Must Love Scotland (13 page)

A river could change course, so could a dream.

“I’d like to be in bed with you, too,” Julie said, though she made no move to leave the swing.

What did Niall expect? An effusive declaration from a woman he’d met two weeks ago?

One step at a time. He stood and scooped her up against his chest, then carried her straight to bed. Let Donald walk in on them, let the entire pipe band come marching by, and the anglers and quilters too, Niall had a dream to build.

“I’m tired,” Julie said. “I didn’t sleep well.”

“I know, love.” He’d rubbed her back until she’d fallen asleep, held her as she’d stirred restlessly. “Today had you worried.”

“Frantic,” she said, yawning when Niall set her down on the bed. “Does whisky make you sleepy?”

“Whisky makes my clothes fall off,” Niall said, pulling his shirt over his head.

“I love it when your clothes fall off, Niall Cromarty. I might be tipsy.”

Niall finished undressing, loving the feel of Julie’s gaze on him, hungry and pleased. He took off her shoes and socks, then helped her with her jeans, bra, and sweater.

“I’m tipsy, too,” Niall said, stretching out beside her on the bed. “Though the whisky isn’t to blame. I’m not sure I can finesse this, Julie.”

“Finesse later, Cromarty. Kiss now.”

Niall managed a leisurely start to the proceedings, though desire rode him hard. Julie felt something for him, that much was evident in how she mapped him everywhere by touch, by kiss, by sighs.

“I want to tell you something, Niall Cromarty,” she said, as Niall was poised to join them.

“You want to talk now?” If she started thanking him for the best two weeks of her life, he’d howl like a wounded wolf.

“Not really, but I have to get this off my chest.”

Don’t look. Do not look.
“I’m listening.” He was also pushing, nudging, testing… right
there.

“I love the feel of you inside me,” she said, kissing his chin. “But I can’t think when you move like that.”

Niall went still, and would have pulled out, except Julie’s ankles locked at the small of his back prevented that.

He and Julie spoke at the same time: “Please don’t go,” and, “I don’t want to leave.”

Niall tucked in close. “That’s all I need to hear, Julie. That you want to stay. We’ll find a way to make it work, I promise.”

Her fingers feathered through his hair, her smile lit up all of Scotland. “I promise, too, Niall, with all my heart, we’ll find a way to make it work.”

The loving after that was sweet and easy, full of quiet touches and soft laughter, shuddering pleasures and silent wonder.

And then, just as Niall recalled the ring tucked in the pocket of his jeans, Julie fell asleep on his chest, her unbound hair tickling his nose.

“I called my sister,” Julie said. “She’ll come to the wedding no matter where we have it, and she’s agreed to design the flowers.” Julie sat at the kitchen table, wearing Niall’s shirt and a pair of fuzzy Argyle socks he’d found in a drawer.

She wanted Niall’s scent on her, preferably for the rest of her life.

“Your tea, madam,” Niall said, passing over a steaming, peppermint-scented mug. “I don’t even know your sister’s name. Jeannie is my only sibling, and my parents live down in Cornwall, but we’ve cousins aplenty.”

Niall wore his kilt—only his kilt—and even that hadn’t been properly buckled. Life in Scotland was going to require a lot of stamina.

“Before I met you at the Hare, I called Alfred to talk about restoration work,” Julie said. Her ring, presented to her fifteen minutes and a thousand kisses ago, flashed brilliantly in the afternoon sunlight.

A ruby surrounded by pearls in a gold setting. Someday soon, she’d ask Niall how he’d managed such a lovely piece on virtually no notice.

“Donald claims you’re turning your back on a judgeship,” Niall said, crossing his arms. “There are golf courses in America, you know. A couple hundred in Maryland alone.”

They needed to have this discussion, once. Julie took a fortifying sip of tea.

“I figured something out,” she said, “but it will be easier to tell you if you’re not standing over there looking formidable and hot.”

“Shall I take the kilt off?”

He’d look even more formidable and hot then. “Let’s go in the living room, Mr. Cromarty.”

They settled side by side on the couch, Niall’s arm around Julie’s shoulders, Black Douglas purring against her side.

“I love you,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that, but finding the right moment—”

“We’ll get better at saying the words,” Niall said, “until there are no wrong moments. We’ll embarrass my cousins, though I suspect Liam and Louise will be proud of us.”

