Must Love Highlanders (13 page)

Could he ever make it right?

Helen came panting around the side of the house, wet from the shoulders down and reeking of the river. She shook—of course—baptizing Liam and annoying Dougie too.

“You were a right mess for a bit,” Donald said, not uncharitably. “Graduate school and all that whatnot with Karen. That’s behind you now. A cat, a smelly dog, and a tipsy old man aren’t very good company compared to the lass.”

They were good company. Louise was better company.

“Louise makes the most beautiful ceramics you’ve ever seen, Donald. You did see some of it when I first moved into the house. The perfect blend of shapes, colors, textures… She has magic in her heart.”

She still had the magic, maybe more than ever. Liam had felt it vibrating through her when she’d been at her wheel, had gloried in its reflection when they’d made love.

“
Louise
made all those vases and pots and dishes? The blue and the green, and peacocky stuff?”

“When she was only a student. I’ve rented most of her pieces to a New York law firm that won’t send them back to me willingly. That firm represents obscenely successful artists, and her work is exactly what they wanted to grace their common areas. I hadn’t connected L. Mavis Cameron with my Louise Cameron.”

“Well, then,” Donald said, passing Liam the cat and rising. “You have matters to see to, Liam. You’d best get on with them.”

Dougie bopped Liam’s chin, seconding the motion, apparently.

“Classes start back up in a week, Donald, and Louise wasn’t exactly reluctant to get on that plane.” Because she was off in search of happiness, and what woman wouldn’t relish such a quest?

Donald stopped halfway across the terrace to pet Helen’s shaggy head. “Sooner begun is sooner done, Liam Donald Cromarty. That woman made you happy, and I’d about given up on you.”

Liam had about given up on himself. “You think I should fight for her.” So did Liam.

“You’re not the brightest of my nephews, but you usually come to the right answer eventually. Am I wrong, Liam?”

Liam rose, the cat in his arms. For two weeks, he’d had somebody to share his meals with, also his bed, and his heart. Those two weeks had been the best he could recall.

“I’m saying you’re right, Uncle, but this is a battle I must win, and putting together my strategy will take some time.”

“I’ll be at the river,” Donald said, disappearing down the steps. “If you should take a notion to travel, I’ll look in on your beasts.”

“You heard him,” Liam informed the dog and cat. “I’d best get busy. In New York the day’s already half over.”

Liam didn’t call, he didn’t e-mail. He’d replied to the text Louise had sent two weeks ago confirming her safe return to the United States.

“Rejoicing in your safe arrival there, missing you here. Will be in touch. Throw splendid pots until then. Liam Cromarty.”

Not, “Love, Liam.”

Not, “Yours, Liam.”

Not fondly, sincerely, truly yours…

Louise smashed her clay flat again.

“Are you angry at that clay?” Jane set down the carry out Eritrean on the studio’s work table. The space was rented, the light entirely artificial, and the wheel grouchy.

“I did better work in Scotland,” Louise said. “I can’t focus here. What is wrong with me that I’m attracted to men who—”

Louise’s phone rang, blaring “Scotland the Brave,” about which Jane apparently knew better than to comment.

“My hands are muddy,” Louise said. “Would you get that?”

Though in Scotland, it would be barely seven a.m. Would Liam call that early?

“I’m not getting this,” Jane said. “You’re letting it ring through. It’s Robert.”

“And I had no appetite before the phone rang.” Robert and his latest scholarly piece of tripe could abuse semicolons on somebody else’s watch. Let his Sweet Young Thing help him get published. “I have pots to throw.”

“Wash your hands,” Jane said, arranging carry-out containers on the work table. “I brought you a heather ale to try. Dunstan likes it for a change of pace.”

Louise turned on the tap at the sink and scrubbed at her hands. Did Liam enjoy heather ale? Was he back at his classes? Had he gone fishing with Donald lest his uncle get too lonely?

“Earth to Louise.”

“How is Dunstan?” Louise asked, shutting off the tap and taking a whiff of vegetable sambusas Liam would have delighted in. She should have made them for him, with a nice peppery—

“Dunstan is worried about his cousin Liam.” Jane said.

Louise slammed the lid of the container shut. If she’d had clay in her hands, she would have thrown it against the wall.

“Do not mess with me, Jane DeLuca Cromarty. I’m PMSing and nursing a broken heart, my muse is playing hard to get, and I’m about to give notice that I won’t be teaching in the fall. Is Liam okay?”

Jane set down her unopened bottle of ale, slowly. “You already quit the lawyer day job, Louise. Are you quitting the artist day job, too?”

“Is. Liam. All. Right?”

“Dunstan can’t tell. Liam’s preoccupied, according to the family grapevine, but not like he was after his wife died. They’re not sure what’s up, but Uncle Donald’s keeping a close eye on him.”

“Uncle Donald isn’t exactly a good influence.” But he was a cagey old guy who knew a thing or two about loneliness. Louise opened her ale and passed Jane the bottle opener. “I’m tempted to delete Robert’s message.”

Louise took a sip of fermented grain and Scotland.

“You deleted Robert from your bedroom that’s a start,” Jane said around a mouthful of spongy, vinegary injera bread.

Did Liam even like Eritrean cuisine?

“Robert was never there much to begin with,” Louise said. “For the last six months, nobody was asking and nobody was telling. He claimed he was on writing deadlines. Leave me some bread.”

Jane divided the remaining bread in half. “Robert’s in New York. If you move up there for the privilege of reminding him to put the seat down until he finds some other female to sponge off of, I will smack you.”

