Must Love Highlanders (2 page)

“Hush, laddie. We’ll take you fishing soon enough.” The wee fellow peered at Liam from the blue, blue eyes common to Cromarty men of every age. “You must learn to be quiet though, for Donald takes a dim view of a boy who scares away the fishies.”

“The little ones always behave for you,” Jeannie said, a touch of envy in her tone. “Every bairnie in the family takes to you, no matter how you grouse and brood. You need a holiday too, Liam.”

Jeannie was the cousin closest to Liam in age, and more than that, she was his friend. When he’d nearly disappeared into the bottle after Karen’s death, Jeannie hadn’t given up on him, and for that Liam would always owe her.

He loved her too, and was glad she’d found a man to share her life with.

Truly, he was.

“Can’t you ask Morag?” Liam said. “She’s the logical choice, being the family potter.”

Liam rubbed wee Henry’s back, earning a milky-scented baby sigh near his ear. The feel of the child in his arms provoked sentiments ranging from despair to fury to something so tender and vast, he—a man who made his living with words—didn’t even try to find a label for it.

“Morag has to build up inventory for this summer,” Jeannie said. “She’s at her wheel and kiln all the livelong day, and she’s not the cheeriest soul.”

The kettle whistled, and Jeannie hopped off her stool while Liam continued to rub the boy’s back. Morag was a right terror on her bad days. Even when she danced, she brought a ferocity to her grace that Liam understood perhaps better than she’d guess.

The ink was barely dry on Morag’s divorce decree. Now was not the time to impose.

“When is this poor refugee from the American legal system to grace Caledonia’s shores?”

Liam should not have asked. Jeannie’s smile said as much, for the question implied that Liam was rearranging his schedule, making yet another effort to accommodate the vast Cromarty family network. Every auntie, cousin, and in-law assumed a man without wife and children was on call to make up the numbers socially, pitch in on the weekend projects with the menfolk, and otherwise step and fetch on command.

All because they couldn’t bear for him to be lonely, of course.

Liam could have told them that activity and family gatherings didn’t cure loneliness—something the American spinster probably understood too.

“What does it say about me,” he murmured to the child, “that I have something in common with elderly lady lawyers in need of a holiday?”

A wet, unmistakable noise came from the vicinity of the baby’s nappy, while Jeannie poured the tea, and Liam made a mental vow to introduce the American spinster to Uncle Donald.

The flight from Newark to Edinburgh had been made more bearable by an empty seat to Louise’s left, and a little old Scottish lady to her right. Hazel Chapman had once upon a time taken tea with the Queen at one of the Holyroodhouse Palace garden parties, which gatherings were limited to a select few hundred souls whom Her Royal Majesty wanted to honor for civic works.

“I volunteer a lot,” Hazel had confided, “because I miss the grandchildren so, but a man must go where there’s work, aye?”

Yes, and a woman must too, and that meant another semester teaching drawing, at least. Louise chatted with Hazel through passport control and customs, and as they approached the international arrivals area, endured several invitations to stop by Hazel’s wool goods shop in some unpronounceable town in the Highlands.

Hazel referred to her boss as “the laird,” and said he lived all by himself in a castle on a loch. Truly, Louise had ended up in Scotland.

They parked their suitcases side by side as Hazel rhapsodized about her whisky fudge recipe—an idea Louise could heartily endorse—but Louise couldn’t see anybody holding a sign for “L. Cameron” in the milling crowd.

After making initial arrangements with Jeannie MacDonald, one of Dunstan Cromarty’s cousins, Louise had exchanged e-mails with another cousin, Liam Cromarty. She pictured her prospective driver as dour, reliable, and safe. The airport crowd included plenty of sturdy, tweedy-looking older fellows who—

“I’ll fetch that for you,” said a tall, dark-haired guy in jeans, or at least that’s what Louise thought he’d said—to Hazel. The actual words were, “Ah’ll fetch ’at for ye,” with the intonations in all the wrong places.

While Louise’s brain translated, Tall, Dark, and Scottish swiped not Hazel’s plain black suitcase, but Louise’s larger rainbow-print bag.

“Hold on just a minute,” Louise snapped, “you’ve made a mistake, and that’s my bag.”

“She’s right, dearie,” Hazel chimed in helpfully. “Mine’s the plain black.”

Dark brows knit over a substantial nose. “According to your e-mail, your bag is all over colors,” he said—to Hazel—and he still didn’t turn loose of the suitcase.

“
My
e-mail,” Louise informed him, “said
my
suitcase bears a pastel spectrum print, which it does. Are you Mr. Cromarty?”

He was a big sort of Mr. Cromarty—Liam’s son, probably. Not his grandson, because this guy had crow’s-feet at the corners of startlingly blue eyes, and a few signs of wear around his mouth. Broad shoulders, long legs, dark hair in need of a trim.

Not at all what Louise had pictured.

“Aye, I’m Liam Cromarty.” He released the suitcase to extend a large hand in Louise’s direction. “Welcome to Scotland, Miss Cameron.”

“She’s not the formal type,” Hazel supplied as Louise’s hand was enveloped in a warm grasp. “Americans aren’t, you know. You can call her Louise. I’m Hazel, by the way.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Hazel. Will you be traveling with Miss Cameron?”

Louise had trouble understanding Liam Cromarty amid the bustle and noise of the airport, but she could pick up the hopeful note behind his words.

“Gracious, laddie, no,” Hazel said. “Harold would have apoplexies if I left him home alone for one more night, and there’s my Harold now. Louise, you enjoy your stay. The Edinburgers are nice enough once you get to know them.”