“I love you,” Julie said again, because she liked saying those words, “and I loved bringing old documents to life. Dad got sick, and I couldn’t stand not having him to talk over projects with, couldn’t deal with a restoration studio he’d never work in again. Law school was safe.”

“Interesting, that you found a career dealing with criminals safe,” Niall observed.

“Safer than dealing with Dad’s death,” Julie said. “I still miss him.”

Niall merely held her, and that… that helped. That would help with everything, forever.

“Seems a judge really will be retiring from the Damson County bench,” Julie said. “Probably not immediately, probably not to take a job with Derek’s dad, but retiring. I was tempted, Niall.”

“But?”

“But there’s you, and even if you were willing to give up your dreams here, and come to Maryland with me,”—she put a finger over his lips lest he interrupt—“there’s no guarantee I’d ever be chosen to fill the vacancy. I’m very young to be a judge, and there’s the fact that being a judge would make me miserable.”

Niall lifted Douglas away, to recline in feline splendor along the back of the couch. Next thing Julie knew, Niall had stretched out on the couch, his cheek pillowed on her thigh, his feet hanging over the arm rest.

“You’d be a good judge, Julie. You’d be fair, compassionate, and conscientious.”

“I thought about being a judge, when I was stumbling all over the valley this morning, trying to put together pieces of a puzzle for which I had no picture. I could have sent you and Declan into years of litigation, could have cost one of you a life’s work, all while being fair, compassionate, and conscientious. That’s not for me, Niall. I know that now. The idea of giving up the prosecutor’s job was very appealing, but I’m not willing to compete for a judgeship to do that.”

He patted her knee. “We’ll keep you busy. We have endless heaps of old documents, and we’ll have the golf course. Somebody will have to keep me from killing MacPherson if he’s to landscape the back nine, and I’d like to expand the summer camps, and, Jeannie thinks custom golf vacations could be really—”

Julie kissed him, because there was time enough to sort out those dreams later.

“Yes, Niall. Yes, to all of it, and
now
you can take off that kilt.”

He took off the kilt, and left it off for much of what remained of their short engagement, but put it back on for the wedding. Julie’s sister, Megan, came to Scotland for the nuptials, and did a fine job with the flowers, despite being distracted by Declan MacPherson.

But that, as Uncle Donald would say, is another story….

By

Grace Burrowes

Dedicated to Brian and the crew at Slanj Kilts, whose Highland attire has done much for morale in Scotland and elsewhere

Megan Leonard rubbed gritty eyes, blinked, and tried not to stare. “That man is offering his beer to a sheep.”

Morag Cromarty barely glanced at the guy lounging at the corner table in The Wild Hare pub. He held the sheep on his lap, a small, fluffy beast that Megan might have mistaken for a dog if she’d been any more tired.

She’d never been more tired, though.

“That’s just Declan,” Morag said. “Let’s order some lunch before we get the key to the cottage. You look flat knackered, and I’m peckish.”

“Who names a piece of livestock Declan?” Megan asked, sinking onto a hard chair. The pub was straight out of a Robin Hood movie set—thick whitewashed stone walls, low dark beams, and an enormous fireplace full of blue and white potted pansies.

A tavern was a tavern was a tavern, and yet this place could not have been anywhere in Megan’s native Maryland except maybe a Renaissance fair. The guy behind the bar was singing about being a baron’s heir in a Scottish accent so thick Megan could not make out any other words except maybe a mangled reference to “gin.”

Plaid was a part of the landscape, from Morag’s backpack, to the curtains over the windows, to the cushions on the benches, to the—

“The guy with the sheep is wearing an honest-to-God kilt,” Megan said. To go with his plain black, pleated kilt, he wore combat boots that laced halfway up muscular calves and a denim jacket with a streak of dried mud creasing one shoulder.

He leaned forward to push his beer away from the sheep.

“Is that a hoofprint on his back?” Megan asked. A perfect horseshoe of mud, open end up to catch the good luck, even.

“Probably,” Morag said. “I’ll place our orders. I’m for fish and chips. You?”

Megan still had difficulty understanding Morag, not only because she had a heavy Scots burr. Morag also spoke quickly, and tended to be halfway to her next destination, tossing words over her shoulder as she marched along.

