The Sweetest Hours (Harlequin Superromance) (15 page)

She
did
hold him there, like a sun held a planet in its orbit.

She attracted him. She fascinated him. She infuriated him.

He couldn’t put his finger on it. She was a mixture of cautious and reckless, high and low, out-of-control and scared. But there was something he was missing, something vital about her that he didn’t understand.

And yet, she seemed to understand him very well. She may not like him much; she hadn’t liked his security name or his job requirements, that was for sure. But when she’d found out about
the kidnapping
she had looked at him with empathy, though she hadn’t asked a thing about it or even attempted to coo over him or “mother the hurt away.”

I’m sorry,
she’d said, and she’d meant it. But that was all she’d said.

It was the perfect response, to his mind. Maybe he’d been looking for this response all his life.

And in that respect,
she
was perfect.

If he was honest with himself, a big reason he didn’t date his countrywomen in general was because everyone he’d met who was his age already knew about him—or at least thought they did. Once they heard his name, they all knew. Even the women in his office. Sometimes, he caught them gazing at him with sadness and sympathy, but it was a sympathy that wanted to question him, to hear the details that were never made public. To get an inside scoop and to elicit emotion from a man who did not give it.

Maybe there was a twisted power in that, in uncovering a man’s wounds and then being the only person allowed to peel that bandage on and off at will.

And it sickened him. Whenever he’d dropped the drape and allowed himself to be himself, he’d always seemed to attract that type of woman. Hovering, protective, solicitous.

Until Kristin. She’d had him from that moment at the car rental shop, when he’d blurted out the truth and she’d reacted in exactly the way that he’d needed.

He wanted to keep her with him, in Scotland, at least for a while longer. Maybe that was selfish of him. Right now, she still seemed a bit stressed and out of sorts. She’d lost her job at Aura. She’d lost her way. She seemed to be looking for something to believe in, and so maybe that was why she’d latched on to this new scheme to save Aura. A scheme that was impossible, because it was a money-loser. It was also a scheme she did not need.

Kristin Hart was smart and important and kind. She was so much better than Aura Botanicals—that fading, hopeless factory—and the skeptical, rigid family who clung to her in the snowy, cold town whose industries had seen better days.

“Malcolm?”

He lifted his head. “Kristy?”

“You should go downstairs and find a blanket.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

He went downstairs and searched out Alistair. Their B&B host was watching a Formula One race on his television in the sitting room. Malcolm kicked back in a chair beside him.

“Is she from Florida?” Alistair asked.

“Kristin? No. Why do you ask?”

“Always wanted to visit Florida.”

Malcolm nodded. “Aye.” He turned his head. “Has she found anything regarding the castle?”

“No, but sometimes the ruins are only listed in the old maps.”

“Ruins?”

“Aye. We’ve thousands of ruins in the Highlands. Some not very old. The mountains reclaim them when they’re abandoned, you ken. All that’s left are the foundation stones.”

“Where can I find these old maps?”

Alistair pointed to the shelves.

“Have you shown her any yet?”

“She didn’t ask.”

Malcolm tried not to smile. “Do you have any Ordinance Maps?”

“Oh, aye.”

Malcolm retrieved what he needed. Then, ten minutes later, after a visit to Eileen and her electric clothes washer, he headed back to the suite wearing a borrowed bathrobe. This time, he just used his key and quietly opened the door.

The light was on, and Kristin was asleep. She’d blockaded herself with a row of pillows lined down the center of the bed like a wall, splitting the mattress in half as if they were an Amish couple.

Maybe she’d decided to relent on chasing him away. He could wake her and ask.

Or, he could just quietly and unobtrusively stretch out in the chair in the corner and try to sleep as well as he could since he had another long day of driving ahead.

He placed the book full of maps on the table beside him and settled into the chair. He shut off the lamp, but the damn belt on his robe was bunching into his stomach, making him uncomfortable.

He raised his head to check on her. Her chest was rising and falling; she was definitely asleep. If he had his druthers, he would strip off the robe. He was a red-blooded Scot at heart, and that is what Scots wore under their kilts, too.

