“Technically you live with me,” Kylee said.
“Hey, watch it, kid. Remember who feeds you.”
“I do,” Kylee said. “You can’t cook.”
Serena laughed out loud, which earned her a look from Malcolm that held much less affection than the one with which he’d favored Kylee. Somehow she’d be disappointed to find out that he was good in the kitchen. It would completely blow the picture she’d formed of him.
Then she sniffed. What was burning?
“Blast! The rolls!” She darted back into the kitchen and yanked open the oven door. It let out a small puff of smoke that carried with it the distinct smell of char. She grabbed a pot holder and pulled out the baking dish in dismay. The tops were a perfect golden brown as always, but a peek through the bottom of the glass dish showed the undersides were completely black.
And then she realized that not only had she placed them on the lower rack under the chicken but she hadn’t double-checked the oven temperature. At least it hadn’t been enough to entirely destroy them.
“I guess we’re cutting off the bottoms,” she muttered to herself. “Maybe no one will notice.”
That hope proved to be a vain one. Muriel and Kylee didn’t say anything as they added their rolls to their plates alongside the chicken, but Malcolm flipped his over. “That explains the char smell.”
Heat rose to Serena’s face, which irritated her even more. Since when did she care whether he thought she could cook? He was an employee, barely an acquaintance. It wasn’t as if she felt any need to impress him.
“Serena is a talented baker when she’s not distracted,” Muriel said.
Malcolm flashed her a grin. “Distracted? Why are you distracted?”
Curse the man. He probably thought he was the distraction. Serena scrambled for a plausible answer and landed on one that was at least partially true. “I’ve been thinking about our rental.”
“Rental? Of what?”
“I’d planned on renting a cottage in Armadale through the summer,” she explained, “but when I arrived, it wasn’t suitable.”
“Too rustic?”
“Its only heat was a wood-burning stove, and I’m not comfortable with Max around fire.”
“Understandable. There’s nothing else available?”
“Not that I’ve found so far. And nothing that would let us stay for the entire season.”
“Uncle Mal, what about Mrs. Docherty’s croft house?” Kylee asked.
Serena looked between Kylee and Malcolm. “Mrs. Docherty?”
“Our neighbor,” Malcolm said. “There are two houses on the property beside us. Mrs. Docherty spends summers in the modern house in the back, and she rents the old nineteenth-century croft house in the front. It’s been vacant since last autumn.”
“The bloke who was living there went to jail,” Kylee said, her eyes bright with excitement.
Malcolm gave her a warning look. “That’s just gossip. In any case, the house is very simple. I’m not sure it’s what you’re looking for.”
It was in close proximity to him, he meant. Well, that didn’t exactly commend it to her either. But Kylee didn’t seem to pick up the subtext.
“What do you mean? It would be perfect. It has two bedrooms downstairs, plus a loft, and I know it has radiators because you helped winterize them when it went vacant.”
“I could make the enquiry for you if you like,” Malcolm said slowly. “It does have a rather nice view of Broadford Bay if you don’t mind driving from the Breakish area.”
“Oh, would you, Malcolm?” Muriel laid a hand on his forearm. “That would be lovely.”
Malcolm looked at Serena, obviously waiting for her response. She waffled for a long moment. Hadn’t she just been worrying about their accommodations? And Aunt Muriel had told her she had to have faith. Somehow, though, Serena didn’t appreciate God’s providence coming in the form of another source of stress.
Yet it did sound like an option—possibly her only option. She swallowed her reservations and something that felt suspiciously like pride. “Yes, would you ask, please?”
“It would be my pleasure,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
Muriel looked perfectly satisfied by the turn of events, unaware of the undercurrent in the polite conversation. But from the looks that Malcolm kept shooting Serena across the table, he was enjoying this far too much. He wouldn’t let her forget that she’d needed him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MALCOLM CALLED AND LEFT A MESSAGE for Mrs. Docherty first thing the next morning, secretly hoping she’d make a quick reply. Maybe it was simply his contrary nature that liked the idea of playing hero to a woman whose worst nightmare was being a damsel in distress, or maybe it was the notion that Serena would have to use a little more humility in their future interactions.
Or perhaps it was simply the anticipation of being able to see her in a less formal setting as his next-door neighbor. It was useless to deny that she intrigued him. She was a puzzle, and he’d never been able to resist the urge to take something apart and learn how it worked. Despite her obvious shock at seeing him—and her assumption that Kylee was his daughter—she’d been subdued last night. Perhaps troubled. What exactly did Serena Stewart have to be worried about?
He didn’t get a chance to pry because she didn’t set foot in the hotel for the next few days. Was she avoiding him? No, that idea was ridiculous. She had children, after all, and motherhood came with an additional set of duties.
On Thursday afternoon, his direct office line finally rang. “Malcolm, dear, it’s Anna Docherty.”
“Mrs. Docherty! You got my message. I thought you were too busy sunbathing to call me back.” The owner of the croft house next door spent winters with her daughter in the south of France, claiming the Scottish weather was too hard on her arthritis. Mostly he thought she just liked to be waited on by young French men. She had a reputation for being a saucy old lady from what he’d heard.
