Some Like It Scot (7 page)

“Where to, sir?” The driver's voice crackled through the intercom. The glass partition between them was smoked, making the driver nothing more than a shadowy figure on the other side.

“Airport,” Graham said. “Baltimore.”

Katie didn't argue. In fact, hearing the word
airport
helped yank her brain back to the matter at hand. She had not a prayer of figuring out what to do with the rest of her life, much less the catastrophic ramifications of what she'd just left behind—especially during a hell-for-leather limo ride in her half undone wedding dress, with a gigantic, mad Scotsman who claimed he owned her, as her only support system. That would not be happening. All she really had to do, right that very second, was figure out what to do next. The rest would work itself out in time.

An eon or two should do it.

She had no idea what Graham had in mind, although she assumed it was a flight back to the U.K. Scotland, however, was not on her itinerary. Not that day. Not ever. She and Blaine were supposed to be flying to Italy for an extended tour through wine country, followed by a river cruise through the Gota Canal in Sweden. She had all the tickets and documents tucked in her bags in the trunk of the limo. While a part of her wished, badly, that she could have somehow gotten Blaine out of the country and away from the fire and brimstone and hell hath no fury that was surely happening back in the church, she also knew that by leaving her family behind, she'd had no choice but to also leave Blaine. They couldn't continue to be partners in crime if only one of them wanted the prison break.

She had realized for some time, their co-dependancy was the biggest part of the reason why they'd put up with their families' respective crap as long as they had.

So she'd go to Italy. Alone. And maybe Sweden, too. Though the canal part had been for Blaine. He was an engineer trapped in the body of an heir to an empire he didn't want. Seeing one of the great wonders of the engineering world was to have been her wedding gift to him. It was as close as he would come to realizing his own dream of designing new infrastructure systems to help solve engineering issues in underdeveloped countries. Maybe she'd overnight his tickets to him from the airport. Encourage him to go on his own. Or take Tag. Whatever. Maybe he'd embark on the new chance she'd given him by finally, mercifully, breaking them both free.

She wondered if he was doing that…or if he was already struggling to patch things up. At least, leaving as she had, clearly showing that he'd had no knowledge of it, he could be the poor victim, and martyr the whole thing. If he wanted to go that way. She fervently, fervently, prayed he would not. If he didn't use her escape to break free, she knew he never would. And he'd spend the rest of his life living a lie. Multiple lies.

She wasn't doing that. Not anymore. She'd go to Italy, soak up lovely scenery, drink copious amounts of alcohol, eat an obscene amount of pasta, and figure out what a woman did who'd just turned her back on every scrap of support she had—on her family, on her entire life. If that wasn't enough of an emotional whirlpool, she was also going to come home to the stark reality of no roof over her head, no bank accounts she could access, and surely no job to report to. And most likely no one to turn to while she got on her feet. She doubted her friends would stand up to the pressure her family was certain to bring to bear on them. She couldn't blame them for that. Her only true friend was Blaine. And she doubted he'd be opening his door to her after what she'd just done to him.

It struck her then. So obvious, and yet previously so unthinkable. But…What if…Could she just…never go home?

She stifled an urge to gasp. But the skies didn't open, terror didn't reign down. She wasn't even struck by lightning for daring to have such an anarchist thought.

Wow. Could she really not go home? Actually, now that she thought about it, did she really have a choice?

She rubbed a spot over her heart, the pain there like a sharp stab. But what other choice had there been left to make? Her family hadn't left her much of one. Yes, she should have planned a better exit strategy than bailing out on a lifetime commitment to the joint family empire then ditching it and running away from it on her wedding day.

But…too late! There was no turning back, no do-over.

So, okay. Fine. Good. She'd spent the past six years since completing her MBA making sure that McAuley-Sheffield, a company that employed hundreds of people, ran like a tightly oiled machine. Surely she could figure out how to run a tightly oiled company of one. She'd just pick some new place and…start from scratch. She was educated. She had skills. She had dreams. Okay maybe not actually fully realized ones, like Blaine had, but that was only because she'd been too busy being self-protective. Don't allow yourself to want what you can't have, and life went a lot more smoothly. With her thirtieth birthday in viewing distance, she was finally daring to dream.

So what if, at the moment, it felt a lot more like a hallucination.

The idea should have terrified her, or at the very least caused a case of semi-hysterical giggles. Instead…it excited her. In a terrifying, semi-hysterical way. The kind that didn't so much make her want to giggle as to throw up again, but she could work on that part. It was early yet.

