Operation

by Barbara Bretton

  “Remember the night of my engagement party?” Martie asked. “Jason’s mother was complaining about everything from the hors d’oeuvres to the air-conditioning. I escaped to the ladies’ room and there you were, smoking a cigarette and reading Money magazine.”

  Sam hadn’t thought about that night in ages, but her sister’s words brought it all back. “I gave you quite an earful, didn’t I?”

  “All of it deserved,” Martie said, “but there’s one thing, especially, that I’ll never forget. If you don’t love him, don’t marry him.”

  A big fat lump lodged itself in the center of Sam’s throat. “And you love Trask?”

  “So much,” Martie whispered. “Oh, Sammy! I pray you’ll find someone to love the way I love him.” She threw her arms around Sam and hugged her tight, then reared back and shot a wide-eyed look at Sam’s prodigious bosoms. “Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve got to get me one of those bras.”

  * * *

  Thirty miles northwest of Houston Intercontinental Airport

  THE LIGHTS of the city twinkled in the distance, and for the first time since he left Glasgow twenty-four hours ago, Duncan wondered if he’d made a mistake. He and Samantha Wilde were strangers to each other. Not even their lovemaking had changed that. He wasn’t sure they could ever be more to each other than they had been on that April afternoon by Loch Glenraven. He wasn’t even sure he wanted them to be. All he knew was that he had to see her again. Hear her voice. Smell the sweet scent of her skin.

  If he didn’t, he’d spend the rest of his life wondering if he’d let his last chance for happiness slip away without a fight.

  * * *

  “LOOK AT THEM,” breathed Estelle Ross, Lucky’s devoted assistant, as Martie and Trask took to the dance floor a few hours later. “Did you ever see a more beautiful couple in your life?”

  “Never,” said Sam, dabbing at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief designed for exactly that purpose. What was it about weddings that turned sane women into water fountains? “They look so happy, don’t they?”

  “Sublimely happy,” Estelle agreed. “They’re a match made in heaven.”

  Sam didn’t believe in heaven-made matches for herself, but she was happy to make an exception for her sister.

  “Are you gals blubbering again?” Lucky’s booming voice sounded behind them. “Won’t catch me cryin’ on a happy day like this.”

  Sam and Estelle looked at each other and burst into laughter. Lucky had done his own share of crying during the wedding ceremony and, even now, his blue eyes looked suspiciously damp as he watched his middle child dance with her new husband.

  “Your dance with Martie is coming up, Lucky,” Estelle reminded him. “Do us proud.” She smoothed the lapels of his dinner jacket with a familiar, affectionate gesture that tugged at Sam’s heart.

  Sam felt like giving her father a swift kick in the shins. What on earth was wrong with him, anyway? Couldn’t he see that Estelle was head-over-heels in love with him and had been for as long as Sam could remember? People were so blind when it came to matters of the heart, and time was so—

  She caught herself. Since when was she so sentimental? Her sisters were the sentimental ones in the family, not Sam. Sam relied on her assistant, Jack, to see to it that birthday cards went out when they should and important anniversaries were acknowledged.

  Frankie hadn’t been able to make it home for the wedding, but she’d sent a handmade quilt, embroidered with the newlyweds’ names and the wedding date, and a charming videotape of herself reciting a poem for the happy couple. Sam, on the other hand, had presented them with a check tucked inside an oversize Hallmark card. She consoled herself with the fact that she’d hand-selected the card.

  “Ms. Wilde?” One of the hotel’s catering executives appeared at her side. “There’s a gentleman outside who’d like to see you. I don’t believe he’s one of the invited guests.”

  “Did he give a name?” she asked as a funny lightheaded feeling swept over her. It couldn’t be. It simply wasn’t possible.

  The woman shook her head. “Afraid not, but he did tell me to give you this.” She handed Sam a sprig of heather.

