Must Love Highlanders (5 page)

That prospect loomed like “backup time,” the sentence hanging over a convicted criminal’s head if the conditions of parole weren’t met. A taste of liberty, and then—a speeding ticket, a little too much to drink—wham, back in the hoosegow.

Dougie took to kneading the sheets.

“You are a good kitty. I like you. You must be hungry.” Dougie wasn’t a fat cat. He was simply big, all over big, and hairy. “I’ll miss you when I leave, and how pathetic is that?”

“Hullo, the house!” a man’s voice called.

Dougie sprang from the bed and disappeared into the hallway, tail up, a cat on a mission.

“Gimme a minute!” Louise bellowed back. The clock said 7:45, but perhaps Liam had brought more scones. The leftovers from yesterday were in the fridge, minus the chocolate chippers that had been Louise’s dessert and snack.

Also her dinner. One of her dinners. The other had been a grilled cheese-on-rye sandwich.

She slipped into jeans and a T-shirt, then grabbed a flannel shirt for the sake of modesty and padded after the cat.

The guy standing in her kitchen was
not
Liam. “Who are you?”

Bonnie Prince Charlie’s grandpa left off munching one of the cinnamon scones Louise had been saving for Liam. He was white-haired, tall, thick-chested, and wore a red plaid kilt along with boots, knee socks, and bright red T-shirt.

“You were fishing yesterday, weren’t you?” Louise asked.

He’d been wearing plaid waders—the better to attract Scottish trout?—and singing something about rantin’ and rovin’. Louise had stuck to the path and quietly passed by, and when she’d returned, he’d been gone.

“I might ask the same question, lass: Who are you? I see you’ve passed muster with ma’ wee friend Dougie.”

Dougie stropped himself against heavy boots, clearly comfortable with the intruder. Louise sensed no threat from the guy, no menace, though the cinnamon scone was rapidly becoming history.

“Did you find the butter?” she asked.

“Aye, thank you, and the coffee’s on. I’m Uncle Donald. Welcome to Dunroamin Cottage. I expect you’re Jeannie’s latest American?” He passed her the box of scones, which held one plain and two raspberry.

Louise had never had an Uncle Donald. Now might be a fine time to acquire one. “If you made coffee, you’re welcome to stay,” she said. “Did you catch anything while you were fishing yesterday?”

“I’m in the river most days, though I seldom call it fishing. What brings you to Scotland?”

A need to see fairy lights at dusk, and find strange old fellows making coffee in the morning? The coffee maker hissed and gurgled, and a heavenly aroma filled the kitchen.

“I wanted to get away,” Louise said, “and I’ve never been here before. Shall we sit?”

Uncle Donald put whole milk on the table and a bowl of white and brown lumps of sugar. Dougie sat before the fridge, switching his plume-y tail, until Uncle Donald took down a quarter-size green ceramic bowl from the cupboard and filled it with milk.

“The beasts train us, poor dumb creatures that we are,” he said, passing Louise the milk and setting out two plates. “You Americans like your orange juice, am I right?”

“Please. Are all Scottish men so well trained?”

“I’m a bachelor,” Uncle Donald said. “One learns to fend for oneself.”

For an instant, blue eyes focused on Louise, not unkindly, but as if the statement had some significance she wasn’t awake enough to figure out.

“Do you drink coffee?” she asked.

“Perish the notion. I drink tea, and whisky, of course.” He produced a flask covered in green and blue plaid. “Shall you have a wee nip?”

Whisky in the fudge and whisky for breakfast. No wonder people loved Scotland. “No, thank you.”

He tipped back the flask, his wee nip not so wee. “I do love a good island single malt. What’s your name, Yank?”

Louise was torn between a sense of privacy invaded, and the novelty of having company for breakfast.

“Louise Cameron, attorney at law, sort of.” She could go a-lawyering again if she had to, couldn’t she?

“Camerons are thick on the ground here, though they haven’t always been popular. Eat, child. Are you and Jeannie off to the city, then? Fine day to see the sights.”

Louise dipped a corner of the raspberry scone in her coffee.

