Lord of the Isles: International Billionaires VIII: The Scots (20 page)

Lilly chuckled, pulling him back to her and his present.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” She glanced over her shoulder, the paddle lifted in one hand, her provocative mouth pursed in merry bewilderment.

“Watch me for a while.” He dug into the water, loving the feeling of using his muscles once more. She’d accused him of having some extensive workout room in his castle, but in reality, he’d only kept in shape by doing the remodeling. He hadn’t done much of anything for the last couple of months, and the ache of his muscles yelled the knowledge at him.

Swinging the paddle to the other side, he dug in again, pushing the canoe past the point of the island where his castle stood, and onto the open ocean. Her gaze never left him, and he wondered if the heat of his skin was more because of her perusal than the exercise. Likely, it was because of both.

The heat, the life, the lust exploded inside him, making him take in a deep breath of air.

She gave him a sudden, jaunty smile. “I think I’ve got it.” Turning, she dipped her paddle into the water and promptly lost it to a wave. “Crap.”

A big laugh boomed from his belly. Iain threw his head back and let it come. Let his whoop spread over his water, let his euphoria grow inside, let himself take in the present without the past.

“Stop laughing,” her surly voice came from the front. “I can’t get it.”

He opened his eyes in time to head off catastrophe. “Don’t, Lil. Don’t move.”

“What?” She froze in a crouch, leaning way too far out of the canoe.

“Sit down.” He barked the orders in a familiar, hard voice.

Like his men, she responded instinctively, sliding onto her seat. “You don’t have to turn all commander on me,” she grumbled.

“I do if I don’t want to have to fish ye out of the sea, as well as your paddle.” Scooping the thing out of the water when it passed, he lifted it across the boat. “Here. And this time, hold on.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

He laughed again.

L
illy soaked
in the sound of his happiness. He’d given her a surly laugh and an ugly laugh. But this laugh blew all of those previous ones away, replacing it with a laugh she wanted to hear over and over. Every day. For the rest of her life.

For the rest of her life.

Jerking her focus off his joyful face, she turned to stare at the waves in frozen horror.

When had this happened?

When had she fallen?

“Come on,
donas
.” His cheerful voice came from behind her. “Don’t make me do all the work.”

She stared at the paddle in a daze. How could this be? How could she have traveled a million miles, eaten with a thousand people, seen amazing sights and heard astonishing sounds, and never once had her heart been in danger?

Never once.

Not until this moment.

“Are ye okay?” His voice went tentative.

No, she was not okay. She was very, very not okay.

“Lilly?”

“I’m fine.” Gripping the paddle’s handle in a tight grip, she stuck it in the waves.

“Ye don’t have to attack the water. It’s easier if ye work with it.” His voice came again, this time mild and serene like the man had not a care in the world.

Which was patently not true.

She’d come to be friends, friends only. She’d come to offer him help, not her heart. She’d come to make sure he got well, not get her.

She slapped the water once more, sloshing a wave over the edge of the canoe that drenched one of her legs. “Crap.”

“
Shite
.” His voice, the voice she’d heard in every variation—tough and angry, hoarse and anguished, teasing and sultry—that voice went straight to remorse, making her hurt inside. “Don’t do anything, lass. Let me do the paddling before ye do more damage to yourself.”

His fault.
She could practically hear the words swirling in his head.

Damn him.

She’d fallen in love with a man who could be the poster boy for responsibility. A man who took on too much and felt too deeply. A man who was exactly opposite of everything she was.

Fallen in love
.

She poked the paddle into the sea again, whacking at the water as if it held her stupid, stupid heart. How could she have done this to herself? How could she have fallen into a trap as deadly and disastrous as the one her mother had fallen into twice with horrible results each time?

“Do ye ever listen?” That voice of his was filled with exasperation now.

Yes, she had listened well.

