Secret Garden (22 page)

Her uncle’s voice was ice. “Did James Walker let you in?”

“No, I let myself in. I’m Rhiannon’s friend.”

Just by walking in like this, and displeasing her uncle, he’d surely canceled any possibility of an endorsement. But he’d spoken up for her because he believed in her.

She looked at him, grateful, and he winked back at her. That same old insouciant charm that sent shudders through her. The dimple in his cheek. The spark in his eye. She couldn’t help smiling at him. A teary-eyed, happy smile.

No matter what she did or didn’t do, nothing would wipe from his mind the adventurous, happy, outgoing person she’d been before she was hurt, and there was comfort in that. She could fall in love with that.

“How long were you listening to us?” her uncle asked Colin.

“Since the part where Rhiannon said she preferred not to sit.”

Her uncle glared, and Colin gave him a small, apologetic shrug. “Sorry. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Colin Walker, and I’m a longtime friend of the family.”

“Is that so?” her uncle said coldly. “Then why have I never heard of you before this week?”

* * *

C
OLIN HAD SAT
with titans of industry. With CEOs. With wealthy investors. With celebrities and with top athletes from various sports.

John Sage didn’t make him nervous. This guy was just another man, same as him. Colin did, however, feel hot under the collar that Rhiannon’s uncle was obviously trying to influence her into doing something that she didn’t want to do.

But that was Rhiannon’s battle to fight. He forced himself to relax, to offer an easy smile to John Sage.

“I met you once,” Colin remarked. “During one of the family weddings at the castle, years ago.”

“Is that so?”

“Uncle,” Rhiannon said, “I asked Colin to stop by because I wanted you to meet him. He’s an old friend from when I was young.”

“Have you kept in touch?” Sage asked mildly, crossing his legs and looking at Colin as if he should think carefully about his answer.

Colin smiled tightly. “My parents got divorced, and then I stopped coming to Scotland for summers.”

“Why are you here now? What do you want?” Sage asked.

Colin absently ran his fingers through the thick fur coat of Rhiannon’s cat. The tabby cat easily purred and stretched as Colin scratched the animal’s ears.

He glanced up to see Sage staring him with a face like a guard dog’s, massively protective of Rhiannon. It seemed to Colin that he wanted to stifle her, and that made him angry.

“What do I want?” Colin repeated. “A sunny day, a kick in my clubs and my friends around me. And if I could permanently remove that slice I sometimes get in my long drives, that would be good, too.”

“You’re a golfer?” Sage asked.

“Yes, sir. I learned to play at Kildrammond. My grandmother took Rhiannon and me there when we were young.”

“So you’re a local sportsman.”

“I’m on the pro tour.”

“The American tour?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

From the third degree he’d just given him, Colin knew full well that Sage would further check him out later. Fine with him—he didn’t want or expect anything from John Sage.

Sage stood. “Well, I’ll take the painting to the car. Colin, will you assist me?”

“Absolutely.”

“Uncle,” Rhiannon said.

They both turned.

“I can vouch for Colin.”

Colin had expected her to remain silent, to slide out of the room, silent as a ghost, as she often did.

“You’re vouching for his character?” Sage asked, amused.

“Yes, I am. He’s worthy of our endorsement. And Colin’s a local golfer, so I suggest we consider him for one of our athlete sponsorships. It would please me very much.”

“My niece is gentle-hearted,” Sage said to Colin.

“Not really,” Rhiannon said softly. “I’m practical. Colin is an excellent candidate to represent our family company. As for myself, I’m reconsidering my future, and I don’t think I’ll be taking on any commissions for landscapes for a while. Artistically, I’m in the midst of a change in direction.”

Colin found himself staring, slack-jawed.

Sage seemed stunned, as well. But then he recovered, wiping his hands on his pants. “I’ll stop back to have dinner with you soon, Rhiannon.”

Colin stood also. “I’ll walk outside with you.”

Sage gave him a curt nod.

Colin carried the painting, somewhat awkwardly because of its bulk, through the door and across the gravel lot toward an idling black van.