She looked at Graham, who was still unknotting her veil. More likely he was simply politely leaving her to gather herself, and her thoughts. She appreciated both. She looked away from him and through her passenger window as her beloved waterfront hometown passed by in a blur. There was a slight prickle behind her eyes again. Nothing was ever going to be the same. Would she ever walk the docks there again? Eat ice cream at Storm Brothers? Chat up Dixon over at Waterbend? She might have issues with her family, but she loved her hometown. Deeply. In many ways, it was her only other true friend. She fought back the tears, but her deep sigh brought Graham's head up.

“Ye've done the right thing, you know.” He said it with quiet confidence, as if she'd just carried on her entire internal debate out loud. It was exactly the kind of unquestioning support she needed. Except he was a complete stranger and had absolutely no idea the enormity of what she'd just done.

“I dinnae claim to understand what all you're dealing with,” he said, as if reading her mind. “But you wouldn't have been out in that garden, so angry and upset, if being inside and saying your vows was the right thing to do.” He tucked the netting in one hand and reached out with his other. “I know what I said, back in the chapel, must ha'e sounded like the rantings of a lunatic. I-I honestly don't know where that came from. Heat of the moment, perhaps. I did mean what I said in the garden, though. I promise you, we'll talk it all through, come up with a working plan, that does the best by both of us. You've my word on that.”

He laid his hand over hers then, and she wanted to yank it away, to tell him right then and there that while she might have agreed to things back in the chapel, she had no idea what she'd been saying either. Guilt took the place of the sadness of watching her hometown fall into the distance behind them. But she couldn't let that undo her.

She'd thank him for getting her out of there, and make it worth his while, if there was any possible way to repay a man for saving her life. But she wasn't going to Scotland with him. And she certainly wasn't going to marry him. She'd just run from one arranged marriage.

She'd have to be crazy to even consider running toward another, regardless of the reasons behind it.

But she didn't yank her hand away. Nor did she tell him any such thing. Instead she lifted her thumb and stroked the sides of his warm, strong fingers, guiltily allowing herself, for those few moments, to drink in his easy strength, his confidence.

He was both haven and shelter. He was on her side. It was wrong of her to take that shelter and not tell him the truth. She knew that. But she had no one else. Very soon she wouldn't have him, either.

She'd already used up all the backbone she had in her for the day. Possibly a lifetime, comparatively speaking. It was purely about survival. She'd apologize for that, too. Later. As soon as they got to the airport and escape was in sight.

After all, she'd already left one man at the altar. How hard could it be to leave another at a ticket counter?

“T
hank you,” she told him. “For the support. I know you don't understand why I'd even put myself in that situation. It's—”

“Complex,” he finished. “That, I understand. We are oftentimes at the mercy of our duty to others. I'm no' passing judgment, sitting as I am, on the outside looking in, anymore than I'd want anyone judging me.” He gestured between them, smiling. “Given the circumstances.”

She relaxed a bit further, and he was glad he'd cleared the air somewhat. After their rather dramatic exit from the church, changing the topic to the matter at hand—at least where he was concerned—wasn't an easy task.

“I appreciate that. I-I should have never let it get that far.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Easier to say now that you've gotten away.”

“If I'd had the nerve, from the very start, to stand up to them, to stand up for myself. And Blaine. To just stand up at all, frankly. Life would have been different. And it wouldn't have come to this.”

“Your grandfather, wasn't he of any help?”

“Oh, he was my biggest motivator. And instigator,” she added, with a smile that was sad and affectionate all at once. “But I wasn't like him. Or not enough like him, anyway. I didn't relish the skirmishes like he did, didn't enjoy the battle royale, much less the stormy aftermath of war. It didn't even faze him. I think he actually enjoyed it. He used to say he could gauge his success by how many members of the family he'd managed to piss off, on any particular venture.”

“Business venture? Or family?”

“There is no separation between church and state in our McAuley clan. So family is business and vice versa. Same with the Sheffields. I've often thought it was amazing that we'd managed to live in separate households—us and the Sheffields, I mean—the way they micromanaged everything and everyone else. Their presence was constant, as if they were always in my backpocket. Or on my shoulder.”

“Sounds rather oppressive. Why didn't you move out, get your own flat?”

She made a snorting sound, as if he'd asked why hadn't she merely sprouted two heads. “Moving out on my own would have been tantamount to…well, what I did today. If a might less dramatic.”

“What about university? Did you go away to school?”

She sighed, but there was a smile on her face. “Best years of my life. I'd have gone for my doctorate if I thought they'd let me stay away another few years. I made it through one round of post grad though.”

“Did you ever think of no' going back home? After you got your degree?”

“Every day,” she said with a dry laugh, then sobered. “But I wasn't prepared to do that. To suffer the consequences. I loved the autonomy of being on my own, although, don't get me wrong, they watched over me. Closely. Despite not wanting to go home to them, I did want to go home. To my home. I love Annapolis, love everything about it.”