But he was pushing her enough by sharing the same room with her. How Kristin dealt with him when she woke in the morning would tell the tale.

CHAPTER NINE

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
, Kristin rolled over and rubbed her eyes. For a moment, she had trouble remembering where she was. The bedsheets smelled unfamiliar and felt crisper against her skin than she was used to.

I’m in Scotland.
She bolted upright and smiled.

But right beside her, Malcolm was asleep on the chair. His arms were thrown over his head. A lap-blanket was wrapped around his hips.

From the chest up, he was naked. Very, very naked.

The smile drained from her face.
Oh, no.
She wanted to glance away, but she couldn’t.

Her heart pounded. She thought back to the evening before, trying to remember.

She’d worn her flannel nightgown, which was still on her body. Her hair had been wet from the shower and now was a mess—the result of sleeping on it damp. Malcolm had left for the public rooms, and she had arranged the pillows as a barrier in case he returned to get his things and would receive the reminder that they were here together on business only.

And then somehow, after all her preparations, she’d gone from feeling nervous to falling into a dead sleep, probably because of yesterday’s jet lag. She had a slight headache from not drinking enough water and being dehydrated, and she hadn’t eaten much of the supper they’d shared.

She glanced back at him in the chair. From the bare skin at his hips, it seemed that Malcolm wore nothing, not even underwear. She felt suspicious from the way the light blanket clung to him.

Swallowing, her gaze followed the muscles of his chest and shoulders, the strong biceps bracketing either side of his head, his hands beneath.

His chest rose and fell with every breath from his lungs. Of course Malcolm had to be perfect. Fit. With a strong torso. Slightly tousled hair. Stubble from a day’s growth of beard on his chin.

She couldn’t see his bottom half because it was beneath the blanket.

By instinct, she hugged herself. Then she got up, wheeled her suitcase into the en-suite bathroom and closed the door as soundlessly as she could. Her hands shaking, she dressed in her jeans and a fresh sweater. Brushed her teeth. Washed her face, still creased from lying facedown on the pillowcase, and combed out the tangles in her hair as best she could.

Her pallor was pale, as if she’d been spooked. She’d packed a small pouch with the bare minimum in cosmetics, and she rooted for the pot of blush, her lipstick, and a quick coat of mascara.

Gah! It was no use. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

When she came out of the bathroom, Malcolm was awake, rubbing his face with his hands. He saw her and smiled, a transformation that sent him from gruff-looking to Highlander-Adonis. She froze, shocked all over again. She would never get used to that.

“Good morning, Kristy,” he murmured in his sleep-roughened Scots’ voice.

She caught her breath; she couldn’t help it. “I...wasn’t expecting you here.”

“I know.” He shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry. They wouldn’t let me sleep in the parlor.”

“I thought I’d been clear.” She stared at his chest, mostly smooth, but with a smattering of dark hair in the center. What would it feel like to run her fingers through it?

“I, er, tried to sleep with just the robe on,” he said, following her gaze, “but it was too damned uncomfortable.”

“Right. Well, what’s done is done, and I’ll go now—”

“Didn’t you see? I found something last night.” He reached over and picked up an open book from the table beside him. “I wanted you to see it first thing. You didn’t notice it?”

No, she had gawked and stared at him, instead.

Striding toward him, she took the soft-sided notebook, realizing it was a set of Ordinance maps for the county—very detailed, down to the level of footpaths, it seemed.

He’d bookmarked one particular page with a yellow sticky note. It didn’t mean much to her—she knew virtually nothing about this landscape.

“Do you see what that is?” he asked. “
X
marks the spot.”

She followed his finger and squinted at the fine, italicized print he pointed out. “McGunnert Castle Ruins,” the map clearly read.

“Ruins! That’s why we couldn’t find it.”

“I owe you an apology, Kristy,” he said quietly. “There
is
a McGunnert Castle.”

More than the apology, this was the first solid confirmation she’d seen as to the specific location of her castle. With a whoop, she jumped up and down.

He raised his palm and slapped her hand with a joyous high five.

“Since when are you buying into my castle quest?” she asked, careful to stare into his eyes, and not, um, at his bare, muscled chest.

