“Callisto. Do you . . . ? I mean, is it . . . ?”
He looked down at her, his expression sending her body into a whole new series of jitters that surely couldn’t be healthy. “It’s going to be amazing, Serena. Even I can tell you are an extraordinarily talented artist.”
She swallowed the tears threatening to rise again. “You’re not just—”
“—trying to get back into your good graces? No. I mean, I do want back in your good graces, but I’m not just saying what you want to hear.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “I don’t know what made you stop, but you should be doing this.”
She stared at him for the space of several heartbeats. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
He laughed. “If I knew that’s all it took to get on your good side—”
“You said that’s not what you were doing!”
“It wasn’t, but I like the end result.” He tipped her face up to his and kissed her again. “Does that mean I’m forgiven?”
A surge of mischief swelled up inside her. “I don’t know. I should think about it more.”
He closed his hands on her waist and bent to nip her bottom lip. “How about now?”
“Still not convinced.”
“Now?” He pressed her back, dropping little kisses on her lips with each step, until they fell to the sofa in a laughing tangle.
She slid her fingers through his hair as she looked up into his face, and time seemed to slow, locked in the intensity of his deep-brown eyes. She could have sworn her heart stopped beating altogether.
“I think this is the part where I excuse myself for the night,” he murmured.
She swallowed and moistened her suddenly dry lips. “Probably a good idea.”
He levered himself off the sofa and pulled her to her feet, where she ended up right back in his arms. He was getting harder and harder to resist, when he lifted her spirits with his mere presence, when she was beginning to crave his voice and touch more than she’d ever thought possible.
Still, it wasn’t until Serena woke the next morning and he immediately sprang to mind that she realized her intentions to keep him at a safe distance had failed entirely. She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to reconcile the twin thrills of terror and elation that surged through her at the mere thought of him. They barely knew each other, after all, and other than the strength of their chemistry, what did she really know about him?
She rolled over, crumpling her pillow beneath her head. Maybe that wasn’t entirely true. She saw how much he loved his niece and what he had sacrificed to put Kylee’s needs first. He was kind and patient with her children. He was utterly determined to be a better man than his father, caring for his mother when she’d had no one else.
No, she might not know all the details of his life before her, but she knew who he was as surely as she knew how she felt about him. Malcolm Blake was a good man, a trustworthy man. If his actions could be believed, he cared for her. His tenderness seemed to say what words didn’t.
And she’d actually shown him her painting. For that matter, she was painting, period. Just thinking about the half-finished canvas made her want to jump out of bed and get to work. It wasn’t a stretch to say that her feelings for Malcolm had awakened parts of her that she thought were gone forever.
“Are you awake, Mum?”
She pushed herself up onto one elbow to find Em hovering in the doorway. “Why are you up so early, cupcake?” Max had woken them at three this morning, so she’d assumed she would have to drag them both out of bed for school.
Em perched on the edge of the bed, her expression conflicted. “Is Malcolm your boyfriend?”
Great. The one question she didn’t know how to answer. “I don’t know, sweetheart. We haven’t really talked about it yet. Would it bother you if he was?”
Em thought, then shook her head. She crawled under the covers with Serena and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. “No, I really like him. He’s nice and he plays with me and Max. And he told me I could look through his telescope.”
“When was this?”
“At Glenn and Davy’s house. I told him how you told us the stories in the stars, and he said he liked the stars too.”
Serena smiled, torn between being touched by his kindness toward her daughter and afraid that Em was already getting too invested in this relationship. It was one thing to risk her own heart, but another to put her child’s heart on the line.
She turned to Em and laced their fingers together. Wide brown eyes, so much like Edward’s, stared back at her. “Here’s the thing, cupcake. Malcolm and I are just dating. That means we’re still getting to know each other, to see if we really like each other. And it’s possible that after some time, we might realize we’re not right for each other.”
“Mum,” Em said patiently. “I know what dating is.”
“How do you—? Never mind.” Girls these days seemed to understand romance from birth. She still remembered when Em had come home from school at five years old and announced she was going to marry Tommy Wade. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. Malcolm is a really good person, and I’m glad you like him, because I couldn’t date someone you didn’t like. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to get married or that we’re even going to keep dating. Does that make sense?”