Liam had made sure Louise was never at risk for that kind of behavior again.

“I like this ale,” Louise said, peering at the label. “Fraoch is the Gaelic word for heather.”

“And Liam is the Gaelic word for heartache,” Jane retorted. “Dunstan says Liam has left town, and Donald isn’t saying where he went.”

Maybe to a cottage near a loch in the Highlands, maybe to purchase more art.

“He’s not headed here that I know of,” Louise said. “He said he’d be in touch, but that might be Scottish for ‘don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.’”

“You can take the woman out of Georgia…” Jane said. “You going back to Scotland?”

The damned phone rang again. “Robert,” Louise said, putting the phone in silent mode. “He must have already run off his Sweet Young Thing.”

Jane tore off another strip of bread. “Revenge is mine, sayeth the former girlfriend, but you honestly couldn’t be bothered, could you?”

“With Robert? I knew better, Jane. Before law school, when Hellenbore took such an interest in my glazes and was so encouraging, I was an innocent. Robert was… a distraction.”

A lousy distraction.

Jane closed one eye and peered down inside her bottle of ale, managing to look both elegant and silly.

“So if Liam called you in the next fifteen minutes and asked you to join him for a Roman holiday, you’d tell him he’s had his shot, one and done?”

“If Liam called, we’d talk about where we go from here,” Louise said, assuming her little heart didn’t go pitty-patting away with her brain at the sight of even his phone number. “I’d take time to think about any decisions, and he’d understand why.”

If Liam could fly to Rome, he could fly to DC. If he could call Singapore, he could call Louise.

“You’re not eating much, Louise.”

Dunstan would inhale any leftovers Jane took back to the office. Louise used the bread to scoop up another mouthful of spicy potatoes.

“I miss him, Jane. I really, really miss him. He’s dear, lovely, an adult, hot, thoughtful….”

“And not calling you,” Jane said. “Give it time. Dunstan sometimes takes a while to figure things out. We sort through legal cases together in nothing flat, but family stuff always takes longer.”

“You’re a good friend.”

The phone buzzed, knocking against the table.

“Answer the idiot,” Jane said, taking a sip of ale.

Louise glanced at the phone, intending to let Robert’s pestering go to voice mail for the third time.

Her stomach gave a funny little hop at the digits crowding her screen. “It’s Liam.”

Jane saluted Louise with her bottle of ale. “Give cousin Liam my love, and then read his beads for not calling. Sooner.”

“This is Louise.” Steady voice, always a good way to start off.

“Liam here.”

Two beautiful, Scottish words, and not quite steady. Was that good? “How are you, Liam?”
Where are you? When can I see you again?

“Exhausted, but I thought I owed you a bit of warning in case you’re entertaining.”

“Warning about what? And I am entertaining.”

A pause, and not because the call was international. “Shall I call back, Louise?”

She glanced at the wall clock. “Give me fifteen minutes, Liam, and Jane says hello.”

“Jane? Dunstan’s Jane?” The relief in his voice was sweet.

“The very one. We’re having lunch, and she sends her love. When I’ve run her off and charged up my battery for a few minutes, you can call me back.”

“I’ll do that. Talk soon.”

Louise put the phone back on ring and stared at it. “He called, but.”

“But nothing. He called. If you’re not going to eat that bread, I will or Dunstan will. I’m off, and I
will
expect a report by close of business, Louise. Liam is family, and Dunstan’s worried about him.”

In other words, Jane was worried about Louise.

Louise tore off a nibble of bread. “Liam sounded fine, but… focused. He has an agenda.” He’d always had an itinerary for their day. She suspected he’d taken an itinerary to bed with them, too, and they always reached their destination.

Several times.

Jane packed up her half of the largely uneaten meal. “When a man calls with an agenda, then his objective is not ditching you, though I can understand why you might want to ditch him.”

“Go,” Louise said. “I want to listen to what Liam has to say, and not only because his accent is luscious.”

Jane left with a hug and a kiss, bustling off to make Damson County dangerous for opposing counsel, and doubtless to make a report to Dunstan.

“If I moved to Scotland,” Louise told her silent wheel, “Jane would visit, because Dunstan’s folks are there.”

Scotland had cast a spell independent of Liam. The light; the sense of an orderly society balanced with a long, tumultuous history; the natural beauty… the tablet.

“Aunt Ev would
not
visit, a definite plus.”

The studio had a single comfortable chair, over by the one north-facing window. Louise took her ale there, cracked the window, and sat down to wait for the longest nine minutes since minutes had been invented.

Liam had had such hopes for his plan when he’d been in Scotland, but now… He should have called, he should have discussed this with Louise, he should have waited.

He could not wait. He dialed, heart thumping against his ribs.

“Hello, Liam.”

“Has Jane left?” The soul of charm, he would never be. “I mean, how are you, Louise?”

He’d meant: I’ve missed you, every night, every day, everywhere.

“Jane executed a tactical, if dignified, retreat. I never asked you: Do you like Eritrean food?”

Would an upset woman ask such a thing? Would an
indifferent
woman ask that question?

“I enjoy the vegetarian dishes and particularly the bread. It wants a good ale, though.”

“I like you, Liam. I do not like waiting two weeks for you to
be in touch
.”

They’d been a busy, fraught two weeks. “In future, I’ll call more frequently.” He wouldn’t overtly promise that. Louise had probably heard plenty of sly, casual promises from men. “I would enjoy the occasional call from you as well, Louise, in case you were wondering.”