Must Love Scotland (16 page)

Coos were apparently cows. “Who’s Dundas?” Megan asked as they made their way out to the Land Rover.

“My dairyman. Inherited him from my granny. Who’s Tony?”

Megan paused beside the vehicle. In the darkness, she could hear the river easing between its banks, the sound going unappreciated in daylight. Overhead, stars winked down from above the canopy of leafy branches.

Pretty. Where Declan lived was pretty. Where Megan lived was probably pretty in much the same way, but she hadn’t noticed that lately, because Maryland was simply home.

She climbed into the Land Rover and buckled up. “Tony is my number two in the shop, and enough to give any boss nightmares. He has a heart of gold, an excellent eye for design, dotes on the customers, and would bankrupt me in a month flat if I let him. Dixie doesn’t have his flair for the flowers—nobody does—but she’s a work horse, she gets the paperwork, and she likes arranging for funerals.”

“What do you like, Megan?”

Mary was curled up on the seat between them, her head against Declan’s thigh. Right then, Megan might have liked to switch places with the sheep.

“I like having my own business. I’m self-taught, though I picked up enough night classes to get an associate’s in business a few years back. I like that it’s my show, and that I’m the best in town. The bank has finally, finally acknowledged as much by approving my loan, but Mike Cochrane, the loan officer, has to be a fiend about the paperwork. I included a copy of my articles with the loan application, and he’s being a triple butthead by asking for another copy.”

Declan’s driving was smooth to the point of sexy, no wasted movements, no miscalculations. The village was quiet, though the hour wasn’t much past ten o’clock, and his Land Rover eased down the darkened streets as if it knew where it was going.

“My sister’s buried over there,” Declan said as they passed a smallish stone church. “Cancer, when she was twenty-three. Lindy’s the one who took to the organic approach to farming, though my grandmother would have approved.”

A confidence, unlooked for, but appreciated. Loan officers were pricks, but in the grand scheme, that simply did not matter.

“I’m sorry, Declan. I don’t always get along with Julie, I often don’t even feel like I know her very well, but I’d be devastated to lose her.”

Had been devastated when their parents had died within a few years of each other. Was probably a little devastated right that moment, come to think of it. Even Julie’s hugs had been distracted, as if part of her focus simply could not be pried away from her handsome fiancé.

Thank God for a thriving business back in Maryland, and for people who liked flowers.

“We’re on my land now,” Declan said some moments later. “I like saying that, probably the way you like walking into your shop in the morning, like the smell of it, the sound of the bell above the door jingling every time you walk in.”

Megan walked into the back of her shop, usually. She’d use the front door more when she went home, though.

“Will I see your place in daylight?” she asked.

“What the fookin’ hell?”

A beast loomed up in the middle of the road, a bovine sort of beast. A warm brown, with an udder in the usual location. The cow switched her tail irritably, as if leaving the vehicle’s headlights on was just plain rude, mister.

“A fugitive?” Megan asked.

“A damned heifer on the loose, and if Auld Molly’s out, the others are likely loose as well.”

Declan kept speaking, but not in a language Megan could understand. Mary woke up and stood on the seat, then put her front hooves up on the dash like a curious dog.

“That’s not English,” Megan said, when Declan brought the Land Rover to a stop. The cow hadn’t moved, but stood in the middle of the lane, chewing half-sideways as cows did, and flicking her tail.

“Gaelic’s an excellent language for strong sentiments. Dundas probably left the gate open. He’s fine in the dairy, has been dairying for half a century, but I shouldn’t rely on him beyond that.”

“So what do we do?” Megan asked as another cow came strolling out of the shadows to stare at the Land Rover. “Cows are bigger than I realized, or maybe yours are just the extra-large kind.”

“We herd them back into their pasture.” Declan switched off the engine but left the headlights on. “If you’re offering to help, I’ll not refuse. I might be able to do this alone, but that could take until morning if the ladies are feeling contrary, and we won’t get much yield in the milking parlor if they keep the whole farm in a ruckus the entire night.”

Declan’s tone said he’d spent other nights—entire nights—chasing his cows in the dark.

