, she brought her backpack into the parlour, where Colin now sat waiting.

"I've had a profitable journey, although I'm sorry it took longer than I thought." Shelagh sat by the table and began wolfing down what remained of the bread and cheese. "I'm starving! Let me have some of this-" she filled her mouth and went to fill the kettle and start it boiling, "-come over here and sit down. I'll cut up some of the meat left over from yesterday to add to what's here."

She got out more things for a mid-afternoon meal, and the two of them concentrated on eating for a while.

"What was all that about with the flag?" Colin asked after a time.

"When I got back to the cottage I realised that your car, rather the wreck of your car, lies exactly where someone would drive if they came along the track," Shelagh explained, "so I thought that if I put something there to warn them, they would probably drive round it."

"Good thinking. If I can run into something, then so can other people, and my car makes a larger target. Now, what happened? Did you run into a problem?"

"No, not at all. I got to Saobhaidhe easily enough, and went to the hotel to notify someone of the situation. Most things in Saobhaidhe are centred round the hotel," she said as an aside, "so I knew people would be gathered there. The power is out up there, as well, so although they now know about you, there's not much they can do. But they suggested I go up to the mountain rescue post, because, firstly, they have a generator, and secondly, they have a satellite link."

"Oh. So you could contact the outside world?"

"Yes. The rescue centre is in part of a hotel-cum-ski lodge about the same distance the other side of Saobhaidhe as the village is from here. It's uphill, but that didn't cause me any trouble. The guys up there are snowed in, like us, but they could still offer help and advice. I managed to phone my local doctor and got some more advice, as well. I told them I didn't think that your situation was too urgent, so, the bottom line is, you're fine as you are. Someone might be along in two or three days to have a look, but it looks like I will be stuck with you for a while."

"Are you going to find that a problem?" Colin asked cautiously.

Shelagh coloured. "Actually, no, I don't think I will. I must admit, when I first found out you were coming here I got a bit, well, anxious let us say, but since you've been here I've been surprised how smoothly things have gone, extra workload notwithstanding."

"Thank you for your vote of confidence."

She continued, "With your extended residence in mind, I decided to drop in the garage on the way back to see if they had anything that might be useful, and came up trumps."

"The garage?"

"It started out as a garage, so that's what everyone calls it, although they don't sell petrol any more. It's effectively the general store, post office, chemist and anything else you might want around here. The old Polish chap, who's run it since the war, and his son, never throws anything away, so the old workshop out back is stuffed to the roof with all kinds of amazing bits and pieces. No-one knows what half of it is any more."

Shelagh went and fetched her back pack and put it on the table. She searched around inside and produced two plastic bags full of disposable razors. "I decided, since your fuzz started growing again, to stock up on these. Even if you don't use them all up, I should have had a supply on hand in case any visitors, male or female, need the use of one."

Next out came a pair of pink toothbrushes. "I'm sorry about the colour," she said. "There's one for you and a spare for any future visitor."

Then she brought out three plastic bags each containing a pair of white gloves. "Old Mr. Kaminsky suggested these when I told him about your burnt hands. No-one knows who ordered these, or how long they've been in the store, or even much what exactly they are. The theory they first brought out when they found these is that they are women's gloves, but the wrong size was ordered. Someone else muttered something about keeping hands clean while replacing bearings in heavy machinery. But looking at them, I would rather think they are the sort of thing butlers used to wear when they polished the silver. Whatever the reason, try them, they might make your life a little easier."

She opened one of the bags and handed the gloves to Colin. The gloves appeared to be made from two layers of thin cotton. He found that he could just put a glove on his left hand, but with that glove in place, he was unable to put on the right hand glove. When Shelagh fitted the right-hand one for him, he discovered that he could peel both gloves off as necessary.

"These are a good idea. I'll have to get along sometime to see Mr Kaminsky and thank him," said Colin.

"You might not be so impressed with the last thing I found," Shelagh said, pulling two more bags from her pack. "The one thing you were short of, that I couldn't really provide, was underpants, or equivalent."

Colin was still digesting the 'or equivalent' when he realised what was in the bags she held out to him. One held three pairs of white ladies briefs, the other, three pairs of ladies briefs in pale blue, candy pink and lemon. It was Colin's turn to colour.

"I'm sorry, I did look for men's briefs or boxer shorts or any of those things, but these were all they had which were anywhere near your size," she apologised. "Considering you'll be wearing them under a skirt, I don't think you've really got a problem. If you want to just wear the white ones, that's fine. If you want to leave them all behind when you go, that'll be fine with me as well. It's just that you can't keep on wearing the same pair of boxer shorts all the time, they'll be rags in a fortnight."

Colin nodded. "As before, I understand the logic of the situation. I don't think I'll have any problem putting those on. That's providing they fit, of course. Thank you again, Miss Fraser."

He asked Shelagh to put the pair of gloves back on his hands, and discovered that although they interfered somewhat with his grip, as might be expected, they didn't hamper his fingers anywhere near as much as the dressings did. He celebrated his increased independence by helping her clear the table, and discovered that while he could lift and hold things, applying pressure still caused some pain. Still, it was a start.

He decided to try on a pair of briefs, and was surprised to find that they fitted him better than his boxers did. Shelagh looked at the label on another pair, and discovered a Lycra content to the cloth. Colin had never experienced anything like the feel of the snug garment, and decided that, whatever they were called, and whoever they had been meant for, he was going to take them with him when he departed.

They spent the afternoon discussing Shelagh's trip in detail. Colin had never been further along the road than the turning to her cottage, so he was interested to learn details of what lay beyond. He asked her about her skiing ability, and discovered she had originally been taught by her father, then honed her skills on winter visits to the cottage when it had been owned by her grandmother. Apart from a couple of trips to the Alps with mates when he had been in college, Colin had little experience of the activity, and told her so.

"If you like, you can come back when you're better, and I'll take you on one or two routes around the mountains," she offered. "You'll have to bring your own kit, I don't have enough for two, and if I did it wouldn't fit you the way that the clothes you're wearing do."

"You'd let me come back for a visit?" Colin asked.

"Yes," Shelagh replied slowly, suddenly realising what she'd said, "I think I wouldn't object if you came back." Now why doesn't the idea of Colin coming back upset me? A few days ago I had to grit my teeth just to stay in the same room as him. Now we're having cosy chats. What's happening to me?

"There it is again!" Colin suddenly exclaimed, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what? I didn't hear anything."

"Every so often, while you were out, I heard a kind of chirp. I had a look round, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It just happened again."

"A chirp? A bird, do you mean?"

"No, more an electronic kind of noise. It's not a smoke alarm telling you the battery is run down, is it, or something similar?"

"I do have smoke alarms all through the cottage, but they are mains driven with backup batteries. It's possible, since the power has been off for some time, that one of the batteries has run down. I don't remember them making any kind of chirping noise, though. Where did you think the noise came from?" Shelagh asked.

"The other end of the cottage, I guess," Colin replied. "Can we go and see?"

The two walked into the main bedroom at the far end of the cottage, and looked around.

"All the electric gubbins is in here," said Shelagh, pointing to a twin of the wooden door in the parlour. "Shall we have a look?"

She opened the door, and a blast of cold air rushed into the bedroom. Carrying her oil-lamp, she led Colin into an outbuilding, the twin of the one which held the freezers. Part of the back wall of the cottage supported a large panel containing switches, circuit breakers, control boxes and wiring. There was no need to check the panel, however, since they could both see a glowing blue-white rectangle on top of one of the many boxes crammed into the room.

"It's my phone!" exclaimed Colin. He walked over to it, and the words 'BATTERY LOW' could clearly be seen on the tiny screen. Next to it, on top of the box, was his wallet, the remains of his watch, and a charred pile of his clothing. On the floor alongside were his boots.

"Oh, yes. The phone and wallet fell out of your pocket when I cut your coat off you. I forgot all about them."

"Ah. It's a fairly new phone, I've only had it a fortnight, and I kept it fully charged all the time, so I wouldn't have recognised the sound anyway. Let's take this stuff back into the parlour, I want to have a look at it all."

They retraced their steps back to the warmth of the parlour. Colin showed Shelagh how to unlock the keyboard and then turn the phone off, to preserve what battery he had left. Both of them had realised that his charger unit had been destroyed in the fire, and they were very definitely in a 'no signal' area, so there was no need to keep the phone running at all.

Colin's wallet turned out to contain cash and his credit cards, as well as many receipts, which meant he wouldn't have to go through the complex procedure of having his cards re-issued when he finally departed the cottage. His clothes, principally his shirt and trousers, were charred rags and fit for nothing, so he told Shelagh to throw them away. His boots were in a slightly better condition, since although the left one was charred somewhat on the ankle, they were just about wearable, provided he could get new laces, since she had cut them to get the boots off when she had first rescued him.

December 5th

There was a moment of slapstick the following morning, when Shelagh attempted to shave Colin's face after they got up. Shelagh knew, very roughly, the principle of the procedure, but discovered rapidly that shaving one's own legs did not really count as experience. Colin's attempt at instructions, while attempting to keep his face immobile, proved incoherent for the most part. Fortunately, their efforts dissolved into humour rather than annoyance or worse, and between them they succeeded at the task at the cost of both getting soaked, and by a miracle neither managed to get cut.

Although he now had some use of his hands, Colin found that he could not yet dress himself, as the gloves prevented him gripping zips and buttons easily, so he allowed Shelagh to dress him in the green blouse and grey skirt. She had suggested that they cycle through the three outfits in order not to overstress the clothes, because, as she said, women's clothing wasn't generally designed to be worn continuously.

Breakfast was the usual porridge and tea. Colin was, for the first time, able to feed himself for a full meal. Afterwards Shelagh refused his help with the dishes or washing, saying, "See? I told you that you'd want to start doing things once your energy came back. You'll have to wait another week at least, I think, before you will be able to use those hands properly, so just be patient."

So Colin stood and looked out of the big window while she did the morning chores. There was a fair amount of light, but the sky was overcast again with a layer of high cloud, and a definite breeze was moving loose snow about. Eventually she finished, and made a pot of coffee, the mugs of which she brought to the tables by the stove.

"You said the other day that you'd inherited this cottage from your grandmother. Why didn't it go to your father or mother?" Colin asked.

"She was my father's mother, and a pretty amazing woman in her own right," Shelagh replied, "There's a sort-of tradition that this cottage is handed down to daughter or grand-daughter. It's not a proper entailing, like with the clan-houses, or some castles, or anything like that, it's just informal. So I got it. I think if there hadn't been a suitable female in the line of descent my father would have inherited, but he would certainly tried to keep the tradition going and passed it on to a female in his turn."

"Oh. What a brilliant idea."

"Yes, it goes back a fair way, too. Long before suffragettes or any of that kind of thing."

"Is there any land with it? I mean, presumably it's not just a cottage in the middle of nowhere."

"No, there's about nine hundred and fifty acres of land here. It includes the loch, and both mountains you can see, and almost all the land either side of the access road. There's another parcel of land to the west, which is mostly plantation, which is what pays for the upkeep of it all."

"So you're a proper land-owner, then. How do you manage it all?"

Shelagh gave a dismissive wave of her hand. "I don't manage it. I have an arrangement with a neighbour, Donal MacGregor, who owns most of the land adjacent to mine. I let him look after my land and farm it as he does his own, and he does any maintenance I need in return. 'Nan', that's my grandmother, had a similar arrangement with his grandfather. Any surplus from the plantation pays my bills."

"Which is probably just as well," Colin observed, "As a writer, you're in a pretty niche market, and I shouldn't think you get much income from it. Which is not to say," he added hastily, "that you should stop writing on that account. Sometimes money isn't the only motive for wanting to publish a book."

"No," she admitted, "I was fairly well motivated when I started writing, and money had nothing to do with it. Have you read any of my books? Not that you're part of the target audience I had in mind."

"I tried, when I ended up with your account," Colin said. "To be charitable, let's just say I found what I managed to read to be somewhat hard going."

She made a face. "Let's just say I was pretty angry when I started writing. I've calmed down a bit now, and when I look back to what I previously wrote I have difficulty recognising myself sometimes."

"Do you think there are more books in you?"

"Yes, I think so. It's going to be harder to write in the future, though, as things don't seem quite so black-and-white as I thought they were when I started."

"'All Men are Bastards'?" Colin raised an eyebrow.

Shelagh coloured. "Present company excepted, of course. But I thought I had good reason at the time." She held up her hand. "I don't think I want to explore this particular subject any more, if you don't mind."

Colin shrugged. "That's fine by me." Still skirting round the subject. But she doesn't seem so anxious today when we get close to it. He continued, "You were saying your grandmother was amazing."

"Yes! She was quite a strong personality and used to spend a good part of each year up here. This place was used as a holiday home for most of her life, but when my grandfather died, she moved up here full-time. Most of the furniture in the cottage is her grandmother's, apart from those new bookshelves and the computer desk. She ended up a compulsive hoarder, unable to throw almost anything out. I had to hire lorries to take most of the real rubbish away. You saw those boxes in the outbuildings?"

"Yes. I wondered what was in so many boxes."

"That's all her stuff that's left, well, apart from a couple of boxes of course notes and books I brought from university. I just haven't had the willpower to go through any of them. I fancy there's some quite valuable items in there, since most of it belonged to previous owners, but I reckon since it's been there a hundred years, a couple more isn't going to hurt it."

"I suppose it's something to do when you have the time, and you need a distraction."

"I might have had a go recently, except some man turned up and used up all my time and energy. Besides, all the boxes will be frozen up out there. As I said, it can wait." Shelagh continued, "What would you like for dinner, as a change of subject? I'm afraid we're running almost entirely on tins and the freezer now, so there aren't too many options available. I thought I'd let you make the choice today, rather than suffer my selections all the time. Would you like to come and see?"

The rest of the day was spent mostly discussing food. Colin's upbringing meant he had a better range of food experiences than Shelagh, but there wasn't a great deal in it. They spent so much time talking about 'meals they had eaten', in fact, that they left it too late to cook anything but a quick 'freezer surprise' on the top of the range.

*****

December 6th

The following morning the sky was darker when Colin drew his bedroom curtain, and the low cloud had that luminous look which meant that it held snow, but as yet nothing was actually falling. The wind had shifted to the north-west, and was now more than just a breeze. This morning's attempt at shaving was more successful, although Colin did sustain a small cut, which Shelagh was mortified over. After the usual breakfast, she dressed him in the white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and the full skirt in the Fraser hunting tartan, and he went and stood by the window while she washed the latest set of dressings in the bathroom.

Shortly afterwards she came back into the parlour, and began the process of making a new batch of dough for bread. As she folded in the yeast, she realised that he was still standing by the window, and that he hadn't said anything to her since she came into the room, but was simply staring out of the window at nothing at all.

"Penny for your thoughts!"

"Um? Oh, just thinking. Wondering how easy it would be for me to, ah, obtain, um..."

"Obtain what?" Shelagh asked, curious.

"Ah," Colin coloured, "I was thinking, I could wear a skirt or two at home in Edinburgh, in my own flat. I've got somewhat used to the comfort of them. No-one else need know. I was wondering how I was going to actually buy the things. I'd be too embarrassed to walk into a shop and choose something."

"You'd really want to wear skirts at home? I'm impressed. Slightly worried, too. Have I woken some kind of monster within you?"

"I don't think so," Colin replied, "Until now I've never had the inclination, the need, nor the opportunity to wear such clothes. It's just a combination of circumstances, for which I have you to thank, as usual."

Shelagh waved a floured hand in dismissal. "You don't need to thank me, as I've said before. But, back to your original question, there's always mail order. Or, you're forgetting the most obvious point, which is that this is Scotland. Why not just wear a kilt?"

Colin smacked his palm to his forehead, which wasn't such a good idea, as he promptly said "Ow!" and shook his hand to try and reduce the pain and tingling he had caused to the tender skin.

"'Obvious' is right. I have in fact worn a kilt in the past, although I don't own any currently. It's not the same somehow. I think it's the fact that it's female clothing which is the attraction. I don't have any clue why. Another thing is that these skirts are about half the weight of a full-dress kilt, and feel a lot more light and airy to wear, despite being longer. I was also thinking of the summer, when even a thin cotton skirt has to be more comfortable than any pair of shorts. And my idea for buying the things was," Colin looked Shelagh full in the face, "to take a female friend who knew about my new-found tastes along to the shop with me to help."

She stared at him, stunned. Now he's organising shopping trips for the pair of us! He can't be- And yet, it's a logical development from what's gone on before. Do I trust him? Probably. He's behaved impeccably so far. Actually, if he does try anything funny, it would mean I have a hold over him. Ugh, even thinking of that idea makes me feel dirty. Why? He's a man, why would I not want to hurt him? Because I'm beginning to like him, I don't want to mistreat him. Oh God, what's happening to me?

"Shelagh? You all right? Have I said something I shouldn't?"

"No! I was... surprised... by your suggestion. Which I will consider carefully, and not reject out of hand. It's probably going to be a while before you're likely to extend the invitation, in any case, and probably going to be a lot longer before I have to go to Edinburgh again."

"True. I was only speculating idly, in any case. I expect sorting out the quagmire my life has turned into - no, not here, I mean in the rest of the world - is going to take me some months. I won't be able to consider what after all would be a leisure activity probably until the summer, at the earliest."

Confused by her own feelings, Shelagh concentrated on the dough, and turned most of it into two bowls which she covered with tea-towels to rise. The small amount she had kept back, before adding yeast to the rest, she added herbs to and fashioned into a small pile of dumplings for tonight's dinner. Finally, she cleared away and made some coffee which she brought over to the stove. Colin sat on the settee, while Shelagh sat in 'Nan's chair'.

They drank their coffee in silence, since Shelagh didn't want to bring up the subject again so soon, and Colin could see that she was disturbed by the previous discussion. Taking the empty mugs, Shelagh was halfway to the sink when the silence was rudely broken by the roar of a heavy engine, making the air in the cottage vibrate. She quickly dumped the mugs on the table, then looked out of the small window over the sink.

"It's the Marines!" she exclaimed, "Stay there," she instructed, as Colin began to rise, "I'll go to the door."

Colin heard the front door open and voices, and then Shelagh returned accompanied by two men, whose presence practically filled the parlour. She introduced them.

"Colin, this is Doctor Ferguson. He's come to have a look at your injuries." The doctor was in his mid-forties, and carried a medical case awkwardly over his snow gear. Shelagh indicated the other person, who was dressed in NATO winter camouflage. "And this is Sergeant Tilson, Royal Marines, who's going around the isolated cottages and villages checking that everyone's all right."

The doctor came and stood in front of Colin, then squatted so that his eyes were level with Colin's. Ferguson's gaze went up and down Colin's seated figure, and then returned to his face. The doctor's eyebrows both rose as high as they could, and stayed there. Colin stared back impassively.

"Which way did you come in?" he asked the doctor in a flat voice, "Past the crag?"

"Aye," replied Ferguson, "we did." Sergeant Tilson nodded.

"Did you see a pole sticking out of the snow with a flag on it?"

"Aye."

"Under that pole," said Colin, "is the burnt-out remains of my Range Rover, including every scrap of clothing I wasn't wearing. Plus virtually everything else I had with me. Most of what I was wearing ended up charred rags."

"Oh. Aye, I see. I do see. And what happened to ye?"

"I hit something under the snow. The impact knocked me out. When I woke up the car was well alight. I just got out before the tank blew. Miss Fraser here has looked after me ever since."

The doctor glanced at Shelagh, and then nodded. He bent forward to examine Colin's gloved hands. "May I take a look?"

Before he could continue, Shelagh said, "Doctor! If I can leave you with the patient, I've realised that there might be something Sergeant Tilson or one of his men might be able to help me with."

"If I can, Ma'am. That all right with you, Doc?" the Sergeant asked.

Ferguson waved his hand. "Yes, I can manage here, ye carry on."

Shelagh ushered the marine out into the corridor, talking as she went. Colin carefully peeled off the gloves, explaining about the dressings, and the chance discovery of the gloves in the village store days earlier.

"She's done a very good job on these," Ferguson remarked, as he examined Colin's hands, "as she should, her nursing performance was first-class before she stopped."

"You know she used to be a nurse, then?" Colin asked, surprised.

"Aye, she's a patient of a lady doctor in my practice," came the reply, "I had a look at her notes before I came, but I didn't have to, since she's well-known in the area."

"Hmm. I take it that's not necessarily 'well-known' in a good sense, then?" Ferguson's face was carefully neutral. "Are you able to tell me what happened to her? I'm beginning to have a bit of an idea, but it's hard work getting her to open up."

The doctor looked around the parlour while he considered what to say. He took in the bowls of bread rising on the table, the pile of dumplings, the empty coffee cafetiere and the two mugs, the dressings and underwear strung out across the ceiling over the range.

"I shouldn't tell ye anything, really. Much is well-known, but some is patient-confidential. She... had a traumatic event in her past. That led to a breakdown. Ye're settled in here well?" Colin nodded. "Then I think ye'll have a good chance to find out by yourself. Ye've already achieved more than any shrink has."

What on earth have I got myself into? Colin wondered. "Am I in any danger?" he asked, quietly.

"Oh, no. Ye'll do fine. And so will she, company is what she really needs. Let's have a look at those legs of yours."

The doctor gingerly lifted up the hem of Colin's skirt. He was hesitant, since under similar circumstances he would have considered it improper to lift up a woman's skirt, except under emergency conditions. He fingered the cloth.

"There's many hereabouts wear the plaid, ye're following a long tradition," he remarked.

"I may have the accent of a Sassenach, indeed I grew up in Hertfordshire, but my family's from Edinburgh," said Colin, "The tartan is Shelagh's, of course."

"Aye, of course." Ferguson looked at the dressings on Colin's legs, and began to unwind them. The cloth stuck to Colin's skin in several places on his left leg. The doctor pursed his lips.

"Not as good as your hands, especially the left leg. Ye're washing them every time the dressings are changed?"

"Yes, doctor, morning and night," Colin replied, "Then fresh dressings each time."

Ferguson nodded. "Then I suggest that ye leave the dressings off during the day. Oh, ye can put on the gloves while ye're handling things, but let the air get at everything otherwise. Wrap up your legs when ye go to bed, otherwise ye'll be sticking to the sheets. Ye should heal well, although ye'll always have scars on that leg, I'm guessing. Yon maid has done a fair job on ye. The clothing is a clever idea, too, allowing the air to circulate but keeping the cloth away from the skin."

"Thanks, doctor. Now I have a request to make of you. Several, actually."

When Shelagh and Sergeant Tilson returned to the parlour five minutes later, Colin and the doctor were sat together on the settee, the doctor writing furiously in his notebook. They looked up when the two walked through the door.

"This should present no problem, Mr. Anderson. May not be today that it gets done, as we're on our way up to the Rescue Centre."

"There's no hurry," said Colin, "just when it's convenient for you."

Shelagh said, "Sergeant Tilson fixed the generator! Turns out one of the breaker thingies had popped, probably when the line went down, and everything has to be set up just so for the generator to work."

"That's great!" said Colin.

"You have no idea," said Shelagh with relief, "Now we can use the toilet in the bathroom, and not have to risk frostbite going out the back all the time. And we get electric lights back, and I can run my computer, and I can get the CB radio going. And Sergeant Tilson says the mains power may be back sooner than I thought. Turns out the line is probably okay, there was a fault down in Achnasuidhe."

"Yes, Ma'am," added the marine, "The local substation got iced up, and there were some fairly expensive fireworks. It may be a week or two before they get it repaired, it depends on the weather and how soon they can get replacement parts. Are you ready to leave yet, doctor?"

"Aye, I'm about done here. Miss Fraser," he said as he rose, "if ye'll consent to have the patient here, he's getting better care than he would in the local hospital, or if he were to go home."

"Yes, doctor, he's welcome to stay," she said in her best professional voice. "What about his treatment?"

"Leave the dressings off during the day, otherwise continue as ye were. If Sergeant Tilson is coming this way again, I'll give him some odds and ends to make your lives a bit easier, but it may not be for a few days. Ye've done a good, professional job on Mr Anderson, Nurse Fraser."

"Thank you, Doctor." Shelagh blushed from the praise.

"Aye, well, we'd best be away. Looks like the weather is worsening."

Shelagh showed the two men out and closed the door, and then she and Colin went to the big window to watch. Two of the marines had walked down to the edge of the loch, and one of them called back to the Sergeant. He and the doctor climbed into the sno-cat, and the articulated beast roared down the slope to the frozen water's edge. The waiting two climbed in, and the vehicle drove off down the centre of the loch towards the distant village.

The vehicle faded in the distance, and Colin realised that not all of the airborne snow he was seeing had been lifted by the wind. It had begun, very gently, to fall again. He turned to Shelagh.

"You all right?" he asked.

She looked at him. "Why shouldn't I be?" she replied, but there was an edge to her voice.

"Your cottage space has just been invaded by two very large men," Colin explained, "and you've spent the last week telling me how you try to keep away from said gender."

"I-" She realised that she had stiffened up, and took and released a deep breath before responding, "You're right, I hadn't consciously realised. Is it that obvious?"

"Not really, but I was concerned for you. Actually, thinking about it, you went off with the Sergeant readily enough. Was it the doctor who upset you?"

"I'll have you know I do get men out here from time to time," she said, "usually to fix the wires, or the phone, or the drains or something. I'm not quite so isolated up here as you seem to think. The Sergeant's easy to explain. You forget I told you I was brought up as an Army brat, I know how to handle squaddies when necessary. I just needed his expertise, and I knew it would be safe enough with you and the doc in here." She was struck by a sudden thought. "What did Ferguson tell you about me while I was out the back?"

Colin backed a step away and waved his hands defensively in front of himself. "Nothing! That is, nothing I hadn't previously known." Or figured out.

"What were you talking about, then?"

"Oh, I gave him some phone numbers and asked him to contact a few people for me," replied Colin, "My head office, so they can start the insurance claim on the car, for example. The caretaker of my block of flats, so he can go and make sure my front door doesn't get jammed up by post and free newspapers. The hotel in Aberdeen where I had been staying. I also gave him my measurements, so he or someone at the practice can buy me some men's clothes to wear when I leave here. I'll need at least one of everything except boots. I think the boots I have will do, if we can find some laces to replace the ones you cut."

"I'm sorry!" she said, contrite, "I didn't mean to come over all suspicious. You're right, I think I've had just a little too much excitement for today. Thank you for your concern." He's genuinely concerned for me.

"Did Doctor Ferguson say how long he thought it would be before you have to go back to work?" she asked.

"Not really, he said it would be at least a month, though. In any case, I think the weather may have a part to play in any decision for me to leave here."