In silence, the two men carefully stowed it in the back. Colin waited, because he knew Sage wanted words in private with him. Colin didn’t mind—he had a few words to say, himself.

Once the van with the painting drove off, and Sage’s bodyguards were inside his car with windows closed, Sage motioned Colin aside.

In a low, crisp voice, Sage said, “My niece is special to me. Some may think she’s handicapped behind her castle walls, but she’s really quite remarkable. I watch her do her best to make the world a better place from her position within the estate. I’ve seen her nurse birds with broken wings that others told her to give up on. She doesn’t. She’s gentle, and I fear that you’re a project of hers.” Sage looked meaningfully at Colin. “And most especially I fear that you don’t feel the same way about her that she feels about you.”

Sage was dead wrong. To Colin’s view,
he
was the one who didn’t think she was handicapped. While everybody else tiptoed around her, he took her as she was.

She was beautiful. Strong. Colin hated that Sage assumed she was weak. That was like people who assumed Colin was weak because he was easygoing.

“You don’t have to worry about how I treat her,” he said.

He watched as Sage got into his black town car, and it wound back up the long driveway. Then, because something very important had shifted inside him, he strode back inside to find Rhiannon.

Paul was clearing away the teacups using his butler’s cart. But the door was open, and he gazed at Colin as if he’d been listening to his and Sage’s conversation.

“Where is she?” Colin asked him.

Paul’s lips pressed together, and he glanced down. Colin waited.

“In her garden,” Paul finally said.

“Her yew maze?”

“No. It’s a secret garden.”

“A secret garden?”

“Yes, that’s what she calls it.” Paul looked at Colin. “You should let her alone for a while there. That’s what we do.”

It was impossible for him. Colin had been fighting his feelings all week, doing his damnedest to remain aloof, putting on an act of indifference that he just couldn’t fake anymore. “I won’t hurt her, I promise you.”

Colin went out the back. He wasn’t sure where her secret garden was, but he could guess. He walked the length of the walkway before the yew garden, all the way to the gray stone wall at the edge.

Colin the cat sat like the king of the jungle, in a patch of sun beside a wooden door.

Colin knelt and petted him. “Where’s your mistress, sweet boy?” he whispered.

The cat gazed at him with calm green eyes. Then he turned his head toward the wooden door.

Colin pushed it open and walked inside. He’d expected this to be just another entrance to the yew garden, but it wasn’t. This was a small walled garden, completely enclosed. It smelled of loam and plants. Prickly rosebushes, climbing green vines, and a riot of flowers. Around the perimeter was a footpath lined with crushed white quartz stone pebbles.

“Rhiannon?” He followed the path. And found her in a grotto in the middle of it all. He sat down beside her.

“That went well,” she said in a lighthearted voice.

He laughed drily. “Yeah, splendid.”

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“Colin told me where you were.”

“That cat.” She smirked. “It figures.”

He glanced around. “What is this place?” He gazed at her, kneeling, as if she were meditating. Or praying. “Is this where you come to recharge?”

“Interesting that you say it like that.”

“As opposed to?”

She frowned. “That I’m hiding in here.”

“I don’t think that at all. Maybe you just need to center yourself.” He lay back on his elbows. “I center myself at the driving range. Or by walking a few miles before breakfast.” He glanced at the blue sky, the cloud formation that looked like a sword. “That takes me through the day, usually.”

“My secret garden,” she murmured. “Don’t know what I’d do without it.” She smiled and lifted the tarpaulin off one of the small canvases she’d made. On it was a half-painted portrait of Colin the cat.

He laughed. “He’s a handsome bugger.”

“I don’t usually paint outdoors. I also don’t usually do portraits, and yet here I am. Stretching myself.”

“Are you really going to refuse the commission your uncle offered you?” Colin asked. “Don’t you need the money?”

“Technically, I don’t
need
money. I’ll always be taken care of through family trusts.” Her voice was steady and Colin knew she was covering for emotions that he wanted to understand.

“But that locks you in, doesn’t it?” he asked. “It takes away your freedom.”

She was silent, but he could tell that she was thinking. A line appeared in her smooth forehead.