Which must be like arranging flowers and rearranging flowers for a nervous bride, and then having the wedding called off. Didn’t have to happen very often for a florist to know getting paid after a fiasco like that was hopeless.

“Tell me what to do,” Megan said, unbuckling.

The cows were in a good mood, apparently, and went toddling back to their pasture amiably enough. Declan knew them by name and dissuaded wayward behavior with growled threats to turn this one into hamburger, and that one into a fine pair of boots. The affection in his tone probably had greater effect than the dire promises.

When he closed the gate, Megan stood beside him for a moment, enjoying the peaceful sound of cows munching on grass by moonlight.

The moment was sweet and crushingly empty. A one-night stand between the maid of honor and the best man was no big deal, and yet… it would be something. With Declan it would be something precious and—what a concept—fun.

“Were you teasing about wanting to see my articles of copulation?” Megan asked, leaning her head against a muscular arm. Declan’s sweater was blissfully soft, and the sheer masculine bulk of him comforted even as his nearness made Megan’s hands ache to arrange
him
.

His arms around her, his mouth on hers, for a start.

One of the cows lay down, an ungainly business of lowering herself to her knees, then letting the back end flop to the grass with an enormous sigh.

Something in Declan relaxed as two other cows followed suit. “You’re leaving in two weeks, Megan, and I have a farm to run, but we’re both here now.” His arm came around her shoulders, warm and easy. “If you’d like to have a look at my articles of infatuation, I wouldn’t mind seeing yours.”

Declan was upping the game, from copulation to infatuation, making the terms friendlier.

Megan cast around for a snappy comeback, and found none. She sidled around to face him, pushed his man-purse-thingy over to his hip, and tucked close.

“I have to e-mail the damned bank first, Declan.”

Declan’s chin rested on the top of her head. His heart beat steadily beneath her ear, subtle concussion more than a sound. All the stomping around behind the cows, and his heart rate wasn’t elevated, while transatlantic anxieties stalked Megan with every breath.

“Let’s check on the livestock,” he replied, urging Megan back toward the Land Rover. “You’ve met my dry cows, but the working ladies are in this barn.”

He introduced her to his heifers, though Megan knew what the real agenda was. Declan was giving her time to change her mind, to decide that she’d rather not sleep with a guy who owned a poop pit and spent much of his day on a tractor.

His plan backfired. The way he talked to his cows, the way he scratched a three-legged barn cat’s ears—“We call him Numpty, but his real name’s Hector”—the way he wasn’t in any hurry, only made Megan desperate to push him up against the walls of his tidy, sturdy stone barn and get her hands under his kilt.

So when Declan had made a complete circuit of the dairy barn, secured latches, scratched ears, and checked automatic waterers, Megan did just that.

“So what time is it in Scotland?” Dixie Miller asked, flipping her braid over her shoulder.

Tony didn’t even glance at the clock, just kept clipping daisy stems at a precise forty-five-degree angle.

“Five hours ahead,” he said, “probably twenty degrees cooler. Why do daisies have to stink?”

Dixie gathered up the six dozen white daisies Tony had already trimmed and put them into a bucket with fresh water.

Tony Amatucci was one of those guys with Mediterranean bloodlines who’d look good until the day he died, the kind who made all the little brides think twice about what they were agreeing to when they walked up the church aisle.

Dixie pulled a trimmed daisy out of the bucket and stripped foliage off the bottom foot of each stem.

“They smell like daisies, Tony, they don’t stink. You missing Megan?”

The question was disloyal. Megan had given them both a chance, taken them on when they’d had little experience and no references. Tony had started a year ahead of Dixie, and they’d met at a flower show at the community college. She’d hoped he’d been trying to pick her up, when he’d instead been interviewing her informally for a job.

“Missing Megan?” Tony put his clippers down and flexed his hand. He wasn’t a brawny guy, but he had some height, and his proportions were perfect. His smile was… beyond perfect. Megan said Tony’s smile was rarer than Rothschild’s orchid, too.