Why do I feel such a sense of relief that he doesn't have to go for a month? And why does that not worry me?

"Did the doctor say anything to you about the dressings?" she asked.

"Leave them off during the day. Wrap my legs at night to prevent the weeping bits from sticking to the sheets. Wear gloves during the night, and when I need a bit of extra protection during the day. Wash morning and night, as before."

"Hmm," she said thoughtfully, "We might have to change our arrangements slightly. We'll have a look at what might need to be done in the morning. In the meantime," she added brightly, "let us enjoy the power of locally-generated electricity."

"You can't keep that thing running all the time, can you?" Colin asked.

"No, an hour or so in the morning, then two or three hours in the evening should be enough. I've only so much fuel, though. I hope it lasts till the mains comes back on."

"Is it on now? I would have thought we didn't need it for the light at the moment."

"I'll have to keep it on for a bit to get the temperature of the freezers back down. They're well-insulated, but you always lose some, even in this weather. I'm not sure I can handle food-poisoning at the moment."

They talked a little longer, then Shelagh went to the table. She worked the risen dough and put a casserole (with the dumplings) in the slow oven. The two loaves would go in the fast oven later. Lunch was quiet, because Shelagh was still disturbed by the morning's encounter.

Afterwards, Colin said, "You knew those guys were Marines. Given what they were wearing, I wouldn't be able to tell one military type from another. I know you have had experience in the service world, but even so. Therefore, I guess they must have been here before."

"Yes," Shelagh replied, "Although not for, let me see, two years it must be. Some years before that, too. And not that particular crew, either. The Marines love it when they can buzz all over the landscape helping people, and it gives them extra cold-weather experience, as well. They told me they get bored going over the same bits of mountain in Norway all the time in training. They don't come that often, just when there's lots of snow."

"It must be comforting to know that there's help around even if you're snowbound."

"If the weather is too bad, I don't think even they go too far off the beaten track. Don't forget there's also the rescue helicopters from Lossiemouth, although they won't fly when the weather really deteriorates, which is what it looks like doing now." She gestured to the big window, where small flakes were now being hammered into the glass by the rising wind.

The casserole was checked, the loaves went in the oven, and Shelagh disappeared to do some housework. Soon, the lights had to be put on since the sky was darkening fast. Colin sat, mesmerised by the flying snow, mulling over the day's events and what Ferguson had said, or almost said, to him.

After the casserole had been eaten, Shelagh tested her CB set by turning it on. The locals had arranged that seven o'clock in the evening would be a regular calling in time, power supplies permitting, of course. Shortly after that time, the hotel in Saobhaidhe started calling, and Shelagh called in when a break came in the string of replies. Satisfied that they were now able to keep in contact, she shut everything down and stopped the generator. Colin and Shelagh then tidied up and retired for the night.

*****

December 7th

The snow had almost stopped, but the low cloud was full of it, and Colin had to squint from the glare when he entered the parlour. He had, for the first time, managed to use the toilet in the bathroom by himself and wash himself afterwards. He had drawn the line at attempting to shave by himself, though. Better to leave that for a week or so.

"Good morning!" Shelagh said cheerfully as he appeared. "Your breakfast will be ready in about five minutes."

"Good morning to you. You seem bright this morning," Colin replied.

"Having the generator running helps immensely. I can see what I'm doing properly, now."

"Well, I think one adapts to whatever light is available, but I must say, being able to use the bathroom is a godsend."

Colin sat at the table, and she served out the porridge when it was ready.

"Did you have a go at shaving?"

"I'm not that daft. I'll wait till my hands heal a great deal more before I attempt that little task, thank you."

Breakfast finished, they adjourned to the bathroom where Shelagh shaved Colin's face, removed his dressings, and washed his legs. Then, both still wearing nightdresses, they went into the big end bedroom.

"Now, after the doctor had been yesterday, I realised we'd have to put you in something different. That's because, with your legs unbandaged, there's a risk that you'd get the stuff that's oozing out of your leg on your clothing," Shelagh explained.

"Oh. Yes, I hadn't thought through the implications of not having bandages."

"That's right. So what I think you'll need are shorter skirts, with higher hemlines. Now my problem is, I don't actually own a lot of skirts. I did at one time, many years back, I was just like most young women, I suppose, with a crammed wardrobe. But since... I became a writer, let's say, and started living out here, I just don't have a lot of need for skirts. I do have some, but they tend to be thin summer skirts, most of which are as long as the ones you've been wearing up to now. There may be a couple of others I think should fit you, but I might have to consider getting out my sewing machine if you're to be here much longer."

"I don't want to put you to any trouble," Colin said.

"It's not you, it's your leg! If we want it to heal properly, and not take too long, we have to do this. Now, let me have a look in the wardrobe for that skirt." She rummaged through her double wardrobe and eventually emerged with a handful of skirts, which she laid on the bed. It was obvious to Colin that most of them would be unsuitable - for the present task, that is. He briefly envisioned himself wandering around outside the cottage on a warm summer's day, wearing the thin white tiered cotton skirt which was lying on the top of the heap.

Shelagh picked through the pile and held up the item she'd been looking for. It was denim, straight, and about knee length. She held it to his waist to check the length, and nodded.

"Would you like to try this one?" she asked.

"Of course."

"You'll need to wear a slip under it. There's some good news as well, if you can leave your gloves off while you dress you may be able to get into more of my tops."

"Oh, yes, of course," Colin said. He looked at his hands. With the bandages effectively off his hands, he would not be so restricted in what he could wear. He would still need help getting clothes on and off, however.

"Actually," he added, "It would be quite nice to wear some long sleeves for a change. It's not quite warm enough in most of the cottage to be walking about with bare arms. After all, you wear thick jumpers most of the time."

"That is true," she conceded, "and I must in turn apologise if you've felt cold over the time you've been here, although there wasn't really a lot we could do about it."

"I realise that," he replied. "You may have noticed I've made good use of the shawl over that time. Thinking about it, I don't think I've seen you wearing anything but jeans the whole time I've been here. Do you not wear skirts at all, now, if it's not too personal a question?"

"Actually, I do wear the tweed one quite a bit, but it's not easy when I have a choice and you don't, so I left that one to you. The grey skirt is a more formal one I wouldn't wear if I was just in the cottage. I had it for a family get-together my father took me to just after my mother died. The tartan one you wore yesterday I do wear mid-season, but usually only when I go to a big town, which as you might guess, isn't that often. I usually wear jeans, because the first thing I normally do when I get up is to go and top up the logs from the pile outside, and it's so cold at the moment I take every advantage I can get. This denim skirt," she waved the one she was still holding, "I do wear quite a bit when I'm doing things around the cottage and outside, but I wouldn't take it outside in this weather unless it was necessary. And do feel free to ask questions." Well, most questions.

Shelagh dressed Colin in white briefs, a white waist slip, a white cotton camisole, the denim skirt, and a slate-blue knitted jumper with puffy shoulders to the sleeves and a crew neck. It was the third jumper that he had tried on, the previous two had sleeves so narrow he couldn't fit his un-gloved hands through the cuffs. Then he walked back to the parlour while Shelagh dressed, noticing that yet again, the material, cut, style and length of the skirt made it feel different to all the others. He immediately became aware of the gap between his legs, in a way that the longer skirts had obscured, and he began to understand that shorter skirts made women feel both more vulnerable and more liberated. His sensory exploration extended to his jumper, which fit more snugly than any man's jumper he had ever worn, and he realised that he still had a lot to discover about the female world.

Colin found that he could, with care, pick and read a book, if he took his time. He found a classic on one of the bookshelves and took it to the big table to read. As he sat down, he became conscious of his knees being exposed as the hem rode up, and realised that women had to deal with this all the time. When Shelagh appeared, she noted what he was doing and went to get started with the morning's washing.

Lunch time came, and Shelagh came through to choose something to eat. After a brief discussion, she went into the back room and returned with soup tins, which she emptied into a pot and put on the range to heat. While that happened, she laid the table and tore up some of the new bread to eat with the soup.

"I see you're managing to read that book reasonably well," she commented.

"Not that easily, actually," Colin replied, "the skin on my fingers is now so hard that I've no grip to turn over the pages. I may have to give up for a few days, till the old skin peels off. What I could do with is some of those knobbly rubber things bank clerks use to count money."

"Hmm." Shelagh thought for a moment. "I may have an alternative." She walked over to her computer desk and searched, and came back with a wide rubber band, which she wound round Colin's index finger. "That not too tight?" she asked.

"Simple, and obvious, yet I didn't think of it. Shows what can happen when your thoughts get fixed in one single direction."

"I know. Tell me, how are you finding that outfit?" she asked.

"My arms are certainly more comfortable, thank you. The jumper's close-fitting, true, but it's not tight or constricting. The skirt, well, I keep wanting to pull the hem down at the front. It makes me realise that although you get a lot of extra freedom of movement, there's a downside as well. I certainly feel a great deal more vulnerable wearing this, as opposed to wearing some of the other skirts."

"Vulnerable?"

"Yes, but if you think about it, the average woman has worn nothing else practically from birth, so wouldn't necessarily find it a problem, but this is the first time ever I have worn something like this, and... it'll take some getting used to. In the summer I wear shorts that must be nine inches or more shorter than this, and I don't feel vulnerable in those."

Shelagh poured the soup into two bowls and they both concentrated on the meal. When they finished, Colin said, "There is one other thing that might be a problem."

"Oh?"

"My legs are cold. That's a combination of a shorter skirt and of course I'm not wearing bandages any more. I've thought about it and I can't think of any way round it."

Shelagh pondered. "You're right, we can't. Under normal circumstances, I'd wear tights of varying thicknesses under all my skirts, unless it was warm enough weather. You can't do that, not until those sores stop weeping. You'll just have to stay close to the stove for a couple of days, till your legs heal up a little more."

So Colin spent the afternoon on the settee in front of the stove while Shelagh did chores. Eventually it got too dark for either of them to properly see what they were doing, so Shelagh showed Colin the remote-control panel for the generator, and he watched as she started it up so they could switch the parlour light on.

"Now we've got power, I could put some music on, if it wouldn't distract you from your book."

"Not at all," replied Colin, "it's still not that easy to read anything properly with these hands. What have you got?"

"Nothing recent, I'm afraid. Half my collection is classical, the other half is ten-year-old easy listening," she replied.

"Put on whatever you'd like, then," he said, closing the book. He watched as she riffled through the CDs on the shelf by the little player, selected one, and placed the disk in the top of the device. Once the music started, he exclaimed, "Tchaikovsky! Excellent!"

"Are you a classic music lover, then?" she asked.

"No, don't know much about it. About any kind of music, actually. But I play a lot while driving, and I listen a lot to the radio in the car, as well, so I do know some composers. I like modern music as well, though, not just the old stuff."

Later on, Shelagh performed her CB check, made supper, and then the pair retired for the night.

*****

December 8th

When Colin pulled his bedroom curtain, the weather seemed much the same as it had been the previous evening, a breeze moving a light snowfall under heavy grey clouds. He went to the parlour via the bathroom, and found Shelagh stirring porridge, just as he had practically every other morning.

"How do you do that?" he asked, "I've no idea what time I wake up, but whenever I come in here, you're stirring porridge."

"I don't know," she replied. "You go to bed about the same time each evening, so I guess your body has found a suitable routine and you will tend to wake up about the same each morning."

"But that doesn't explain how you wake up, what is it, about half an hour earlier than me every day."

"There's no trick to it," she said, "I get up about the same time I've always done. Perhaps it's the smell of the oats cooking that wakens you."

Breakfast over, Shelagh shaved Colin, took off his leg bandages, washed and dried his legs, and then told him to go back into the parlour and wait. She appeared shortly afterwards with what appeared to be a skirt in a mid blue-grey colour over her arm.

"I wondered, seeing as how you were exploring your feminine side," she said, "whether you might like to try something a little different."

"That?" Colin gestured to the garment. "What's different about it? Oh."

Shelagh held up the item, which was not a skirt at all but a dress.

"You don't have to try it if you don't feel comfortable about the idea. It's just that it's been sitting in my wardrobe for a good number of years, and I wondered whether you might use the opportunity you have to see what it feels like. Wearing a dress is not at all like wearing a skirt and top."

"Presumably there's a chance it might not fit. Why bring it in here, anyway?"

"Because the light's better in here than in the bedroom, that's all. I thought you might like to look at it first before you decide."

They both went and stood in front of the big window. Colin saw that the dress had a fitted top - a bodice? - and sleeves which were full at the top, but ended below the elbow with cuffs seven or eight inches long. The neckline was wide, but not excessively so, and it didn't appear to be too revealing. The skirt, which was about knee length, was quite full.

"I don't see why I shouldn't try it, if you're sure you don't mind. It seems to be a quality garment, even to my untutored gaze."

"Yes, I had it specially made for me, about eight years ago. A bespoke tailor's in Edinburgh."

"If you don't mind me saying so, it doesn't look like the kind of thing I'd associate with you, style wise," Colin remarked.

Shelagh sighed. "It was made for me to attend a clan ball," she said, "very formal occasion, everyone done up like dogs dinners - or sacrificial victims. I went with my father, my mother wasn't well at the time. Hated every minute of it, although the dancing was fun."

"Ah. I've known occasions like that. There was this big factory function Dad took me to - never mind, I'll tell you another time. Do you want me to put it on here?"

"No, we can go back to the big bedroom now you've seen it."

In the bedroom, Colin took off his nightdress and put on a fresh pair of white briefs, followed by a white waist slip and a blue cotton tank-top. Shelagh undid the eight buttons on each cuff and pulled down the back zip of the dress, before carefully getting Colin to step into the opening. She pulled the garment up, guiding his hands into the sleeves, and then closed the back and pulled the zip up.

"That fits! I didn't expect it to, I know I was a bit heavier when it was made, but I didn't think it would do up that easily," she remarked. "How does it feel?"

"As you thought it might. Strange. The waist is higher than when I have a skirt on, but it feels freer because it doesn't need to grip my waist the way a skirt does. Do you mind if I wear it a bit? You're not afraid I'll do something to it?"

"No, I don't think so. Go and stand over there for a minute so I can look at you properly." Remarkable the change an item of clothing can make to a body. And to how one views said body. It doesn't look quite right, though. "Turn round slowly, please."

Colin complied. He could see himself in the mirror on the front of the wardrobe, and he could immediately sense a change in himself, and how he saw himself, but without being able to put a finger on exactly what had changed.

"I think you need some padding," she said, carefully.

He patted his hips. "My hips? I have thought of that, when wearing those skirts before. The fullness of the dress hides that, surely?"

"It wasn't your hips I was thinking of. Try higher up. Much higher up."

Colin got the point immediately. "Now wait a minute..." he protested.

"You can't exactly go round in female clothes without having the right shape, now, can you? If you're going to wear these clothes, you might as well go the whole hog and wear all the underpinnings as well," she said.

Colin looked at Shelagh for some seconds while he digested her proposal. "Logical, as ever. I thought it was supposed to be men who were logical, not women."

"That's a philosophical discussion for another time, I think," she said. "Some feminists think that the logical/emotional bias is overrated, others think that women having superior emotions is a good thing. What do you think to my idea? It'll make the dress hang properly, if nothing else."

He raised his arms in a mock Gallic shrug. "It's not as if I have anything urgent to do, and you are of course correct. Now I've got this far it would be amiss of me if I didn't take advantage of the opportunity. You are talking about me wearing a bra, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. Now come over here so I can undo the dress."

Shelagh unzipped the dress and held it so that Colin could step out of it. She also removed the tank-top and the waist slip. Going to her drawers, she selected a plain white bra and held it up. "Arms out, please." Part of Colin thought that he could sense some ill-detected trap closing, while another part was becoming interested in the forthcoming experience. His arms went through the straps, and she pulled the two ends behind him to join them together. But, even with some strenuous pulling, she couldn't get the ends to meet. She took the bra off him.

"Looks like Plan A didn't work," she remarked. "Naturally, your ribcage is wider than mine."

"Oh. Does that mean we can't do it?" Colin was actually, to his surprise, disappointed.

"Maybe not. Bras stretch over their lifetime, and most of mine are reasonably new. I do have one or two older ones, though, where the elastic panels on the back have stretched. I keep them in case mine are all in the wash or I'm doing something scruffy in the yard, they don't fit me too well any more."

She pulled out a bottom drawer and rifled through it, pulling out two white bras. "Let's try one of these." The two bras had obviously seen much wear, but were clean and undamaged. Shelagh selected one, and Colin held out his arms again. This time, she could do up the hooks and eyes without any trouble.

"Hmm. Now we have to pad you out." She thought. "Traditionally, if a girl wants to make herself larger, she uses tissues or tights. Tissues would be wasteful, and I don't have that many pairs of old tights I'd care to donate."

"How about balled-up strips of linen?" Colin suggested.

"Clever man! I'll be right back." Since he was now only having his legs dressed at night, rather than hands and legs twice a day, most of the linen which Shelagh had prepared for bandages was now surplus to requirements. Shelagh returned with two handfuls of cloth strips. "The hand bandages are smaller than the leg bandages, so we can adjust to suit," she said.

Stuffing the cups was straightforward, and she said, "If you are going to be wearing a bra, you might as well wear a full slip to go with it. In fact, now I remember, there's a slip I got to go with the dress."

Folded up in a bag, she found the slip in a drawer. She unpacked it and carefully lifted it over Colin's head and pulled it down. It had softly-shaped cups which fitted over the breasts, and below the waist it flared to enable movement in the full skirt of the dress. The dress came next, and she carefully fed the hem of the slip through the waistline as she pulled the dress up. This time, as she pulled the zip up, there was resistance as the zip came past the breast line, but there was no real strain on the material. Finally, standing in front of him, she did up the buttons on each cuff.

"Wow!" said Colin, "Now this is a whole different ball game."

She nodded. "I thought you might find it an interesting experience."

He stood in front of the mirror and inspected himself. He looked totally transformed, and he felt a certain level of unreality. That's me. Wow do I feel different. This is going to take time. He opened his mouth to try and explain how he felt, and failed to say anything. Let's have the experience first. There's too much happening for me to make sense of it at the moment. He went and put his moccasins back on.

"Interesting," was all he could finally manage to say. Shelagh had another idea.

"Let me have a go at your hair. I don't think we can do a lot, not till it grows back, but I can tidy it up into a more appropriate style for the female you."

He nodded. "Okay." He went and sat in the chair in front of her dressing table, and she began brushing his hair. After a while, she pronounced herself finished, but he could see she wasn't happy with the end result.

"Having the front of your hair almost not there is a problem. It's going to make you look funny."

"And I don't look funny anyway?"

"Actually, no, you don't. You look quite good in that dress. Just as you looked quite good in my skirts, although I never said anything to you before. The only thing that was missing was a bosom."

"I must assume you're paying me a compliment. Just at the moment, I'm having difficulty adjusting to the idea of me as a woman, even a pretend one. Let me wander round like this today, and I think we need to have a good talk later on, okay? I'm finding out things about myself I never knew were there."

Shelagh nodded. She hadn't fully understood the full significance of what she had proposed, herself, either from Colin's viewpoint or from her own. The person who sat before her was not the same person who she'd dragged out of the storm. But then, she herself wasn't the same person who'd done the dragging.

"I have an idea," she said. Colin rolled his eyes. "You can get round the frontal hair problem if you wear a hat."

"A hat?"

"Yes! Women wear hats much more than men do. It's not that unusual. We wear them indoors, as well. It's only make-believe we're attempting, isn't it? I've just the thing."

She reached up on top of the wardrobe and pulled down a large cardboard box. Inside was her small hat collection. "This is the one." She took out a cherry-red cloche hat with a small upturned brim, and set it on Colin's head, adjusting it carefully. "Have a look at yourself now," she instructed.

He stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself again. The hat plus the hair changes made all the difference. She had brushed his hair to the sides so that it just covered his ears, and then swept behind. The hat hid the deficiency on top of his head. The fact that his eyebrows had not grown back also added to the effect. A young woman looked back at him.

"I am amazed," he said, "I wouldn't have believed it possible." His eyes narrowed, and he looked at Shelagh. "How much of this did you plan beforehand?"

"Almost none of it," Shelagh protested, "I saw the dress hanging there while I was trying to choose a skirt for you to wear yesterday, and I wondered if you might be interested. That's all. I hadn't thought of bras or hats or any of that at all, honest. The dress has been hung up in the wardrobe for years, it seemed a good way to get some use out of it."

Colin held her gaze for a while before saying, "It all just seemed a bit, well, preplanned, if you get my meaning. I don't honestly think for a moment that you had an ulterior motive."

"Let's tidy up and go back to the parlour," she said, "There's still jobs I have to do this morning."

They tidied away the bags and boxes and closed doors and drawers. Colin put his gloves back on before they walked back to the other end of the cottage. I even want to hold myself differently, and walk differently. It feels like I'm in a dream. A pleasant dream. Is this what real women feel? All the time? Even some of the time?

Entering the parlour, he did what he usually did, went and stood by the big window and looked out. The sky was still heavy with grey cloud, and the snow appeared to be falling a little heavier, blown by a brisk wind from the west. Shelagh entered the room shortly after, and was taken by the sight of Colin standing by the window.

"It's interesting," she remarked.

He turned towards her, increasing the effect she'd noticed. "What is?"

"You're wearing an 'occasion' frock and white gloves. If you had a white bag and shoes, you'd look just like a guest at a posh wedding," she explained. "The transformation is remarkable. Even how you stand is different."

"I know, and I can't explain it. Perhaps it's because it's a well-made item of clothing, and I want to do justice to it. Perhaps it's something else. Maybe I'll figure out what's going on today, as I get used to wearing it."

Shelagh watched him move to the settee and sit down. He even sits down differently! I must think about this, I've obviously triggered something off. I hope it doesn't come back and bite me.

"Do you want your book?" she asked.

"Oh! Yes, please. I should have got it before I sat down." Shelagh passed him the book he had been reading, and wound the rubber band round his finger again, so that he could turn the pages.

"I can hardly call you Colin while you look like that, can I?" she enquired, "Have you thought of a name that the new you might like to be?"

Colin was startled. The idea of a feminine name had not crossed his mind at all. Until today he had still simply considered himself to just have a masculine persona, albeit an odd one with a strange taste in clothes. Today's events had shown him that something had changed forever, and a part of himself he never knew existed had suddenly burst on the scene.

He considered, then said, simply, "Just drop the first syllable. Call me Lynne."

"Yes, you look like you could be a Lynne. Very well, Miss Lynne Anderson, if you will excuse me, I will go and sort out your bandages."

Colin was completely overwhelmed by the flood of ideas and images she had conjured up in his mind. As Shelagh left the room, he was forced to put down his book unread to deal with the new state he found himself in. He was still thinking twenty minutes later when she re-entered, rubbing moisturiser into her hands.

"Coffee?"

"Hm? Oh, yes, please. Boy, have you started something."

"What?" she asked as she went to fill the kettle. She looked closely at him sitting on the settee. "Have you moved at all since I went out of the room?"

Colin shook his head. "I've been thinking. Or trying to think, at least. I don't think you could have blown my brains out any more efficiently if you'd used a shotgun."

"If the outfit is causing you that much trouble I can take it off you."

"No! It's just that... it's a lot to take in. For example, these." He held his gloved hands against his padded breasts. "Having these, changes the whole way a person looks at the world. Interacts with the world. How the world sees that person, and how the world views that person. Now, I've had some experience of these," he reddened, "mostly when I was in college. I've been in the past what you might call a 'user' - "

Shelagh glared at him.

"Now, come on! You went to college, didn't you?" She nodded. "Even if you didn't participate yourself, you must have been aware of what everyone else in your year was doing evenings and weekends?" Reluctantly, Shelagh nodded again.

"So don't get upset with me, then. What I was trying to say was that these," he patted his breasts again, "from experience, aren't anything like the real thing. I know that real breasts are very soft, very mobile, very sensitive, and sometimes quite heavy. As a man, just something to ah, cause the young lady some enjoyment, let us say, and not much more. But I've today been thinking about them from, you could say, an owners perspective, and I find a whole different tale. Because the weight is hung off the front of your chest, it makes your centre of gravity different. They are going to move about all the time when you move," Shelagh nodded, "unless you use a very firm bra or something of that sort, so keeping your balance is not the same. Not really a problem, since every woman in creation learns how to do it, but still a difference. Then there's the fact that they are stuck out in front of you for everyone to see. Again, a lot of women would probably wonder what I'm going on about, because the breasts they have they adapted to as they grew up. So what? But every man notices them, and I bet some women check out other women's breasts just as men do."

She lifted the cafetiere out of a cupboard and opened the coffee jar.

"So, you've discovered breasts," she said.

"No, what I'm trying to say, I think, is that a woman has a whole different view of her body shape, and that affects how she sits, stands, walks, heck, even how she lies down! But because it's the only shape she knows, she doesn't realise that it's a different view to a man's. It's only people like me, who try out the other side's clothing, for example, who get to have a dim idea of the difference."

"Oh. Yes, you could be right." She spooned coffee into the cafetiere, and then moved to another cupboard to retrieve mugs. "You figured this out just because you're wearing a dress?"

"No, not the dress, although that drives the message home. While I was just wearing blouses and skirts, before, I didn't feel much different. The big difference is having a padded bra, that is, the appearance of breasts. It makes me feel as though I have a different body shape, and that makes me want to walk or stand or sit differently," he explained.

"Come and sit at the table a minute," she said, "I want to have a closer look at you while we wait for the kettle."

Colin got up and self-consciously walked over to the big table, pulled out a chair, and sat down facing her as she watched. She took account of the change of gait, the way he pulled the chair out delicately, the way he sat down carefully and didn't slump.

"You're not doing it deliberately?" Shelagh asked.

"Doing what? I haven't been trying to do anything deliberately, it just seems to come out that way."

"You're almost a different person," she mused, "If I'd realised this was going to happen, I'd never have suggested wearing the dress."

"Just let me have the rest of the day to explore," Colin pleaded. "Some of what you see, and what I feel, may just be newness. It may wear off as I get used to the clothes."

She waved a hand. "I wouldn't force you to take it off, I'm not that sort of person. It's just that the effects seemed a little strong, so I'm concerned. Besides, I'm as interested as you are in the results. From a feminist's viewpoint, you're supplying valuable experiences I think any woman would have a hard time imagining. The fact that you can do this, under reasonably controlled conditions, and describe what you're feeling, is very useful."

"You're treating me like a lab rat now."

"A lot of feminists treat most men as rats, whether or not they are in a laboratory. I hope I'm not that bad. Let's just say you've made yourself a subject in an ad-hoc psychological experiment."

"I can live with that."

The coffee was made, and they drank it at the big table, Colin holding his hot mug gingerly in his gloved hands.