“He feels responsible for me,” she said finally. “He feels guilty over what happened.”

“You mean with the kidnapping?”

“Yes.” She pinched her lips together. “Malcolm and I were kidnapped by a group of young men who thought they’d get a large ransom. Sage Family Products was beginning to be well-known in Britain and Europe, and the assumption was that we were rolling in cash.”

She sighed. “But we weren’t. And straightaway, when the ransom demand came in, my uncle refused to pay. Uncle John was then, and is now, the head of the family, so he made the decision to involve the police. Of course, it went badly.” She was silent. “Afterward, when so many people were killed, and I...preferred not to leave home, he took on the burden of believing it was his fault. It isn’t, of course.”

“So tell him you don’t want him to manage your business anymore. Do it yourself. You can, you know.”

“And you think that everything can turn around so quickly?” she asked teasingly. “I’m handling these changes in my life, Colin, but I’m handling them my way.”

“Okay.” If she didn’t want his opinion, then there was nothing he could do about it.

A long silence drew out between them.

She drew in her breath. “I invited you to meet him because I was hoping that you’d get to know him and have the opportunity to talk with him about an athlete sponsorship.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Selfish reasons, mostly.” She gave him a wry smile.

He sat up on one elbow, wanting to hear those selfish reasons.

“Truthfully, I’m half in love with you, Colin.” She shrugged sheepishly. “I think I have been since the moment I saw you again, even in the mud with my broken camera. No.” She shook her head. “It was before that, when we were children.” She wrung her hands. “But to love you now, as an adult, I need to venture out on my own more. And the first step is running my estate. I’ve
had
to make that my priority.”

“I thought you wanted peace?” he asked, dumbfounded by her words and her honesty.

“I thought so, too. But if I really wanted peace, would I be going to the gathering? Or antagonizing my uncle? Or...” She glanced at her easel. “Attempting to paint a portrait of a cat?”

He laughed.
I really do adore this woman.

They were silent again for a moment.
Damn
. He couldn’t fake it anymore. “Would you like to go to the gathering as my date?” he asked.

She gazed at him with lowered eyes. “Why?”

“Because I like you, Rhiannon. I like hanging out with you. And not...just as friends.”

Her eyes widened and she sat back.

“I’ve been avoiding it, thinking about the day I have to leave, but I can’t hold back anymore,” he said. “And...whatever other complications we have—your agoraphobia, my travel schedule—that’s not important so long as we trust each other.” He looked at her. “Do you trust me?”

Slowly, she nodded.

“Do you trust me enough to go as my date?”

She frowned at him, blinking.

“What?” he asked.

Then she smiled shyly. Not that fake-cheery smile they’d been flashing back and forth all week, but a real one. “Actually, you’d be
my
date. And in that case, you’d have to wear a kilt for me.”

“A...kilt?”

“Aye. A true Scotsman’s kilt,” she insisted stubbornly.

Why? Because she was attracted to him and thought that kilts were sexy, as a lot of women did, or because she simply liked the old traditions?

Either way, he had a feeling he would enjoy finding out.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“
T
HE GATHERING
”
WAS
a yearly event celebrated by Rhiannon’s family.

Every June, the members of the local pipe bands met on the moor in front of the castle, and they assembled for the beginning of their parade march that wound for several miles through the back roads and culminated at fairgrounds outside the village. There, the Highland Games commenced.

Rhiannon hadn’t been to a Highland Games since she was a wee lass, but she remembered the pipe band competitions, sheepdog trials, Highland fling contests and, of course, all the feats of strength and endurance such as the caber toss and tugs-of-war.

Malcolm returned home each year for the gathering, as did Rhiannon’s extended family members. For days beforehand, the castle was turned upside down with preparations. Rhiannon’s mother, assisted by Paul and a group of caterers from town, always planned a buffet menu for the gathering pipers, their friends and family and all the various Sage aunts, uncles and cousins.

Since Rhiannon’s parents would be absent this year, Paul and her mother had prearranged for caterers to take charge of the menu, which they would transport to the site. Paul had volunteered to organize the setup of folding tables and chairs, as well as a small portable tent arrangement in case of rain.