She’d listened as her father and mother fought and fought until they’d finally broken up when she’d been five. She’d listened to the unfamiliar roar of New York City overwhelming her child ears for the months and months she’d grappled to find her place in this new home her mother had chosen. She’d listened to the marriage vows her mom had taken with her stepfather, knowing she was losing her in some unfathomable way her nine-year-old self had understood with a naїve instinct. She’d listened to the cries of her two sisters when they’d been born and she’d felt like she’d been replaced.

She’d listened. Her entire life.

Which was why she’d made a decision at a very early age. Love wasn’t a good thing for her. Love took too much. So she loved sparingly and carefully, and mostly not at all. She’d grown a thick ring of thistles around her heart to keep her safe and secure.

She loved her dad.

She loved her mom.

And she loved her sisters.

Because she couldn’t help it. They’d burrowed into her childish heart before she’d made what she called her love decision. She lived with the knowledge, and parceled out her devotion in careful bits so they wouldn’t depend on her too much. Wouldn’t ask too much. Wouldn’t need more than she could give.

“All right,” Iain grumbled from behind her. “If ye insist on getting yourself as wet as a scalded cat, then if ye wouldn’t mind switching to the other side, that would work to get us where we need to go.”

Lilly paddled and paddled, blindly focusing on the waves of the sea and the shrill calls of the seagulls. She blanked out her new reality, because she couldn’t see her way back to her safe place. The place where she took photos of happiness and love instead of participating in the bewildering practice.

He went silent behind her, much to her relief.

The waves went wilder as they pushed past Somairie. They circled around the last edge of the island, the castle standing on it as an exclamation point of McPherson power and prestige. She spotted the dot of her father’s cottage before the canoe skirted past it and into a channel between the islands rising around them. Straight in front of her, she could see a crag of stone piercing the sky.

“There’s where we’re going.” He finally broke the silence, his voice quiet, almost hushed.

Before she could grab her love and concern and shut it down, she turned to look into his eyes to make sure he was okay.

The sky and sea behind him bled into his gaze, making him as part of the scenery as the land and water. As part of Scotland as the castle and the isles. A piece of her wept inside, because that wasn’t her. She wasn’t a part of something, she never had been. At an early age, she’d lost that need. But for Iain McPherson, it was a part of who he was.

A part she loved and couldn’t bend to.

“What?” His straight brows furrowed. “Are ye too tired to paddle anymore?”

“No.” Turning around, she stared at the spike of rock rising before them. “I can make it.”

But could she? Could she make it back to where she’d been a short time ago? Happy as a lark, free as a bird, tied to very few and pleased at the knowledge.

Her hands shook as she dug into the water once more.

* * *

S
omething had gone
wrong in lovely Lilly’s head.

Iain yanked the canoe onto the sand, all the while noting the stiffness of her body as she stood to the side. Noting the tightness around her pouting mouth and the wild look in those sea-green eyes of hers.

“Are ye all right?” The words sounded absurd to him because they’d been having a great time until halfway through their trip when she’d gone completely silent. “Are ye feeling seasick?”

“I’m fine,” she said again.

No, she wasn’t. Not at all.

Eyeing her drenched jeans, he wondered if that could be the problem. But she’d laughed when she’d been completely wet, when he’d foolishly thrown her into the sea. Why would one of her legs being soaked cause her to be so upset? “Do ye want to take those off? I have a blanket I can wrap about ye.”

She glanced down and frowned, like she’d forgotten about the splash over the canoe’s gunwale. “No, it’ll dry soon.”

His male brain scrambled for another reason for her weirdness. He came up with nothing, which frustrated him.

Before he could decide what to say, she yanked off her lifejacket and then waved at the rock formation running along one side of the beach. “I think I’ll go take some pictures.”

“Leaving me to set up our picnic?” He tried a tease to see if she’d relax, but all he got was more wild eyes and a tighter mouth.

“I suppose I can stay and help.” She folded her arms tight in front of her.