"I'm going to have to ask you an odd question," Colin said, as they got to the end of their drinks. "Tell me, are you trying to boil a frog?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Shelagh, "What did you say?"

"I asked, are you trying to boil a frog? No," Colin held up a hand to forestall the protest he could see building, "I'm not advocating any animal cruelty, it's a thought experiment."

"I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about," she complained.

"The idea is, if, hypothetically, you understand, you wanted to boil a frog, and you put your frog into a pot of boiling water, the frog would just jump straight out again. So what you do is to put the frog into cold water, and then bring the pot very slowly to the boil. The frog adapts to the gradual rising temperature, and by the time it realises it's in trouble it's too late," he explained.

"I think I see what you mean, but I don't follow how this has anything to do with me," she said.

"The point is, I'm the frog. Think about it," Colin went on, "when you first dressed me it was a skirt, a tank top and a blouse. Oh, and a shawl. Then it was waist slips, followed by briefs and gloves, then, today, it's a bra, a full slip, a dress and a hat! If you'd told me the first day I got up that I would be dressed like this in a week, I'd probably have run out the door. What's next, lipstick?"

Shelagh looked at Colin, horrified. "I never, it never crossed my mind," she stammered. "I swear, I never had any plan or scheme, it's just the way things worked out!"

"Are you sure? Just now you were talking about psychological experiments."

"I never meant that! For a start, how could I possibly know you were going to come through my door with your clothes half burnt off? I expected you to be gone in half an hour, leaving me in peace! I never expected to have to root through my wardrobe, trying to find things you could wear. I thought you trusted me, I ought to have known better."

"I'm sorry," Colin soothed, "I didn't mean to upset you. I do trust you, I've trusted you with my life, I see no reason to change that trust. I just wondered, thinking about that 'experiment' remark, whether you might have had a long-term plan in mind I ought to know about."

"There's no plan, so you can put your mind at rest. In fact, what's been happening since you arrived has been so far out of my normal routine that I really am making it up as I go along, so I wouldn't worry about anything so organised as plans."

"Oh. Well, again, I'm sorry to have questioned your motives, to have treated you with suspicion. I've been doing a lot of thinking this morning, and probably some of it is unworthy of me. Friends?"

"Yes, of course friends. And if friends can't discuss matters like this, what can they discuss?"

When time came to eat lunch, another problem arose, since Colin was reluctant to sit at the table and eat in case he got food on the dress. Shelagh found a spare tea-towel and pinned it to his front like a bib to protect the garment, and placed another tea-towel across his lap. Soup and bread disappeared without so much as a splash. Meal finished and plates put in the sink, she watched him walk back to the settee with interest, then cleaned herself up and joined him, sitting in the nearest chair.

"I think I might have some idea what's going on," she said, "have you heard of something called 'stereotyping'?"

"Yes, I think so," he replied, "but it's going a long way back to biology lessons in high school. Isn't it something that lets baby ducklings know that they're ducks, that sort of thing?"

"Yes, but it's a lot more powerful than that. It can affect everyone and everything they do at any time. It really means that creatures - or people - build up a generalised description, or picture, for a related group of animals, people, situations, and when they see a thing that matches a group they try to fit it into one of these idealised categories. What I think is happening is that your brain, over the years that you've been alive, has built up a picture of something you categorise as 'woman', or possibly, 'woman of a certain age and class', and your unconscious is telling you that that's how you would expect such a person to behave, so you're trying to fit yourself into that stereotype."

"I see," said Colin doubtfully.

"It's like... how to describe it. Imagine, in your mind's eye, what these look like when I say them: policeman, fireman, judge, nurse, burglar, milkmaid, housewife."

"I see! Yes, you're probably right, I'm using cues I picked up over my life so far to try and determine how I should be behaving," he said, "Or at least, how the woman I currently resemble should be behaving."

"You've got it! Actually, feminists believe that stereotyping is part of what's wrong with modern society, that it's men's view of what a woman should be that's keeping women from being equal."

"You mean the 'barefoot, in the kitchen, with a baby on the hip' stereotype? I agree that some of that is not good, but I think that getting rid of all stereotyping would be a bad idea, even assuming that it was possible in the first place."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because without a certain level of stereotyping, we wouldn't even know whether we were male or female, and how such beings were supposed to behave. The species would never reproduce. But the human brain is much smarter than that. I think it does a lot of that kind of categorisation behind the scenes, so far behind we don't even realise it's happening."

Shelagh nodded. "You're probably right. But I can't blame feminists for wanting to try and limit the worst excesses of stereotyping. We are all distinct individuals, after all, with hopes and fears, likes and dislikes, which are not shared by anyone else."

"I've no problem agreeing to that proposition. I think you'll have a hard time making much impression on the great unwashed masses though."

"'Great unwashed masses'? Now that's a true stereotype if ever I heard one. If you want, we can -"

Whatever Shelagh had been about to suggest was drowned out by a familiar engine roar. Her face changed, and she jumped up. "Oh, no! It's the marines again! They can't see you looking like that, come out of the parlour, quick!"

Colin understood the problem immediately. It was one thing to put on the barest minimum of available clothing for modesty and warmth, but to wear a dress with actual breasts sticking out would raise a whole lot of questions - and eyebrows - which would bring them both into disrepute.

"Into the bathroom, quick! No, wait, if someone wants to use it - in here!" She more or less pushed Colin bodily into the small pantry and pulled the door shut. Colin eased the door open again a fraction so that he could hear what happened, and prepare himself if exposure seemed imminent. He glanced around at the laden shelves, for a part of Shelagh's stocks were stacked in here. A reflection in a jar made him realise he was still wearing the hat, and he hurriedly took it off and held it behind him. He listened at the door, his legs beginning to feel cold in the semi-darkened room.

"Afternoon, ma'am, sorry to disturb you. The doc asked us to bring some boxes of stuff out for you and your patient, and the boys have added some extras to give you a bit of variety. Can't stop, we're off up the mountain centre to collect a broken leg. Er, that is, a broken leg with a climber attached to it, of course. Where do you want us to put these boxes?"

"Oh! Yes, of course, put them just in there."

"We've got to get two more boxes off the roof rack, ma'am. Be a few seconds. Jonas! Haven't you undone that tarp yet?"

A little later, "Here you are, ma'am. I'd keep most of what's in these two outside, and put the rest in the freezer until you need them."

"Put them down over here, please."

"Right, we'll have to be going. Is your generator working okay, now?"

"Yes, thank you, I'd never have realised that breaker was the problem."

"Well, you'll know to keep an eye on it in the future. Bye, ma'am."

"Goodbye, Sergeant Tilson, and thank you again."

Colin heard the door being closed, and then the roar of the tracked military vehicle faded in the direction of the loch, repeating the marines' earlier journey. He pulled the pantry door open and stepped out.

"I'd forgotten that the doctor had said he'd send some stuff next time the marines were passing. I didn't think he'd have enough time to get together what I asked him to," he remarked.

"It's just as well he didn't want another look at your leg," said Shelagh with relief, "I'd have had to move to England to escape the scandal."

"Four boxes?" Colin said as he counted them, "Seems a lot to me."

"What did you ask for?"

"Men's clothing, mostly, for when I leave," he replied. "Can you lift those? I'm sorry I can't help you yet, it's a job I should be doing."

"Careful," she said, half joking, "your stereotyping is showing."

Shelagh carried the four boxes into the parlour and placed them on the oak table. The two which had been stored on the roof rack radiated cold into the room. She picked at the tape and folded back the tops of the boxes.

"This one seems to just have a large coat," she said, pulling it out. It was the same pattern as the one Ferguson had been wearing, except in a dark red colour. It was bulky because it was designed to be worn in the mountains by climbers and walkers. "No, wait, there's more." She pulled out a pack containing walking socks, another containing a pair of men's briefs, and an envelope.

"It's addressed to you. Do you want me to open it?"

"Leave it till we've been through the boxes. I imagine it's probably a copy of the bill, which I asked him to forward to my head office."

The next box contained more clothing, a pair of sturdy walking trousers, a vest and a thick plaid shirt, a pair of heavy gloves and a woollen hat. At the bottom of the box were four large tubs of plain moisturiser, a comb, and a five-pack of ladies' opaque black tights. Shelagh's eyebrows rose when she lifted the last item out.

"Now who's the one who's keeping their plans secret?"

"Don't look at me, I didn't order them. Or, not exactly, anyway," he added after a thought.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Tell you afterwards. Let's finish the other two boxes."

The remaining boxes contained food. There was a bottle of red wine, another of white, a bottle of single malt Scotch, bags of potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, broccoli, onions, sprouts, a net bag full of cooking apples, another of oranges, another of tomatoes, a bag of mixed nuts, a box of stuffing, boxes of eggs, packs of bacon, a small fresh turkey, a ham, a small Christmas pudding and finally a haggis. The pair sat looking at the heap on the table, overwhelmed.

"Did you ask Ferguson to get all this?" Shelagh demanded.

"No, I certainly didn't! Let's see, I thought you would appreciate the chance to have some fresh vegetables, so that's what I asked for. I didn't specify what sort, just whatever was in the local supermarket. The bottles of wine, yes. Whisky, no. Eggs and bacon, yes, because I thought I'd offer you an occasional change of breakfast. The turkey leads me to suspect we have the makings of a Christmas dinner here."

"That was thoughtful of you, thank you. I have to agree with your findings, although I don't think you've thought things all the way through."

"How do you mean?"

"Look, there's obviously a Christmas dinner here. That implies that you are supposed to stay here over the Christmas holiday. I suppose that's fair enough, it will certainly be better than if I was here on my own." I hope he takes the hint. I want him to stay. "However, the presence of the haggis and scotch leads me to believe he wants you to stay till the end of January, since that's when Burns Night is."

"You're right! I think it's time you opened that letter for me, and we found out what's going on."

Shelagh opened it and spread it on the table so Colin could read it, which he did, aloud.

Mr Anderson,

Find enclosed the items you asked me to get. I decided to upgrade the coat you asked for, since the medium range weather forecast is not good. The item I chose is the same as mine, and the cost very little more. I have also included some tights because you'll need something to protect your legs from the trousers when you leave. You can of course wear them at other times when you need to.

I have included some cream to rub on your hands and legs to help the new skin develop properly. You should apply this to your hands and legs three times a day, and after washing them.

I've spoken to your hotel, your caretaker and your office, and everything you mentioned is being taken care of. The bill for the clothes I have forwarded to your office. Because of the severity of your injuries, I have taken the liberty of signing you off until February 28th, by which date I trust you will have made your way back to civilisation.

Enjoy your rest and I hope you are fully recovered when the time comes for you to leave. Give my regards to Miss Fraser. I have taken the liberty of including a few extra items in the food boxes to provide you and Miss Fraser with some variety to your meals.

Andrew Ferguson, M.D.

PS Tell Miss Fraser that we have a vacancy for a practice nurse if she might be interested in returning to her profession in the near future.

They looked at each other.

"I think we've been well and truly set up by the good doctor," said Colin.

"That old coot!" exploded Shelagh, "what gives him the right to think he can order us around like this! I'd like to make my own decisions about when my guests stay and go, thank you very much!"

"Calm down! We're in this together." he replied, "He's more or less ordered me to stay here, too. Now if you don't want me to stay here, I've now got my male outfit to leave in, so help me out of your clothing and I'll put this new stuff on while you get on the CB. I'm sure the marines can drop in on their way back and pick me up. After all, it's not as if I have much to pack." It's a calculated risk. Let's see what she says.

She shut up immediately, wary. Since Colin was effectively an uninvited guest, reliant on her goodwill, there was a kind of unspoken agreement between them. The problem was that they were both too polite to discuss a specific departure date, and she wanted to keep it that way, although she wasn't entirely sure why. She didn't know whether he wanted to stay or not, she was unsure how he viewed her. Finally, carefully choosing her words, she spoke.

"I didn't say I wanted you to go, I said that Doctor Ferguson is making you stay, which is not the same thing at all. You heard the doctor say he was content with your treatment here, medically speaking, and you wouldn't get better anywhere else. I agree with that. I'm quite happy for you to stay here, at least until after Christmas, well, let's say till sometime early in the new year. We can decide after Christmas if you're fit to travel and when you might leave. Personally speaking, I have no objection to you staying, as a guest, especially now you've managed both to top up my larder and to provide us with a suitable Christmas dinner. Burns' Night we can talk about in the new year."

She stood up and picked up the turkey, effectively ending the discussion. "Right, let's get this lot put away before it thaws. I don't know how much you can lift, see what you find comfortable. Can you manage those bottles? We can just put them in the outhouse to keep cool."

All the food suitably dispersed to storage places, she helped Colin carry his new clothing to his room.

"Do you want to try it all on, to check that it fits?" she asked.

"I'll have to, I suppose, at some time," he replied, " but I'm in no hurry at the moment. I'd have to take off the dress and undergarments, and I'm rather comfortable just at the moment to want to start stripping. Perhaps I'll test them after my next bath, before I get into bed."

She found a spare hanger for the coat and hung it inside the back door alongside her outdoor gear. The rest of his 'man clothes' fit into one box, the other having been used to help organise the food.

She did have a question, "You were going to explain the tights."

"Oh, that's easy. The doc said he would get me some tubular bandage to protect my skin from rubbing against the trousers when I left. I said I would probably need something to keep my legs warm when the bandages came off, and would the tubular bandages do. He asked if I would still be wearing the skirts, and I said probably. He said he'd see what he could arrange. I never guessed what he'd do."

She nodded, then thought. "There was a line in the letter I thought odd at the time. 'You can wear them at other times when you need to.' I wondered what he meant, now I know."

"He read both of us rather well. Not surprising, he's obviously been a GP for a good while. What did you think about that last bit? He practically offered you a job," Colin asked.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, cautiously, "I'm a bit out of practice. It would also mean -" she stopped.

"It would mean having to work somewhere where there were men wandering about, is what you were going to say, wasn't it?" Colin supplied.

"I - " She looked at Colin. He had seen the 'trapped animal' look previously, so decided to change the subject quickly.

"Don't worry about that now. You won't have to think about it before next January, will you? In the mean time, I suggest we think about how we are going to use this abundance of fresh food. How about some menu planning? Some of it will obviously have to be reserved for Christmas, but we'll need to plan out the rest between now and then. Which reminds me, what date is it today, anyway? I've no idea."

"Neither have I, actually. Is it important?"

"It is if you want to have your Christmas dinner on the right day."

She smiled. "Yes, it might be a bit awkward if we had a feast and got it wrong. I usually get the date when I get online on the computer," she added, "for obvious reasons I haven't been able to do that lately."

"There's my phone," said Colin, "but if the battery's that low I don't think it'll co-operate. We'll wait till this evening, then check on the computer, if that's all right with you."

"I can't get online. The line's down, remember?"

"The computer has it's own clock, that'll be good enough. Note to self. Buy Shelagh an automatic calendar. One that's battery operated."

Shelagh busied herself with the evening meal, already selected and partly prepared before the deluge of fresh food arrived. Colin wandered about the parlour, restless, thinking about all that had happened that day. He decided that the dress had some special 'power' to affect him over and above the way the other clothing had, and he finally concluded that it was similar to the way that a good suit or a well-fitting uniform boosted a male wearer. Whatever the reason, he hadn't felt this good wearing anything for a very long while, and he added it to his mental list of items for future investigation. He also replayed the day's conversations, and realised that he could apply what he had learned in certain past situations to come up with some very interesting, and disturbing, conclusions.

She pinned the tea-towels to Colin's front again before they sat down for the evening meal.

"If this becomes a habit, I'll have to make you a pinny," she said.

"A what?"

"You know - an apron with a bib," she replied, "I've only got waist aprons, which I use sometimes while cooking, and those won't protect your upper parts while you're eating."

"I didn't think I was that messy," he said, mildly. "In fact, I don't think I've dropped anything yet."

"Mostly that's because I've been feeding you up to now," she said. "Until your hands heal up properly, you're a bit wobbly with the cutlery, and I'm only taking care of my wardrobe."

Meal over, Shelagh made a pot of tea and they took their cups over to the settee/stove area. By now it had gone dark, and she started the generator and turned on her CB radio ready for the check-in. Connection made, she shut down the CB and started her computer, discovering that it was December 8th, and that neither of them had estimated the date correctly. Finally, shutting the computer down, she came and sat in Nan's chair. Colin was relaxing on the settee, cup in hand.

"I've been doing some thinking," he began.

"Always worrying, a man thinking," she riposted.

"I thought I was 'Lynne' at the moment," he said, offended.

"You're right, I apologise," she said, contrite, "What have you been thinking about, then?"

"About stereotyping," he continued. "I've realised that although you profess to dislike stereotyping, you've actually been doing it yourself all along."

"Me? How do you figure that out?"

"I couldn't work out, when I first came here, why your manner kept changing all the time. You'd admitted to me early on that you didn't like men, so I just put it down to you trying to balance that dislike against the fact that I was here and neither of us could do anything about it. But I've been here now what, nine, ten days? In that time your attitude to me has changed significantly. I put it down to the fact that you've had time to see that I'm not a threat to you, and we've actually made a reasonable relationship, at least I think we have." Colin had noticed a flash in her eyes when he said the word 'threat', but he pressed on before she could respond.

"It finally dawned on me that you were least comfortable with me when I was being bathed, or changing clothes, and most comfortable when I was in a blouse and skirt. Now, today, with the two added features," his eyes flicked down to his 'breasts', "you are even more comfortable with me! It seems as though while I look like a female, you can cope happily with me, but it's taken a long time for you to adjust to the male me, if indeed you have yet."

Shelagh looked thoroughly miserable. "Yes," she whispered, "I didn't realise it was happening. I didn't understand."

"You have stereotyped females as friendly, and I therefore deduce you stereotype all males as hostile. 'All Men are Bastards', indeed. Now, given the very little you've said, I think something very unpleasant happened to you in the recent past, and a man or men were the cause of it. I think you've tried to push this out of your life, and it's given you a phobia about men. In fact, the only way I could have gotten into this cottage and into your life is exactly the way I did! You were forced to deal with a helpless male, but one who was no threat to you. Your nursing training took over, you said that yourself."

She nodded, fascinated by his analysis, but appalled by the dark thing that was materialising in the background. She could sense the approaching train-wreck, but words stuck in her throat. She was unable to stop or divert him, and unsure whether or not she wanted him to stop.

"Then what? You got used to the body, and I became conscious again. I had no clothes, so you were forced to share, and I was forced to wear. But that was the precise thing that we both needed to do to make the system work. As I started wearing more and more of your things, the happier you became, even if you didn't realise why. Am I right so far?"

Shelagh nodded, pinned like a butterfly.

"I think your stereotyping of men is what's causing you most of your problems. But there's an underlying cause, too. I think that somewhere towards the end of your nursing course, you got raped."

Her face had gone a white as parchment, except for dark rings around her eyes, which were fixed on a scene in another time, another place. The room became completely quiet, apart from the occasional tick as a log subsided in the stove.

"I was working in John Radcliffe, Oxford," she said, her voice barely a whisper, "it was six weeks before I qualified. I was assigned to a ward for practical experience, but there had been a stomach virus which had taken out about half of Accident and Emergency, and four of us had been drafted in to cover. I finished my shift that evening, put my coat on and walked home." Her expression was that of prey mesmerised by a large snake. "There was a walkway between two blocks of flats, they were waiting at the end. I - I put up a fight, but they beat me to the ground and... I woke up in the same casualty department I had walked out of half an hour before." Her eyes shifted, and she fixed Colin's gaze. "I was so badly beaten that no-one in the department recognised me. The police surgeon found semen from three separate males inside me." The tears streamed down her face.

Colin was appalled. No wonder she avoided men! Automatically, he opened his arms wide. Without thinking, she launched out of her chair and into his arms, clasping him tightly like a drowning woman clutching wreckage. She began weeping, and soon she was sobbing, her head upon his breast, his arms wrapped protectively around her.

He held her for a long time, until she quietened. Her grip upon his body remained firm, and Colin decided to let her dictate what happened next. In the end, she raised her wrecked face to Colin's and there was a question in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, "I don't seem to have my handbag with me, otherwise I'd offer you a tiny lace-trimmed handkerchief to fix your face with." But his grip stayed as firm as hers.

She gave a wan smile and hitched herself into a more comfortable position.

"It wasn't a laughing matter," she protested, her voice husky with emotion.

"It wasn't. But it didn't happen yesterday, either," he replied. "You can't go on living like a hermit on the basis of something that happened some years ago. Actually, you have been, but it's a dreadful waste of a talented individual. Look, I'm not your enemy, in fact, probably most men aren't your enemy. But I am the one who's here, and I will help you get through this. Talk to me, Shelagh, and I will give you my full attention. I respect your privacy, but I don't think you can do this on your own. Talk to Colin, or talk to Lynne, it's your choice. What we say in the cottage, stays in the cottage. Friends?"

She gave him another wan smile. "Friends, but you don't deserve to have me as a friend."

"Nonsense," Colin said. He smiled, "That's what friends are for, as you yourself said. You've done a great deal for me, including saving my life, so the least I can do is return the favour." He hugged her. "It seems that you are as scarred on the inside as I am on the outside," he added softly. "Now, sit up properly on the settee and I'll see if I can find some tissues."

"In my bedroom," she said, moving herself properly onto the seat, and reluctantly letting go of Colin, "on the dressing table."

Colin fetched the tissue box and returned. When he got back into the parlour, he said, "I remember. It was front-page news for a week. About seven years ago?"

"Five," she replied.

He pulled a tissue out of the box and said, "Let me." He gently wiped her face before pulling a second tissue and handing it to her.

"Of course, your name was never mentioned, as a rape victim," he continued, "Then, I remember, they thought they caught one of the men who did it, but there was some dreadful hoo-ha with the trial, and it all fell apart."

"Look," she said, "I've made a mess all over the front of my, your, dress." She pointed to the large tear stain at the top of the bodice. Then she looked down, pulled the front of her own jumper out so she could inspect it, and added, "Mine's not much better." She dabbed at their clothing with the tissue in her hand. She sighed.

"Yes, you're right. I tried so very hard to forget, but it never goes away, does it?"

"Do you want to talk about it any more, tonight?" he asked. "I want to help, and I believe you must keep talking, but we've had a somewhat exciting day today, so you may just want to turn in."

Shelagh nodded, her hands twisting the tissue. "I really don't want to talk about it, but, you're right, it seems that all I've done by not talking is to make things worse."

"Will you promise to talk later, if not tonight? It really wouldn't be a good idea for you to retreat into your shell, even though you think you have a very good reason to do so. Promise to talk?"

"I promise. I may not like it, but I'll talk." She straightened her shoulders. "Now, perhaps we'd better get ourselves out of these damp clothes and cleaned up properly."

"What about this evening's dishes?" he asked.

She flipped a hand in dismissal. "There's not much. It can wait till the morning."

Colin stood, and held out his hand to assist Shelagh to stand. She clutched it tightly, thinking, I could never have done this on my own. He's right. Exactly the right person, at the right time, and in the only way it could be done.

Having abandoned the dishes, they followed the usual evening routine for retiring. Shelagh undressed Colin, then he went to the bathroom and washed and dried his legs. An extra step was the application of the bulk moisturiser that Dr Ferguson had provided. Shelagh then wrapped his legs in the next set of fresh bandages. Finally, she supplied him with his nightdress and he retired, while she used the bathroom before stopping the generator and retiring to her own room. By the time she got into bed, the reaction had set in and she was shaking.

As Colin settled down to sleep, he realised that he at last had a purpose, he had to rescue a damsel in distress. But she was still incredibly fragile, and he would have to treat her very gently, despite the apparent unity of the evening. He finally drifted off, dreaming of standing in the middle of his Edinburgh office, surrounded by the other staff, dressed in Shelagh's dress.

Some time later, he was partially roused by the movement of his covers. A small, soft, warm body climbed in beside him. His arm automatically raised, and she snuggled down under it, her head on his chest, her arm around his waist. His arm automatically came down, enfolding her around the shoulders. His body registered her presence by making certain physical changes. He could feel her trembling, and it wasn't from the cold.

Still half asleep, he mumbled, "Are you sure this is a good idea? I'm not certain I can contain myself."

A tiny voice came from below. "I'm not certain I want you to."

Now entirely awake, he said, softly, "Then this definitely isn't a good idea." She stiffened, but he kept her from moving by gently increasing his arm pressure. "Considering the kind of day we had today, you're in no fit emotional state to go making decisions like that," he continued quietly, "and neither, really, am I. If you want to cuddle, fine. If you want to sleep, that's fine too. We can talk about it in the morning." His hand gave her arm a tiny squeeze.

She stayed rigid for a second, then relaxed. As time passed, she gradually relaxed completely, and her breathing became regular as she fell asleep. Colin briefly contemplated this new complication in his life before he, too, drifted off.

But in the morning, she had gone.

December 9th

He woke up, and spent a few seconds wondering how much of what he had remembered had been dream, and how much reality. Finally, shaking his head, he got out of bed and pulled the curtains. The snow swept past, blown by a strong wind from the west. Putting his moccasins on, he had got halfway through the door before he realised how quiet the cottage was. Padding down to the parlour, he discovered that Shelagh had not yet started breakfast.

He checked the bathroom, then walked quietly down to her bedroom. The door was partly open, and through it he could see her asleep in her bed, the covers disturbed. It occurred to Colin that he had never seen Shelagh asleep, or even in bed. In the mornings, she had always been awake before him, and she went to bed after he did every evening, so he watched her sleeping for a short while before padding quietly away.

After a bathroom stop, he decided to start breakfast. Although they now had the bacon and eggs option, he realised that his hands probably couldn't handle making that kind of meal yet, so he got out the pot and started making porridge. The only problem he faced was turning the water tap on, but a little ingenuity solved that. The porridge was very nearly ready, and he was wondering if he should wake her, when he heard her flushing the toilet in the bathroom. She entered the parlour.

"Good morning, Shelagh," Colin said quietly.

She stood inside the door, her face troubled. "Did you not want me?" she asked.

If I answer that truthfully, I might as well go and jump in the loch and have done with it, thought Colin.

"That's not a question you ought to be asking, or I answering, just at the moment," Colin said, firmly. "Come, porridge is ready, sit and eat. I want some food inside of you before we discuss any other subjects at all."

Mutely she sat at the table, and watched him awkwardly pour the porridge with gloved hands into the bowls. Breakfast was eaten in near silence. Shelagh had to fill the kettle, but Colin completed the tea-making process, and they sat facing one another across the table, mugs of tea ready. Colin reached across the table and held her hand.

