Must Love Highlanders (20 page)

Sure enough, the church was down the road, with a small town beyond. The church was made of whitewashed stone and had a gray slate roof. Around the perimeter was a fenced-in cemetery with ancient headstones. The building looked older than the Munro behind it.

Hugh glanced down at her, and once again, Sophie was caught off guard at how masculine and beautiful the man could be. She shivered.

“Ye’re freezing,” he said, mistaking her reaction to him for chilliness. He put his hand on her back and hurried her along. “I should’ve brought the car.”

“I’m fine,” she argued, but only halfheartedly. She felt right toasty with his hand firmly on her back. Luckily for her, he kept it there the rest of the way.

As they entered the building, the locals turned to stare—an elderly couple with matching Buchanan plaid scarves, a young mother with a babe propped on her hip, and two matronly women. All were gape-mouthed. Hugh dropped his hand and nodded to each one, almost as if he was daring them to ask what he was doing with the female beside him.

“There’s Willoughby and Magnus,” he said. “The wool brothers.”

Sophie didn’t get a chance to ask him what he meant as he ushered her to them. The two men stood four feet apart and were indeed prehistoric. They both had bushy white hair, slight paunches at their middles, and frowns on their faces.

Hugh leaned down and spoke conspiratorially to her. “They’re feuding again. I’ll introduce ye to Willoughby first. Magnus will have to wait.”

As they approached, the taller of the two pointed at Sophie. “Is this her then, Laird?”

“Aye. Sophie, this is Willoughby, our master kiltmaker.” Hugh studied the old man’s face. “Then ye do know that she’s come to apprentice with you?”

Willoughby looked as if the younger man had grown a horn from the middle of his head. “Of course, I do. Ye make me use that blasted computer, and I read yere blasted email on the matter.” He huffed as if a shovel had been placed in his hands and he’d been forced to do hard labor. “She’s to be here for the next week. Ye told me to clear my schedule to teach her everything I know.” The old man shook his head and grumbled, “It’d take more than a week, a lifetime perhaps.”

Hugh turned to Sophie and began unwinding her scarf from around her neck. “Ye’re staying. Don’t call home.”

Before she could process his words—she was pretty damned distracted by him removing her scarf—old man Willoughby jabbed a finger in her face.

“Tomorrow morning, be on time,” the kiltmaker said. “If ye’re not, ye won’t be apprenticing with me. Do ye hear me, girl?” He was near to shouting.

“Good God,” his brother grumbled from four feet away. “The dead heard ye in the churchyard and beyond.”

Willoughby glared at him.

“Aye. I’ll be there,” Sophie assured him. “On time, too. Will you excuse us, please?”

She grabbed Hugh’s arm and dragged him to the stained-glass window of Saint Columba. “So ye didn’t believe me until ye heard it from someone else? Did ye think I’d made everything up? That I had faked the emails?” She lowered her voice to a hiss. “That I’d done it all so I could get into yere bed?”

A harrumph shot up from behind her. She turned to see a sour-faced woman wrapped in a wool coat the same color as sheep dung.

Sophie turned red, but she still had more to say to Hugh, so she pulled him closer. “Believe me…the show yere reflection gave me wasn’t worth my time.”

The Laird wasn’t affected in the least. In fact, he made matters worse by running his hand down her arm like they were lovers. “Darling, don’t say such hurtful things. I thought ye liked my naked arse.”

The battle-ax’s mouth fell open, and she hurried away into the chapel, likely ready to burst with gossip.

“Just like that,” Sophie said. “Ye’d ruin yere reputation.”

“Aye. Just like that. That old woman is Nansaidh. She’s been wanting dirt on me for years because I wouldn’t walk out with her granddaughter. I think we’re finally even. I’ve made her happier than the woolgatherer on sheep-shearing day.”

Sure enough, Nansaidh was nattering away with woman after woman, pointing to the Laird in the Narthex, most certainly filling their ears full of how the lord of the manor had fallen.

Sophie perched her hands on her hips. “What of my reputation?”

Hugh winked at her. “What’s one more naked arse when ye’ve already seen so many?”

“Ye’re insufferable.”

He slipped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

Sophie couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. She thought she might melt away right there within the walls of the church.