His shoulders rounded a bit as he thought of Kinloch, and how much he loved it. And there he was, asking her to give up a place that was equally important to her. “Will you go back?” he asked. “I mean, when we've sorted things out, and you've had some time away after…you know.”

“I honestly don't know. I can't imagine not going back, so at some point, I'm sure I will. I just—I have no idea how all that will play out. Not yet.”

She was talking, and he heard every word, but his thoughts, not to mention a good part of the rest of him, were all caught up in the touch of her soft fingertips, stroking the sides of his not-so-soft hands. He wondered if she realized her hand was still touching his.

He certainly hadn't forgotten.

His gaze was drawn to her slender fingers, tipped with perfectly shaped nails. His gaze fixed on the impression her engagement ring had made on her ring finger, and had him wondering how long she'd worn it. Her fiancé hadn't looked like a bad sort. Quite the opposite, actually. Sort of like an affectionate puppy, eager to do the bidding of whoever would feed it.

If anything, she'd seemed truly heartbroken to leave him behind. So it wasn't the fiancé she didn't love, in some fashion, anyway, but perhaps what the marriage itself represented. She'd alluded to being in much the same situation he was in—which, quite frankly, made it all the more stunning she'd agreed to his offer. Of course, her forced arrangement likely came with all sorts of attendant commitments that made the entire proposition untenable—even if there was honest affection, or true love between them. Whereas his arrangement with her would be cut and dried, business only. They didn't even have to like each other.

“I've faith ye'll figure it all out,” he told her. “Time has a way of providing perspective.”

She nodded in agreement, as a weary sigh escaped her lips. She'd either worn off, or more likely chewed off, most of her lipstick. While the red had been an alluring slash when playing peekaboo behind layers of netting, he thought she'd be even more beautiful without any of that artifice. In fact, it was tempting to take his kerchief and blot off the rest, and the smudge of mascara beneath those beautiful blue eyes as well.

Causing much greater disappointment than was proportionate to their short acquaintance, she slid her hand from his and scooted a little more toward her end of the seat. “I appreciate your confidence in me. It's nice to hear it from someone.”

“Even if that someone is a complete stranger,” he said, dryly.

“I wouldn't say a complete stranger. Not at this point.”

“Aye. It was, admittedly, one of the more interesting ways I've ever made someone's acquaintance.”

She smiled a little at that. “Are you referring to finding the bride swearing a blue streak in the garden? Or carrying her out of the church where she was to be married, less than an hour after meeting her?”

“I would have to say the tale should be recounted in its entirety, to do it full justice.” He grinned, then, and a little more of the anxiety and tension ebbed away. Only to be replaced with an entirely different kind, when she grinned back.

“So,” she asked, “do you have a pub back on your island, where the locals down pints of Guinness while regaling each other with such tales or is that just a cliche?”

“No' a cliche, I'm afraid. Have no worries, I wouldnae sully your good name by retelling the tale and castin' you in a bad light in any way.”

“How many people are on your island?”

“Three hundred and sixty-seven. Sixty-six at the moment,” he said, gesturing to himself.

Her smile turned wry. “Then you won't have to tell the tale. It will get around all on its own. Or perhaps you should tell the tale yourself. At least give it a chance to be properly told once.” She shook her head. “Three hundred and sixty-seven. We have over thirty thousand, just in my hometown of Annapolis.”

“Aye, a thriving metropolis we are no'. It's certainly a different way of life, but it's peaceful and the men and women there have the best hearts you will ever encounter. You'll have time to regroup, and think.”

“You are the leader of their clan, hauling me back from America as your bride and wife. Do you really think they won't be just a wee bit curious about me?” She said it good-naturedly, as if it were still rather surreal to her.

He supposed it had to be, at this point. “Aye, they'll be that and more. But they'll be welcomin' ye and lookin' to make ye as comfortable as can be.”

“You make it sound like a sort of Brigadoon.”

“Don't worry, Katie. I've a wee bit of pull around the place. I'll make sure yer comforts are seen to. I promise ye that.”

She shook her head. “I appreciate that, I truly do. But I think the key for me now is to handle things on my own. I've allowed others to steer the course for far too long. Forever, actually. I need to captain my own ship.” She laughed a little at that, and the sound was a mixture of both amusement and sadness. “If anyone should know how to do that, a McAuley should, right?”