"Firstly," Colin began, "you did an incredibly brave thing last night, but you were taking a big risk. You were also putting me under considerable pressure. I could have taken advantage of you in your disturbed emotional state, and that would have reinforced all your bad ideas about men. Alternatively, it's possible your current stereotype of men makes you think you have to make a sacrifice in return for help. I'm still a guest in your house, and I don't want to jeopardise the relationship we have by doing something we might both regret. I will not take advantage of you. Understand?"

Shelagh nodded.

"If you want to do something like that, it has to be on your own terms. You have to be of sound mind, and understand the consequences of your actions - for both of us. You're supposed to be an independent, self-assured modern woman in control of your own destiny. You have to be aware of what you want, or need, for yourself. In fact, need, want, would like, could all mean different things in this context. But be sure you understand what it is you do, Shelagh Fraser, and why you do it. The last time you tripped up was no fault of your own, the next time you might end up having to blame yourself as well."

She raised her eyes to look full into his. The grip on his hand tightened, then she remembered the damage and forced herself to slacken off.

"What do you want, Colin?" she asked.

Until the very moment that she had asked that question, Colin hadn't even considered the subject. Now, with the asking, he realised exactly what he wanted, and he also realised that he daren't say a word until Shelagh's outstanding problems had been, if not solved, at least made manageable. He managed to keep his expression bland as he replied, "What I want is not important at the moment. I remind you that I am your guest, and at the moment the welfare of my host is my main concern."

He released her hand, and stood, holding his mug. Normally, they would have gone and got dressed at this point in the day, but there were serious matters to discuss and delay didn't seem such a good idea. He walked over to the settee, and put his mug down on one of the small tables. She came and put her mug on the other table, and they both sat together on the settee.

"Tell me the rest of it," he instructed. She knew that he wouldn't allow her to prevaricate for any length of time.

"A man and his dog found me," she began. "He thought it was just a pile of rags by the side of the path, and then he saw my legs sticking out. They'd left me for dead. The ambulance crew recognised the nurse's uniform, which was under my coat, but didn't know who it was. In fact they didn't find out who I was till the following day, since I had no ID. The Casualty crew were absolutely horrified when they discovered who I was. I was in intensive care for a week, then on the wards for three months." She had started to look drawn, and her hand reached out for, and received, his hand. "You're right, it was big news for a week. A nurse, gang-raped at night, in a relatively quiet area of Oxford. It caused a lot of trouble. I missed most of that, though. The police did come and take a statement, but I couldn't give them much as it was dark and it all happened so suddenly. I had tried to defend myself, but one young woman against three fit young men was no contest."

She looked at Colin. "I wanted to go back to my job when I was discharged. I lasted two days. I just couldn't face being near men of any sort. I was sent home on sick leave. Then they got a DNA match against a young man who'd been pulled up for theft. The interest built up again and I had to hide. That was the first time I came up to the cottage to live, Nan was still living here then."

She took a sip of her tea. "I stayed here for a while, and also spent some time with Dad, who was living near Aldershot at the time. Then the trial of this person came up, and I had to go to Oxford to give evidence."

"From behind a screen?" Colin asked.

"No, by video link, as it happened. But the trial collapsed since the DNA evidence was inadmissible."

"How did that happen? I thought that kind of evidence was reasonably secure these days."

"Normally it is. How's your biology? Each sperm contains half of the DNA of the male it comes from, that's a random half. Normally, for a single man who does a rape, they grind the sample all up, and from that mess they can recover the whole DNA pattern of the man who provided the sperm. There was a mixture of sperm from three men found in me. There are certain ways they can tell how many, I'm not sure of the exact details. But because this was a mixture, it's not currently possible to say exactly which parts belonged to which provider, so the evidence was thrown out. As it stands, the man isn't innocent, and he isn't guilty, even though he's probably guilty. There's just not enough evidence to convict."

"I'm beginning to see," said Colin, "That's the point you got angry."

"Oh, yes! I thought the whole thing had been a conspiracy against women. Or at the very least, that the men running the system were incompetent. I got contacted by some radical feminists, and joined a collective. I suppose it took my mind off those dreadful events, but, thinking about it, it probably wasn't one of my brightest ideas. Any way, the rest is history."

"As a matter of interest, what happened to your nursing qualification? Did you miss out on that?"

"Actually, no. Because it was so near to the end of the course, and because I had such high grades, they qualified me second best in my year. But the awards were handed out while I was in the hospital. The Dean of the college brought mine in and they awarded it at my bedside. It's a shame, really, all that work, and then I end up not using any of the training at all."

"Until I appeared, that is."

"That is true," she admitted. "It took me four days to stop having panic attacks whenever I saw you, though. I hadn't realised how bad it had become. It was only the training that got me through it, and eventually I got used to you and things calmed down."

"You realise now that you have a problem, then?" Colin asked her.

"I do now. It's amazing how someone can be so blind to what's going on. If you hadn't come along when you did, I'd have probably just got worse as time went on, and probably ended up in a funny farm."

"Good. Identifying that there is a problem is the first step to doing something about it. What to do about it is another matter. I'm not a therapist by any stretch of the imagination, and you're going to have to do most of the hard work yourself. But I shall be here to give you all and any support you need. We have plenty of time, so you can do what needs to be done at the pace that suits you best."

"But I don't know what to do," she said, "have you any ideas?"

"Not really. Suggestions only, from me, I don't ever want you to be able to say I manipulated you into anything. My personal opinion, I think we should carry on much as before, and just see what happens. You've got past the blockage now, I hope, and that should make things so much easier. What say you we go and get dressed? Parts of me are beginning to feel a little cold, and we ought to get these bandages off."

Colin stood up, and took his mug and placed it in the sink, Shelagh following him. At the door to the parlour, he turned and said, "Whatever I've said so far, I want to make it clear that if you need them, hugs and cuddles are unconditionally available twenty-four hours a day."

The speed with which she clamped herself around him surprised both of them.

"Oof!"

"Sorry!" she said guiltily, easing her grip on his middle, but not letting go, "But you did say..."

"I meant it, too!" Colin replied. "It seems that you are rediscovering the joys of physical contact," he added quietly, "you have been in a bad way." He wrapped his arms round her.

"You're right, again," she murmured, her head on his chest, "it's been a long while."

"It's quite pleasant from where I'm standing, too," he said, "but we really ought to get dressed. You can have another go later if you wish."

She looked up at him, suspicious. "Are you humouring me?"

"Would I do a thing like that?" he asked, straight-faced.

She paid his face more attention than usual while shaving him, looking closely at his skin.

"I think you'll have to put some of that cream on your face, as well and your hands and legs," she commented, "parts of it are peeling. Your nose, cheeks, forehead, and the edge of your left ear are definitely peeling."

She ran a finger across his eyebrow ridges.

"Funny," she said, "there's no sign of your eyebrows growing back. All the rest seems to be functional, but there's no sign of anything up here. You're going to look a bit odd if you've got no eyebrows."

"That's okay," he replied, "There's plenty of time before I have to worry about that."

With his legs washed and moisturised, Shelagh led Colin down to the big bedroom.

"What are you going to dress me in today?" he asked. Although as a man he had never been that bothered with his attire, apart from looking tidy and keeping warm, he was beginning to look forward to the possibility of something new and interesting to wear, in the same way a child looks forward to Christmas or birthday presents. His encounter with the dress the previous day had triggered off all kinds of feelings and emotions inside him that he wanted to explore further.

"There's one thing more you can try," she replied as she pulled open the wardrobe door, "I really don't have a huge selection, I'm sorry to say. When I started living out here, there didn't seem to be much point."

"Since I'm unlikely to be seen by anyone else while I'm here, I'll try anything you have to offer," he said. "I'm not out to impress other women - or men, for that matter - so style is not important."

"Maybe," Shelagh said, "but we have ourselves to satisfy. What do you think about this one?"

She held up a simple denim shift dress.

"It's a bit... "

"Short? Yes, but you did ask. I normally wear a shirt or jumper under it. If you wear it, you may find it a bit draughty down below, especially as you're taller."

"Let's find a jumper, then."

She found him a thick red jumper, cable knit, with big shoulders and sleeves he could just squeeze into. Colin decided he liked tops with big or puffy sleeves because they disguised his own shoulders and made the proportions of the clothing look right. She pulled down the long back zip of the dress.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" he asked, "Don't I need a bra?"

"You want to wear a bra all the time, now, do you?" Shelagh rolled her eyes. "Yet more washing!" But she went to the drawer and found the other of the two older bras, fitted it round his chest and padded it. The full slip came next, followed by the jumper, and then he stepped into the dress, put his arms in the sleeve-holes, and she pulled up the long back zip.

"Is that it? How on earth can you walk round in something like this without getting arrested?"

She grinned knowingly at him. "This is quite modest, actually. I've seen shorter styles in Aberdeen, but I'm not sure I'd want to be seen wearing many of them. I bought this a while ago, while I was living in Edinburgh. It's not really a winter style, as you can work out for yourself, but as you're going to have to stay near the stove, you should be all right."

"God! I shall never look at a woman in a short dress or skirt the same way again," he muttered as he walked back to the parlour, conscious that his bottom was only inches away from the hem. When he sat down on the settee, he discovered that the dress did not cover his bottom at all while sitting down, and that practically everything would be visible to a person seated in front of him. He immediately resolved to keep his legs crossed while seated.

When Shelagh entered the parlour shortly afterwards, Colin had another surprise, for she was wearing the Fraser tartan skirt, with one of her better jumpers. She smiled shyly at him.

"I thought I had better make the effort to show you I do have legs, and I do wear things other than jeans," she said. Quite what impulse had made her decide to wear those things, she would never know, but she could see the effect they had on Colin. She had also taken more time with her hair, so that it flowed smoothly down her back.

"Uh," Colin tried to think, "you look great in that. You're always going to look better in these clothes than I ever would."

"Don't sell yourself short," she replied, "With a bit of cleaning up, and some attention to hair and makeup, I think you could carry off the female look in public one day. But I'm no expert, it's possible you may not be able to behave exactly as a woman would. Might be worth a try some day, though."

"I'm not so sure I want to go that far. I find these things, with the possible exception of this dress, comfortable, which is why I'm wearing them. There are also... sensations... that I'm having a hard time figuring out. Anything else can wait."

"How do you find the dress, so far?"

"I tell you what, if we were in mixed company I would feel quite insecure," Colin replied feelingly, "I suppose you get used to making sure you hide everything, but it sure doesn't feel natural. Another thing, it seems to change the proportions of one's body. Walking down the hall before I felt like a lollipop on a stick."

"Of course, you would normally be wearing a pair of fairly dense tights," she explained, "which makes life a little easier. But I certainly understand what you mean. Now, I have washing to do, so if you'll excuse me?"

After Shelagh went out Colin stood by the big window and looked at the snow banked against it. The drift came halfway up his thigh. He looked down at his legs and realised that the hem of the dress was still lower than the legs of his shorts. Because this dress did not have a waist he had a curious sense of freedom, and that his body centre had moved higher up somehow.

By the time lunch came Colin was thoroughly frustrated by his inability to do anything, as Shelagh had predicted. He didn't want to read, and spent the time walking up and down the hall, conscious of the draught flowing between his legs as he did so. Shelagh began to get irritated by the continual movement, but she had seen enough other patients with similar circumstances to understand what he was going through.

Lunch came, and with it further problems. Colin discovered that the hardening skin on his fingers made his grip problematic, whether or not he wore the gloves. Eventually, a full spoon shifted at the wrong time and he ended up with hot soup in his lap.

"Shit! Ow!" He stood up so quickly that his chair fell over. He had stained the bottom of the dress, and some of the hot soup had also gone onto his bare thighs. Shelagh quickly stood, run the tea-towel under the cold tap, and begun dabbing his legs and the dress. "Thanks! Sorry about the dress."

She dismissed his concern. "Things happen. I'm more concerned about your legs. As if you haven't got enough burns already, you have to go and scald yourself. That skin must be pretty sensitive."

"I suppose it is. You want to take the dress off? Get some water on the mark?"

"Yes, I can dip the edge in some water in the bath. Fortunately, denim is very forgiving, so if I leave it a bit, I should be able to just wring it out and hang it up to dry. Come along to the bedroom, you'll have to find something else to wear."

"That denim skirt I wore day before yesterday will do fine," Colin suggested.

Clothing changed, they resumed the interrupted meal, Colin paying closer attention to his feeding methods.

"Hmm," Shelagh mused, "Perhaps a pinny won't be such a bad idea. Especially with Christmas coming. If you can manage that with soup, heaven knows what you might do with a full Christmas dinner." But there was a smile on her face.

After the morning's exposure, Colin felt comfortable in the denim skirt he had previously considered short. Slightly rattled by the soup incident, he spent the afternoon quietly reading while Shelagh cleaned off the dress and hung it to dry, then carried on with her normal routine. Dinner that evening involved fresh vegetables, with orange segments to follow.

When she came to help him into the nightdress after bathing him, she frowned.

"I may have to get out the sewing machine," she said, "You've stretched my collection of nightdresses to the limit. I may have allowed enough food for a three-month siege out here, but my clothing stock was never intended to supply two people, nor some of my housekeeping supplies. I'd better do an inventory tomorrow morning."

"It's a shame I can't help," he replied. "Obviously, I hadn't intended this to happen, but I can't even do any of your domestic jobs yet, to free up your time for some of the other things that need doing."

"That's all right," she grinned, "Just you wait till your hands heal up! I've got a long list of things for you to have a go at."

Colin fell asleep, and was soon involved in a dream which involved him walking down Edinburgh's Royal Mile hand in hand with Shelagh. The problem was, both of them were wearing sun hats, summer dresses and sandals, and carrying bags of shopping.

He was abruptly woken after about an hour by her cries. He listened for a few moments, but the cries continued, so he reluctantly climbed out of bed and crept into her bedroom, feeling his way by touch in the near pitch darkness. There was a tiny amount of light from the moon, reflected off the snow, that showed him enough of what was happening. She was thrashing about in her bed, her face strained, her eyes closed, her legs wide open. She was apparently reliving the attack.

"Shelagh," he said, quietly. When she did not respond, he placed a hand on hers, but she batted it away violently. "Shelagh!" he said, more loudly, "Wake up! You're having a nightmare!"

She paused in her wild movements, as if she had heard him.

"Shelagh! Wake up! It's... Lynne. You're safe now, it's all over." This time, when he touched her hand, she clasped it and pulled him down towards her.

"Don't leave me!" she gasped. "Don't go."

Colin hesitated. Her climbing into his bed was one thing, him climbing into hers was entirely another. Finally, he mentally shrugged and climbed in beside her. She promptly pulled him close and began weeping. Eventually she drifted off to sleep, and Colin, constrained by her arms, followed shortly afterwards.

*****

December 10th

Colin woke with a headache. His neck ached from being twisted at a strange angle, his right arm was completely numb, a heavy weight on his chest prevented him breathing properly, and parts of him were hot and sweaty. He moved his head gingerly, and then realised why he wasn't comfortable. Shelagh was partially on top of him, asleep. He remembered the previous night, and where he was, and woke completely. Oh, God, it gets worse. I can't go on doing this, I have to get her to understand the consequences. That might break her, if I'm not careful. Oh, God. He moved his free arm and gently shook her uppermost shoulder.

"Shelagh! Time to wake up."

She roused, and partially lifted her upper body. Colin's right arm promptly caught fire from the restarted circulation. She looked at him blankly, through the fringe of her cascading hair.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, unsteadily. Her eyelids snapped open as she realised where they were. "What happened?"

"You were screaming in the night, having a nightmare. I think you were apparently reliving the attack," he replied. "Don't you remember anything of it?"

"No," she answered, sinking back down. Colin gave a yelp as her body started crushing his throbbing arm. Startled, she realised what she was doing and raised herself up to sitting.

"Why did you get in? Was I that bad?"

"You have a pretty persuasive grip, even when you're asleep. I didn't have much of a choice in the matter." Colin yawned. "Perhaps we'd better be getting up before you damage any more of my body parts."

The two climbed unsteadily out of the bed. Shelagh pulled the curtains nearest to her to show white snow, but none falling. It was just after dawn. Colin sat on the edge of her bed, gradually coming to. The pain in his arm had subsided to excruciating pins and needles.

"After you in the bathroom," he said. Shelagh nodded and walked unsteadily out of the room. Colin tried to marshal his arguments, but his brain was too fogged. He decided to leave things till after breakfast. Porridge - or bacon and eggs! - plus tea would make a whole lot of difference to his brain power.

Bacon and eggs it turned out to be, but Colin could not yet handle a knife and fork sufficiently to eat it on his own, so he had to let her cut it up for him. No embarrassment now, the two had got sufficiently used to his limitations for neither to be bothered by them any more.

"Shelagh, come and sit down," he said, when she had put the plates in the sink afterwards.

"You're going to talk to me again," she said, "I thought it was women who were supposed to nag."

Colin took a deep breath. "Yes, but this time it is important. So important, that if we can't resolve the problem, I'm going to have to leave at the earliest opportunity."

She felt as though a deep pit had opened up under her. What's happened now?

"Look, this is the second night in a row that we've ended up in the same bed together," he explained. "I'm sure I don't have to draw you a picture about what might happen if this continues. Now, you are going to have to decide what you want of me. We can be hostess and guest, nurse and patient, just two friends, therapist and client, or perhaps something else."

She was in free fall. He wants to leave me! But what's 'something else' supposed to mean?

"But you have to realise that if it's to be something else, wherever that might lead, then it's going to require a significant change in our relationship. And if that happens, there are going to be consequences, probably irreversible consequences, which you have to recognise and accept. It may work, but I don't want you to be disappointed, especially in the vulnerable state you're in at the moment. I also don't want to be the person who breaks your trust, however unintentionally. So, I know it's difficult, but you have to decide what you want of me. I'm not trying to pressure you, but I don't think we can continue the way we are at the moment."

She said, miserably, "I don't want you to go."

Colin considered briefly, then said, "Well, perhaps you'd better ask yourself why you don't want me to leave. That might be the answer to our problem."

"What do you want to do, Colin?" she asked.

Ah. That's the sixty-four million dollar question, all right. "This is very difficult for me," he replied, "since anything I say is going to influence your decision." He held up his hands. "Yes, I know. But, as I said before, I don't want to be accused of manipulating you." He thought for a while, finally saying, "Let's just say, I will be happy with whatever decision you come to." Let's just hope that she gets the clue in my emphasis of happy to come to the right decision.

The morning passed in a very subdued fashion, although it wasn't unproductive. Shelagh found a spare cotton sheet, and by measuring his existing nightdress, cut and sewed a new one out of the sheet. Colin had fallen asleep on the settee, a result of his disturbed night. He was wearing the white cotton long-sleeved blouse and the denim skirt - again. Shelagh looked at him thoughtfully and wondered where she could find material to make him more skirts since he had now exhausted her wardrobe. It never crossed her mind for a minute that Colin would leave. She just had to figure out why she was so insistent that he stayed.

Lunch was a disjointed affair, with Shelagh becoming more distracted, and more unsettled, as the meal progressed.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

She looked at him, wretchedly. It was clear she didn't want him to leave, and it was also clear what would inevitably happen if he stayed. Her mind kept churning round and round, to little purpose. She didn't think she wanted to discuss it with him, not just at the moment, anyway. But the dilemma was beginning to paralyse her. She shook her head, both to clear her thoughts, and to signify she didn't want to talk about it.

"I'm thinking," she said, "but I don't think I can talk to you just yet."

Colin bowed his head in acknowledgement. "I understand. If you do feel the need to share, I'll be waiting."

Some of the dried skin on Colin's hands had split, which made it almost impossible to hold knife, spoon or fork, so they were eating bread with cheese, cold meats and various accompaniments. Inevitably, Colin dropped a piece of pickle-laden meat into his lap, creating a mess. Shelagh scolded him, forgetting her worries for the moment, and made him take off the skirt so she could rinse off the sticky residue. She was forced to let him wear the Fraser tartan skirt instead, but she pinned tea-towels to him to make sure he didn't ruin anything else.

"It looks like I'm going to have to make you a pinny, or we'll run out of things for you to wear," she said, exasperated. "You're certainly giving me extra washing. I thought as your burns healed, the washing would reduce, but you're determined to prove me wrong."

After lunch, Shelagh had a look through the various linen that she owned, but couldn't find anything suitable. She lit an oil-lamp and went out into the outbuilding behind the parlour.

"Colin, can you give me a hand, please?" she called after a while.

He looked at his hands, dubiously. "If you mean literally, then after what happened at lunch I don't know that that's such a good idea." He carefully pulled his gloves on before he entered the room.

"Do you think you can help shift some of these boxes?" she asked. "If you can't, you can't, so just say so. But somewhere in here, one contains old linen and other material, and it would be a help if we can dig it out."

"Am I going to get what I'm wearing dirty?" he asked in return. "How long have these boxes been here, anyway?"

"Since I moved in, four years ago. But some of them date back to before Nan's time, so yes, they might get you dirty. It shouldn't be anything I can't brush off, though. Most of these aren't that heavy, they're just awkward to move for someone my height."

Between the two of them, they lifted two clinking boxes down, exposing another layer of storage behind. They moved three more boxes, stacking them temporarily in the parlour to give themselves room.

Finally, Shelagh nodded to herself and said, "I think what I'm looking for is in one of those," pointing to several old large cardboard suitcases in the back layer. Between them, they carefully pulled three cases out, dusted them, and carried them into the parlour, returning the items that they'd cleared before. The first case Shelagh opened contained a whole pile of linen, including what she was looking for, an old, plain linen tablecloth.

"This should be dead easy," she remarked as she got out her sewing things, "I made one of these in school, so I remember how it's done."

A square, as deep as waist to knee, formed the lower part, the top folded over to form a waistband. A second, smaller square formed the bib. Around the top and sides of the bib a two-inch frill was sewn.

"That's to catch splatter," she explained, "for when you start to do some cooking."

Two yard-long strips were folded and sewn lengthways to form tapes, and fixed to the top corners of the bib, and then led over the shoulders, crossed behind, taken through loops at the ends of the waistband, and tied in the small of the back.

"Hmm! You do look very pretty," she said. "Go into the bedroom and look."

Colin went, and again was blown away by what he saw in the mirror. It's a toss up which one of us is going to go crazy first, he thought. I'm turning into Alice in Wonderland. Alternatively, I feel like I ought to be serving in a posh cafe with this thing on. I'll have to wear it for all meals, though, I'm making enough mess as it is, and this does... look nice on me. Then he thought, Maybe this will affect her decision. But which way? He returned to the parlour.

"I'm ashamed to admit I have to agree with you, it looks good," he said. Wryly, he added, "You're causing me almost as many psychological problems as I seem to be causing you. What are you making now?"

"It occurred to me that I might as well make another one while I've got the material here," she replied.

"Why? Do you think I'll be changing aprons that often? Am I really that messy?"

"No, silly! I'm making one for myself. Only they'll be the same size, so we can mix and match as required."

She ran up the second pinny, donned it, and the two of them stood facing one another, grinning like idiots.

"It was a good idea," she said. "I've needed something with a bit more protection while I'm cooking, and now I'm doing more varied meals this will be just right. You do realise you'll have to wear that for every meal, until your hands heal properly?"

"Yes, I did realise. That's okay with me. I can't go on throwing food everywhere."

"I should think so! Worse than a baby, you are!"

Worse than a... baby. Oh, my God! That's exactly what it's been like, from the start! First he was helpless, I had to wash him and dress him, even put a nappy on him after the first night! Then once he woke, I had to feed him, bathe him, even take him to the privy. Now he's about reached the toddler state, just able to feed himself, but still messy. It's been just like having a very big baby. No wonder my emotions are confused when I think about him.

"Shelagh? You all right?"

"What? Oh, yes, thank you. I've just realised something." She sat down in Nan's chair to continue her musing, her face thoughtful, Colin's existence temporarily forgotten. Is this what it's going to be like when I have my own baby? She, or he, will be much smaller, of course. I want my own baby. Babies, in fact. Several. But babies require a sperm donor. No, not a sperm donor, that's wild feminist talk. What I need is a man. Oh. Ah. She looked up at him, her face inscrutable, although a hint of colour was beginning to appear in her cheeks.

"I just had an interesting idea, shall we say. It can keep for later, though." She stood, and began to tidy away her sewing things, keeping her face turned away till the colour faded. "Will you give me a hand putting these away?" She indicated the cases. "We'll need the table soon for preparing dinner."

"Aren't you going to have a look in them first, in case there's anything useful in them?" he asked.

"Why, yes, I suppose so," she replied, surprised, "It never occurred to me, seeing as how we found the linen in the first one." She knelt and released the latches on the first unopened one. It was filled with a number of large paper bags, each of which contained one or more items of folded clothing. The first held a number of very old tee shirts, the next some nylon and rayon slips, both full and waist. The next three each held a skirt; and the last two each contained a Laura Ashley dress, of the type that was fashionable in the seventies. She carefully shook the garments out and laid them over several chair backs so they could see what they'd found.

"I don't know that I can stand more more of this excitement," said Colin, "I thought being stuck out in this cottage was going to be boring."

You'd never guess how I thought it was going to be, stuck out here with you , she thought. I was wrong about that, too.

"I knew there was clothing here," she replied, "It never occurred to me that much of it would be any use."

"Your 'Nan' wouldn't happen to have been about your size, would she?" asked Colin, eyeing the Laura Ashley dresses. "Would I fit any of that? If it helps your stressed wardrobe, I'm willing to try."

"Get in the queue, serpent! I get first dibs on trying stuff on. And to answer your question, yes, she was about my size. If any of the skirts will fit, they'd be most welcome, for either of us. I expect they'd all need a clean first, though."

She released the latches on the third case and pulled open the lid. A pungent rubbery smell was released.

"Woof! What a pong!" she exclaimed, lifting out yet more paper bags. "This lot seems to be mostly underwear."

She pulled out bags of ancient knickers, all with perished elastic, bras ditto, stockings that crumbled at the slightest touch, brushed nylon nightdresses where the fabric had first petrified then crumbled, ancient scarves, a wash bag containing dried-up soap and toothpaste and a make-up bag with all the contents completely dessicated.

"I don't think there's much in here we could use," she said, refilling the case. "It looks like this one got stored somewhere where the sunlight got at it, or perhaps near a radiator or something. Pity." She picked up the bag of bras, and hesitated. "I'll keep those by, I may have had an idea. Let's get the rest tidied up, and put these cases outside again before one of us trips over them and breaks a leg."

They cleared the cases out of the parlour and put them back into the outbuilding. Shelagh found some spare hangers and hung the clothes from the second case up in her bedroom to air, and let the wrinkles out. "Not that I'm expecting much. These will probably need a rinse, followed by steam ironing."