He turned a hint of that smile on Dixie, a sad hint. “Yeah, I miss Megan. I miss the Megan who hired me, and probably the one who hired you. I miss the Megan who loved to design, who got as excited over a baby shower as most people do over a baby. You should leave on more greenery.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Dixie said, though Tony’s instincts with flowers were faultless. With a time sheet or a job estimate, he was hopeless, but watching him work magic with ferns and ivy did funny things to Dixie’s breathing. “Maybe once the loan goes through, Megan will get back to being a florist and leave off being a flower tycoon. I’m a toad for saying it, but ever since she started talking about opening a second shop, coming to work hasn’t been as much fun.”

Hadn’t really been any fun, except the shop was still a way to share the day with Tony, and that meant the world to Dixie.

Tony picked up another bunch of daisies and held the clippers poised in one hand, the flowers in the other.

“I thought it was just me,” he said. “Megan’s off meeting with the bank, the accountant, the insurance guy, the lawyer… I love flowers, and I love Megan, but pretty soon, I won’t love my job anymore. Might be time to move on, Dix.”

People thought working with flowers meant being surrounded by beauty and sweet scents, and that was part of it, but working with flowers also involved cold. In the cooler, in the shop, in the constant wet hands.

And the thought of Tony moving on left Dixie’s heart half-frozen. “You love her, Tony?” Dixie asked, tearing leaves off stems and tossing them onto the work table. “Love-love her? Does Megan know that?”

“Easy, lady,” Tony said, gently prying the daisy away from her, but Dixie didn’t let go, and so they had a non-tug-of-war, both of them holding the same daisy.

“Megan gave me a chance,” Tony said, putting his clippers aside, “and I will always, always love her for that. For the longest time, I’ve been wondering something, though.”

He was leaving. Damn and daffodils, Tony was leaving, going someplace in Baltimore or DC where he could design all day long and leave the bookkeeping and delivering and endless detail tasks to somebody like Dixie, who simply loved flowers and making a shop work well.

She let him have the stupid daisy. “What have you been wondering, Tony Amatucci?”

He bopped her gently on the nose with the daisy. “I’ve been wondering, Dixie Miller, would
you
give me a chance?”

Declan spent much of his day around livestock, animals big enough to hurt him, who couldn’t tell him what they were thinking, where the pain was, or why they were acting oddly. A good farmer learned to pay attention, to take the time to watch and listen.

A good farmer knew a creature thrashing around in bewilderment when he held one in his arms.

Megan Leonard was a ferocious kisser. She went at Declan like a soldier coming home from war goes at a spouse who’s waited faithfully, as if mad passion were the only conduit sturdy enough to contain her sentiments.

Declan widened his stance, got a hand under Megan’s backside, and shifted them, so she was wedged against the barn wall. She hooked a leg around his hips and used the wall to lever herself up, so she was wrapped around him from the waist down.

The daft woman would be under his kilt and have him right here if he didn’t put a stop to her nonsense.

“MacPherson, we’re burning daylight, or moonlight. These are not virgin cows, and when a man asks to see a lady’s articles—”

He kissed her soundly. “We have time, Megan. We have hours and hours, we have days and nights. Cease yer frettin’.”

A farmer never had enough time though. Declan ignored that exhausting reality and showed Megan how to take a moment for a kiss. He brushed a thumb over her eyebrows, nuzzled her cheek, then settled in for a proper greeting, lip to lip.

Megan fisted a hand in his hair. “Declan, what the hell are you—?”

She wanted to shout her desire, Declan was determined that they start with gentle whispers. Shouts could be ignored, whispers, never. He offered her soft words in Gaelic, soft kisses amid the rustling and sighing of animals settling in for the night. When Megan’s leg slid slowly down Declan’s hip, he wedged his thigh between her legs, and she sank against him.

By inches and sighs, she settled and began to listen. Declan’s tongue paid a call, Megan returned the invitation, but slowly, gently. Her weight against him relaxed, her hands under his sweater mapped his back rather than dug in for control.

“I know what it is to lose a sibling, Megan,” Declan said, resting his cheek against her crown. “It’s a violation of the natural order, a wrong so profound we’ve no real rituals for it. The elders, they go in their turn and so will we, but a sibling—it’s hard. A chamber of our own heart, a friend, somebody who has shared more with us than any other, who will know us longer than our own spouse. We shouldn’t have to give them up, not entirely.”