But his eyes seemed to catch on to hers, and it was easy to get lost in their depths. They really were beautiful. Sky-blue. Or, as blue as the sky she was used to, in Vermont. In Scotland, it seemed rare.

Except on Malcolm’s face.

Still grinning, he picked up the digital clock, also on the table, and squinted at it. “If we go downstairs now, we’ll be first at breakfast, and we can get an early start on our drive.” He smiled at her. “Have you ever eaten a proper Scottish breakfast?”

“No.” She stared at him, wondering, ah, where his clothes were? He made a move to swing his legs to the floor, and she yelled, “Stop!”

His brow knit. “Kristy?”

“Let me, ah, leave you, and then you can get dressed.”

A dimple formed in his cheek. He seemed to be holding in a smile. “A bit prudish, are we?”

She turned away, exasperated.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m just having some fun with you. Eileen washed my clothes and promised to find me some jeans and trainers—for a price, of course.” He pointed to the door. “Can you be a love and fetch what she’s found for me? Eileen said she’d leave it just outside.”

She opened the door, but nothing was there. She stepped out into the corridor and looked around. Checked the doorknobs facing the hallway. All were empty. Kristin could smell bacon cooking, so obviously, somebody was awake.

She went back into the bedroom. “Your clothes aren’t here, Malcolm.”

“Well, isn’t this a pickle?” He stretched to get up.

“No, stop!”

He tilted his head and grinned at her. To her, he seemed unconcerned with his current state of near-nudity. It flabbergasted her. He was uptight in every other way; this did not compute.

She, on the other hand, was a quivering mass of jelly inside. She turned for the door without looking at him. “I’ll go find Eileen.”

Behind her, she heard the floor creak, likely from him stepping out of the chair...and from beneath the blanket.

With an exhale, she closed the door firmly behind her and hotfooted it downstairs to the dining room, past a side table spread with a cold buffet. Fleetingly, she saw cereal. Muesli. Milk in jugs. Berries and chopped fruits of various forms set out in serving bowls.

Not what she’d expected for breakfast in Scotland, but her immediate mission was to find Eileen.

Her hostess was dressed in gray sweatpants and a pink sweater with a Scottish thistle embroidered on the front. She spoke into the telephone, and from what little English Kristin could pick out, it sounded as if she was giving blow-by-blow directions to a lost tourist.

Kristin stood in the corner, catching her breath.

Alistair came round the corner holding a spatula and wearing a “Kiss the Chef” apron. A big set of lips was located over his...

No. Just, no.

Kristin went over to Eileen and crossed her arms, waiting for the call to finish. She knew she was overreacting, but she just felt...uneasy.

Eileen noticed, and bless her, waved Kristin with her into the private part of the house where she and Alistair lived, into a kitchen with a small—tiny, really—clothes dryer, still running its cycle.

Eileen covered the phone and then opened the mini-appliance. “George’s clothes are inside. His suit’s hanging on the back of the door.”

Then Eileen uncovered the phone and continued talking into the mouthpiece to her lost customer.

Kristin’s head was spinning. She bent to the clothes dryer. Inside was a man’s underwear. T-shirt. One sock. The other sock.

She seemed to freeze inside. This was too intimate, more than she was comfortable with.

What was going on with her? She had brothers, for heaven’s sake. Her family chore as a kid had been to fold the family’s clothes. A few times a week, her mom had taken the load out of the electric dryer and then piled everything into a yellow plastic laundry basket left on the dining room table for Kristin to fold and put away when she’d arrived home from school on the bus.

It had been no big deal to Kristin. Everybody had a communal chore in her family; that was just hers. As a result, Kristin had handled more pairs of men’s white BVD briefs and Hanes undershirts than probably even a department store salesperson. She matched socks like a pro. Each brother’s was color-coded. Really, how was this any different?

It’s a lot different,
something inside her said.
Because you’re different now than you were back then.
And Malcolm was...he was...

Definitely not her brother.

So?
She’d had boyfriends before, she’d...