While she started getting the evening meal ready, Colin sat near the stove, carefully - and sometimes painfully - picking at the hardened skin on his fingers. What he managed to remove went into the stove. The new skin revealed underneath showed pink, and was as yet too smooth to afford him much grip, but he knew it would be only a matter of time. When Shelagh announced the meal would be ready, he carefully washed his hands and applied the moisturiser before pulling his gloves back on. He sat at the table, still wearing the pinny.

"I've got some salmon steaks out of the freezer, plus fresh veg. Eat up! And I don't care if you splatter yourself, now, although it will still be a waste of food if you do."

Of course, Colin didn't drop a thing.

Afterwards, as they relaxed by the stove, he asked her, "Have you thought about what I said this morning, at all?"

"Yes, of course I have!" she replied, "I now understand what the problem is, although I'm not sure I entirely did before. Is this something to do with the way male sexuality works? If so, I'm sorry not to have appreciated your predicament earlier."

"Well, as I can't know how female sexuality works, in that respect, I can't answer you."

"I don't think I can give you an answer tonight, though." She held up her hands. "It's proving a difficult dilemma for me to get to grips with, and I think I need more time to decide." She took a deep breath. "Therefore, tonight, we go to our separate rooms, and we stay there, no matter what. If you hear me during the night, you are going to have to let me sort it out myself. Leave me alone, stay in your own room, and I'll try and stay in mine. Only open your door if I'm hammering on it and shouting 'FIRE'! Will that be acceptable?"

Colin nodded. "Yes, we can do that. But it only puts off the decision, and you can't keep putting this one off. Tomorrow, I think you must figure out how we can proceed. We have to know where we stand."

She looked glum, and nodded. "You'll know by tomorrow night, one way or the other."

After washing up and tidying away for the evening, they went to the big bedroom to get ready for retiring. Shelagh undressed Colin and put her newly-made nightdress on him, then took him to the bathroom and bathed his legs before bandaging them.

"These sores seem to have cleared up quite well. Two or three days, that's all," she commented, "then I think you'll be able to dig that pack of tights out." That's if I'm still here, he thought.

"They cleared up fairly quickly," he said. "Is there something in that ointment?"

She squinted at the label on the tub. "It's got some antiseptic in it, that's what made the difference."

As he walked to his room, she stopped him, a question in her face.

"'Cuddles and hugs?'"

"Why yes, of course. Didn't I say so?" He held out his arms, and she wrapped herself round him.

"I've liked having you here, Colin Anderson," she murmured, "I'll be sorry if you have to go. You've brightened up my whole winter."

"I've enjoyed being here," he replied gravely, holding her close, "Oh, perhaps not the first couple of days, but it's certainly been an... enlightening... experience. You've shown me many interesting things I would never have otherwise found. Perhaps it's time I went to my room. Goodnight, Shelagh."

"Goodnight, Colin."

He closed his bedroom door and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up. I hope she's all right tonight. The last two nights weren't exactly a picnic. She should never have been out here on her own in the first place, the state she's in. I suppose it's just as well I happened along to occupy her attention. I may have made a misjudgement here, but I hope she figures it out tomorrow. Sleep came.

Shelagh undressed, paid a bathroom visit, closed her own bedroom door, and climbed into her own bed. Her mind was still wrestling with the conflicting demands Colin had placed on her. He's certainly right. If we carry on as we were, it's inevitably going to end with sex. Two people of opposite persuasion can't spend as much time together without getting very close, and it can only end one way. It's a great shame, really. He's made so much difference to my life since he's been here. And to think I could barely stand to be in the same room as him, at the start!

Actually, Shelagh, if you want to have babies, you need a man somewhere along the way. You have a baby machine inside down there, but it takes a man to press the start button. The experience certainly shouldn't be anything like that night in Oxford. She shivered as the memory of that night came back, unwanted. I hope.

I just wish he'd spelled it out, although I know why he didn't. Or do I? If I'd told him, "You have to leave," it wouldn't have mattered whether he told me or not. So, the fact that he hasn't tells me what? That he has a positive interest in staying? That he wants to have sex with me? He more or less admitted that anyway. No, he didn't, perhaps there's something else he's trying to hint at.

"Something else." That's what he said this morning. And he emphasised the word... happy. Think, Shelagh. Use some logic here, it's important. What did he say? "Now, you are going to have to decide what you want of me. We can be hostess and guest, nurse and patient, just two friends, therapist and client, or perhaps something else." Then he said, "I will be happy with whatever decision you come to."

Shelagh turned over in the darkened room, her eyes open, her brain churning furiously.

What did he mean? That he'd be happy as hostess and guest? Happy as nurse and patient? Happy as just two friends? Happy as therapist and client? Well, no, since we'd already decided we couldn't go on as we were. Therefore, he'd be happy as something else. What something else? Where can we go?

He also said, "You must ask yourself, why don't you want me to leave?" Well, why? Because I -

Ah. What a complete fool. How dense can one girl be? I suppose I've been so wrapped up in my own memories and attempts to keep away from men that I'd forgotten that normal human processes might carry on around me. I wonder how long since he's realised? Shelagh's body grew very warm, as she blushed from the soles of her feet to the roots of her hair. She wriggled uncomfortably in the bed as realisation dawned, then stilled abruptly as the vision of a possible bright new future exploded in her mind. Her face suddenly had a big, beaming smile as she examined her revelation and found nothing bad.

Abruptly, her smile faded. Easy, there. How much do you know about this man? Quite a lot, actually. Her cheeks warmed as she realised that she'd had intimate contact with his body before she'd even said hello to him. However, he's still someone you've been treating just as a friend for a fortnight. You must examine him differently tomorrow, before you give him a decision. After all, you might be jumping to the wrong conclusion. Or he might not be suitable in certain ways. And he's asking you for a big commitment, he's asking you to give him your body. Well, she thought wryly, I get to have his in return. Not such a bad bargain, I don't even have to inspect it.

Sighing happily, Shelagh drifted off to sleep, attempting to decide how she'd play the morrow. She slept soundly, the first night she'd done so since he'd arrived unexpectedly out of the snow.

*****

December 11th

Colin woke, the bright light of dawn forcing it's way past the edges of the curtains. He yawned, got out of bed, and pulled the curtains, to reveal bright sunlight reflected from snow. The tiny bit of sky that he could see between the edge of the crag and the mountain opposite was blue. When he opened his bedroom door, the familiar smell of cooking oats told him that breakfast would be ready when he was.

"Good morning!" Shelagh greeted him.

"Good morning to you. Did you manage to sleep well last night?"

"Very well, thank you," she replied. "It's oats again today, is that all right?"

"That's fine. If we stuff down all the bacon at one go, it won't be there to look forward to. Although we'll have to remember not to leave the eggs too long."

"I've been thinking about that," she said, "I might use a couple of them to make a cake later this afternoon. What do you think of that idea?"

"Excellent idea! That is, provided I'm still here to enjoy the results."

Shelagh gave him a sidelong glance. Yes, it's still open, isn't it? I have to carry on, though, as though he isn't going. She waved a hand, dismissively.

"If you decide to go, then I'll pack you some cake to take," she said. "Here, let me put your pinny on, and you can sit down. It's nearly ready."

"I should find eating a bit easier today," he said as he sat down, "I managed to remove some of the dead skin yesterday, and my fingers feel a lot more like they ought to."

"Can I see?"

Colin peeled off his gloves and showed her. Shelagh nodded and said, "Looks good. Does any of it still hurt?"

"Yes, a couple of places on each palm. Of course, there are parts of my legs that hurt, too, but that's to be expected, and I don't use them to eat with anyway."

"The weather's changed," she added conversationally, "When I got some logs in this morning, it felt very warm, the temperature's quite a bit above freezing in the yard, and the air feels quite damp. I wouldn't wonder if we'll have some rain in the next day or two."

"What? On top of all this snow?"

"Yes, it does happen out here. Nothing to worry about, though. It all gets washed into the loch, it's quite spectacular to see, but it's quite safe."

Shelagh served out the porridge and sat down. She was disconcerted to find that she was facing a stranger. After the previous night's revelations her mind now saw Colin in a different way, and she had to determine whether the new person was as acceptable to her as the old one had been. Breakfast was eaten in silence, both unwilling to mention the day's impending decision, which would have consequences for both whichever way it went.

Breakfast over, they adjourned to the bathroom where Colin, for the first time, was able to remove his bandages and wash his legs on his own, though under Shelagh's supervision. However, he still asked her to shave him, claiming that his grip was not good enough yet for such a delicate task.

In the big bedroom, Shelagh relented to Colin's plea to try on the items from the case, although she insisted that it would be a try-on only, and that she would have to at minimum rinse and iron the clothes before they could be worn in anger. That was, assuming that they fit in the first place. He turned away while she pulled off her jeans and put on a slip, then watched her pull on the first of the skirts and zip it up.

This was a mid-calf length bias-cut a-line skirt with a plaid-like design in a number of shades of grey, of a style popular in the early seventies.

"What do you think?" She stuck her thumb in the waistband and pulled. "Not too tight, and about the right length, lined, too. I think it will do you fine, once your legs are healed up."

She's still behaving as if I'm staying. Well, that's fine with me, although I'll have to hear her say it out loud, to make sure there's no misunderstanding. The fact she hasn't said anything yet might mean she has reservations. What do I do? Just have to be myself. She has to see the real me, not any act like I've done before with girlfriends.

"It looks good on you," he replied, "But, then again, a sack would look good on you." It was true, too. She had the kind of body that would enhance anything, although she probably didn't realise it. That wasn't the way her personality worked. She took off the skirt and tried another. This one was a brown corduroy skirt with eight box pleats, knee length. Finally, the last skirt was a straight black skirt, below knee length, with a back vent.

"It's interesting," he said, "do women choose their clothes to suit their mood, or do the clothes you wear set your mood for you? You've looked different every time you changed, there."

"Half and half, I think," she replied, "That's why it sometimes takes a woman so long to decide what to wear. She has to find something to fit the circumstances and her own mood at the same time."

Removing the last skirt, she pulled off her jumper and reached for the first dress.

"Can you do me up, please? I'm not used to wearing this sort of thing."

"Certainly." He pulled up the long back zip. "There you are. Turn round and let me see you."

The design was almost Victorian, with a dense print design in a predominantly blue colour. It had long sleeves and a high neck, and came to mid calf.

"Wow. You do look pretty. Even though it's a vintage style, it suits you perfectly. I dare say you'd look a little odd, walking down any street in Aberdeen dressed like that these days, but I don't care. The blue matches your eyes. You look beautiful."

Hearing those honestly-made compliments, a glow washed through Shelagh. She turned and struck a pose in front of the mirror. My, he was right! She'd not dressed in anything even remotely like this for years, and she felt good. A little bit of attention to hair and face, perhaps? She'd last worn makeup in college, so she had none. The sisterhood would have thrown her out bodily if she'd so much as mentioned makeup. So, she decided, that was one thing that would definitely change, whatever was decided. Some heels? Haven't got any of those, either. She realised that her previous life had gone forever, whatever happened, and she decided to take that as a good omen. She turned to Colin, smiling.

"Thank you for your kind words, Colin. I don't know where I could possibly wear this, but I like it. It's going in my wardrobe once it's clean."

Colin's face fell. Shelagh laughed, and said, "You're being dressed out of my wardrobe, silly!" Her tone changed. "But if you wear this, I'll expect you to treat it very carefully. I don't want some lump of a man tearing holes in it because he's not delicate enough. Now, help me out of it, please."

Colin, meanwhile, has been desperately trying to resist the strong urge to grab Shelagh and smother her with kisses. As he stepped round behind her, his hands shaking, he knew that he had been sunk without trace. He cleared his throat as he pulled down the zip, and helped Shelagh off with the dress.

"You know, the world is a poorer place since you decided to live out here in the back of beyond," he said, shakily. He handed her the hanger, and she swapped the garment for the other dress. This one had short, loose sleeves and a mainly white background with tiny bunches of flowers printed all over it. It was longer than the first dress, and was obviously a summer style. After helping her to put it on, Colin had to sit on the edge of the bed and try and control his breathing, his head bowed.

"What do you think of this one?" She turned. "Colin? Are you all right?"

Colin lifted his head and looked at her, flushed. His hands ached where he'd clenched them.

"It's okay. Perhaps I feel a little warm this morning. You look just as good as you did in the other one."

Shelagh decided that this one would get some wear in the summer, when she was relaxing. Colin's reaction concerned her. Perhaps he had caught something? Well, yes, but not any disease.

"Do you want to try these on before I rinse them?" she asked. "It might be better if you left them till they're cleaned and ironed."

Colin shook his lowered head. All his enthusiasm for new things had disappeared, swamped by the most powerful emotions he'd felt for years.

"No," he muttered, "Perhaps now is not the best time. Just find me something to get dressed in."

"Unfortunately, we're so short of things for you to wear, I think you're going to have to put the posh dress on again." Colin's head snapped up. "It's all right, we've got the pinnies now to protect you. By the end of the day, I should have done at least two of these skirts, and then we'll have a bit of margin again for coming days. Come here, let me take your nightdress off. Did you find it comfortable?"

Colin's head was swirling. Is she using some kind of psychological means to get me to agree what she wants? If so, she sure found the right buttons to push. He tamely stood and let her pull on his bra, then a full slip, and finally the dress. When she had finished, he muttered an incoherent thanks and walked back into the parlour, to get himself a drink of water. Shelagh shook her head.

Wow. Just wow. I've never seen such a strong reaction from him. Now, is that because of me, or because of the clothes? Or is it something else? If I say 'yes' to him, am I going to get flattened in the rush? Well, he did manage to control himself in the end. He's been a perfect gentleman so far. It shows how much effect I have on him, though, and that frightens me. But it might be worth pursuing that line of thought. It shouldn't hurt to put him under a little pressure, it'll show me how he reacts. If I'm to have a future with him, he'll need to be able to withstand some pressure.

She realised that she was standing wearing bra and slip, and decided to put on a good jumper and the green tweed skirt instead of wearing the jeans again. Collecting the other clothes, she walked down to the parlour, where she found Colin sitting at the table with a glass of water.

"If your hands are up to it, would you like to have a go at washing the dishes while I do the clothes? It would help me, and give you a chance to see how your hands have improved."

He nodded. "That's a good idea, and it would be helping you." He stood up, and turned towards the sink, then hesitated and turned back. "Pinny?"

"Pinny."

Dumping the clothes on the table, she tied his pinny on. He took a couple of steps, turned, and looked at her.

"Now I feel even more like Alice in Wonderland! All it needs is a White Rabbit to come past, saying he's late, and my trip into insanity will be complete."

She inspected him. "No, not quite yet. You need an Alice band and a pair of girl's shoes to look the part properly. Do you want the hat?"

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Why would I do that?" she said, straight-faced. She tied the other pinny onto herself, picked up the clothes and went off to the bathroom.

Colin discovered that he could wash up quite effectively, and realised that he'd probably allocated himself the job by doing so. Shelagh had her hands in water often enough as it was. Everything had been cleaned, dried and put away, and he was seated reading his book by the time she returned from the bathroom. He'd even managed to spill the knot and take the pinny off by himself when he'd finished at the sink.

The sureness that Shelagh had felt at the start of the day had steadily crumbled while she was in the bathroom. The emotion that had crept up to replace it was fear. Fear that she might lose him. Fear that she might make a big mistake by rejecting him, and that she might make a big mistake by accepting him. Fear of what might happen if she said 'yes', that what happened next would not be pleasant. The last time hadn't been, after all. Fear that Colin's strong emotions might get the better of him. Fear that his own emotions might cause Colin to leave - to protect her. This is hopeless. Damned if I do and damned if I don't. This is no better than it was before, except that I trust Colin. Do I trust him to do the right thing? Does he trust himself? Do I trust myself? By the time she walked into the parlour her expression was woebegone again.

"Shelagh?" He stood up as he saw her expression, and came towards her, his arms open. "What's the matter?"

She rushed towards him, to meet him with a thump. Their arms went around each other.

"I'm afraid," she said, "I'm afraid I'll get it wrong. I'm afraid of what will happen if you leave me. I'm afraid - a little - of what will happen if you stay. I'm afraid of you. I saw you struggling in the bedroom."

Colin held her tight. She was shaking, again. "Yes, it was a bit of a shock, wasn't it?" he said quietly. "I didn't - " know how strongly I felt for you, was what he was going to say, but he changed his mind. "I didn't realise how beautiful you could look, when you put your mind to it," he amended. He asked her, "Why should you be afraid of me?"

"Because you're a man, an unknown quantity," she replied.

He thought, then said, "When you come down to it, everyone else in the world is an unknown quantity. Even though you think you know them, that you understand them, there are always things that will take you by surprise, good things or bad things. People you know get a bit more familiar than complete strangers, true, but even then, you never entirely know them. There are people who have been married forty years who still find out things about their partner they didn't know before. So don't be too worried about that. What you're describing is just normal human existence."

"So what you're saying is, I've just got to put up with it? Is that it?"

"No, there's also the matter of trust. If you trust someone, and the trust works both ways, then you trust them not to pull out any unpleasant surprises on you, or if they must, you trust them to help you get over the unpleasantness. Or whatever. The more you trust them, the more you can relax and know that they will have your interests at heart." He took a deep breath. "I've also realised, this morning, that I've been putting you under pressure, which was not my intention at all. All along, I've been trying to let you make your own decisions, as you should, to refuse to manipulate you, to not coerce you, or appear to coerce you, into doing anything you don't want to. That's why I've tried to be as careful as possible about what I say to you, to avoid influencing you. I've also had to point out that our current circumstances are not sustainable. I hadn't realised it would cause you such distress to work out a solution. If I've caused you distress, then I'm truly, truly sorry. I can promise that this will be the only time it ever happens. In the future, if you ask me something, I will answer openly and truthfully, you have my word."

In the future? Well, if he goes, she felt a pang, it won't matter, because he's never likely to be in a position to deliver. And if he stays? That's good, but it's what I would expect from him anyway. She released her arms, composed, and he let her go. She had been comforted by his words, and she understood their problem very well. She'd also been slightly annoyed by his refusal to help her decide, even though she thought she knew the reasons why. Well, he's probably annoyed by my dithering, she thought. She shook her head, to clear it.

"Lunch time," she announced. That'll use up the last of the bread. Will I need to make one loaf or two, tomorrow? "The usual? There's enough bread left to go with today's soup. Would you like to come into the pantry and choose which soup we have?"

Lunch was again a subdued affair, with an air of impending doom hanging over the proceedings. Colin washed up and Shelagh wiped. Afterwards, she decided to mix her cake, and got out the ingredients. It was just a simple sponge cake, with a little vanilla flavouring. She was glad of her new pinny, since she hadn't made a cake for some while, and making cakes turned out to be somewhat messier than kneading bread. Colin had a go at stirring, but the force needed to manipulate the spoon turned out to be too much for his hands. Although the tips of his fingers were now pain free, there was still hardened skin covering sensitive areas on his palms, so he was forced to give up. As they cleaned the debris away, Shelagh decided to have another go at their mutual problem.

"Tell me about your job."

He grimaced. "There's not much to tell, unfortunately. I'm supposed to be a publisher's agent, that is, someone who liaises between the publisher and the authors, or their own agents. I check the contracts, make sure manuscripts arrive and payments are made, generally try to keep the whole business running smoothly, that sort of thing. I've actually turned into a sort of glorified 'gofer', a messenger boy running around the country, which is not what I wanted at all. I spend far too much time on the road, and not enough in the office."

"You must have known you'd be given all the rubbish jobs when you started. It's the equivalent of 'tea boy', surely? Won't things improve?"

"I've been doing this job five years," Colin replied, "and at the London office I did what I thought I'm supposed to be doing. It's only since I came to Edinburgh that I've spent so much time out on the road. It's a much smaller office than London, everyone's a bit more mobile."

"What's your degree?"

"Business, but there's a strong English bias. I mean English language, not English business. I eventually want to become a publisher's editor or something like that."

"Oh. So you're well read, then?"

"Yes, I loved English Lit at school. Know a little Latin, too, although I haven't used it since I left university."

They talked some more. Shelagh made some tea, and they took it and sat down by the stove, discussing the good, the bad and the outrageous things they'd each experienced at college. Finally, as the light was going at the end of the short winter day, the timer dinged and Shelagh went to get her cake out of the oven. She set it on a rack to cool, and looked towards Colin, still seated.

I was wrong about him, she thought. He's not worried about the sex at all. Okay, perhaps that's his most immediate concern, but I begin to suspect he's aiming much higher. No wonder he won't say anything! She took a deep breath. I have to find out, and there's only one way I know how to do that.

She walked towards him, and stopped.

"Hugs and cuddles?"

Startled, Colin stood up and walked rapidly towards her, arms open. She clasped him, and he held her, as he had done before. She rested her head on his chest for a moment, then raised it and looked at him.

"Kiss me," she commanded.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked, "Absolutely sure?"

"No," she replied, evenly, "That's why I want you to kiss me."

His head bent to hers, and their lips met. The impact was not what either of them expected. It was much greater, as though two pieces of plutonium had been brought together. They swayed, holding each other up as best they could. Finally, they came up for air, and she rested her head briefly on his chest again, so that he couldn't see her expression. Colin let out a great breath, and was startled again when her grip suddenly loosened. His heart gave a lurch. Was it all for nothing? He opened his arms and released her. She took a half-step back and looked up at him, her eyes shining.

"Now I'm sure," she whispered, putting both arms around his neck and pulling him down for another, much longer, kiss.

They stayed like that, locked together, as the light went from the sky and the room darkened, revelling in their discovery of each other. Finally, they broke, and just stood holding one another in the gloom.

"I understand now why you couldn't say anything," she said softly, "but if you had, I don't think you'd have had much cause for complaint."

"Ah, but there would always have been something nagging me about whether or not I had influenced you. I couldn't think of a way to tell you at all," he replied. "So," he asked her, "you want me to stay, then?"

She almost succumbed to hysterical laughter. "You think, after that performance, I'm going to let you out of the door? Of course you're staying!" Her grip on him tightened, her eyes grew round and serious. "I'm not sure I can live without you any more."

"No more can I live without you," he replied, kissing her gently on the forehead.

After more minutes, her face grew set. "There's one final thing that needs to be resolved," she said, her voice determined, "I must do this, or the whole thing will be for nothing." She looked up at Colin's face, just barely visible in the darkness. "Lay with me, please." Her voice softened. "Please, Colin, if you do love me, help me do this. I'm afraid, but I'm more afraid what will happen if I don't."

"What is it they teach you in nursing college?" he responded quietly, "'First, do no harm.' Do you think I would want to cause you harm? If you are sure that my body is what you wish, then, yes, I will do what you ask. I will try and be as gentle as I can."

With that, she took his hand and towed him along to her bedroom. She drew the curtains and lit one of the oil-lamps which sat on the bedside cabinets either side of the bed, then came back to him and put her arms round his neck, linking her hands.

They kissed again, then, getting more passionate. After a while, they realised that their clothing would be an impediment, so they slowly began to strip, each removing the other's things, leaving them scattered on the bedroom floor. When Colin pulled her bra from her arms, he paused. It was the first time he had seen her body, except briefly and partially that morning. The touch of his fingers on her skin made her hiss, and waves of sensation blossomed through her body. She sat down on the bed, breathing heavily, pulling him down beside her. His finger touched her cheek, and she gave a cry. He pulled his finger back as though it had been scalded.

"No! It's just... a very strong reaction," she gasped. "Ooh," she breathed, as he did it again. Overwhelmed by the sensations flooding her, she fell backwards on the bed, and he leant over her, kissing her gently on the body, her body responding with wave after powerful wave that threatened to engulf her. She soon lost the power of coherent speech, and shortly after was incapable of coherent thought as well, her body reduced to instinct. Then he used his fingertips, and she learnt the meaning of the word caress, and she surrendered to wave after wave that built to shuddering explosions that started between her legs and swept over her whole body. Finally, he lay between her legs, and entered her, and her body instinctively moved with his, and he came to a shuddering explosion of his own, and the two sank onto the bed, still locked together, utterly exhausted.

When Colin came to, he was lying on his back, and she was leaning over him, her breasts resting on his body, idly drawing designs on his chest with her finger.

"Hello man," she said, in a very satisfied manner. She bent down to kiss him gently on the lips.

"Hello woman," he replied, huskily. "How do you feel?"

She cocked her head. "At nursing college, I used to hear the other nurses talk about having their brains screwed out," she said, "and I always assumed that it was just an expression or that they were exaggerating." She grinned, ruefully. "I now know that it's not so far from the truth." She suddenly looked concerned. "Is that what it's going to be like every time?" she asked. "I'll be a wrinkled shell within months if it is."

He grinned, "You don't escape that easily!" Sobering up, he continued, "We were both severely in need of some release, it's not surprising that it was a bit intense for both of us. The emotions and the hormones must have been building up for ages, for both of us. It should be more manageable, and more enjoyable, in the future."

"What, you mean, like now?" Her eyes lit up.

"Ah, no, I don't think so, not unless you want to wash some more sheets. I have to go to the bathroom. Besides, we poor males don't have the staying power of you lot. We need a period of calm, quiet contemplation before -"

Shelagh thumped Colin's chest with her fist, and pouted. He'd never seen her pout before, but he suspected it wouldn't be the last time. "Get up, before I do something serious to you, go on! I'll stand for no delays, though."

Colin climbed out of bed, managing to put his hand in all sorts of interesting places as he did so. Shelagh just reclined back on the sheets to wait for him. When he returned, he picked up some of the discarded clothing and placed it over a chair back before joining her in the bed.

"I've started the generator, as you can hear. I damn near broke a toe walking down to the bathroom in the dark."

She wrapped an arm round him, and looked at him seriously. "Your client thinks her therapist has done a good job so far," she said, "I don't think I'm cured but this," she poked him in the ribs, "doesn't worry me any more. Quite the opposite, I think I've finally found something to do to occupy my long, winter evenings."

He raised an eyebrow. "You may regret making that statement. On the other hand," he sighed, "so might I."

Another hour was spent ensuring that they hadn't forgotten what to do, then Shelagh decided that it was time they rose and did something about food. They both took turns in the bathroom, and by the time that Colin got dressed, as much as he was able, Shelagh was in front of the range, humming to herself as she browned some chicken breasts. She put the pan to one side to zip him up, do up the cuff buttons, and put his pinny on him so that they matched. Then she got him to watch the pan while she peeled vegetables.