“Grilled cheese if they have it,” Megan said. “And ginger ale.”

Comfort food, because transatlantic travel was tiring, and Megan had been cross-eyed exhausted before she’d caught her flight from Dulles International Airport. She was nearly dozing with her eyes open when a set of small, cloven hooves and furry little knees came into her line of sight, along with the scents of fresh cut hay and expensive hand cream.

“Are you the maiden of honor?”

In contrast to the fluffy little sheep cradled in the guy’s arms, his voice was all dark lochs and shadowed mountains. He was tall and muscular, both, which was probably the definition of the word
braw
, and his dark auburn hair hung nearly to his shoulders.

He held the sheep with one hand and his beer with the other, though one of those seventy-pound longswords probably numbered among his fashion accessories.

“I’ll be the maid of honor at Julie and Niall’s wedding,” Megan said, smoothing her palm over a wooly, knobby little head. “Hello, Declan. I don’t know as I’ve ever met a sheep who likes beer, but then, I’ve never met a sheep, much less one with its own name. Your date seems a little low on charm.”

“Has Morag already got you drunk, then?” the guy asked, settling into the chair at Megan’s left elbow.

“Scotland has got me bushed. I’m Megan Leonard. Nice sheep.”

The sheep bleated, a ratchety, scratchy noise that would draw the attention of every hungry predator on the premises.

Had there been any.

“This is wee Mary,” Kilted Wonder said, holding his beer up to the sheep’s nose. “She’s a curious sort. I’ve brought her here for practice, because she’ll be a gift to the bride and groom. Those with flocks will bring a lamb to the pub after the wedding, and Julie and Niall will have a good start on a herd.”

The sheep sniffed the beer but declined to take a sip. A teetotaling sheep, apparently.

“You’re saying there will be livestock loose at the wedding reception?” And this was the country where Julie Leonard, M.A., J.D., summa cum laude graduate of the George Washington University’s National Law Center, had chosen to settle down? “Does my sister know she’s marrying a vassal of Robert the Bruce?”

Morag was engaged in conversation with the bartender, but something—besides the sheep whisperer—smelled good and homey, like a grilled cheese actually being grilled.

“Your sister is marrying my cousin,” the guy said. “A cousin several times removed. I’m Declan MacPherson, best man and friend of the groom.”

The two weeks Megan had stolen from her business calendar just got more interesting.

“We’ll be seeing a fair amount of each other,” she said, “but I’m warning you, mister, if your sheep eats the flowers I arrange for my sister’s wedding, we’re having lamb shish kebabs at the reception.”

He leaned closer, bringing those grassy, meadowy scents with him. “I don’t eat lamb, mutton, veal, or beef, but I can be tempted to take a bite out of an uppity little Yank who has no respect for rural customs.”

Men did not intimidate Megan, not even handsome Scotsmen who could throw her across the room like one of those Viking sledgehammers at the Highland games.

Megan was a florist, one who’d handled the flowers for more hysterical brides, bereaved spouses, forgetful husbands, and harried event managers than Declan the Delicious could imagine. Men were like ferns. They had a place in some bouquets but were never the item of central interest.

She patted MacPherson’s chest. “You’ll take a bite out of me? I might like to nibble on you too, sweetie. That’s a custom where I come from. The members of the wedding party hook up, and a good time is had by all. Hopefully, nobody starts a herd, though, and you’d have to lose the sheep. Three-ways aren’t my thing.”

His eyes underwent a subtle, diabolical change, thawing from the Wrath of the Clans to the ruin of a grown woman’s dignity.

“I don’t share either,” he said, winking. “Except my beer. Have a sip, because Morag won’t get free of old Hamish for another five minutes at least. Would you like to hold my lamb?”

Two weeks. In two weeks, Megan would go home, close on the damned loan she’d finally wangled from the Damson Valley Bank and Mistrust, and reconcile herself to sending Julie a Christmas card every year.

Megan extracted the livestock from the grip of its owner, the lamb accepting the change of venue calmly.

“‘Would you like to hold my lamb’ has to be the worst pickup line I have ever heard, Mr. MacPherson. Also the most original. If I fall asleep before lunch gets here, kiss me awake.”