“Are you going to take Mum on a date?” Em sounded excited, and Serena almost groaned aloud. There could be nothing worse than an eight-year-old trying to arrange her love life. She bustled into the room before Malcolm was forced to answer.
“Sorry,” she said to Malcolm with a grimace. “Em, don’t be so nosy.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Unless you didn’t want them to know I’m taking you out, in which case, the cat is out of the bag.”
“Hey, guys, why don’t you run out to the car. Em, help Max get buckled in, would you?” She set Max down, and Em took him by the hand. As soon as the door closed behind them, Serena began, “I’m sorry. She’s—”
She didn’t get out the rest of her apology before he took her face in his hands and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his midsection beneath his jacket, momentarily forgetting anything but his lips on hers. When he stepped back, she felt a little dazed.
“There. That should hold me. I can play the family friend today, and no one will have any idea I’m actually seducing you with the promise of several hours of adult conversation.”
Serena laughed, though she was still feeling the effect of that kiss. “Are you now?”
“I am. Kylee will come over here to babysit on Friday, and you get to relax for a few hours.”
“You have no idea how wonderful that sounds.”
“I think I do. Now come, let’s go before we have to answer questions about what’s taking so long.”
Serena grabbed her handbag from the hallway and produced the keys to lock the door behind them. How did he manage to do that? He lifted her spirits by his very presence and put her children at ease. He didn’t even seem uncomfortable with Em’s prying questions. And yet her daughter’s tone when she questioned him made Serena think Em wasn’t looking at him as a crush but as something potentially much more problematic.
She sighed as she walked to her car and checked Max’s seat belt. She’d tried so hard to keep her children out of this, but when it came to Skye, business and personal matters inevitably got entwined. For all their sakes, she needed to be careful. She might be realistic about the relationship—if she could call it that—but her children were much too young to understand. They looked at Malcolm and, at least in Em’s case, hoped for a daddy.
“Is something the matter?” Malcolm asked, and she realized she was sitting in the driver’s seat with her hands curled around the steering wheel, staring out the windscreen.
“No, sorry.” She turned the key in the ignition and backed down the drive, silently chiding herself for being so distracted.
“She’ll be okay, you know. They wouldn’t be sending her home today if not. The fact they didn’t transfer her last night is reassuring.”
“Right. I know you’re right.” Bless him for not picking up on the real reason for her odd behavior. And the words did ease her fears about Muriel. Her aunt had always been such an anchor in her life, Serena didn’t know how she would cope if something were to happen to her. It would be even more crushing than when her father had died. Certainly worse than losing Edward, even if she felt too guilty to admit that out loud.
At Broadford Hospital, the nurse waved her straight back, and Serena cautiously traversed the hallway with Em, Max, and Malcolm behind her. She knocked lightly before pushing open the door.
In contrast to how they’d found her last night, Muriel had been disconnected from the monitors and looked as she always did, dressed in her own clothes and reading a book in the chair by the bed.
“Auntie!” Em flung herself across the room at Muriel and immediately started crying.
“Ah, none of that, my brave girl.” Muriel squeezed Em tight and then opened her arms to Max, who couldn’t stand to be left out of a hug. She held her great-niece and -nephew for a few moments, then looked over their heads at Serena and Malcolm. “I thought Malcolm wasn’t coming?”
He looked questioningly at Serena, who shrugged. “He was home. How’s the book?”
“Violent.” Muriel didn’t seem to mean it as a criticism. “I’m just waiting on my prescriptions, and then we can go.”
“Am I interrupting a family reunion?” A good-natured female voice came from behind Serena, and she stepped out of the way for a white-coated doctor.
“I’m Dr. Goran,” she said, shaking Serena’s hand.
“Serena Stewart, her niece.”
“A pleasure to meet you. As I was just telling your aunt, she’s very lucky. Even considering the severity and sudden onset of her symptoms, she’s responding very well to her medications. As long as she’s diligent about taking her pills, I would expect her to feel like herself in a couple of weeks, if not less.”
“So it is Graves’ disease?”
The doctor looked to Muriel as if to gain her permission to speak, then said, “It is. It’s not unusual for the condition to develop later in life, perhaps triggered by her case of bronchitis last year. Her primary physician will want to monitor her closely to make sure the antithyroid medications are working as they should.” She moved to Muriel’s side and handed her several slips of paper. “Make sure you follow up with your primary care physician tomorrow and fill your scripts in the morning.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Muriel nudged aside Em and Max and stood. “Let’s go, then. I’m anxious to get back to my own home.”
Muriel wobbled a little bit, and Serena made an immediate move to her side, but Malcolm stopped her with a look. Smoothly he stepped beside Muriel and tucked her hand into his elbow as if he were escorting her instead of steadying her. “Now, Auntie, you have to promise me that you’re actually going to rest, especially until you see your regular physician.”
His stern look elicited a smile from Muriel. “If you insist. Em, dear, will you get my handbag?”
Em sprang to action, taking Muriel’s bag and book while Serena held tight to Max’s hand so he wouldn’t bolt. Malcolm kept up a running commentary all the way out to the car park, then helped Muriel into the front seat of Serena’s car without seeming like he was helping her. Apparently, not only had Muriel adopted Malcolm, but the feeling was mutual.