“Liam is taking me into Edinburgh today. We’re supposed to see the portrait gallery, then tool out to Rosslyn Chapel, and finish with a climb up Arthur’s Seat.”

Another not-so-wee nip. “Busy folk, you Americans. Shall you put butter on that?” He nudged the butter dish to Louise’s side of the table.

She nearly said, “Aye,” such was the Scottish gravitational pull of Uncle Donald’s company. “The butter here is good.”

“The food here is good,” he countered. “We don’t go for those android crops you make in your laboratories. Our dairy is mostly organic, as is much of our produce. You must also try the whiskys, though Liam won’t be much help in that regard.”

“You’re his uncle?”

“I’m the Cromarty uncle-at-large, more or less. You mustn’t mind Liam.”

Family was family the world over. Aunt Evangeline had probably said those same words about Louise to half the bachelors in Atlanta.
You mustn’t mind Louise. She went to school Up Nawthe.

“What does that mean, I mustn’t mind Liam?” Louise liked Liam, right down to his t’s, and d’s, and the crow’s-feet fanning from his eyes.

“We try to include him,” Uncle Donald said, “but the boy’s not very includable. Hasn’t been since—”

A sharp rap on the door interrupted whatever confidence Uncle Donald had been about to inflict on Louise. Lawyers probably heard more dirty family laundry than therapists did, and she certainly didn’t want to hear Liam Cromarty’s.

She opened the door to find the man himself on her doorstep. The cat shot out between his legs, while Uncle Donald remained at the table, munching the last of Louise’s raspberry scone.

“Uncle, what a surprise.” Liam clearly wasn’t pleased to see Donald, and neither was he surprised.

“Liam, good day to ye. Help yourself to a scone, and the coffee’s hot.”

Liam wore a kilt, another black T-shirt, and a wool jacket. The only resemblance between the two men, though, was size and blue eyes.

“I have an aunt just like Uncle Donald,” Louise said, patting Liam’s chest. “Every bit as presuming, though not half as likable. You might as well have some coffee. I’m not quite ready to leave.”

“Liam doesn’t eat meat,” Uncle Donald observed as he dusted his fingers. “Makes him skinny and cranky, but a day in the city will do the boy good.”

“At least I don’t housebreak uninvited,” Liam remarked, taking up Dougie’s empty green bowl and running it under the tap. “You’ll cost Jeannie her business one of these days, old man. Miss Cameron’s a lawyer. She can sue you for unlawful entry and pilfering her scones.”

Liam sounded more Scottish—“auld mon”—and he looked more Scottish in his kilt and boots. He smelled the same, though. Spicy, woodsy, delightful.

“Save me the last raspberry scone,” Louise said, “and Uncle Donald, it was a pleasure to meet you—mostly.”

With two Cromarty men in the kitchen, the space became significantly smaller. Louise took herself upstairs, grabbed a shower, finished dressing, and came down to find Liam alone, putting the last of the dishes away.

“You can relax,” Louise said. “Uncle Donald hadn’t really warmed up before you got here, and your deep, dark secrets are safe for now.”

Liam draped a red plaid towel just so over the handle to the oven. “You have an aunt like him?”

“She has to let everybody know I graduated first in my law school class, and that business with art school was a funny little idea I picked up from the Yankees, bless their hearts.”

Liam stared at the towel, his hands tucked into his armpits. “And every time she says it, you hurt a bit, but you’ve learned not to show it. I don’t drink spirits.”

Every time Aunt Evangeline dismissed four years of hard work and heartbreak as a silly little phase, Louise died inside. When Aunt Ev started in on
that awful man
and
the silly business about the pots
, Louise spent days in hell.

“Sobriety is a fine quality in the man who’ll be driving me all over Scotland, Liam.”

His shoulders relaxed, his hands returned to his sides. “I enjoy a good ale, and I’ve been known to have a glass of wine.”

The topic was sensitive, though, and personal, so Louise changed the subject. “Do we pack lunch, or eat on the run?”

“We’ll eat atop of Arthur’s Seat, unless you have an objection to picnicking?”