Her delighted chuckle filled the line. “You know me so well. You said you have a tenant for my croft house?”
Malcolm told her about Serena, mentioning that she had two children and needed a place through the end of summer, but as soon as Mrs. Docherty realized he was talking about Duncan MacDonald’s daughter, she was sold.
“You know Duncan taught my youngest son fiddle, don’t you? Not that he kept up with it as he should—doesn’t even speak Gaelic anymore since moving to Edinburgh—but it’s good to keep the old music from being lost, don’t you think?”
Malcolm pulled out a file folder of invoices as Mrs. Docherty rattled on about her son. She seemed to think he had become a successful hairstylist simply because he was too lazy to hold a “real job,” as she liked to call it. Malcolm read over the line items on the last produce invoice, inserting murmurs of agreement in appropriate places. When she’d gone on for a full ten minutes without any input, he finally interjected. “Should I tell her it’s available?”
“What’s available? Oh, the house. Right you are. You have the key, dear. Go ahead and show it to her and let me know if she wants it. You can collect the rent for me until I come back in June.”
“It would be my pleasure. I have to get back to work now. Give those French girls a chance, will you?”
Malcolm hung up with a laugh. He’d have thought the eccentric-old-lady act was a put-on if Kylee hadn’t told him all the stories that had circulated around the village over the years. As blunt as she was dotty, she had inspired her own saying: plenty of things were now referred to as “pulling an Anna Docherty.” He suspected she did them just to keep the village humming. And why not? When you’d outlived three husbands, birthed six children, and made it to the ripe age of eighty-nine, you were within your rights to have a little fun.
He shuffled through a pile of paperwork until he found the laminated sheet that contained Serena’s mobile number, then picked up the phone and dialed.
She picked up immediately, her tone surprised. “Malcolm! Is t
here a problem?”
“No problem. The croft house is available. I have the keys if you’d like to come over later tonight and take a look.”
“Couldn’t we do it tomorrow?” The sounds of young voices rang from the background.
“I’m at the hotel all day,” he reminded her. “Unless you want to come by before I leave in the morning.”
“That would be better, I think.” Her voice turned muffled, but he heard her say clearly, “Max, that does not go in the toilet. And you can’t run around without pants. Come back here.”
Malcolm chuckled. “Come by at half seven then. I’ll text you the address later. I’ll even bring coffee.”
“I’ll be there,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He set the receiver carefully in the cradle. Her words had surely been reflex, but they sparked an unexpected warmth in him all the same.
CHAPTER NINE
SERENA STOOD ON THE FRONT STEPS of the address Malcolm had texted her, shivering even though she was wearing her quilted jacket and shearling-lined boots. Mid-April on Skye should not have been this cold, but there had been one storm after another, this one bringing a socked-in fog and a freezing drizzle that stuck like ice chips to her coat and hair.
As minutes passed, she wondered if she had somehow gotten the address or the time wrong. She pulled her mobile from her pocket, ready to call Malcolm, when the outline of a figure appeared in the fog at the end of the long, muddy drive. Details resolved as he trudged toward her, wearing a thick sweater and mud-splattered wellies, a black knit cap pulled down over his ears and forehead. She cursed herself silently at the sudden jig happening in her insides. Rugged had never described her taste in men, but it worked for him. A little too well.
“I’m sorry I’m late.” Malcolm handed her an insulated mug. “Does bringing coffee make up for it?”
“I might be able to overlook it. Busy morning?” She was pleased by how level and dispassionate her voice came out.
“A bit of an incident involving Kylee’s dog, muddy paws, and every piece of upholstery in the house,” he said with a crooked grin. “The pup’s lucky he’s cute.”
Serena reluctantly returned the smile. “Em’s been begging me for one, but I can’t be responsible for keeping one more creature alive right now.”
“I understand that.” Malcolm dug his key ring from his pocket and brushed past her to fit the key into the door. “The house has been shut up for a bit, so it’ll be cold. But the rads worked in the autumn.”
Serena moved past him into the foyer that led directly to a lounge. The outside had been a traditional croft house style, a scaled-down version of the hotel with a whitewashed stone exterior and newer mullioned windows. The inside surprised her with its bright and modern cast. The original wide-plank floors covered the entire interior, and the walls were painted a clean and bright cream. Comfy slipcovered furniture stood opposite a small flat-screen television.
“No dining room, but there’s an eat-in kitchen.” Malcolm delivered the words with the practiced composure of an estate agent, so incongruous with his appearance this morning that she smiled. She followed him down the hallway into a somewhat dated but functional kitchen, complete with a washer/dryer unit beneath the countertop.
Her smile widened when she saw the vintage enameled AGA range. “It’s charming.”
Malcolm seemed surprised by her response. “Have a look at the bedrooms then. There are two downstairs, which I imagine you’d want for the children, and one double upstairs.”