Roan had done a little digging on Katie before Graham caught the ferry off the island. Her family and their business had always been based in the historic town of Annapolis, and centered around ship design and building. Originally, sailing vessels and ships of commerce. These days their inventory leant itself more toward sleek, sailing boats and very large yachts. The privately owned company was partnered with another equally old Maryland family, the Sheffields, which Graham now knew was Katie's fiancé's family. Ex-fiancé.

That was all Roan had a chance to learn before Graham left Kinloch. It was an imposing enough dossier, so he'd purposely kept himself from reading anything else Roan had sent during his transatlantic journey. He'd wanted to meet Katie first, then tackle the learning curve. He wished he'd learned as much as possible, earlier.

He felt the weight of his cell phone, currently in the sporran strapped across his chest, but didn't dig it out to look through those messages. Beating all the odds, he'd succeeded in his mission. Thus far, anyway. Katie was with him, and they were heading home. That was a better start than he'd realistically allowed himself to hope for. Getting back to Kinloch was going to take time, so there would be plenty of opportunity to learn more from Katie directly.

“Your family builds boats, is that right? Yachts and the like?”

She looked surprised for a moment, then her expression turned downright wary. “Right. With all the rest…I forgot. I, of all people, should know better.” She shook her head, and her slight laugh was self-deprecating at best. “Wow, I'm just making one good decision after another.” She looked to him. “After all, you were hunting me when you arrived, uninvited, to my wedding. Just how much do you know about me? My family? How did you find me? And how, exactly, do you know I'm related to the McAuley's of Kinloch? I can't believe I'm just now asking you this.”

Graham immediately lifted his hand in a sign of peace. “Please, ye've nothing to worry about on that score. I'm no' a stalker. It wasn't you specifically we were searching for when we found ye. You were just the—”

“First one to pop up?” she finished, then shook her head and rolled her eyes briefly upward. “Of all the gin joints in all the world,” she murmured. “Well, I don't suppose I can be too offended by that, given that it worked out well for me, at least in the immediate short term. But, let me ask you, would it have mattered who your friend had tracked down? You know, age, location, family situation, children, appearance? Or was the only prerequisite that she be single?”

“I'm no' marryin' for love here,” he stated, partly to ease her mind, and partly because hearing it stated so baldly didn't make him feel the least bit better about the situation. “I never intended to put it forth as anything but a business arrangement. So…no. In that regard, it wouldn't have mattered, at least no' enough to keep me from making contact. Beyond that, I would have made a decision—”

“On a case by case basis?” She laughed shortly, but there was no humor in it. “I'm sorry. I'm the last one who should be giving you a hard time about the situation you've found yourself in. But, surely you knew this was coming.”

“I did, aye. But I suppose I wasnae actually thinking I'd have to do anything about it.”

“You mean you thought your—the people on your island—would have let it slide?”

“Other issues are taking precedence at the moment. I felt like our energies and concerns would be focused there, and on my work in that regard. So…no, I honestly didn't think, when it came down to it, that they'd mind if I took my time and married because I wanted to.”

“So why did they—oh, wait, I remember now. You mentioned that there's someone else, trying to beat you to the altar.”

He was feeling exponentially worse about the entire scheme than he had at any previous moment—which was saying a great deal. But just the mention of Iain shifted things back toward the focus they needed to be in. “Aye. Iain McAuley. I've no idea his agenda. He's no' from the island, but a distant relation of my departed grandmother. He was only discovered after my grandfather's death. And, rightly, at least as the law is written, he's given the chance, too.”

“Okay,” she said. A “for now” clearly followed that, but remained unspoken. “So, how do you know I'm related to your McAuleys?”

“My friend, Roan, takes care of all the tourism and marketing of our island trade. His research skills are legion. He was trying to track down any McAuley relation to those on our island, and though I don't know exactly how he came to discover you, he does have the lineage all mapped out. Your family, from what I understand, has been well documented on your side of the pond, which made it much easier for him to chart. I'll show you when we get there. You might find it interesting, learning a bit more of your family tree on our side. Has your family ever discussed your Scots heritage?”

“Often,” she said, not entirely fondly, “and generally only as it pertains to increasing their bottom line and making them more marketable. I'm sure your friend is amazing at his job, but you haven't seen marketing until you've witnessed the McAuley-Sheffield branding machine in action. Beyond what they regale the public with, however, I don't know much. You're right, it is literally centuries back before a member of my direct family actually lived in Scotland. So it wasn't an immediate feeling to me, as it might have been if we just came over to America a generation or so ago.”

“We use our own lore as part of our industry as well, but our history is our industry. One wouldn't thrive or continue without the other. Still, I can understand that it feels less than special, or personal, when you're only reading about your own history on the back of a brochure, without the added benefit of hearing those same stories, with all their affectionate embellishments, handed down from storyteller, to storyteller, generation to generation.”