Louise had not gone on a picnic for… she couldn’t recall her last picnic. “No objection at all. Let me grab my jacket and purse, and last one to the car is a rotten egg.”

When she joined Liam at the car, he held the door for her, and she climbed in, prepared to enjoy a day that combined art, architecture, exercise, and natural beauty.

Also some company, though who would have thought: Liam Cromarty, that Scottish male monument to relaxed confidence and easy grace, had deep, dark secrets after all.

Liam enjoyed art—sublime art, ridiculous art, functional art, art that struggled, art that failed, art that did both.

The greatest work of art ever conceived, however, was the human female.

He’d forgotten that.

Louise Cameron first thing in the morning was a different creature entirely from Louise striding around the busy airport terminal, Louise making pronouncements about whom she did and did not kiss, and Louise marching down the river trail.

Louise in the morning was sweet, a little creased around the edges, and intriguing. Liam wanted to kiss her, wanted to bury his hands in long skeins of dark red hair, wanted to sit her on the counter and learn the fit of their bodies.

Which, of course, he would not do. Spring was in the air, and he’d been forced into proximity with a pretty woman—who had artistic inclinations, didn’t censure a man for avoiding spirits, and was punctual.

She came swinging down the cottage staircase at eight twenty a.m., dewy and neat in jeans, trainers, and a purple-and-green tie-dyed T-shirt. Her hair was coiled into a low bun held up by no means Liam could discern, and she appeared to be free of makeup—probably the secret to her punctuality.

“I’ve stashed the last two scones in my sporran,” he said. “We can finish them off on the way to Edinburgh.”

Louise opened the fridge and passed him four eggs.

“Hard-boiled,” she said. “Woman does not live by carbs and fat alone, as tempting as the prospect might be—unless you’re vegan?”

Damn Donald’s big, presuming, well-intended mouth. “I eat eggs and dairy happily and in quantity.” Liam had also been known to enjoy the occasional hapless fish when his body craved protein and the menu offered no vegetarian fare.

“My kinda guy,” Louise said, tucking an orange into her purse. “Do we have water in the car?”

“We always have water in the car, trail mix and energy bars.” Also a first aid kit, a pair of thermal sleeping bags, waterproof matches, and a pup tent, none of which Liam had ever used. “Do you want to practice driving?”

He’d surprised her—also himself, the Mercedes being less than a year old—but he’d pleased her too.

“How about if I take a day to get acclimated and watch the master in action?” she said. “I missed the countryside yesterday, and I don’t want to make that mistake again today.”

“The countryside is worth a look,” Liam said, getting the door. “And you’ll have plenty of opportunity to drive.”

He, however, had seen the countryside between Perthshire and Edinburgh countless times. He had not seen a woman lick her fingers one by one, when she’d finished her scone.

“Are you happy, Liam?”

Americans.
“I hardly know you, Louise.” Probably the other half of why he’d thought—fleetingly—of kissing her. “Why would I answer such a personal question honestly?”

“It’s only a personal question if the answer’s no. I’m not happy either, and I don’t enjoy admitting it.”

Nobody had asked her to. “Sometimes contentment is the more reasonable goal. Why did you choose the portrait gallery over the National Gallery?”

She allowed him to change the subject, explaining that she wanted the more Scottish collection. Talk wandered to the various galleries in the Washington, DC, area, which were many and varied.

And she knew them well, including their most recent exhibitions.

“Edinburgh looks old,” she said when Liam had wedged the Mercedes into a parking space. “But pretty-old, like your grandma. Not tired-old, like you feel after a bad breakup.”

She said the damnedest things. Liam’s phone buzzed, probably the call he was expecting from Stockholm.

“This is the less old part of town,” Liam said. “The New Town, in fact, though if we’re to hike Arthur’s Seat, we’ll nip over to the Old Town.”

Liam dealt with his call when Louise took photos of the Walter Scott monument, and as they wandered in the direction of the gallery, he explained aspects of Edinburgh history every schoolboy took for granted. Louise paid attention to his ramblings and to their surroundings. More than once, she simply stood in the middle of the sidewalk, face upturned to the morning sun, eyes closed.