When they reached Muriel’s home, he again escorted the older woman inside. The house looked as neat as always, except the coffee table had been pushed up against the piano, Serena assumed to make room for the paramedics. Em’s eyes welled up again when she took in the scene.
“You did great, Em.” Serena hugged her daughter tightly and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks, Mum,” she whispered.
Muriel patted a sofa cushion beside her. “Ah, my favorite girl. Come sit next to me for a minute.”
Em obliged, curling up on the sofa next to her, while Max claimed her other side. Muriel put an arm around each of them. “How could I not feel better with such attentive helpers?”
“Since you’re in such good hands, I’m going to go see what we have for lunch,” Serena said.
In the fridge she found a container of roast chicken still on the bone, some fruit, and the usual condiments. Chicken salad it was. She was in the process of cubing the chicken breast when Malcolm entered the room. He settled at the island to watch her.
“So you can cook.”
“Chopping doesn’t qualify as cooking,” she said. “But yes. How do you think I’ve managed to feed my family all this time?”
“For all I know, you had a personal chef in Inverness.”
She started to make a retort before she realized he was just teasing her. “Well, if Kylee is to be believed, you’re the one who needs one.” She dumped the chicken into a mixing bowl, then began to cut the grapes and apples into uniform pieces, which she added to the mixture with a handful of walnuts and a healthy dollop of crème fraîche.
Malcolm leaned over and stole a piece of chicken from the bowl with his fingers. “This is good. But I probably shouldn’t stay. I’m overdue at the hotel already.”
“Surely you have time,” S
erena said. “Unless you have something better planned than delicious chicken salad on whole-wheat bread.”
“I most certainly do.” He stretched across the island for a kiss, and she happily obliged him.
“This explains quite a lot.”
Serena jerked back at Muriel’s voice, her face flaming.
“Don’t mind me,” Muriel said blithely. “I’m just getting myself a drink of water.”
Serena looked at Malcolm, who shrugged, completely unperturbed. Surely Muriel would have questions that Serena didn’t yet know how to answer. But her aunt only filled her glass at the sink, took a long drink, and then returned the way she’d come.
“Do you think that means she approves or not?” Malcolm asked.
“Considering she’s been making oblique comments every time your name comes up, I’m fairly certain it’s not disapproval.” Serena retrieved a loaf of bread and began to put together sandwiches on the cutting board. Malcolm wordlessly retrieved a stack of plates from the cabinet and set them on the island beside her.
“I’m going to take these out to Em and Max,” he said when she put half a sandwich on each of two plates.
She stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “Thank you.”
“For carrying sandwiches?” He flashed a wicked grin. “What do I get if I pour them milk too?”
“I wasn’t talking about that.”
He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “I know.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DATING WAS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT when you had two children, Serena thought at ten minutes until seven on Friday. When she’d started seeing Edward, she’d spent hours getting ready—soaking in a bubble bath, styling her hair to perfection, redoing her makeup until it was runway perfect. Now she was putting on mascara as quickly as possible, while Max splashed in the bathtub beside her. After she got him dried off and into his pajamas, she would change from her robe into her date clothes—once the imminent danger of sticky fingers was mostly past.
“Mummy!”
Serena turned toward Max just as he slammed his hand onto the surface of the water, sending up a splash that sprayed across the room and splattered everything in its path: the wall, the mirror, her newly made-up face.
“Max! Stop that!” She grabbed a towel and dabbed her face, trying not to smear her work.
“Sorry, Mummy.”
“All right, monkey, it’s time to get you out. What pajamas do you want to wear?”
“Dinosaurs!”
Of course. Everything was dinosaurs lately. She grabbed a towel and lifted him out onto the mat, then gave him a good rubdown before she carried him down the hall to his bedroom. As soon as she pulled out his pajamas from the built-in drawers, though, he yanked them out of her hand. “I’ll do it.”
“All right, Mr. Independent. You do it. I’m going to get dressed.”
She left him wrestling his legs into his underpants and climbed the stairs to her own bedroom, where she’d already laid out her clothes. Her patterned lace tights and slinky sweater-dress required nearly as much wiggling as Max was doing downstairs. She checked her reflection in the full-length mirror she’d picked up at a big-box store in Fort William this week, giving her rear view a critical once-over. Well, nothing to be done about that; she’d had two kids. At least the deep V of the faux-wrap front made her waist look small and her other assets impressively perky.
“Not bad for thirty-nine years old,” she murmured to herself.
“You look pretty, Mum.”
Serena looked away from the mirror to where Em stood in the doorway, wearing the T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms she’d selected for her pajamas. “Thank you, cupcake. Are you okay staying with Kylee tonight?”
“Yeah. She’s fun. And she said she would help us make blondies.”
“Good. We won’t be too late.”
Serena zipped up her knee-high boots, then grabbed her watch from the nightstand and fastened it on her wrist. As she followed her daughter down the stairs, Em asked, “So is this a date?”
“Well . . .” Serena still hadn’t decided what she was going to tell the kids. “Kind of. He asked me if I wanted to go to dinner, and I said yes.”