  Sam’s life seemed to pass before her eyes, with special attention paid to that afternoon beside the banks of Loch Glenraven.

  “Ms. Wilde? Are you all right?”

  “No.” The word popped out before Sam had a chance to think. “I mean, yes. I’m fine.” She stared at the sprig of heather clutched in her hand. This couldn’t be happening. He was supposed to be on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in Scotland, for heaven’s sake. He had absolutely no business being right here in Houston, on her turf. “Why don’t you tell the gentleman that he can contact me Monday morning at the office.”

  The woman smiled coyly. “He told me you’d say that.”

  “He did, did he?” Sam felt her hackles rise. She liked to think she was dependable but not predictable. “Then you can tell him he was right.”

  “I really think you’d better come out to the lobby and speak with him, Ms. Wilde.”

  Sam placed a hand on the woman’s forearm and lowered her voice. “This is my sister’s wedding reception,” she said in icily formal tones. “These people are my family and friends. If the anonymous gentleman wishes to speak with me, he can call my office on Monday.”

  “Ms. Wilde,” the woman said, beads of sweat forming at her temples, “I urge you to see the gentleman. He said—” She hesitated, an angry red flush rising up her throat. “I just can’t believe he means this, but he said if you don’t talk to him—Well, he said he’d strip naked and wait for you in the lobby.”

  “He said what?”

  “He said he’d strip naked, Ms. Wilde, and I’m telling you here and now that must not happen! We have a bar mitzvah going on in the west wing, lots of little children running around. If one of them—”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Sam said. “I understand your predicament.”

  “Is there a chance he’s joking?”

  The woman looked so hopeful that Sam hated to dash her spirits.

  “Oh, he’d do it,” Sam said. “Have no doubt about that.”

  “Please, Ms. Wilde,” the woman said, “I’m begging you. We can’t have a naked man in the lobby.”

  Martie and Trask waltzed by. They looked like the couple on top of the wedding cake. Blissfully happy.

  She couldn’t let Duncan Stewart ruin their day. Not even if seeing him again might ruin hers.

  “Sammy!” Estelle called after her. “Where are you going? They’ll be cutting the cake any time.”

  “Two minutes, Estelle. I’ll be back before they finish dancing.”

  She followed the hotel executive through the long carpeted hallway that led to the enormous formal lobby. Built in the eighties during the oil boom, the lobby was pure Texas, a hymn to marble and gilt and glorious all-American excess. She wondered how it must look to his Scottish eyes and then she berated herself for entertaining the thought.

  Who cared how it looked to him? He wasn’t going to be in town long enough for it to matter.

  “He was here a second ago,” the hotel executive said, glancing around the wide expanse of open space.

  “Don’t worry,” Sam said. “You go about your business. I’ll wait here for him.”

  “If you’re sure—”

  “I’m positive. This won’t take long.”

  The woman didn’t need any encouragement. She turned and fled to the safety of her office.

  Sam considered following her. It would serve him right. Let him strip and do the Highland fling, for all she cared. He wasn’t her responsibility. If they hauled him off to jail, buck naked and in handcuffs, she wouldn’t lift a finger to help him.

  Unfortunately, that was when she made her fatal mistake and turned to look at him.

  He was standing to the left of the enormous front door, partially shielded by a mirrored column. He wasn’t wearing a kilt, but he might as we
ll have been. When she looked at him, she saw the rugged beauty of the Highlands, the mountains and the rivers, those crystalline lakes, the sense that all things were possible.

  Which was exactly why she couldn’t turn away from him now. If she was ever going to put that interlude behind her, she’d have to go face-to-face with the man she’d shared it with.

  * * *

  DUNCAN HEARD the sound of her high heels clicking against the marble floor before he saw her. A quick, staccato tattoo that sounded anything but welcoming.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

  He stepped out of the shadows to face her. His memory of her beauty fell far short of the reality. The face of an angel, the body of a temptress. All he could do was stare at her in awe.