Kristin put her hand to her mouth. It had never occurred to her that maybe her failure at living away from home
had
changed her. She hadn’t dated since then. She’d felt like such an overwhelming failure at being unable to assimilate, that she hadn’t wanted to think about her sheltered existence.

But Malcolm had brought it back last night—with his presence, and with all his talk—and maybe her need to feel safe and sheltered with her family in Vermont still lingered, fresh inside her.

Kristin exhaled. She retrieved Malcolm’s clothes for him. She carted the bundle and his suit hanger upstairs, and when she got to the room—to
their
room—she listened through the door. The shower was running.
Good.
She went inside, and steam envoloped her. She left Malcolm’s clothes in a pile on the bed and then headed back down to the breakfast room.

Enough.
She had only a few more hours to endure until ten o’clock. Then she could go back to concentrating on her factory. Her people. Her future.

* * *

M
ALCOLM
SAT
BESIDE
Kristin at a rustic, communal dining table while Eileen served them a hot Scottish country breakfast like he only received when he was home visiting his family.

Two eggs, sunny-side up. Scottish-style bacon. Oatmeal, cooked the way he liked it. Coffee in his own individual press.

The food was definitely the best part of the B&B experience, in Malcolm’s opinion. Four other people joined him and Kristin: two backpacker couples consisting of Canadians, an Australian and a New Zealander. All spoke English, and the conversation centered on the sightseeing they had lined up for the day. Just innocent small talk, nothing controversial to worry about.

Except Kristin. She kept her eyes on her plate and said little, acting strangely withdrawn.

Malcolm bit into a potato cake. Where had Kristin’s naturally enthusiastic self gone? He’d become used to it, and frankly, he missed it this morning. He was caring more and more about her, no doubt about that. And her crazy zest for life seemed to be rubbing off on him, too.

He was pretty proud of the job he’d done with his research skills last night—and he’d loved watching Kristin dance around the room when she’d seen the result. Yeah, he’d taken some pride in the fact that, thanks to the clue he’d found, she was closer to pinpointing McGunnert Castle than she’d ever been. They both would be chasing her dream today, after all.

The woman to the left of Kristin asked her a question, and Kristin turned to answer her politely while barely picking at her egg.

“What do you think of the blood pudding?” Malcolm asked when she turned back, hoping to play on her love of all things Scottish, or at least, get a rise out of her. To the uninitiated, the round patty was often mistaken for a common sausage or salami. But the Scottish version really was made with blood.

“It’s nice,” Kristin murmured.

“Nice?” he repeated.

She nodded, lost in her own thoughts, not even looking at Malcolm.

And she’d been this way since...

Hell. He put down his fork.
This
had started with the clothes situation. Yes, he had slept in the buff because it was comfortable for him. But he’d slept in the chair and hadn’t dared touch her. Plus, she hadn’t seen anything of him—his lighthearted clowning that he was going to get up and fetch his own clothes hadn’t been serious—she had to have known that.

But she was definitely upset. She was more squeamish that he would have expected, given her personality. Besides, Scots were known to be...

Well...

Like Robert Burns himself, sometimes his people had the reputation of being a bit earthy. Funny about it, too.

He glanced at their host, Alistair, wearing his daft apron as he ladled out a second helping of eggs, whistling the tune to a well-known bawdy song.

But Malcolm didn’t have the chance to talk to Kristin alone again to ask her about it until they were shoehorned back inside their wee knee-scraper of a car.

As Eileen had promised, a man from the local garage had shown up to repair their faulty windshield wipers, and as a result, they were travel-worthy again. Kristin’s suitcase was packed inside the boot—trunk—beneath the hatchback. His suit—jacket and trousers—was hanging from a hook in the backseat.

Eileen had sold him a pair of her son’s left-behind jeans, a worn blue raincoat and a new pair of trainers, still in the box. The jeans were an inch too short and lower in the hips than Malcolm preferred, but it was better than wearing the damn business suit. If he’d known he would end up in the Highlands, he never would’ve left his office without rain gear and a change of clothes at the minimum.

Still, he started up the engine, happy to be on the road again with Kristin. He waited until they were down the hill and into new territory before he asked her.