“That’s a date,” her daughter said with all the certainty of an overly romantic eight-year-old.
“I suppose it is. But Malcolm and I are friends. We like to spend time together.”
“You know, it’s okay, Mum. If you want to date, I mean. Even if you want to get married again someday.” Em looked up at her earnestly, her eyes shining, and Serena’s heart gave a clench.
All this time she’d devoted herself completely to her kids, thinking she would be doing them a disservice otherwise, and Em was worrying about her mum’s lack of a social life. She gave her daughter a hug and kissed the top of her dark head. “Thanks, cupcake. Let’s not get carried away, though. It’s only dinner.”
“Okay.” But Em’s look said she believed otherwise.
A knock sounded at the door, and before Serena could respond, Em ran for it. “I’ll get it!” she yelled as she yanked the door open. “Mum! Malcolm and Kylee are here!”
Serena shook her head. Her foot touched the last stair as Malcolm walked into the house. He wore a pair of dark trousers, a light wool pullover, and his signature leather jacket, though his hair looked a little less tousled than usual and he’d given his beard a trim. She’d never thought she’d like a rugged, outdoorsy look on a man, but her heart gave a little leap when she saw him.
“You have purple hair!” Em squealed. Serena dragged her eyes away from Malcolm when she realized that Em was talking about Kylee.
The teen shrugged sheepishly. “It’s just chalk. Is it okay if I do some in Em’s hair?”
Em turned puppy-dog brown eyes to Serena. “Please, Mum? Pleasepleaseplease?”
“If it washes out,” Serena said, earning a round of cheering from her daughter.
“Uh, Serena,” Malcolm said, “I think you have an escapee.”
She turned just in time to see a bare three-year-old bum disappear around the corner, Max’s delighted laughter trailing down the hall behind him.
“Excuse me while I deal with my little nudist.” Serena strode down the hall after her son. “Max, how is this getting yourself dressed? Come on, Son.”
After a short game of tag with Max darting out of reach each time, she wrestled him to a stop long enough to get both his underpants and his pajamas on his body and then gave him strict instructions to stay fully clothed. He clung to her as she walked back into the lounge.
“Are you ready? Or should I have made the reservation for three?” Amusement sparkled in Malcolm’s eyes, and the relief rushing through Serena’s body surprised her. Any other man would have been halfway out the door if he walked in on this display.
“Hey, Max,” Kylee said, “I’ve got something for you in my bag. Do you want to go into the kitchen and see what it is?” Kylee held out her arms, and after a moment’s hesitation, Max went to her instead.
“Thank you,” Serena mouthed to Kylee. She gave Em one last hug and then grabbed her handbag off the console table.
“Ready?” Malcolm asked.
“Finally. Let’s escape while we can.”
They slipped out the front door, Serena pausing to lock it behind them, and then she followed him down the drive to where his black compact was parked. He opened the door for her, and she spent the time it took for him to circle to the driver’s side to draw in a few deep breaths. In and out. In and out. Turn mum mode off. Turn woman mode on. If she could even remember what that was. And then Malcolm leaned across the console, took her chin in his hand, and kissed her, and she had no problem at all remembering.
“All right, so this is a little embarrassing,” he said when he sat back again.
“What? That you couldn’t wait until the good-night?”
His smile flashed, accompanied by an irresistible crinkle of his eyes, and her heart did another little leap. “I’m not embarras
sed at all about that. I hope you’re not going to make me wait until the good-night to kiss you again either . . .”
“Hmm. We’ll see. What’s embarrassing? Did you forget to make reservations? This is Skye. It’s not like everything will be booked.”
“Best you see for yourself, I reckon.” He buckled his seat belt and then backed down her drive. By the time they turned down the Sleat Peninsula, she thought she might know the source of his embarrassment. When he pulled up in front of the MacDonald Guest House, it was clear.
He turned sideways on the seat to face her. “Listen, I asked around for opinions on what the best restaurant on Skye was, and every single person said—”
“This one.” She laughed. “Blame my brother. At least we know the food is good.”
“Chef Villarreal is about to try out a new menu, and I convinced him to give us a preview. So other than Jamie, you will be the first person to sample these dishes.”
He looked so simultaneously uncertain and eager to please that she leaned across the seat and kissed him again. “It’s perfect. I’ve only eaten here once, if you can believe that.”
“I hoped that might be the case. What’s the use of all your hard work if you can’t enjoy it?”
If anyone thought it was odd that the owner and the hotel manager were having dinner in the dining room like regular guests, no one let on. Serena did notice that they were shown to the best table in the back corner, dimly lit and away from even the small amount of noise that came from the cozy restaurant. Every detail was simple and perfect, from the white linen tablecloths to the lushly upholstered chairs to the candlelit ambience.
Almost immediately after they were seated, the hostess brought a bottle of wine to the table. “Spanish cava,” she said quietly, pouring with flair into their two glasses and then slipping away just as unobtrusively. Being on the receiving end of the restaurant’s service, Serena could see why everyone had pointed Malcolm in this direction.
“Was this your idea?” she asked as she reached for the glass of sparkling wine.
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