The two bedrooms on the main floor were small but equally appealing, with antique single beds, freshly laundered linens folded at the foot of each. Just down the hall was a minuscule bath with a tankless water heater built into the stand-up shower cubicle. A steep flight of stairs off the center hall led to a tiny wood-paneled loft beneath the eaves, barely wide enough for a double bed. Malcolm pressed himself back against the wall so she could pass, but it wasn’t far enough to ignore the waft of that outdoorsy cologne or his solid presence as she brushed by him.
She stopped in front of the window, drawing in a breath. “The view is incredible!”
He moved in behind her to take a look, and once more every nerve in her body snapped to attention. She needed to move before she gave away her reaction, but there was barely enough room for one person to maneuver, let alone two.
“I have that same view from my bedroom,” he said. “At least here they’ve raised the bed frame so you can see outside while lying down. You’d have an amazing view of the stars, if it would stop storming.”
Something about the intimacy of the observation made heat crawl up her neck and spread across her chest. Her coat suddenly felt uncomfortably stuffy, despite the house’s cold interior. She cleared her throat. “The radiators and the boiler work?”
“They did when I winterized the place, but I can turn them on for you if you want.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she said. “I’m sure I can manage on my own.”
Malcolm looked down at her, a thoughtful look on his face that was far more unsettling than his usual arrogant smirk. “Is it really that hard for you to accept help?”
Serena flushed deeper, not sure whether it was guilt or offense she felt. “No, I just don’t need any help. I’ve turned on radiators before.”
“I don’t mean that. It’s eating you up that I was the one to find you a house, and you can’t even let me turn on the rads. That chip on your shoulder must get heavy after a while.”
Her guilt fled as quickly as it had come. “Me? That’s amusing coming from you.”
“Oh, I earned my chip honestly. What I want to know is what you have to be so angry about.”
The assumption was so astoundingly blind that for a moment she was speechless. “You mean besides the fact that my husband died and left me with two children to raise on my own?”
“Besides that, yes. I would think that you would be grateful for the help, considering the situation.”
She glared at him. “Maybe I’ve had my fill of men telling me what I should be grateful for, as if I’m too weak or stupid to know my own mind.”
“If you think that’s what I’m doing, you’ve spent too much time with the wrong sorts of men.” Malcolm crossed his arms over his chest, his expression once again superior. She wanted nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face.
No, scratch that. She wanted nothing more than to be able to revel in her righteous indignation without being distracted by the way his sweater clung to the muscles in his arms and shoulders, the sudden desire to know what it felt like to be pressed against that hard body.
What on earth was wrong with her?
Serena forced a flippant smile to match his own, though her heart now beat so hard she was sure he could see it through her sweater. “I suppose you consider yourself the right sort of man, then?”
“I was just making an observation. You’re the one who made it personal.” He took another step toward her, and she forced herself to stand her ground, even though they were nearly toe to toe in the narrow space between the bed and the window.
“There is nothing personal between us.”
“No?” He reached out and twisted an escaped lock of hair around his finger, his eyes never leaving hers. Energy hummed between them, electrifying every last nerve ending, paralyzing her ability to move away. When his gaze dipped to her mouth, her breath stilled in her lungs. She wavered between wanting to kiss him and wanting to push him away, teetered while she waited to see which impulse would win out.
But instead of lowering his mouth to hers, he dropped his hand and lifted one eyebrow. “Do you want to change your answer?”
A rush of irritation burst up in place of her earlier butterflies. What kind of game was he playing? She straightened and fixed her gaze somewhere over his shoulder so she didn’t have to look him in the eye. “Move, please.”
He stared for several seconds, then shifted into the corner so she
could slide by. When she was halfway to the door, he said, “I didn’t take you for the type that ran away from a challenge.”
She froze. All her best intentions disintegrated as she turned and marched back to him, so close that he backed into the wall with a thump. “Let me make one thing clear. I’m not some naive girl who doesn’t know what she wants and needs to be enlightened. Not by you. Not by anyone. And just because I’m attracted to you doesn’t mean I feel any need to act on it.”
She spun on her heel and took the stairs as fast as she dared, her heart still slamming against her ribs. His footsteps thundered down the wooden treads after her.
“So you admit it! You are attracted to me.”
Serena didn’t answer as she let herself out and climbed into the front seat of the car. Curse her temper. It wasn’t as if she’d told him anything he didn’t already know—he’d turned her into a puddle by touching her hair, for heaven’s sake—but now that she’d owned up to it, he would be relentless. She flipped down the visor and tucked those stray pieces back into her ponytail, trying to ignore the brightness of her eyes, the color in her cheeks.
A knock on the window startled her. She flipped the visor back up and turned the key in the ignition so she could roll down the window.
Malcolm bent down to her level, his forearm braced along the top of the car. “Have dinner with me. You can’t say something like that and not let me make a case for myself.”
“I’m not interested.”
He studied her closely. “I don’t believe you.”
“I’m sorry, did you think we had a moment back there? I didn’t notice.”
His eyes narrowed, and he smoothed his hand over the lower half of his face as if he weren’t sure what to do next. She took advantage of his silence to put the car in gear, and he had to jump back as she began to reverse down the driveway.
“Wait!” he called after her. “Do you want the place or not?”
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