“Stay at my house and apprentice with Willoughby for the next week,” he said into her hair. “If ye can stand him that long.”

“How am I going to stand you?”

He laughed and toyed with a lock of her mane. “That’s not what we’re debating here. What do ye say, lass?”

She leaned back and stared into his clear brown eyes. Eyes that had depth to them. Solid, like oak.

The church door opened, and he dropped the bit of her hair that he held.

The newcomer came straight to them. Sophie knew her—Amy’s aunt. Hugh’s aunt, too. Aunt Davinia.

“It wouldn’t be right to stay with ye at yere house,” Sophie said before Aunt Davinia reached them. “Not all alone.”

Aunt Davinia gave her a sly smile and then beamed at Hugh. The older woman was aging wonderfully, as Hugh would probably do, too. “What’s this all about?” she asked innocently. Aunt Davinia gave Sophie a kiss on the cheek. “It’s good to see you again, dear. Now, tell Aunt Davinia why ye’re frowning.”

Hugh shook his head at his aunt, but Sophie answered her anyway.

“I’m here to apprentice with the kiltmaker. But I thought I would be at Kilheath Castle alone. I’m not the type of lass to plant myself in a man’s home, especially one I’m not married to.” Besides, as Sophie’s parents had made clear—she wasn’t marriage material anyway.

Aunt Davinia patted Hugh’s arm. “Ye better hold on to this one, laddie. The rest of the world is shacking up at every opportunity.” She grabbed Sophie’s hand and placed it in Hugh’s. “But this lass, my dear boy, has moral fiber.”

Sophie was still stuck on her words. Ye better hold on to this one. Then the heat of his hand and the satisfying, steady grip of it made her feel a little dizzy.

Hugh dropped her hand and then wheeled on his relation. “Auntie, ye wouldn’t know anything about any emails now, would ye? Or perhaps that my clothes were cleared out of my own dresser drawers and shoved in the back of my closet?”

Aunt Davinia waved him off with a laugh. “Ye’ve always been one with the outrageous imagination, Hugh-boy. Now, Sophie, not to worry. I recently moved from Fairge to the dower house on the north end of Hugh’s property. I would be right happy to move into the big house for the next week to make things proper for you and my nephew.”

Hugh studied the statue of Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. “Then I’ll have one of the rooms furnished up for ye.”

Who was he speaking to? Aunt Davinia? Did he mean for Sophie to sleep in his sister’s room? Or with him?

The organist began Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Sleeping arrangements would have to wait until after the service.

Aunt Davinia gave Sophie’s hand one last squeeze before the older woman hurried into the chapel.

Hugh put his hand to Sophie’s back again, but this time leaned down and spoke in her ear. “Ye’ll sit in the family pew with us.”

The words were innocent, but the thoughts he conjured up weren’t. His warm breath on her neck and ear made her a little wobbly on her feet and filled her with—she hated to admit it—desire. The devil.

He grinned at her burning face and then placed a finger on one of her incinerated cheeks. “Do ye need to step outside and cool off first, lass?”

“Nay.” She’d just burn in hell for her less-than-pure fanciful thoughts—and in church, no less.

Hugh sat through the Sunday service, cognizant of his houseguest next to him. Sophie was as straight as a matchstick. Was she as hyperaware of him as he was of her?

After the service, he hurried out after her, not stopping to speak with the pastor or his workers. He caught up to her just outside the cemetery fence.

“Have ye entered a footrace?” he asked.

She shrugged off the hand he’d put at her back. “Hugh, if I do stay at Kilheath Castle, I won’t be staying in your sister’s room.”

“Are ye wanting mine then?” he said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

“I do love the view.”

As far as he was concerned, the view could be dashed. Especially the view of the loch. Too many memories. Too many regrets.

She paused before the first sheepgate. “Nay. I don’t want yere room either.”

A strange feeling came over him. Disappointment? He chalked it up to being a blasted male with sex always on his mind.

“Maybe I should stay at the dower house,” Sophie offered.

“There’s no space for ye,” Hugh lied. “You’ll stay at Kilheath.” With me.

“The emails?” she asked, throwing him off guard. “You really think it was Aunt Davinia?”