“Naw.” Lifting his rucksack from the canoe, he decided to let her have some space. His island was only about half a mile long and uninhabited, other than the flocks of birds. She couldn’t get into too much trouble. “Go on and take your photos. I’ll have a nice feast for ye when ye return.”

She marched off without saying anything else and the taut line of her shoulders told him there was definitely something going on in that blonde head of hers.

She…worried him.

That would be the word. Worried.

He hadn’t felt the emotion since he’d laid his comrades to rest and then his da. There hadn’t been enough of him inside to worry about another human being, much less himself.

But now, he worried about his
donas
.

Spreading out the big wool blanket, a blue-and-green tartan showing his family’s colors, Iain lay down with the rucksack as his pillow and looked at the sky. A trace of fluffy clouds skidded above, along with a lone gannet flying high, its distinctive black-tipped wings flapping once, twice.

Something like peace swept through him, pushing away the worry for Lilly. She’d eventually tell him what was going on. The woman didn’t keep much hidden. Once she’d told him, he’d find some way to fix it, whatever it was.

Everything inside him stilled.

Because that’s what he’d been before. The fixer. That’s what had led him into disaster, when he’d thought he knew exactly what to do and had been so very wrong.

The fixer.

All the muscles in his body tensed, as if preparing for an attack or girding for battle. This time, though, instead of reaching for a whiskey bottle or blotting out his memories with a blast of loud music, he let the title and the connotations come to him.

Into him.

His stomach roiled and his head hurt. The constant ache in his thigh seemed to turn to fire, and his heart beat in his chest in a crazy dance.

He let it keep coming.

The stark pain of his past came at him and he took it this time. Took the responsibility and the wretched regret. Took what he’d done wrong and what he could never repay.

His breath hitched in his throat, an agonized gasp.

Then it was gone, washing from him like the tide, taking with it his past.

Dropping his hands to his sides, he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. The sounds and smells brought back his childhood like a wave of the sea. They brought back what he’d been before everything. Before the Marines and before the wars and before the deaths. The sound of the caw of a seagull reminded him of being a boy dancing along this shore, running down Fingal’s main street, laughing with his friends. The briny scent of his land, a smell his da used to call the
tangle o’ the Isles
, filled his nose. The warmth and solidness of the sand beneath him made him feel like he’d found his ground again.

He’d never be able to forgive himself. Never be able to be the carefree boy he’d been. But he still belonged here, he realized. He still was a McPherson. More than anything, he was still alive and planned on staying that way.

Sitting up with an abrupt snap, he stared at his sea, watching as one lone boat puttered across from Somairie to the mainland. His da would have laughed at his cousin’s extravagant plans. His da would have said things were fine as they were on the islands, and things should continue to be as they always were. His da would have given him a wink before calling for the bagpipes and inviting the villagers to the castle for a party.

He was not his da.

Donal had been right about that.

He was not his da.

For his entire life, though, he’d thought he should be. As a child, he hated being shy. As a teenager, he’d hated being so sensitive. As a man, he’d hid himself behind the tough exterior of a soldier. Yet he was not, for all of that trying and torment, his da. He wasn’t the type to laugh and joke and slap a man on the back. He wasn’t good at telling tall tales and singing loud songs. He didn’t much care for big parties and festivals.

And he never would.

The realization seeped into him, in some ways more acidic and bitter than taking in the knowledge of the disastrous ending of his military career.

He was not ever going to be Malcolm McPherson.

But he could be Iain McPherson.

The real Iain McPherson.

If he could decide who that man was.

* * *

H
e was asleep
.

Lilly stopped at the edge of the blanket and looked down at him. His face was peaceful, his mouth slack. His limbs lay in careless abandon, his nicked hands splayed lose and by his side.

Sliding her camera into its case, she laid it on the corner of the blanket, and kneeled on the soft warmth of the tartan. He drew her to him, even though his eyes were closed and his mouth didn’t speak. Something about the softness of his face or the fragility of his pose made her think it was safe to crawl closer.

And closer.