Hazel toddled off, halloo’ing at one of those short, sturdy older fellows Louise had planned on having for her driver. Mr. Cromarty seemed sad to see Hazel go—as was Louise.

“Glaswegians are notoriously friendly,” he said, picking up Louise’s suitcase. “They can’t help it any more than they can help naming half their boys Jimmy. Did she natter your ear off for the entire flight?”

The suitcase weighed a ton and had a perfectly functional set of wheels. Scottish guys wrestled telephone poles. Maybe they liked to haul suitcases around too.

“Hazel nattered both of my ears off, showed me pictures of the house where she grew up in Glasgow, the town where she sells wool goods in the Highlands now, and at least four hundred pictures of the grandkiddies,” Louise said.

Wee Harry, wee Robbie, and the baby, Agnes. Somewhere east of Iceland, Louise had even started comprehending what Hazel had said.

“I’m a little tired, Mr. Cromarty. Would you mind slowing down?”

“Flying west is easier,” he said, adjusting his stride and angling for the doors. “Coming this way you need a bit of time to find your bearings. Are you hungry?”

He moved with the easy grace of a man who could see over the crowds. Louise was tall—almost five foot ten in bare feet—but Mr. Cromarty had nearly six inches on her.

“I’m not that hungry,” Louise said. She was too tired to be hungry. “A bottle of water would hit the spot.”

They emerged from the airport into a sunny morning, though Louise’s body had been expecting the middle of the night.

“Good God, the light,” she whispered.

Mr. Cromarty set down her suitcase. “I can lend you my sunglasses once we get to the car.”

“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Maryland anymore,” Louise said, shading her eyes. The light poured from the sky, bright, sharp, brilliant in a way at once welcome and unfamiliar.

Either Mr. Cromarty was used to oddball Americans, or he was patient by nature. Louise spun a full, slow circle, letting that light readjust her circadian rhythm, her mood, her spirit. This was light to wake up the body, mind, heart, and soul.

“I might have to take up painting,” she said, assaying a smile at her unlikely companion. “Light like this reveals much.”

The morning sunshine showed Mr. Cromarty to be north of thirty by a few comfortable years and to have a smile both sad and friendly. Louise could not recall meeting a man with eyes that blue. Those eyes made her want to work with color again, and not simply with line.

“If you want to paint, you must paint,” he said. “You’re on your holiday. You should spend it as you please. My family has enough artists that we’ll find you an easel, brushes, and paints.”

He resumed walking, but paused at a curb. “Get in the habit of looking the wrong way before crossing the street, Miss Cameron, or you’ll step out in front of a taxi.”

On the sidewalk before Louise a white arrow pointed off to the right, underscored by the words, “Look right.”

“This is all very different.”

“And you’re very tired, also hungry and thirsty. The car’s this way.”

Louise waited until Mr. Cromarty had stepped off the curb, then trundled after him. He knew where he was going, which was why she’d paid Jeannie for his services, and he was easy to spot in a crowd because of his height.

More than his height, though, the way he moved caught Louise’s interest.

Liam Cromarty conserved his energy by staying relaxed. Dancers learned this lesson early in their careers or courted injury. As Louise followed him to a small black Mercedes on the ground level of a covered garage, an extraordinary thought emerged from her tired, travel-fried mind.

She’d like Liam Cromarty to model for her.

Perhaps Scotland could learn a thing or two from the United States about spinsters.

Liam had traveled extensively in the United States, though, and all his lectures and gallery openings and interviews didn’t support the theory that American spinsters were on the whole astonishingly pretty, and grace itself in early morning sunshine.

Louise Cameron wore her height regally. She regarded the world from slanting chocolate brown eyes that hinted of both disappointment and determination. Her mouth required study, not only because her accent held beguiling traces of the American South, but also because she didn’t speak much, and Liam didn’t want to miss what little she said.

“I won’t mind if you want to nod off,” he said as they tooled away from the airport. Traffic, fortunately, was inbound toward Edinburgh at this hour, while Liam’s destination was to the north.

“I didn’t travel 3,500 miles so I could take a nap, Mr. Cromarty. Will we cross the Forth Road Bridge?”

“In about ten minutes, traffic permitting. You’ll find water in the glove box.”

Liam allowed her a bit of crankiness. International travel wasn’t for everybody, and she had to be exhausted.

She cracked open a bottle of Highland Spring still and took a delicate sip. “What do you do, Mr. Cromarty, when you aren’t driving Americans around?”

She was an attorney. Of course, she’d ask questions.

“I teach art history and art appreciation.” The answer Liam gave even friends and family, though that wasn’t all he did.

Another sip of water. Miss Cameron’s hands on a mere plastic bottle managed to look elegant.

“Do you have a favorite period or artist?” she asked.

“Many, but mostly I’m drawn to particular works. I noticed you’d like to visit Rosslyn Chapel, for example. It’s well worth an afternoon and this early in spring, it won’t be crowded.” Liam enjoyed Rosslyn Chapel because it was quiet, the setting was lovely, and the grounds always had at least one friendly cat.

Jeannie had passed along an itinerary that was a curious mixture of the predictable and the puzzling: Culloden Battlefield and the Robert Burns museum, but also “Glasgow.”

The entire city? The Willow Tea Rooms? The School of Design? What did an attorney want to see in “Glasgow”?

Or, “The Highlands,” which, when taken with the islands, comprised more than half of Scotland.

“What sort of law do you practice, Miss Cameron?”

“General practice. In a small town that means wills, divorces, barking dogs, contracts, guardianships. Lots of variety.”