“Aye, she and Amy must’ve been in cahoots.”

“But why?”

Because he’d stopped living—at least, that’s what Auntie and Amy had been saying. Since he’d moved back home and taken over McGillivray’s House of Woolens, he’d immersed himself in his work. When his parents had died in the auto crash, he’d lost his last chance to make things right between him and Mum and Da.

“I don’t know why Amy and Auntie did it,” Hugh lied again. “I’ll not let ye go home until ye’ve learned how to make a kilt to Deydie’s satisfaction. Plus, I’ll make sure ye have a bushel of woolens for Deydie and her quilting retreat.”

Sophie touched his arm, pulling him to a stop. As he looked into her eyes, he seemed to wake up or to come alive again…at least a very little bit. The deadness and coldness that had settled into his chest eased.

“Thank you.” She squeezed his arm. “Ye don’t know what this means to me.”

But he could read the emotions in her eyes. He saw kindness, and trust, and at the place that she tried to hide the most, he saw want and need. Was it for him?

“Come,” he said. Enough of these moments. He steered her toward Kilheath. “Let’s find a place to settle ye into my home.”

Nothing more was said as they walked back. The sky had turned cloudy and gray. Sophie’s mood seemed to have darkened with it. The Wallace and the Bruce met them at the door and followed them into the kitchen. Hugh pulled the plate of pork sandwiches from the refrigerator drawer that Mrs. McNabb had left. When they sat down to eat, Sophie was quiet and distant. He started to say something—anything—to cheer her up, when the sun peeked out from the clouds.

She popped up. “I’m taking the dogs for a walk.”

“But you haven’t even taken a bite.”

“I’m not hungry.” But she looked at the sandwich like she was.

“I’ll go with you,” Hugh offered.

“Nay. Stay here. I’ll be out of yere hair, and then you can enjoy yere lunch.”

But Hugh liked having her around. The thought shocked him.

She reached for the leashes on the hook, and his hounds went nuts, their backsides wagging as if he hadn’t just walked them this morning.

She gave the dogs a small smile, a welcome sight after her sullenness of the last half hour or so. “While I’m putting jeans on, can you get the dogs ready? Put their leashes on them?”

“Aye.”

“Stay.” The dogs plopped their hindquarters down, smiling at her as if she were the master. “You stay, too, Hugh. I’ll be in yere room for only a minute.”

He watched her go, his tongue hanging out, just like the dogs’. Nothing like being bossed around by a lovely Scottish lass.

Sophie hurried into her jeans, a heavy sweater, and warm boots. The sun could return behind the clouds any second, and she intended to soak up every bit of the natural light while she could. Her therapy lamp did wonders, but real sunlight had a miraculous effect on her mood and well-being. She had felt the doldrums coming on during the church service, and she hoped a few minutes of sunlight would chase them away.

When she got downstairs, Hugh waited at the door. “Are ye sure ye don’t want me along?”

“I’m sure.”

He handed her the leashes and held the door open for her. “Don’t be long. A storm is coming. I don’t want to come traipsing after ye in the snow to find ye.” He pointed to the dogs. “Those bluidy bastards have no sense of direction, and their sense of smell is worse. Don’t rely on them to get you home.”

The way he said home made her feel warm and fluttery. Which was ridiculous.

“I’ll be grand,” she quipped. “I’ve got my bearings. We’re just going out for a wee stroll in the sun.”

Hugh looked up. “Then ye better hurry before yere sun goes behind that big cloud over there.”

Sophie, the Wallace, and the Bruce set out. She wanted to stay in the wide open, thinking of heading toward the Munro, but a rabbit moved to the right. The dogs took off, pulling Sophie into the dense woods. They may not have good noses, but there was nothing wrong with their eyesight.

As they pulled her deeper into the forest, she called after them to halt, but the dogs ignored her. After a while, they seemed to have lost the trail completely. When she was able to pull them to a stop, she gave them a stern talking-to, and then realized she didn’t know which way was back to the house. She turned in a circle. In the clearing beyond sat a large boulder with the sun shining on it. She took the Wallace and the Bruce and perched on the rock. As soon as she shut her eyes and put her face heavenward, the dogs went crazy, jerking the leashes free from her hand.