To celebrate, they opened the bottle of white wine, and had themselves a slow, enjoyable meal before sitting together on the settee in each other's arms and spending some time just gazing at one another, talking and tenderly kissing. Both were in extremely good spirits, their lives having changed forever. Finally, digestion having taken it's course, they retired to the main bedroom to couple again before eventually falling asleep, still joined together.

*****

December 12th

Colin was woken by a dull roar. Starting, he realised where he was, and relaxed. Shelagh surfaced, wakened by his movement.

"Hello, gorgeous."

"Hello, yourself. What's that noise?"

She kissed him before replying. "That, my dearest love, is rain. I came to earlier on, it's been raining for hours."

"Oh. I assume we're safe enough in here? Well then, what kind of breakfast would you like? Boring oats, fattening bacon or worn-out man?"

"Oo, what a choice. Did I pick a man without any stamina, then?"

"I've got stamina. Well, I thought I had. We've just been going at it a bit hard, and I'm a little sore, is all. And all that leaping about takes energy, you know. I could just molest you for a while if you want," he offered.

"Filthy man. No, I suppose you're right. We created a certain amount of chaos last night, all right. I suspect it's later than we think, as well. We didn't get to sleep as early as we usually do."

"And whose fault is that?"

"I dunno," she said, innocently, "we must have had intruders."

Colin let Shelagh go and clean herself up in the bathroom, then followed her, pulling on his nightdress as he climbed out of bed. Although the cottage was well-insulated, the temperature inside first thing in the morning was a little cool to be wandering about completely naked. He wandered into the parlour and over to the big window. It was daylight, but the view was obscured both by heavy mist and driving rain. The drifts of snow which had been outside the window had been sculpted into fantastic shapes by the falling water. He turned, as the sound and smell of frying bacon hit his senses.

"I took your point about using energy. Now you're more active I'm going to have to feed you up a bit," she said.

"Ah, not too much," he replied, "otherwise I won't be able to squeeze into those waistlines. In fact, you've probably been feeding me too much up to now, given that I've just been sitting around. Some of those skirts definitely feel tighter than when I first put them on."

"True," she said, nodding, "but once I've got you doing a bit of housework you'll soon get back into shape. Can you do that up completely, now?"

Colin had tried to put his pinny on, but couldn't quite tie it behind as his hands were still stiff.

"Not quite. Give it a day or two. Damn." The last remark was prompted by his right moccasin falling apart as he sat down. Shelagh came and tied his pinny, and picked up the offending footwear to inspect it.

"Hmm. The stitching's gone. I'm surprised it's lasted this long, actually. When I made these, I thought you'd be gone in a couple of days. I don't know if I can repair it. There might be enough of your old coat left to do a patch, or even replace that section. I'll have a look after breakfast."

Breakfast over, Shelagh got out her sewing kit while Colin washed and dried the breakfast things. She managed enough of a repair that he could wear the moccasins for a short while longer.

"I don't think these will last much longer. The other one's in not much better condition," she said.

"I've been thinking about that," Colin mused, "Would you say that your grandmother had bigger feet than you?"

"They were, actually," replied Shelagh, mystified, "why do you ask?"

"Because when we were putting those cases away the other day, I noticed a big box at the back which somebody had written 'boots and shoes' on. Worth a look?"

"You have these occasional flashes of brilliance, did I tell you? Yes, definitely worth a look. But it will still be cold out there, so we'd better get dressed first. Unless you want to wear the denim skirt again, I think you'd better try on one of those that we discovered yesterday."

The two skirts she'd washed the previous day had been hung up overnight above the range, removed before breakfast had been started, and hung over a chair while they ate.

"This one's till a little damp around the hem, and in any case it's too long for you at the moment," she said, holding up the bias-cut skirt with the grey plaid pattern, "but this other one seems okay." She held up the brown corduroy skirt with the box pleats. "Shall we sort your legs out?"

"No need, I did that when I was in the bathroom before," he replied, "but I do need to shave."

In the bedroom, she found him a ribbed roll-neck jumper in a colour which nearly matched the skirt, and helped him dress. She was forced to use one of the full slips they'd found in the case because hers were all too long.

"I look like a cheer leader," he said, twirling in front of the mirror.

"I don't think so," she replied, "you've far too many brains and these," she gave his cloth-stuffed bra cups a playful squeeze, "aren't big enough."

"You wound me to the quick."

Dressing completed, they went to the outbuilding, where Colin pointed out the box he'd seen. It was very large, three feet by two feet by one, and blocked in by a number of other boxes.

"This is going to take some time."

They laboriously heaved all the obstructions out into the parlour and stacked them, finally freeing the big box. Colin's gloved hands could just manage as they pulled the box free, disturbing dust, cobwebs and some spiders as they did so. Putting this box in a free space in the parlour, Shelagh peeled away the tape holding it closed, and opened the flaps. The box was full of boots and shoes, as the inscription promised. Some were still in their boxes, others just jumbled together.

"Before we get too involved, why don't we put some of this other stuff back," Colin suggested, "Otherwise we won't have much room to move, once we start unloading this lot. And it will give the contents of that box time to warm up a little."

The rest of the boxes were returned, but this time Shelagh paid attention to anything written on the outsides. One box that said 'old clothes' she made sure was at the front, accessible for the future.

"No, let's not get sidetracked. It'll only get you excited, anyway," she said.

"And you aren't interested, I suppose?"

"I have to admit to a certain curiosity," she acknowledged, "but we have to see if there's anything we can put on your feet, first. That's the current priority. Then there's the usual housework to tackle. We'll have plenty of opportunities in the future to explore all these boxes."

She left Colin to pull the footwear out of the box and attempt to assemble pairs while she went to the bathroom to do the morning's washing. She returned grumbling.

"I think I'm getting housemaid's knee from kneeling in front of the bath all the time. I'll be glad when we get the power back on. Then I can just chuck it all in the washing machine."

"I thought you said the pipes were frozen?"

"Trust you to find a hole in my plan. How are you doing?"

He had several rows of boots and shoes lined up in front of the big window, to get the best light.

"Fifty-four pairs, plus five odd items. Some of them are so worn that there are holes in the soles. Some look as though they might have been worn once, if that. Those are generally the ones still in their boxes, over there. But look at these." He held up a pair of navy shoes with a four-inch heel and an ankle-strap.

"What's special about these?"

"The size. They're smaller than practically all the rest. Do they belong to you?"

Shelagh's head spun. Her memory reached back...

"Yes. They might be mine. I vaguely remember a pair of shoes that got lost, but then I did have a wardrobe full. I would have been about sixteen, seventeen, maybe. Perhaps I accidentally left them here after a holiday."

"Don't just stand there, try them on!"

She slipped off her indoor mules, put the shoes on, and was instantly elevated. "Just a minute." She walked around the parlour, adjusting her gait as she did so. It had been a long while since she'd last worn any kind of heel. Like riding a bicycle. One never really forgets. They're a bit tight, but if I wear them in, they should probably be okay for occasional use.

"I'm glad I kept you. These will be going in my wardrobe as well. If I'd looked at the contents of this box on my own, I probably wouldn't have noticed that this pair were a different size, and just given them away with all the others. You're turning out to be useful as well as pretty."

She was only half joking. As she looked at him, kneeling on the floor in the close-fitting jumper with the pleated skirt spreading over his hips and thighs, she thought he looked quite appealing. This relationship was certainly becoming very interesting!

"Have you tried any of them on, yourself?" she asked.

"A couple of pairs, just for size. Some of them seem to be big enough, even though the sizes indicate smaller. Perhaps men's shoes use different sizing to women's shoes?"

Shelagh shrugged. "I don't know. I suggest you just triage them. Sort out the pairs that fit you and that you like, the rest that are good enough to pass on, and those that should be thrown away. While we've got them out, we might as well take the opportunity to sort through them. Oh, and I want you to make sure you have some with different heel heights. You might as well get used to wearing heels as you have the chance."

Colin ended up with eleven pairs of shoes and sandals, all of different styles and colours, and two pairs of boots, one pair being lace-up ankle boots and the other zip-side calf boots, both with two-inch heels. Some of the shoes were slightly worn and some were almost new, including a pair of black patent courts with a three-inch heel. For today, he'd chosen a pair of brown shoes with a bar and an inch and a half heel, to start out gently. For the previous fortnight, he hadn't worn proper shoes at all, so his feet had spread somewhat.

The unusable shoes, about twenty pairs, went in a refuse bag and the rest went in a smaller box, to be put back into the outbuilding. The big box went outside, folded flat. While Shelagh was disposing of that, Colin put the kettle on and made some coffee for them.

After coffee, Shelagh looked at her sewing equipment, still on the big table, her brow furrowed. Getting up, she went and fetched a spare bra of hers, plus the bag of old bras they had found the previous day. She pulled out the old bras and examined them, keeping two that had undecorated cups and putting the others away again. Then she asked Colin to hold her spare bra up by the ends, so that it was stretched out, with the inside uppermost. Into the cups she placed the cups of the old bras, eventually choosing one of the two bras. On this one she made some marks round the edge of the cups, and finally she cleared everything away except the bra she had marked.

"It occurred to me that I might be able to salvage something out of this old stuff," she explained, "To keep stuffing strips of linen down your front makes you look all lumpy, and it's not particularly realistic either. I'm going to cut the cups out of this old bra, and make two breast pads for you."

Suiting action to words, she snipped both cups out, then, carefully shaping them, stood them on a scrap of the linen she had made the pinnies from. Drawing around the outline, she adjusted the shapes till she was satisfied, then cut two bases out and sewed them round the edges of the cups. She left the parlour then, returning shortly with an old tin half-filled with grey sand.

"This is some sand that is left over from the last lot of builders, who used it to point the stonework when I had the big window put in," she said. "If I fill the fake breasts with this, it will be more realistic for you than if I just stuffed them with, say, padding from your old coat. I won't fill the shapes out completely, or it will look like you've got implants."

She almost filled one breast pad, then used her cooking scales to ensure that the other one had the same amount of sand. Finally satisfied, she carefully sewed the bags closed and bound over the edges to ensure they were sealed.

"Try these, now."

Colin lifted his jumper, pulled out the filling of his bra and replaced it with the two pads. He immediately noticed the weight.

"Do you really have this much weight hanging off your chest? I suppose you must. These aren't even particularly big, I hate to think what large-breasted women have to put up with. And I bet they get to weigh heavier as the day goes on?"

She nodded. "Sometimes, when I'm feeling really tired. But there are compensations. As I'm sure you've noticed."

"Oh, yes. It seems there are always trade-offs with body parts that seem good, or for that matter bits that seem bad. These are not wobbly like yours, but they give a better profile," he added, pulling the jumper back down and adjusting it, "It seems I'm not the only one who has the good ideas."

Colin found that the combination of extra weight on his chest, plus the added height from the heeled shoes, made him stand and walk differently. He experimented by wandering round the cottage, Shelagh watching him while she packed her things away to clear the table for lunch.

He's quite good, for a man. Now, if his hair grows out, and I can get him to do something with his voice, he could pass in the street without any problem. What am I saying? Do I really want a man who looks like a woman? What does that make me? Um. He's happy, he's discovered more of himself as a person, and he's a man where it matters, between the sheets. And I get something more than just an ordinary bloke. She nodded to herself. I'm happy if he is. And that, at the moment, is the important thing.

Over lunch, Shelagh asked, "When did you first realise?"

"About us?" She nodded. "The morning after I climbed into your bed, when I asked you to decide what you wanted of me. You were confused, so you asked me what I wanted. Up to that point, I hadn't even considered the question. The moment you asked, it all became clear, but I knew I had to tread very carefully. I'm sorry it had to happen that way. When did you find out?"

"Not until I kissed you." She blushed. "But really, my heart had known for a long time, it's just that my head was so wrapped up in it's own problems it wouldn't listen. I began to realise that something was going on when you made me describe the attack. I got tearful, and you looked genuinely horrified, and you just opened your arms, as any girlfriend would have done. The moment we made contact my subconscious realised I couldn't live without you. I think it was the physical contact. I've been so long without that sort of human touch."

"You've been touching me, if you'll excuse the phrase, since the moment I got here," Colin objected.

"It wasn't the same. Using your words, it was 'Nurse and Patient' contact, business. Dressing you afterwards, washing you, all that, was deliberately functional. What I got from you that day we talked was emotional contact, of a sort I'd forgotten existed. Then you instituted 'hugs and cuddles', and I was effectively lost. But I wanted you to stay here long before that."

Colin grinned. "'Hugs and cuddles' are still available, but you knew that anyway."

"And I shall take advantage at every possible opportunity," Shelagh replied.

They spent the afternoon taking as much advantage of the other's presence as possible. It was a peculiar arrangement that had arisen between them, almost no lust at all, just need, and surprise at the unexpected conclusion to recent events. All housework was neglected, Shelagh deciding that for once there were more important things going on in her life. The evening meal was 'freezer surprise', Shelagh remembering belatedly that she had been planning to make more bread today. However much I want to spend my days wrapped around him, we're going to have to get back into some sort of routine tomorrow, or we'll run out of everything. He's becoming more and more able to help me, though, and that will make the work go quicker.

They did wash and dry the dishes, though, and retired early - although not to go to sleep, initially - and eventually, after much gentle lovemaking, they drifted off, lulled by the rain which was still pounding down outside.

December 13th

Colin awoke, still slightly disoriented by wakening in a different bed. He was in a now familiar posture, though, flat on his back with Shelagh tucked under his left arm, her own left arm and part of her body draped across his chest, their legs in a seeming random tangle. It was still raining, but the sound was that of light drizzle, more accurately the sound of water dripping from the edge of the roof.

His movements roused her, and she lazily leaned over his head for a morning kiss. As usual, he let her go first in the bathroom, and by the time he had finished his turn she was pouring oats into a pot on the range. He went to stand by the big window, and saw that the landscape had changed, areas of raw rock showing between the remains of the drifts. The loch beyond looked larger and dangerous in the low morning light. There was a very light drizzle still falling, although the lighter sky in the west gave a hint of a possible drier afternoon.

Breakfast eaten and cleared away, Colin went back to the bathroom and removed the bandages which still wrapped his lower legs each night. After washing them, Shelagh came and inspected them, pronouncing them dry and blister-free.

"You can wear your tights today," she said, "which also means you can go back to wearing longer skirts. I think you can try the other of those we found, the grey one. Do you feel up to doing some housework later? I've got to get some bread ready for baking, I should have done it yesterday, but I got, ah, distracted, so your help would be most welcome."

"I'll see what I can do. Parts of my hands and legs are still sore, so I'll have to try things to find out how much I can do, but whatever you need, I'm game."

Shelagh lowered her eyelids. "So I've noticed. I've got vacuuming, endless washing, dusting to do, I'm sure I can think of other things, but that should keep you busy for a while. Now, do you want me to shave you today?"

"Yes, please. I know it sounds feeble, but I still think it wouldn't be a good idea for me to do it yet. You don't want to be mopping up blood in here if you can avoid it."

Since the cracked, dried skin on Colin's palms would have caught in the fine material, Shelagh put the tights on Colin's legs for him, with him sitting on the edge of the bed for the first part of the operation. She made sure that he understood how to do it properly, for when he would be doing it for himself. A grey roll-neck jumper, thicker than yesterday's, topped the grey plaid skirt they'd found in the old case. A pair of flat lace-ups completed the ensemble.

"You don't want to be wearing heels while you're doing housework, least ways not till you're used to them," she explained, "You'll probably be bending a lot, and I don't want you to damage your calves or your Achilles tendon, or possibly spraining your ankle. Leave the fun till later."

Shelagh dressed in jumper and jeans, then went out to the back of the cottage to bring in logs, while Colin, pinny applied again, started vacuuming the bedrooms. He was forced to give up fairly quickly as manipulating the heavy hose hurt his hands. Instead, he collected a duster and spent some time cleaning all the surfaces in the main rooms of the cottage. By the time he had finished, in the parlour, Shelagh was busy kneading dough on the big table.

"Sorry about the vacuuming, it was just too painful. I did manage to do my bedroom before I gave up, though."

"Don't worry about it," she said, "It'll come in time. If you don't try these things, you'll never know if you can do them or not. Fancy doing some washing? Give me five minutes, once I've finished doing this I'll show you where everything is and what to do."

Colin nodded. Shelagh obviously had a set way of doing things, and it made sense to see her methods and stick to them. He pulled out a chair and sat at the table. It took her longer than five minutes, but eventually she divided the dough into two, placed them in covered bowls to rise, washed her hands, and led him into the bathroom. She suggested that he start with underwear, since the turnover of that was quite high, and it was easier to deal with than some of the other things waiting to be washed. He knelt on an old folded towel placed on the floor, ran several inches of water into the bath, added detergent, and began.

Once cleaned, he rinsed the items and hung them on lines strung over the bath in order to let them drip. Later, they would be transferred to lines strung over the range to dry properly before being placed on a pile to be ironed. His knees were sore and his back stiff by the time he'd finished. When he re-entered the parlour he found that Shelagh had just made some coffee.

"I hate to admit it, but having my hands in water seems to be helping them to heal," he remarked as he sat down.

Shelagh considered, then said, "That's something I'd not thought of, but you must be careful not to overdo it. Too much damp can leave you open to fungal infections, remember, you've still got broken skin in a number of places on your hands. Another point is that every time you finish, you're using more moisturiser. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, we'd just get more, but of course we're not in a position to at the moment. So, thanks for the help, but we may have to limit it for the near future."

"Point taken. What else is there for me to do?"

"Not much. Go and relax for a bit. If the weather clears up some more, and you're still game, there's something out the back that needs doing. We'll have a look after lunch."

Lunch came, complicated by the fact they'd run out of bread. Afterwards, Shelagh led Colin to the back door and opened it. The rain had almost stopped, and the sky had lightened somewhat. It was the first time that Colin had clearly seen what was behind the cottage.

The end walls of the cottage continued back, the sections nearest the back of the cottage forming the walls of the outbuildings on either side. These outbuildings had roofs sloping inwards, and the roofs continued down to the end of the enclosed area forming covered 'stalls' on either side. The square yard thus formed was closed off by a wall of the same height running across the end, broken in the middle by a farm gate. In the yard stood two vehicles, both sheeted with tarpaulins, and, despite the rain, both still had caps of snow on top. The stalls on the left, behind the main bedroom, held a generator, a fuel tank and several large wooden crates, the remaining space being crammed with cut wood. The space on the right, on the parlour side, held the privy. Half the remaining space on that side was empty, the rest, nearest the back wall, was stacked with more wood.

"I want to move that wood on the right, so it's right up by the outbuilding door over there," explained Shelagh, "It's a thing I usually do when the stocks run down so far. That means that if, or should I say when, it snows again, I don't end up with a snowdrift between me and the wood. Are you up to it?"

"Moving that wood? I suppose so, but I won't be able to carry much at a time," he replied.

"Don't worry about that, neither will I."

"I'll go and get my gloves, then."

"No, don't wear those, you'll end up with them full of splinters. I've got a pair of old gardening gloves that should be large enough for you to wear. And you'll need something a bit more protective on your feet, perhaps you should try those ankle boots on."

"How warm is it? Do I need a coat, or something?" he asked.

"From experience, you should keep warm enough shifting logs. But I think I'll look out a scarf for you to wear, and a hat, I think. We shall be under cover, but there's still the odd drop of rain falling. Let's go in then and get changed, I want to shift those logs before it gets too dark."

So, with Colin wearing boots, gardening gloves, a scarf, and the red cloche hat, and Shelagh wearing her walking boots, a pair of old leather gloves, a scarf and a knitted beret, they started on the wood pile. At first he found it chilly, but after walking backwards and forwards for a while he soon warmed up. Wearing the boots was interesting, they had the highest heels he had tried so far, but the boot construction supported his ankles and made sure they didn't twist. He realised that he'd have to be careful not to get dust and debris from the logs on his clothes, so he resisted the temptation to pile logs up with one hand onto the other arm, and just carried a log in each hand.

"Good afternoon, ladies. Hope we aren't disturbing you."

The unexpected voice made them both jump. Crap. What do I do now? Fortunately for Colin, he was just about to place two logs on the new pile, so his face was turned away from the gate. Think, quick! What would a woman do? Turn around and smile, that's what. He suited actions to thoughts, but stayed where he was. Shelagh got over her shock at the interruption and put down the two logs she had been holding, walking quickly over to the gate. A man and a woman stood there, both probably in their thirties, dressed in walking gear, with medium-sized packs on their backs.

"Hello, there," Shelagh said, "Is there something we can do for you? Are you lost, perhaps?" Shelagh had had past experience of occasional people getting lost and hammering on the cottage door.

"We were expecting to end up at this village here," the man explained, pointing to a smudge on the map he held up, "We seem to have got our bearings slightly wrong. Can you direct us?"

"Oh, you're going to Saobhaidhe," Shelagh replied, "That's it, down there." She leaned over the gate and waved in the direction of the loch. The first few lights in the village were just visible. "It's an easy mistake to make, there's been a few people come here who've missed the path."

"Can we walk there along the lake-side?" asked the woman, pointing.

"Oh, no," Shelagh replied, "It's too dangerous." The woman looked at Shelagh sceptically. "It's true, it's too dangerous even for the locals to try, because of the loose scree. You're here, see? You'll have to go back, round the mountain, the path takes you through this valley here," Shelagh showed them on the map, "and that'll bring you to the top end of Saobhaidhe."

"Well, thank you for your help," the man replied, "Goodbye, and goodbye to you," he said, looking at Colin, who hadn't moved, but just stood looking at the group. Colin gave another small smile and a cursory wave. The two walkers went back the way they'd come, over the saddle which rose behind the cottage.

"How do you feel?" Colin asked Shelagh as she came back towards him. "Feeling twitchy?"

"No, not a thing," she replied, "but mostly one man on his own, or indeed with a woman, is okay. Was okay, I should say. Now her, that's a different matter. I didn't like her at all."

"I know exactly what you mean. There was definitely something about her that seemed unpleasant. What do you think they were doing out here anyway? Isn't it too dangerous for walkers at the moment?"

She shook her head, contempt on her face. "There's always someone stupid enough to be wandering around these parts, whatever the weather. It usually ends with the mountain rescue bringing them, or occasionally their bodies, down from the mountains. Actually, those two looked competent enough, but I wouldn't have thought the conditions were good enough yet for anyone to be roaming around. But what about you? It's your first outing in public. How did you feel?"

"Not a lot, actually," he replied, "I was shocked when the man spoke, I wasn't expecting it. But afterwards, while you were showing them the route on the map, I just felt, well, normal."

"And so you should! You look, and act, just like you purport to be, a woman of about my age. We might have been sisters, they're not to know."

They finished moving the logs just as the sky began to darken, and what heat there had been in the air began to drain away. They went in, and Shelagh immediately kicked her boots off and went to put the kettle on, whilst Colin picked at the laces on his own boots, happy to get them off. While he had not found them uncomfortable, it would take time to adjust to them as with any new footwear.

"Ow," complained Colin, as he joined Shelagh in the parlour, "My legs ache. As does my back, my shoulders, my arms and my neck."

"I'm not really surprised. You've spent a fortnight doing virtually no physical work at all, you can't expect to get fit again in an instant. Give it a week or two of light activity, and you'll be fine."

"Those cars in the yard. Both yours?"

"Oh. Yes," Shelagh replied, "The one on the right is an old Land Rover I inherited along with the cottage. It dates back to 1956, or thereabouts, a real classic but there's nothing wrong with it. My grandfather, old Robbie Fraser, bought it second-hand in the early sixties. The other one is a Honda CR-V I inherited from my mother. I tend to use the Landy for everything local, there's nowhere it can't go, it's so basic it just doesn't go wrong, and it's easy to mend when it does. However, it's got no creature comforts at all, no radio or heater, and it's extremely draughty, so I was persuaded to have the Honda for times when I have to go a bit farther. I have been as far as Aberdeen in the Landy, but unless it's high summer it's no fun at all."

"The cottage is more substantial than I realised, too."

"Yes, it was just a small croft until the Second World War, then the military took it over for some purpose, I don't know what, and built the yard out back. After the war it was used for a few years for keeping sheep, but the foraging isn't really good enough round here, so it went back to being a summer home."

"You get people wandering around the cottage often?" Colin asked. "I assumed there would be some privacy way out here, but it seems not."

"I usually don't see people from one month to the next," she said, "but you often get periods during the summer when people walk through. That's the reason I keep all the doors locked and I draw the curtains at night. I've never had any trouble here, though. I hope it stays that way." She handed him a mug.

Colin took his mug and went and sat on the settee, soon dozing off as a result of the afternoon's exercise. When he eventually woke again the smell of fresh bread was in the air, and dinner was being prepared. The rain, which had never entirely stopped, had returned again and was making a dull roar on the roof.

Over dinner, Colin remarked, "It's quite interesting observing you at the moment."

Shelagh paused, a forkful of food in mid-air. "Oh, yes? What prompted this?"

"I'm seeing a radically different side of you now, compared to how it was when I arrived," he explained, "It's almost as though you'd changed into a totally different person. Sort of like Nurse Jekyll into Ms. Hyde, although I hope not quite so lethally."

"And why not? You're the person who triggered that change, for which I shall be eternally grateful. I think on balance I would prefer to be just Nurse Hyde, and consign the Jekyll part to history, but I know that's going to take a good long while. And look who's talking! I'm sitting here in front of a man wearing a bra and skirt with all the trimmings."

Colin blushed. "Yes, I'd forgotten that. I've got so used to being dressed like this it doesn't seem strange any more. I guess I've as little idea of what's happening to me than you have of what's happening to you. We make a fine couple, don't we? Crazy man and crazy woman, or crazy woman and crazy person."

She looked at him speculatively while she chewed. "Speaking of 'all the trimmings' how are you getting on with those tights?"

"Quite well, actually, although I've been getting warm in parts I'm not accustomed to, and obviously my lower legs are a bit cooler than I'm used to. But compared to what it has been like the last couple of days, since I stopped wearing the bandages, I'm quite comfortable with the result. In fact, I'm quite surprised at just how warm this sort of clothing can be, considering it feels like I'm wearing next to nothing most of the time. The extra sense of freedom I'm feeling, well, that's a bonus."

She nodded. "On the rare occasion that I've had to wear mostly men's clothing, for moving house, decorating, that kind of thing, I've been surprised how bulky it's been while still not keeping one particularly warm. A lot of it was quite rough and scratchy as well, as I recall. Of course, women's clothing in the main isn't designed for heavy manual work, and most women don't do that kind of work."

Colin grinned. "I can't believe I just heard a feminist say that."

"I just spoke the truth," Shelagh bristled, "I didn't say that's how things should be, only that's how things actually are. On second thoughts, though, there are a lot of male jobs most women would probably keep well clear of. I do realise that there are physical differences between the genders, though, and some outdoor jobs just wouldn't suit women just as some other jobs wouldn't suit men."

