Runaway Actress by Victoria Connelly Page A

rider below. She remembered feeling as if she were an angel peeping down from the heavens and – oh! – how she’d dreamed of flying down to land on the back of that bike, to wrap her arms around his thick leathered waist and press her face against his broad shoulders. But, even if she had, he wouldn’t have noticed. She was just Hamish’s little sister.
    For Maggie, there had never been anyone else but Mikey. She’d had her share of boyfriends, of course, from Alexander Brodie – the biggest cheat in Strathcorrie – to handsome Craig MacDonald who’d camped by the shores of the loch one summer, made Maggie fall in love with him and then left without so much as a goodbye.
    No, there wasn’t a man in the whole of the Highlands who could compare to Mikey. She’d been in love with him for as long as she could remember. It probably dated back to the time when she’d been seven years old. She’d followed Hamish and Mikey into Sandy Macdonald’s garden and had watched as the two boys had climbed the old apple tree. It was a favourite hiding place and Maggie had been determined to follow them up there but she’d only made it to the first branch before falling, scraping her knees and hands on the way down. Hamish had shouted at her, knowing that he was going to get the blame from their parents but Mikey had been so sweet and attentive, cleaning up her grazes and drying her tears.
    ‘Are you all right, our Maggie?’ he’d said to her, and it was a greeting that he still used to this day.
    Looking in the mirror now and catching sight of the tumbling mass of curls, she couldn’t really blame him for never getting much beyond that greeting. He always asked after her but that was the beginning and the end of it.
    ‘I look like a sheep. A wild woolly Highland sheep,’ she said to herself. ‘And he’s a panther. A beautiful, sleek, muscular panther.’
    She stared at her reflection. There was no way that a woman like her could ever hope of getting a man like Mikey. She’d seen the type of girl he hung out with. Like Miranda from her year at high school. Beautiful, svelte Miranda, with the shoulder-length blonde hair that hung straight and shiny. Or that woman she’d once seen him with at the Strathcorrie shoe shop. She’d been trying on a pair of impractical red stilettos and Mikey had been helping her to balance as she placed her perfect petite feet into them.
    Maggie just wasn’t made the same. Her hair would never be straight and shiny and her feet were made for walking boots rather than anything with heels.
    Unless …
    Maggie opened the wardrobe door and her eyes fell upon a row of shoes that lay hidden from the world. They’d belonged to her mother and she had always been far more fashion-conscious than Maggie. There were three pairs of strappy sandals: one in cream, one in tan and one in black with a sweet diamanté clasp. Maggie’s hands reached out to the black pair. She was the same shoe size as her mum had been and hadn’t been able to bear to part with the shoes when her mum had died. She’d been much too young when she’d died from cancer but had always lived life to the full and the shoes seemed to hold the whole of her mother’s personality in them – her frivolity, her joy, her laughter and her passion for living. She might have only ever been a shopkeeper’s wife but life had never been dull for Cora Hamill. She’d bagged carrots whilst wearing cashmere, and stacked cans whilst wearing satin. So why shouldn’t Maggie – just for one evening?
    The next twenty minutes were a whirlwind of activity as Maggie blow-dried and spritzed her hair, sprayed herself with perfume and tried on everything in her wardrobe that was deemed half-decent.
    Finally, she placed stockinged feet into the beautiful shoes and took a look at the results in the mirror. The simple black dress with the long sleeves and plunging neckline had the most startling effect on her figure. Normally a jeans and jumper girl,