  “I’m waiting,” she said, her voice cold as the marble all around them. “Did you come all this way to stare at me?”

  Nothing had prepared him for the sight of her. His memory hadn’t come close to doing her justice.

  “You are magnificent, Samantha,” he said by way of tribute. “A goddess.”

  He noted the blush that stained her cheeks. The goddess was human.

  “Thank you,” she said. “If. that’s all you came here to say, I’ll return to my sister’s wedding.”

  He reached for her hand but she snatched it out of his grasp.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she warned, her cornflower blue eyes flashing a warning. “You have no right to touch me.”

  “Lassie, I—”

  “My name is Samantha,” she snapped. “What’s yours?”

  The barb was well-aimed and well-deserved. He would not deny that fact. “I won’t go before I’ve said my piece, Samantha.”

  “There’s nothing you can say that could possibly interest me.” She said it as if she meant it.

  “Not even that I’m here to collect my money?”

  “Money?” She stared at him in obvious disbelief. “What money?”

  “My ten thousand dollars.” He paused for effect. “American.”

  She opened her mouth to say something then stopped. The red in her cheeks grew brighter. “I hope you’re joking.”

  “I never joke.”

  “Well, you can’t possibly be serious about this.”

  “The agreement was ten thousand dollars American for a flight to Loch Glenraven. We landed on her shores.”

  “Excuse me,” she said, “we crashed on her shores.”

  “A difference in semantics, not location.”

  “We were almost killed.”

  “But we are still alive.”

  “I refuse to continue this ridiculous conversation.”

  “I’ll take cash or a personal check.”

  “I wouldn’t give you a plug nickel,” she shot back. “Not if you were starving to death.”

  She wheeled and started to walk away, but he stepped in front of her.

  “I should have told you who I am, lassie. I would not hurt you for the world.”

  “You’re still not getting the money.”

  “You judge me too harshly.”

  “I don’t judge you harshly enough. If you had any consideration whatsoever for my feelings, you wouldn’t be here on my sister’s wedding day.”

  “I did not know this was your sister’s wedding day.”

  “Well, someone must have told you something, Mr. Stewart. How else could you find me?” Her words were measured, but he noted that her face had drained of color.

  “One of your neighbors told me where I could find you,” he said, feeling the edges of his quick temper begin to fray. “The particulars were of little interest to me.”

  “And there’s one of many differences between us,” she said. She passed a hand across her forehead. “These particulars are of great interest to me. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  She turned once again, took two steps away from him, then stopped.

  “Lass?” He moved toward her. “Is something wrong?”

  “N-nothing. I’m just a little light-headed.” She lowered her head, and he saw the quick rise and fall of her breasts. Strange, he hadn’t remembered her breasts as being quite so round or full.

  He rested his hand on her right shoulder. “You need to sit down.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, but she didn’t sound that way at all to him. Her voice was shaky and thin, and a sheen of perspiration glazed her forehead.

  “Lean on me. I’ll find you someplace to sit.”

  “I don’t want to sit.” She swayed gently and he gripped her other shoulder, as well. “They’re going to cut the cake. I have to—”

  She stopped abruptly, a puzzled expression on her face, then fainted dead away.

  Chapter 5

  “Samantha.” His voice floated in her left ear and drifted out through her right. “Can you hear me?”

  Of course she could hear him. But that didn’t mean she intended to let him know that.

  Maybe he’d go away if she refused to open her eyes.

  She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and lay still, trying to picture her surroundings. He must have carried her into the ladies’ room near the bank of elevators and placed her on the pale blue couch with the brocade pillows that she’d noticed on one of her earlier visits. She could smell the tiny bowls of lavender potpourri they kept on the dressing tables.

  “Too much champagne,” she heard him say. “It’s felled more Highlanders than single malt.”

  Fat lot he knew. She hadn’t taken so much as a sip of the bubbly.