The discussion continued through dinner, washing up and into the evening. When they retired for the night, however, the talking stopped.

*****

December 14th

When Shelagh awoke it was to discover that she was alone in the bed. It was just daylight, and, as the previous day, the rain had slackened right off. As she lay there wondering what was happening, Colin appeared with a cup of tea in each hand.

"Good morning! I thought I'd treat you to a lie-in. I have no idea what day of the week it is, as if that matters anyway, but I thought it was time I ran round after you for a bit. Here you are."

Shelagh sat up and took the proffered cup. Colin gently eased into his side of the bed, carefully holding his own cup to avoid spilling the contents.

"That's very kind of you," Shelagh said, after taking a sip. "I'd forgotten what it was like to have room service."

"Ah, don't expect this every morning," he said, "but I could make it an occasional habit. The range has had new logs in it, so once we've drunk our tea, we can get right on to breakfast."

"I thought there was an ulterior motive. You're hungry."

"Not at all! Well, I suppose, now you mention it, I could be. I'm quite capable of making porridge by myself, though. Anything else will take a little longer." Colin held up his gloved hands.

Shelagh put her cup down. "I can think of certain things you can do with your hands, whether they're gloved or not," she said, lowering her eyes.

"Do you need a demonstration?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she murmured, lying back down, "I've almost forgotten exactly what those certain things were. I think I need a refresher course."

The tea in their mugs grew cold as they made love another time. Breakfast was late.

After breakfast, Colin washed his legs in the bathroom and was shaved by Shelagh. She inspected his legs, and decided that the scar tissue had healed enough that Colin could now treat his legs in the same way as the rest of his body, that is, just wash them when he bathed.

He asked Shelagh to wash his hair, and when she had finished, she remarked, "You could do with a bit of a trim. It's easier when the hair's wet. Would you like me to have a go now for you?"

"I suppose so. What do you want to do with it? Do you want to put it in a female style?"

Shelagh considered. "I was just talking about tidying the back up, really, but it would make more sense, given the present circumstances. I can show you one or two different ways of doing it, if you like. It's still too short to do much with, though. You'd have to let it grow out for a month or two to give you a much larger choice of styles. That might suit your facial shape better."

"You can have a go. I'd be interested to see what you can do with my hair. It's not as if it'll be a permanent change, will it? If I don't like it, we can try something else. We must remember, though, a day will come when I'll have to leave, and I'll have to look like a reasonable facsimile of a male at that point. So try not to do anything that can't be undone in a hurry, or at least disguised."

"A day will come when I'll have to leave." Shelagh had been dreading those words, and her heart plummeted. Intellectually, she'd known that he couldn't stay forever, but she'd been avoiding even thinking about the idea and it's possible consequences. She'd been hoping that he might find reasons for staying, all the time understanding that he had his own life to live, and that this was just an interlude, interesting and exciting though it may have been. At least I've got him till the new year. A lot can happen between now and then, but I can't force him to stay if he doesn't want to stay. I wouldn't do that to him.

Colin had caught sight of Shelagh's face in the bathroom mirror.

"Shelagh? What's the matter?" He turned to face her.

"I don't know if I can bear to part with you," she said. "I won't stand in your way, but what will happen to me?"

"Nobody is planning to leave for a good while yet," he replied, holding her hand. "I wouldn't worry about something that's at least three weeks away, anyway. I think you'll find everything will work itself out the right way, in time. We've got Christmas to look forward to before then. Now, are you going to do something with this hair?"

Shelagh nodded, and went to fetch her comb, brush and scissors. She combed it all out from a point just behind where the hair had been singed off, so that it formed a semi-circle. In front of this she combed it forward to make a fringe. "That'll be better when the front part grows some more, but it will do for a start." The back and sides she trimmed evenly all the way round, shaping it high like a bob, and removing wisps which spread down the nape of his neck. Then she brushed it gently to give it some volume.

"If we had mains power, I'd get out my hair-dryer, but what I've done will probably dry in the right places. That's made you look quite different, again. One of the fun things about being female is changing your hair all the time. You can experiment with different looks, perhaps try different styles to go with different outfits, or at different times of day. Try leaving it like that, today. I'll have to brush it a bit as it dries, but you will be able to see what it looks like by lunchtime, I expect."

Since it wasn't easy to pull jumpers over his damp hair, he chose to wear the long-sleeved white blouse, and Shelagh suggested putting a navy blue tank-top over it for a bit more warmth. She also suggested that he try on a pair of her jeans, if only to prove a point. It turned out that he could only just squeeze his feet through the bottoms of the legs, and then the crutch was so low it made doing up the waist impossible, and moving about just marginally less so. He ended up wearing the Fraser tartan skirt over his tights, and decided to try a pair of black t-bar shoes with a two inch heel. The person who looked back at Colin from the bedroom mirror was unrecognisable. Even Shelagh was impressed by the transformation.

Colin spent the morning washing, under Shelagh's supervision, while she vacuumed and then prepared the evening meal, which would spend the afternoon slow cooking. By lunch time, they were both ready for a break, and readily sat down at the table for their soup and bread. The rain had stopped, and although the sky was still grey, it looked like the afternoon would be drier. Large areas of ground were now visible between the dissolving mounds of snow. The loch was huge, at least twice it's normal width, and the burn, seen from the window over the range, had turned into an angry brown torrent, many times it's normal volume.

"Do you fancy a small trip out, this afternoon?" Shelagh asked.

"How far?" Colin asked, cautiously. He was still not convinced that he could carry off any deception that was required, and he didn't want to go too far just yet.

"Just as far as your car," she replied, "The pole I put on it has fallen over now the snow's gone, and I think it could do with lashing upright. Besides, you ought to come and inspect the damage, see if anything useful has survived."

"A good idea. But why do you want to put the pole back up? People coming along the track can see the wreckage clearly, now, can't they?"

"You don't imagine there'll be no more snow this winter?" she asked. "It's not even Christmas, yet. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't have two, maybe three, more sessions of lying snow followed by rain before spring sets in. More if it's an unusual winter, which we seem to be having more of lately. That car will get buried just as before. I shouldn't think it's likely to get recovered before April, at the earliest, so it'll remain an obstruction for a good few months."

By the time they had finished lunch, Colin's hair was completely dry. He couldn't get over the change in his appearance, and how different his hair felt as he moved his head. He wondered what it would be like to have hair as long as Shelagh's, which reached about to the bottom of her shoulder blades, although he recognised that having hair that long would restrict what he could do with it.

Shelagh suggested that he wore the boots he had put on the previous day, and gave him the same hat and scarf to wear that he had worn the previous day. She lent him a winter coat to wear, one she usually wore to go to town, while she wore the outdoor jacket she usually wore while fetching logs from the yard. His coat was dark green, military-style, knee length, and fastened with three buttons from neck to waist. It was a little tight in the shoulders, but by keeping his shoulder blades pushed together he found he could fit it snugly. He found it strange that his torso should be so warmly wrapped up while his legs were still only protected by tights, but apart from a draught depending how he stood, he decided he didn't feel uncomfortable. She had also found him an old pair of sheepskin mittens which had stretched enough for him to wear.

Shelagh collected a length of old rope from a corner of the yard, and locked up the cottage once they had gone out the front door.

"I don't want any trouble back here while we're distracted over there," she explained, pointing to the car, the front end of which was just visible at the bottom of the crag. "It's funny," she added, "if you had stopped maybe ten feet further back up the track, behind the crag, I would never have come out to investigate, at least not until it was far too late. You've been extremely lucky."

"If you can call getting your legs and hands burnt 'being lucky', then I agree with you," Colin replied, disconcerted by the gentle breeze blowing up the back of his legs as they walked towards the wreckage. "It's strange, if anything at all had happened even slightly differently, we wouldn't be here together, walking like this towards what's left of my car. I'd either be gone or dead, and you'd be, what? Well on the way to being certified, possibly."

"Yes," she said, warmly, putting her arm through his, "I'm upset you had to get hurt, but I'm not upset about what happened afterwards. It was the one thing I needed to dig myself out of my self-inflicted pit." She pulled his head down and kissed him on the cheek.

When they reached the wreck, it was obvious what had happened. Several rocks, from a yard in diameter to half that size, had fallen from the crag, and Colin's car had run onto a smaller one, then smashed into the biggest, all invisible in the snow. The heat of the fire had discoloured and split the largest rock and crumbled others. The entire vehicle was just a shell of bright orange rusted metal, practically all the other materials having been burnt or melted. The rear of the car was split and twisted where the tank had blown. Only a tiny area of the tyres remained unburnt, where they had been in direct contact with the frozen ground. It was obvious at a glance that there was nothing that could be salvaged.

Shelagh tied the end of her rope to the window frame of the still-open driver's door, ran the rope round the door pillar and hauled on the end till the mangled door was nearly shut, then tied off the rope round both door and pillar. Picking up the pole, she asked Colin to hold it up as she used the excess rope to lash it upright to the door pillar.

"There! That's a job well done," she said. "Don't think you're going to find anything useful here."

"No," he replied, "I'd already resigned myself to that. No laptop, camera, chargers, clothes, shaver, anything. Oh, and a whole load of paperwork, including your contract, another one I got signed in Stornoway, and several proof copies of books. Thank goodness I wasn't carrying any manuscripts, I'd never have heard the end of it."

"It's not so bad these days, surely? Everyone has backups on their computers, don't they?"

"Yes and no. You still get the odd one who insists on doing it in pencil. And I know of a couple of authors who print them out, annotate them, then send the hard copy off. You can be a funny lot, sometimes."

"I suppose I deserve that," she commented, "but I think personally I've been quite reasonable. For an author, that is."

They stood admiring the scenery for a while. The roar of the swollen burn had made them raise their voices, so little was said as they took in the view. Then Colin had a thought.

"Where does your water come from? Not the burn, surely?"

"Oh, no, there's a borehole back up the hill behind the cottage," Shelagh replied, "That's the only way I can ensure the water's clean. You can see the burn's full of run-off from the moor, you can't use any of that without putting it through a filter plant. But there was a small spring up the back, so they just piped that and tapped off it. Oh, no."

The last two words were uttered when Shelagh caught sight of a lorry heading towards them along the track, the noise of it's approach drowned by the roar of the burn. She stood stock still as the strange vehicle neared and then stopped right beside them.

It was an odd-looking thing, with an immense ground clearance that Colin could almost see right under without bending, and was obviously all-wheel drive, with four huge, muddy, all-terrain tyres. The bed of the truck contained two power poles lashed down, plus a number of equipment boxes. The window nearest them wound down, and a man poked his head out.

"Would one of you two ladies be the owner of yonder cottage, by any chance? We've come to check your power line."

Colin had done his 'friendly woman' smile to the lorry man, but turned to Shelagh when she failed to speak. She had frozen completely.

"She is," he said, keeping his voice light. "You surprised us."

"Aye, the sound of yon burn is a bit deafening," the man said. "What happened here? An accident?"

Shelagh managed to find her voice, realising that if Colin said too much, he might give himself away.

"Hello," she forced out, "Yes, there was, a while back. At night, in the snow." As she spoke, she recovered her composure.

"Anyone hurt? Looks like a mess."

"He got out all right, if that's what you mean. Do you want to drive down, and we'll follow you. I expect you'll want to test the panel inside, you usually do before the power's restored."

"Aye. We'll wait for you down there." The window was wound up, and the lorry made it's way to the front of the cottage and parked. Two men climbed out. One climbed up onto the bed of the vehicle, the other stood waiting as Colin and Shelagh joined them.

"Jimmy here will go up the pole and check the transformer," the man explained, gesturing to his mate on the back of the truck. "I'll do the inside work. If you'll lead the way?"

Shelagh unlocked the front door of the cottage, but hesitated before entering.

"Could I see some ID, please? I don't doubt that you're who you say you are, but out here in the wilds it's best to make sure."

The man was surprised, but dug in a pocket and pulled out a plastic-coated card. Satisfied, Shelagh led the way in, saying to Colin, "Lynne, why don't you go and wait in the parlour? This won't take long, and there's not really enough room for all of us out the back at once."

"You sure?" Colin asked, meaning, you're sure you're happy being alone with this man?

"Yes, I'll be fine. It was just a bit unexpected, that's all."

She led the man along to the main bedroom, and out into the outbuilding behind where the electrical gear was located. Some tests, a conversation on a walkie-talkie to the man up the pole where the local transformer was installed, followed by a call on a satellite phone, and the test meter suddenly gave a reading. The man reset some circuit breakers, and the cottage had mains power once again. Shelagh led the way out.

"Is that all you've to do here?" she asked, "Can I make you and your mate a drink?"

"Thank you, no," the man replied, "We've two other outlying properties to do today, so we'd best be going before the light fades too much."

"Before you go, can you tell me if the road's in a usable state?"

"The part we travelled on, some is, some isn't. We came across the moor part of the way, following the poles as best as we could, so I couldn't say about the far end. What's your vehicle?"

"Land Rover."

"Ah, well, there were two flooded sections we came through, up on the moor. You could probably get through one, but you'd do best to wait a few days to let the water level go down before going all the way."

"Well, thank you again for restoring our power."

"That's what we're here for. Goodbye, ma'am. And goodbye to your friend, too."

The lorry drove away, and Shelagh shut the front door. Colin was standing just inside the hall.

"Are you all right? It was a bit of a shock to find that lorry just a few yards away, I must admit," he asked.

"Yes, I think so. As you say, it was a bit unexpected, that's what did it."

"Are you sure? I think you'd better come and sit down. I'll put the kettle on."

"Yes, okay, I think I will. But first, don't you think we'd better take our coats off?"

The first thing that Shelagh did, though, was to throw a pile of dirty sheets in the washing machine, the weather now being warm enough that the pipes were no longer frozen. By the time she had finished, Colin had made tea, and they sat at the big table drinking it and going over the incident.

"I must say, I might have frozen up, but I thought you handled yourself really well out there," she said. "You appeared to act quite naturally. I don't think they had any inkling you were not what you appeared to be."

"You might be right," he admitted, "but it's still all an act. I'd have to do it for a while yet before it becomes second nature." Do I want it to become second nature? "I didn't actually say that much, anyway."

"You do it all almost perfectly now. I'd say it has become second nature. The only thing you really have to think about is your voice, even that doesn't need much work, I think you're almost there."

Colin thought, then made sheep eyes, put a blank but expectant expression on his face, raised the tone of his voice, and said, "Hello! I'm Lynne and I'm staying in the cottage with my cousin Shelagh! How's that?"

Shelagh sprayed tea all over the table. "Oh, no! You wicked man, now look what you made me do!"

She hopped up from the table and looked for a cloth to mop the table with.

"Did I get any on you?"

"No, fortunately I just moved in time. Sorry, I shouldn't have done that while you were drinking."

"Serves me right. You don't need to do that! Although, I knew girls who looked and sounded just that dumb, which I know you're not. If you just lighten your tone a little, and speak a bit more softly so your voice doesn't grate, I think you'll have it. I think I need to coach you till you get it right."

"Okay," Colin said, "...cousin."

After dinner, Shelagh had a thought, and disappeared into the outbuilding behind the main bedroom, appearing some time later with several heavy books. She sat down and started looking through them. Colin watched her idly, his main attention being on the music playing from the small hifi unit.

"Ah, here it is," she said, finding an entry in a large book. She read it, and referred to several other related entries before handing the book to Colin.

"This is one of my student nursing textbooks from college," she explained. "It occurred to me that you might be in there somewhere."

Colin's first thought was that she'd found an entry relating to burns, but the entry read: Transvestite. Interested, he read the entry, then turned to read see also: Cross Dressing, and see also: Trans-Sexual. On reading the latter, he hurriedly clamped his legs together and shut the book.

"Eew! No thanks, I don't think I'll be going down that route any time soon. That looks a little... drastic."

"What on earth are you talking about?" asked Shelagh, who had no idea what had repelled Colin.

"The Trans-Sexual stuff. I don't think I'll be ready for surgery any time this side of Hell freezing over." He sighed. "On the other hand, if you'd told me a month ago I'd be sitting as I am now I'd probably have hit you. How one's ideas change! It just goes to show that you never can tell what the future has in store for you, and it's better not to prejudge what might happen." He pointed a finger at Shelagh. "That goes for you, too! Try not to upset yourself over things that might never happen."

"You're right, of course," she replied, "but with the kind of history I've had I can't avoid a little speculation about the good or the bad that might happen. Did you find those entries to be helpful at all?"

"Yes, indeed," replied Colin, leafing through the book to find the entry again, "It's helping me to make sense of what's happened to me, although it's a bit dry and obviously written from a strict medical viewpoint. Still, it's a starting point. Is there anything in those other books of yours?"

"I'll have a look. I knew there was something in that one, that's why I looked there first. One of these others is a psychiatric primer, I'm not sure you'll be flattered by anything it might say."

"We'll see. Any information is better than nothing at all, even if it's negative information. Say! Is your phone working yet? We might find out more if we can get to the Internet."

"My phone?" Shelagh realised that she had forgotten all about it. She went to the instrument, on the computer desk, and lifted the receiver. "I've got a dial tone," she said, impressed. "In theory, that means I can get on-line with the computer. Oh God!" she exclaimed, "The last time I got cut off I ended up with hundreds of emails to plough through. If I get on now, it'll take me hours to download them and sort through them."

"Leave it for now," Colin said, "we have plenty of time for that, and morning's probably a better time of day for hammering the Internet anyway. Let's just relax for now."

"Relax? You've just reminded me that I've sheets in the washer. I'll go and check them while you read those books."

The sheets couldn't be ironed straight from the tumble-dry cycle, so Shelagh hung them over the bath to air, then she came and discussed the most recent findings with Colin. He discovered that he was relieved by the information given, relieved to find that he wasn't a total freak, but shared his new interest with a larger portion of the male population than he would have believed possible. He retired with Shelagh for the night with a renewed sense of optimism, and he hoped that she did too.

*****

December 15th-24th

The next ten days passed in a blur of happy domesticity. By day, he was Lynne, Shelagh's friend, sharing the cottage with her as two women might. At night, even though he went to bed wearing a nightdress, he was very definitely Colin, Shelagh's passionate but gentle lover. As two people who have much in common often do, and as those who are attracted to each other often do, they started unconsciously imitating each other's habits and mannerisms, which meant that by Christmas Eve he had completely submerged himself in a feminine persona, at least in the tiny domestic setting of the cottage.

When the weather allowed, which wasn't often, they took short walks, around the crag, down to the loch, up the saddle behind the cottage, seeing no other person the entire time. It rained often, and eventually the snow returned, leaving around a foot of lying snow on the ground before the skies cleared and the temperatures plummeted.

The box labelled 'old clothes' contained exactly that. Unfortunately, the contents were of no use to them. There were two 1940's dresses, plus something in very fragile silk that looked like it might have been 1920s, together with some ancient girdles and two corsets that might have been Edwardian, all of which were far too small for either to wear. Colin suggested that, if any good, they could try to sell the items on eBay or somewhere similar.

Finally, Christmas approached, and a certain anticipation built around the modest celebration they intended to have on the day. Food had been prepared, and they retired to bed on Christmas Eve in a festive mood, ready for the morning.

*****

December 25th

When Colin awoke he was in a position which had become familiar to him, lying on his back, with Shelagh looming over him, her body propped upon his chest by her breasts, a smile upon her face.

"Good morning to you, man," she said softly.

"Good morning to you," he replied, "woman." Her face lit up and she lowered her head for a kiss.

"I hope your Christmas day is a good one," she added, "I'm sorry there's no card or presents, but at least we've a decent meal to look forward to, courtesy of the good doctor."

"No presents?" Colin said, looking disappointed, "but I thought that maybe later on, we could..."

Shelagh lowered her eyelids. "Why wait till later on? I could manage a present right now, how about it?"

"No argument from me. But," he added, "when do we have to put the turkey in?"

Shelagh pouted. "You spoil all the fun. I thought men were all supposed to have one-track minds, it's women who are supposed to be thinking of other things all the time."

He grinned, "Now whose stereotypes are showing? You're right, however, men do have one-track minds. It's just that mostly, they're fixated on food, not sex."

"Oh, very well, let's get up. But I shall expect some serious attention later on." She jabbed a finger at his chest. "Oh, and let's be a little less casual today. Let's dress before breakfast, and wear some tidy clothes. I want you to wear the blue Laura Ashley, it suited you when you wore it the other day, what you you think?"

Colin raised an eyebrow. "You're suggesting dressing up for today, hair, shoes, the lot?"

"Yes. It's a special day, why not make an effort? See how good you can look?"

"Very well, why not? I think I can just last out the extra hour it will take me to get ready before breakfast, but I shall be starving by then. What will you serve? An extra portion of gruel to feed my malnourished wasting body?"

She snorted. "Gruel? Hah!" Her eyes narrowed. "Actually, there's not a lot else to choose from. We've eaten all the eggs, and the only bacon that's left is going over the turkey. Having two mouths to feed is ruining my stocks, despite what I said a month ago."

"We'll have to 'think outside the box', to use a really horrible modern phrase," he suggested. "Got any kippers? Other smoked fish? Spam? Beans on toast? Pancakes? Waffles? Odd tins of strange things in your pantry?"

Shelagh nodded. "It's a thought, I'll have a look once I'm dressed." She swung her legs onto the floor.

"If you're going to be telling me what to wear, I thought I might make a similar request to you," Colin said. She turned her head, realising that she'd left him an opening, and wondering what he'd do with it. "Since I have never actually seen it on you, strangely enough, I would like to see what you look like in the 'posh' dress' today. I think that pair of blue shoes of yours I found would go quite well with it."

Her face fell. I hate that dress, it's old-fashioned. Perhaps that's not quite right, it may be more that I hated what it represented and that I was more or less forced to wear it. I can hardly complain, though, I've just asked him to wear a dress dating from the early seventies.

"What's the matter?" Colin asked, "Do you not like the dress? I'm sorry if it's taken me a long time to realise it, if that's the case. Have I misunderstood? You seemed quite happy to get me into it at every opportunity."

Shelagh wrinkled her nose. "It's not that. I think I've associated it with being made to wear something I thought was old-fashioned and then having to go to a function I didn't want to, to stand in a huge room full of people I didn't know, and get bored out of my mind, because there were very few people there my age. It's probably very silly, but that's the way the mind works sometimes." She came to a decision, and nodded. "There's nothing wrong with the dress itself, it still probably fits me, I'll wear it. It's high time I started laying some ghosts to rest, and I'll start with that one. Mind," she cautioned with an upraised finger, "because of the style, you'll not see me wear it very often. But you deserve to see me in it. Any other requests? No? Then I'll be off to the bathroom. If you wouldn't mind putting some logs in the range while I'm in there?"

Breakfast turned out to be porridge, followed by toast and jam, and specially for the day, ground coffee instead of tea. Both were wearing dresses, both had had their hair dampened and blow-dried into shape, and both were wearing heels, Colin's being the black stilettos. Both were also wearing pinnies to keep the food off their clothing. Since the morning would largely be spent preparing the main meal, the pinnies would remain in use until after they had finished eating dinner. The turkey was dealt with first. It was a very tiny one, since it would only be feeding two people, so it wouldn't take very long to cook. Once that had been put in the oven, they cleaned and prepared all the vegetables and sorted out all the little extras which go to make a proper Christmas spread.

A glass of wine mid-morning, and then they turned their attention to clearing and tidying the parlour. Shelagh had previously found some of her CD collection and they listened to carols and Christmas-related pop records while they set things up ready for the meal.

"Since you're the nearest thing we have in the cottage to a man -"

"That's not what you tell me in bed every night!"

"So, I humour you. Now, as I was saying, would you like to carve the turkey, or do you mind if I were to do it?" She held out the carving knife and fork.

"I'll do it! But just remember, you're stereotyping again. There's no reason why you couldn't do it."

"I find I'm becoming quite comfortable with the idea of having a man about the house, strange as it may seem. It means I've now got someone I can fob off all the dirty jobs onto."

"So, you're a feminist when it suits you and a feeble woman when it suits you. Talk about having your cake and eating it."

Shelagh smirked at Colin. "Yes, nice, isn't it? The lady of the house has to have some perks, after all."

Colin waved the knife in her direction. "Exactly where is the bird I'm supposed to stick this knife into?" he asked, with a glint in his eye.

"In the oven, from where I'm about to remove it," was the airy reply. "If you don't behave, you won't get any afters."

"Afters, eh? We'll see about that."

In the event, any 'afters' were somewhat delayed, since they had, as is customary, cooked and eaten so much food that they had both fallen asleep shortly after finishing dinner, both wakening stiffly as the light faded at the end of the afternoon. Colin yawned, stretching his arms to loosen them. He looked at Shelagh, still asleep on the settee next to him, and realised what a lucky man he was. What a catch! There was no longer any doubt in his mind where their relationship would end up, but he knew he still had to play his cards carefully until their situation was properly formalised, and to get to that state required Shelagh to make some further progress with her particular problems. Those issues could wait until the new year, though, so he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead until she wakened.

"Hello, beautiful."

Shelagh yawned. "Hello, you're quite gorgeous yourself, in case you hadn't noticed. Gosh, how long have we slept? What's the time?" She sat up and stretched.

"No idea. Don't care. Are you still full, or have you room for some Christmas pudding?"

She made a face. "God, the man does have a one-track mind! No, I've no room for much else. The pud can wait till tomorrow, or some other day. I will have some more wine, if there's any left."

Colin got up, switched on the light, then picked up the bottle from the debris still on the table and shook it. Finding some small amount remaining he tipped it into her glass, also still on the table, and brought it over to her.

"Note to self. Buy Shelagh a wine rack and some bottles, preferably full, to fit in it."

Shelagh took the glass and tipped the contents into her mouth. Then, using her free hand, she grabbed one of Colin's and pulled herself to her feet. She towed him over to the table and set her glass back down on it, then waved her hand over the contents.

"Pah! I think I'll be a slob tonight. Is there anything else we need to do before we retire? No? That was a rhetorical question, you understand. I've realised there's certainly one thing I've room for."

So saying, she towed him out of the parlour, switching the light off along the way.

*****

December 31st, 11:55pm

"I'm afraid I'm not a stranger, and I don't have a lump of coal, and it's certainly too cold for me to go roaming around outside at this hour of night, but I will wish that your coming year will be as happy for you as the last one ended up. Happy Hogmanay, darling."

"I hope I've brought as much happiness into your life as you've brought into mine. I hope that your happiness continues into the new year, as well. Happy Hogmanay, dearest."

*****

January 2nd

Satisfied with the results of his investigations, Colin shut down the computer and switched it off. He walked over to the big table, where Shelagh was kneading dough, and sat down in front of her.

"I don't think we can put it off any longer. Tomorrow, I want you to take me to Aberdeen."

Shelagh felt as though she had been stabbed. The moment she had long dreaded had finally come.

"Tomorrow? Does it have to be so soon?" she asked, unhappily.

"I've been looking at weather forecasts. It'll be more or less the same as we have now," he waved his hand in the direction of the big window, where a dull sky overshadowed a mostly snow-free landscape, "for the next three days or so, then the next batch of snow is due. If we don't get out now, we might not get out until the end of January. And you don't need to tell me that there are things you'll have run out of by then, so you do need to make a trip. There are things I have to do in Aberdeen, as soon as I was able, so it makes sense to combine a trip."

If I can delay him until the snow comes, he'll be mine until the end of January. But I can't do that, he's right, there are things we're getting short of, and I mustn't be selfish anyway.

"What do you need to go to Aberdeen for? There are closer towns we can pick up food and essentials." There was a burst of hope that they might get away with a trip to the nearest local stores, but Colin ended that immediately.

"No, I've got two cases in the hotel in Aberdeen which need picking up. There are some other essentials I ought to get as well, which can only be found in somewhere large. My main reason, though, is that I want to go shopping with you, to buy clothes for Lynne. We've struggled sharing the same outfits for long enough, it's time she had stuff of her own. The underwear department is particularly threadbare, I've only six pairs of briefs, two old cast-off bras, and some thirty-year-old slips we found in an old suitcase. It's time for some retail therapy, I like shopping in any case, so it shouldn't be a problem."

Shelagh stood very still, holding her breath. Suddenly, her imagined future appeared to be wavering like a mirage, ready to dissolve at the slightest wrong touch.

"Supposing we go to Aberdeen. Supposing we go shopping. What will you do then?"

What will I do then? Strange question.

"What do you mean, what will I do then? After the shopping, you mean?"

"Yes, after the shopping."

"I'm puzzled by your question. Why don't you tell me what you think might happen."

Shelagh's hands suddenly felt very heavy, and she looked down at them, to discover that she had torn the ball of dough in two, and each hand was deeply embedded in the halves, where she had involuntarily clenched her hands. She managed to merge back the two balls, and scrape most of the residue off her hands before replying, her spirits at rock bottom.

"Well, you could come back here with me," she began. Colin nodded. "Or you could catch a train and go back to your own place in Edinburgh." Is this the point I lose him? What happens to me then?

"You've missed a number of options," he said, gently. "Firstly, I could stay in Aberdeen, at the hotel I was at before, or for that matter, any city hotel. Alternatively, I could hire a car, and, having done that, I could either drive home to Edinburgh," she didn't like the sound of that 'home' meaning anywhere else but here, "or I could drive back here to be with you. Another thing I could do is to take you with me to stay with me in Edinburgh. I'm sure you'll like my flat."

The last option floored her, for she had never even considered such a thing. It was also hopeful, however, since it implied that she might have a longer-term future with him than she had feared would be the case.

"I thought you'd leave me," she said, her voice low. "Once you were well enough to go, I wondered -"

"I told you before," he replied, "but you obviously didn't believe me. I don't think I can live without you, and I'm not going anywhere without you by my side."

"Oh, Colin!" she said, tears streaming down her face. She ran round the table towards him, arms outstretched. Colin got up and back away rapidly.

"You keep away from me with those dirty hands! It'll take ages to get dough out of these clothes."

He was wearing the 'cheerleader' outfit of ribbed polo-neck jumper, box-pleated cord skirt and shoes, all brown, which both of them liked on him, and she stopped abruptly. She ran round to the sink and scraped most of the mess off her hands, wiping the rest on a tea-towel, before running to him and clasping him tightly.

"Oh, Colin," she said, again. "Perhaps I'm just not seeing things clearly at the moment. I've been obsessing over this moment since Christmas. "I'd hoped..." She paused. "Actually, I'm not sure what I had hoped. I was more frightened you'd go and leave me."

"Have no fear on that score," he replied, kissing her forehead, "You're stuck with me, like it or not."

She turned her face up to his. "Does it have to be Aberdeen? Can't we go somewhere smaller to start with? Oh, there's your cases, aren't there. Can't you leave them for a while longer?"

"Yes, it does have to be Aberdeen. And I think it's important for you to get out, too. If you are to lay your ghosts to rest, like you said the other day, you have to start somewhere. Don't forget that I'll be beside you all the way, so it's not like you're being thrown alone to the wolves, or anything like that. When was the last time you left the cottage, incidentally? Not including the ski trip you went on last month to tell people about me."

"I don't remember, exactly," she said, "it must have been when I went out to get the rest of my winter supplies. That would be round about the beginning of October, I would think. A lot of stuff I order over the Internet or phone and get delivered, but there are always a few things one has to sort out face to face."

Colin frowned. "Not good. You've slipped into a hermit-like existence without really realising it. No wonder you latched on to me when I appeared." Shelagh looked offended. Colin put his finger under her chin and lifted her head. "It doesn't matter, my love. The necessary spark was there between us, and that's all that matters. If I had been someone else, you might have handled things in a totally different way, but you got it right with me, and we're here, in each other's arms, which is the way things should be."

Shelagh nestled her head back onto Colin's chest, and said, "I am almost as frightened of going to Aberdeen as I was of losing you."

"I know, and that's a fear you must surmount the same way as you do any fear. But I have a possible way to soften the blow, so to speak. It depends on whether you can leave the bread making till later on."

"It's tricky, but it can be done. How long do I have to leave it? What do you want me to do?"

"We can go to that village at the end of the track," he explained. "What's it called? Achna something."

"Achnasuidhe."

"If we take the Land Rover, that will give us a chance to find out if the track is passable, and also give you an opportunity to buy some things in the village shop. Presumably you're familiar with the locals around here, so it shouldn't cause you much distress."

"You'll come with me?"

"Yes, of course. I'll be there to give you moral support."

"How will you go? As you are now?"

That stopped Colin in his tracks, because he had completely forgotten how he was dressed. Nobody knows who I am. I mustn't forget they're locals, though. They'll remember everything, so I have to get it exactly right. Am I doing this too soon? What the hell, let's do it. There always has to be a first time. And the example of me doing this might help Shelagh get through tomorrow.

"If you would like me to," he said slowly, "then I will. It's going to be a bit of an adventure for me, but it's something that has to happen some time, and this seems like a good opportunity. The locals all know you, I suppose." Shelagh nodded. "You'll have to be careful to introduce me properly, or they'll start putting two and two together and getting crazy answers. Can you deal with it if I get stressed during the trip? I don't want to put you under any extra stress of your own."

"Don't worry," she said, and pulled his head down to kiss him. "I'll look after you."

The dough was kneaded back into shape, and it was put in the cold outbuilding in a covered bowl to wait till they returned from the village. They took an early lunch, and then prepared themselves to go out, Colin wearing the coat, scarf, hat and sheepskin mitts he had worn the day the electric men had come. On his feet, for a change, he was wearing the long zip-side boots, which flapped round his narrow calves a little as he walked. Shelagh wore jeans and walking boots, as, she said, it would be better for her if they had to deal with any obstructions on the road.

The tarpaulin was pulled off the Land Rover and they both climbed in, the gate already being open. The engine coughed from disuse but then started, and they were off, only stopping to secure the cottage. The track wound round the crag and then climbed to the notch in the ridge. When Colin saw the terrain, he marvelled that he had managed to drive along the track at all in the poor conditions that day he had arrived. The track was almost entirely clear of snow, flood or debris, but there were still patches of snow visible on the moor. They drove to the junction with the village road, then turned right towards Achnasuidhe, which was some miles further on. Parking in the village, Shelagh led the way into the General Store.

"Mr Murray," she said to the man behind the counter. "Good afternoon to you."

"Why, it's Miss Fraser, isn't it? Haven't seen you for a good while. How are things with you?"

"Not too bad, thank you. We got cut off over Christmas, as usual. It's the first occasion I've had to get out of the cottage."

"Aye. And who's your friend? Haven't seen you around here before, have I, lassie?" Colin shook his head.

"Oh! Forgive me, this is my cousin Lynne, from Edinburgh, she's been staying with me for the last few weeks. It's meant some of my stocks are a bit run down, which is why I've come."

"Hello, lass."

"Good afternoon, Mr Murray," responded Colin, carefully.

"Now, what is it you need?" the shopkeeper asked Shelagh. She had no intention of buying too much at the shop, since the local prices were way in excess of what she could get from her usual cash and carry, but there were certain essentials that had been getting low: toilet paper, soap, washing powder, toothpaste, tea and numerous others.

Business transacted, Shelagh put the bags into the back of the Land Rover, and then suggested to Colin, "How are you feeling so far? What say you we stretch our legs a little before we head back?"

"How far were you thinking of going? I'm all right, though what I feel at the moment is more dream-like than threatening. There's a distinctly surreal aspect to this outing, for me."

"Good, I'm pleased to hear that you're okay. I was only thinking of walking the length of the village, that's all."

"I can deal with that, although you'll have to go slowly. I haven't done much walking of any consequence wearing these boots."

The two linked arms and wandered through the small village, Shelagh commenting on points of interest as they passed. Finally, the two arrived back at the Land Rover and climbed in. Shelagh started back towards the cottage.

"That was... liberating, that's the only word I can find to describe it," commented Colin, as they turned off the road onto the track. "I might not feel quite so confident if I were to walk around under bright city lights, with many people scrutinising me, but that little encounter went smoothly, don't you think?"

"I think you did really well. Of course, I didn't treat you any differently than I would a real girlfriend, so that may have contributed. The few people around just saw us as two women out for a stroll. Will you be going to Aberdeen tomorrow as Lynne, do you think?"

"I've been thinking long and hard about that, ever since we came out today. It would certainly be an intriguing challenge, but I think the answer has to be no. It had to be Colin who turns up to the hotel to collect his stuff, they know me there."

Shelagh had been hoping for a little 'female solidarity' for the trip tomorrow, which she decided she would have to attempt, whatever her feelings were. She understood Colin's reasons for his decision, though.

"What about yourself?" Colin continued. "Did you feel upset or anything while we were in the village?"

"No, I didn't. Perhaps I've been letting all this build up unnecessarily. Of course, there weren't many people about, and I knew all those we did see. But I think you were right, I needed to get back out into the real world, I needed to start rehabilitating myself. Thank you for suggesting going." She smiled warmly at him.

By the time they reached the cottage again it was completely dark. After putting the Land Rover away and going inside, Shelagh left Colin to put away their purchases while she got the dough back out and revived it. They had an early dinner, because the following day promised to be busy, and they had to make the most of the few hours of winter daylight.

Before retiring for the night Colin thought it might be a good idea for Shelagh to measure him up so that they could be sure any clothes that they bought would fit properly. Of course, they knew that in general most things that fit Shelagh would fit Colin, but there were differences, Colin being that little bit taller, therefore needing longer tights and longer hemlines, and also needing a larger bra size. After writing down all the relevant dimensions for reference they climbed into bed where Shelagh seemed somewhat subdued.

"I'm not looking forward to tomorrow," she said.

"One day in the future, you'll smile about tomorrow," he replied. "Don't worry yourself, I'll be with you and I'll help you get through it. Aren't you looking forward to a bit of shopping?"

"Well, yes," she admitted, "but it's everything else."

"Everything? Everything? You can't be serious."

It was the first night that they didn't have sex before going to sleep. Colin understood, and just held her close until she drifted off, her tears making a damp patch on his nightdress.

*****

January 3rd

Colin woke, feeling the comforting softness and warmth of Shelagh's body jammed against his. He lay in the darkness for a time, deciding which outfit he would wear today, until the realisation came that he couldn't wear any of them. This was the day, and he'd have to return to being a man again, so his choice of clothing was pre-ordained. There was a very faint greyness in the room, so he knew that it was just dawn, and they would have to prepare themselves for what could be a long and possibly difficult day. He gently shook Shelagh until she came blearily awake.

"Huh?"

"Rise and shine," he said quietly, "time to get ready for your big adventure."

"Um. Slave driver." She came to properly, and they spent a few minutes kissing before she finally climbed out of the bed and disappeared into the bathroom.

Colin followed her a few minutes later, as he heard her go into the parlour and start feeding logs into the range. He could now shave himself, and he made sure that he looked respectable. He dampened down his hair and carefully combed it to resemble the style he had sported when he had arrived. In a little more than a month it had grown, but not excessively so, and he thought that he could get away with it at the new length. Moving into the spare bedroom, he lifted the box containing all the 'man clothes' onto the bed and looked at it. Except for the vest and boxer shorts he had been wearing when he had arrived, the contents were still wrapped as they had been the day they had been delivered, untouched and unopened. He set to work opening packages and clipping labels.

Why did I ever think that boxer shorts were comfortable? I just can't get them to sit right. They're bulky, too. Don't like this vest, it doesn't fit properly. This shirt is all horrible and scratchy, and billows everywhere. Of course, it's just what the doctor found for me, but he got my size right. Have I really been wearing stuff like this all my life? Socks. Well, socks are okay I suppose, but they make my legs feel funny, the absence of something touching them all the way up. The trousers feel odd, too, too tight on the hips and I can't get them up to my waist. Do men really wear trousers way down here? If I have to wear men's things in the future, I'm going to pay much more attention to material and fit. How do men put up with this?

He walked into the parlour and said, "What do you think?"

Shelagh turned from the range and was just able to stop herself screaming. There's a man in my cottage! Then her brain caught up with her senses. Of course there is, silly. The porridge spoon had clattered onto the range, and she picked it up and put it back into the pot. She looked at Colin, still shocked. He took one look at her startled face and took a step back.

"Whoa, there! It's only me." He realised that he hadn't considered what his appearance might do to her. This was followed by the realisation that she hadn't seen him dressed properly as a man, other than the night of the accident, for a year and a half, and then only for a brief time.

Shelagh made the pot safe, then slowly came round the big table towards him, uncertain. Was this the real Colin, the one she had been trying to avoid? He opened his arms.

"Hugs and cuddles?" he said, anxiety on his face.

She walked towards him slowly, as though approaching a wild animal. At the last moment, she raised her arms and touched his shirt, almost flinching as the material met her hands. Then realising that he was still the same person, she slowly put her arms around his waist. She promptly found another alien thing, his chest was flat. Even though she was used to it when they were in bed, she found the whole experience unsettling, having become used to his breast pads if they embraced whenever he was dressed.

She looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

"It's still the same old me," he said, softly, "I told you, you're not getting rid of me that easily. I just decided to wear fancy dress today, that's all." He lifted her chin and kissed her.

She had known subconsciously that this would have to happen, but she had made no effort to prepare herself for it. Now, satisfied that the person standing before her was the same person she loved, she was able to accept what needed to happen to her to allow her to progress. She kissed him again, and then returned to the range.

Colin washed up after breakfast while Shelagh dressed, and then they went out into the early light in the yard. He pulled the tarpaulin off the Honda and folded it, stowing it in one of the empty stalls while Shelagh opened the gate. They climbed in and set off, making sure as before that the cottage was secure.

Forty miles later, they approached the city. Passing some superstores, Colin remarked, "We can stop at one of these on the way back and fill up with food and other domestic items. That'll save us having to carry stuff round the streets today. We'll have enough to do as it is."

"Okay. Where do you want me to take us now? Do you want to find a park near the main shopping area?" Shelagh asked.

"I thought first we'd go to the hotel. We'd better get my two cases, then we'll have an idea how much room we'll have for goodies."

Colin directed her through the streets to the hotel where he usually stayed when he travelled in this part of Scotland. She parked in the hotel car park, and they climbed out.

"You coped with that drive remarkably well, I thought. How do you feel so far?" he asked.

She replied, "The open road was okay, but I know it takes a while getting used to all the traffic, especially as we got closer to the city. I'd forgotten how fast everyone drives. I should be all right to drive home, though."

"We could be quite tired by the time we're ready to leave. If you like, we can stop here overnight and go back tomorrow, if you think it'll be too much for you."

"Let's see how I get on. We've barely started the day, yet."

Hand in hand they walked into the foyer, Colin heading for the concierge desk.

"Good morning, Mr Anderson! It's good to see you. After the last call we had about you, I wondered whether we'd ever see you again."

"Hello Gus!" Colin shook the manager's hand. "I wondered myself, at the time. This is the lady who saved my life, and who's now my partner, Miss Shelagh Fraser. Shelagh, this is Gus MacDonald, day manager of this fine establishment."

The manager's eyebrows had risen at the word 'partner', and he shook Shelagh's hand. "Nice to meet you, miss." Then, to Colin, he asked, "How bad was your accident? The man who telephoned said you were injured."

"Yes, I was being an idiot and driving through a snowstorm. My car hit a rock and caught fire. Here, have a look at my hands." He showed Gus his hands, and the manager whistled when he saw the burn scars. "I have some burns on my legs, too. Fortunately, Miss Fraser here is a trained nurse and knew exactly what to do." He blushed. "Then, we were snowed in for three weeks, and the rest is history."

"Aye, he's a fortunate lad to pick up such a fine lass as yourself," Gus remarked. It was Shelagh's turn to blush. "Well, it'll be your cases you're after, if you'll come this way, there's a store-room where we keep such things."

Colin lifted his cases onto a small table and opened them one by one.

"Ugh! Mostly washing, I'm afraid," he apologised to Shelagh. There were several clean shirts plus underwear left, so Colin thought that he had enough male clothing to last - assuming that he actually needed any. There was little else of any use in either of the cases. He closed the cases and stood them on the floor.

"If you can bring one of these out to the car, Gus, I can manage the other."

As they were walking to the foyer, Colin asked the manager, "Where's the nearest car park to here? We need to leave the car somewhere while we go shopping."

"How long do you plan to be in town?"

"All day, probably. Why, is that a problem?"

"It might be. You do realise the January sales have started? I doubt you'll find a car park space for miles. Why don't you leave your car here? I'll keep an eye on it for you. It's not as if we don't know you, after all."

The group stopped. Neither Colin or Shelagh had thought about the significance of the time of year, and were grateful for the manager's offer. They returned the cases to the store-room, and thanked Gus profusely before they hit the streets.

On walking towards the shops, both Shelagh and Colin discovered, separately, that their recent experiences made them view the other people around them in a different way. Shelagh began to see that instead of all men representing a danger to her, they were mostly ignorant of her presence and interested only in their own affairs. Colin in turn began to see men and women differently, observing women from a completely different point of view to that of most men, and viewing men as oblivious to what was in front of them most of the time.

Colin's first call was at a mobile phone shop, where he obtained a replacement charger for his phone. Following that, they made a bee-line for a pharmacy where Colin had set up a repeat prescription for the moisturiser, and collected four more tubs. Then, they systematically went through every shop that sold clothing, fashion items, underwear and everything else they could think of. They returned to the hotel part way through the morning to dump armfuls of shopping bags with the cases, amusing Gus. Once Shelagh had got over her initial shock of seeing so many people in one place, following her isolation in the cottage, the lure of the sales proved too much and she threw herself completely into the fray. The only thing that showed her concern was her tight grip on Colin's arm as they walked around. By lunch time they were exhausted, and found a department store restaurant to have a meal in.

"Well that went well. How are you feeling, now?" Colin asked, in the crowded restaurant.

"I think I'd have preferred somewhere quieter to start with. I'd completely forgotten the sales would be on."

"So had I. I'd have done things differently if I'd realised it was going to be this packed."

"I'm managing, so far. In fact, the fact that there's so many people may be helping. There's supposed to be safety in crowds, isn't there?"

"I think that's what they say. Now, I'm no judge, but to me you look as though you're having a whale of a time."

"I am somewhat. I used to love the sales, I'd go with all my mates and have a ball. How about you? Is this the first time you've been female-style sales shopping?"

Colin pulled a face. "I used to get dragged around by my mother when I was a boy. I didn't like it at all, then. Today seems different. Perhaps it's because I'm actually looking for things for myself. And with your good advice, I'm beginning to understand what to look out for, and what to avoid. What suits me, and what doesn't. We've picked up quite a lot of stuff already, you've bought a lot of things too. How much more do you think there is to do?"

Shelagh spluttered. "Pitiful male, you have no idea. We've barely scratched the surface. True, you've now got some skirts, blouses and tops of your own, even a couple of dresses and a suit," she raised a startled glance from the woman at the next table, who steadfastly ignored them afterwards, "you've got bras, briefs, tights, two scarves, a pair of gloves that fits you, not me, what else? We haven't started on the rest, yet. There's cosmetics to find, hair products, a hat or two, handbags, purses, some jewellery, bangles, brooches, necklaces, that sort of thing. I don't think we'll have time to get your ears pierced today -" The woman at the next table had had enough, collected her things and left. Shelagh giggled at her retreating back. "Serves her right for eavesdropping. Now, where was I? Oh, I'd had an idea. I think I'll buy you a suspender belt as a present, along with some pairs of stockings."

"When we were looking at tights, earlier, you told me that stockings were old fashioned. Why the change of mind?"

"Nurse Fraser thinks they might be better for you. You have equipment down there that shouldn't get too warm, unlike myself. Stockings may be an answer to that. You can mix and match with tights, I wouldn't suggest wearing one or the other all the time, it depends on circumstances."

"Do you wear stockings any more?"

"I did once upon a time, when I was a first-year student. A lot of us did it to wind up the patients. There are probably laws against that kind of thing now. Hmm. I'll take your implied hint, and maybe buy myself some. We'll see."

At the cosmetics counters Shelagh insisted on buying an absurd amount of items. Colin finally realised that firstly, she was buying for herself as well as him, and secondly, that they would both need to experiment in order to find combinations and styles that suited each of their skin types and facial features.

"Normally, you're told not to share cosmetics, because they can harbour bacteria which can get transferred from person to person. I don't think that there's anything you've got which you haven't already passed on to me, or vice versa, so that shouldn't be a problem in our case."

"I can think of one thing I've got, that you haven't caught yet." She looked questioningly at him. "Though not from want of trying." He raised an eyebrow.

She looked at him demurely through her lashes. "Ah," she murmured, suddenly happy, "perhaps we'll have to try a little harder."

She bought him a complete manicure set, a hair dryer, heated rollers, brushes, combs and other similar gear, explaining that while he was free to use hers while at the cottage, he would need his own set in Edinburgh, "So that I can borrow them when I come to stay."

At the last minute he remembered, and they had a frantic dash round till he found an electric shaver to replace the one destroyed in the fire. Finally, with another double armful of bags each, they made their way back to the hotel.

"My credit card doesn't know what's hit it," Colin said as they loaded up the car. "It's just as well my spending for last month was zero, or I'd have had to think carefully about where the money would come from."

"You're not short of money, surely?"

"No, but we had a bit of a blow-out today. There's only so much elasticity in the system. It'll be fine." He realised that from now on, his financial circumstances would be of interest to Shelagh. He surveyed the pile of packages in the boot of the car.

"We bought a lot of stuff between us today, didn't we? How much more is there likely to be?"

"We've still got big gaps," Shelagh replied, "we'll have to try out what we've got, and find out what works and what doesn't. We haven't got you a winter coat yet, those raincoats we bought won't keep the cold out, they're more for spring wear. You need a pair or two of jeans, for when we are out and about away from the cottage. No Housecoat or nightdresses. Fortunately, you've got a good selection of footwear already, but you'll need a pair of house shoes or mules like I've got. We'll probably need two or three more trips, spread over the next couple of months, weather permitting, of course." She thought. "You're going to have to buy and put together a new wardrobe, I think, to keep all your new clothes in. Once started, it's never ending."

On the way home, having raided a superstore in passing, Shelagh said, "I think I did better today that I expected. You were right, it's done me the world of good. As I said earlier, I think the crowds helped. It might not be so easy for me if I was on my own, or with a smaller number of people around. But you'll be there to help me, won't you?"

Colin reached over and squeezed her nearest hand. "You can count on it."

"I've been thinking," she continued mischievously, "maybe when I go for my interview at the clinic, I'll ask Doctor Ferguson if they've any openings for receptionists."

Colin was just about to ask why she was considering doing a non-professional job when he realised that she wasn't talking about herself. He was startled by the notion that he might get a job as a female, that he could live and earn full-time as a woman. Well, that would be a bridge to cross in the future. First of all, he had to make sure of that future.

As they turned onto the track, he could see that Shelagh was thinking deeply. Strange expressions kept flitting over her face, then clearing. He decided not to interrupt whatever was going on.

They pulled up behind the cottage as the light was going. Colin opened the gate, Shelagh drove in, and they began the process of unloading the car, food and other perishables first. Finally, all was stowed inside, the clothes mostly dumped on the bed in the spare room. Colin shut the back door and then went and opened the front door to stand just outside, watching the evening glow over the mountains. The edge of the cloud had lifted, showing the last of the sunset, and it promised to be a fine, if cool, evening. Shelagh came and joined him, curling her arm around his waist.

"Hello, man," she said, "my man."

"Tired?" he asked.

"Oh, absolutely," came the reply, "but I think I might be able to manage to do some remedial exercise a little later, after we've eaten."

"I can't imagine what you're talking about," he said, innocently. "You were having deep thoughts in the car," he added, "I didn't like to disturb you."

"Oh, that. Yes, I was thinking, the sisterhood got it all wrong. They looked at life from the angle that men considered women to be possessions, not equals. I don't think it ever occurred to them that it could also happen the other way round. You're mine," she said possessively, squeezing him tightly, "even though I know I'm yours, as well, and that doesn't worry me at all, to my surprise."

He put his arm round her shoulder. "I'm glad you feel that way. I can't imagine being in any relationship where the two parties were unevenly matched, although I know it does happen."

"I was also thinking, in the car, that I'm not independent any more. I'm dependant on you, and I find that strangely, I've no problem with that either."

Colin pondered a little in silence, savouring the sunset, then said, "I think you're taking too harsh a view of the dependence/independence business. It's not a black and white thing, one or the other, there are shades of grey between, maybe even colours. Listen to me, getting lyrical! For example, we could have a partnership. In fact, I would like to propose a partnership, an equal partnership between you and me, split fifty-fifty, right down the middle. Actually, I think what I am saying is, I propose. Shelagh Fraser, will you marry me?"

Shelagh thought back, from her nursing career, her attack and her increasing isolation, from their first brief meeting, to his sudden arrival, injured, in the snow, of nursing him back to health, their gradual coming together, the blossoming of Lynne, their first kiss, the blissful weeks that followed, his smile, his good advice, his warm and loving hands, his sense of humour, the happiness he had given her, the security he had brought her. She thought of the future that beckoned.

"Yes," she said, "I will."