  “Open your eyes,” he urged.

  She ignored him. Sooner or later he’d realize he was in the women’s bathroom and go find an actual woman to help her.

  He stood up and took a few steps away from her. She resisted the urge to peek, even when she heard the sound of rushing water, followed by returning footsteps.

  “I do not want to scare you, lassie, but—”

  She shrieked and sat straight up, heart thundering, as water sluiced down her cheeks.

  “Are you crazy?” Her voice climbed into the dogs-only zone. “You threw water on me.”

  “I didn’t throw it,” he said. “I sprinkled.”

  “Have you lost your mind? You could have given me a heart attack.”

  “I was worried, lass. The next step was to find medical help.”

  “I don’t need medical help.” She motioned for him to hand her one of the powder blue guest towels stacked in the wicker basket. “All I did was faint.”

  “That’s not a normal state.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to eat since this morning. I’m hungry, that’s all.”

  He looked skeptical, but she didn’t particularly care.

  “They don’t serve food at American wedding parties?”

  “I couldn’t find anything I liked.” She blotted her face and hair with the towel then folded it neatly and rested it on her lap. “You can go now,” she said to him.

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “It’s a very good idea.”

  “You haven’t accepted my apology.”

  Her stomach lurched alarmingly and she prayed she wouldn’t have to make a run for one of the stalls. “What difference does it make?” she countered. “The damage is already done.”

  “Damage?” He knelt in front of her so his eyes were on a level with hers. Those beautiful deep blue eyes.

  Unfair, she thought, looking away. That was how this whole thing had started.

  “What damage?” he asked.

  “A figure of speech,” she said. “Now will you please go? In case you’ve forgotten, this is a ladies’ room.”

  He glanced around the room, making a production of peering under the doors to the stalls. “We’re alone. I’m not bothering anyone.”

  “You’re bothering me.”

  “I mean you no harm.”

  “I don’t want to get into a debate with you, Mr. Stewart. It’s not my fault if you have a guilty conscience.”

>   “I should have told you who I was that afternoon, Samantha. I was wrong and I am sorry if my mistake in judgment hurt you in any way.”

  “Fine,” she said. Tears burned behind her eyes. Mistake in judgment? That’s how he thought of their lovemaking, as a mistake in judgment? She rose to her feet. “There’s no point to any of this.” Don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t make me think any more than I have to. “Ten thousand dollars is a small price to pay to get you out of my life.”

  “I am not a sentimental man,” he said, “but what happened between us—”

  “What happened between you?”

  Both Sam and Duncan turned toward the door to see Martie standing there like an avenging angel in white lace.

  Sam struggled to even out her jangled nerves before speaking.

  “Don’t tell me I missed the cake-cutting ceremony,” she said, gliding toward her sister. She felt wobbly and vulnerable, and she prayed she wouldn’t faint a second time.

  “Everyone’s waiting,” Martie said, glancing pointedly from Sam to Duncan then back again. “Estelle said you were probably in the ladies’ room.” She looked again at Duncan. Question marks practically danced in her eyes.

  “Then let’s go!” Sam linked arms with Martie, ignoring Duncan as if he wasn’t even there.

  “Sammy,” said Martie, “your hair’s wet.”

  “It’s a long story,” Sam said, not looking at Duncan.

  Martie disentangled herself from Sam and extended a hand toward the Scotsman. “Pardon my sister’s bad manners,” she said. “I’m Martie Wilde—” She grinned. “I mean, Martie Benedict. And you’re—”

  “Duncan Stewart.”

  There wasn’t so much as a glimmer of recognition on Martie’s face, a fact for which Sam was painfully grateful. The Scotsman’s reputation had yet to cross the Atlantic, but it was only a matter of time.

  “So,” said Martie as they clasped hands, “how do you know my sister?”

  “Martie,” Sam interrupted before Duncan could speak. “Your new husband must be wondering where you are.”