Em looked a little disappointed, but she nodded. “Okay. But it would be okay if you did marry him.”
Maybe it would, her traitorous heart sang. Serena simply gathered her daughter to her and gave her a tight hug. “What do you say we go make breakfast? Just us girls before Max wakes up?”
“Okay.” Em threw aside the covers and bounded out of bed, the conversation already forgotten. Serena followed more slowly, her earlier giddy mood tempered by her daughter’s words. She couldn’t forget that she wasn’t the only one whose heart was at stake here. Even if she were willing to depend on Malcolm a little, she had to spare her children the potential fallout if things went wrong.
After peeking in on Max, who was sound asleep in his bed, one leg sticking out from beneath the duvet, she went to the kitchen and began pulling canisters from the cabinets. This oatcake recipe was one of her favorites, her take on a Scottish classic, sweetened with honey and lightened with the addition of a little flour to the soaked pinhead oats that the original recipe called for. They were just rolling out the dough on the cutting board when a knock drew her attention.
“Here, why don’t you start cutting them out?” She handed Em a large biscuit cutter and strode to the front door, pulling it open without checking to see who it was.
“Did I wake you?” Malcolm stood on the front steps wearing a mischievous grin, a vacuum carafe in his hand.
Serena pulled the lapels of her robe tighter together and tried not to let on that his mere proximity sent a tingle down to her toes. When she didn’t immediately answer, he held out the carafe. “Coffee. I know you could make your own, but I wanted to see if I could catch you again in a state of undress. Mission accomplished.”
Serena’s cheeks warmed, even though the twinkle in his eye said he was just having a laugh at her expense. She took the coffee with a smile. “I would invite you in for breakfast, but the ladies of the house are not yet prepared to receive guests.”
“Fair enough. I shall be a gentleman and let you return to your morning repast.” He delivered the last words in a stuffy English accent—at least the best he could manage, considering how his Highland accent managed to intrude—and gave a formal bow.
“Thanks for the coffee,” she said as he stepped off the stoop.
“Thanks for the view,” he shot back with that same mischievous smile.
Serena’s own smile lingered after she closed the door and padded barefoot back to the kitchen. Em looked up from her baking sheet of oatcakes. “Was that Malcolm?”
“Brought me coffee,” she said.
Em sighed. “That’s so romantic.”
Serena wanted to cor
rect her, but she couldn’t bring herself to chide her daughter. Nothing she said at this point would save their hearts if things went wrong. Both she and Em were goners.
CHAPTER TWENTY
MALCOLM DROVE TO THE HOTEL, his smile still lingering. He hadn’t truly shown up early to try to catch Serena in her nightgown, though he wasn’t above teasing her. He’d wanted to do something small to let her know he was thinking about her, even if it was something she could have easily done herself.
The fact was, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Last night seemed to have catapulted their relationship to another level. He could see how difficult it had been for her to show him her painting, how badly she’d wanted his support. She’d almost seemed braced for condemnation, as if she’d been doing something wrong. But he’d also seen a new spark in her, a passion he wouldn’t have thought she possessed if it weren’t for her enthusiastic response to his kisses. There were depths to this woman that he hadn’t yet explored, and he wanted to know everything that they contained.
And somehow, that thought didn’t worry him. He rubbed a hand thoughtfully over his jaw. He might be able to love Serena Stewart.
If he didn’t already, he was getting there fast.
The last thing he wanted to do was force the issue, especially after the way she’d reacted at church yesterday. He was more likely to scare her away by admitting he had serious feelings for her than just holding steady and waiting for her to come around.
There would, of course, have to be plenty more kissing. He could be persuasive in ways that had nothing to do with words. That thought summoned a grin that lasted all the way to Isleornsay, into the hotel, and right up to his first crisis of the morning.
By the time Serena showed up just after nine, Malcolm’s jaw ached from clenching his teeth. He’d dealt with nothing but complaints since he arrived, all things that were far beyond his control, like the fact that guests in one room had played their television too loud and that the breakfast room served only Scottish breakfast tea and not Darjeeling. Both guests demanded a discount for the inconvenience.
The minute he saw Serena, all those annoyances faded into the background. “Hi.”
“Hi yourself. Do you have a few minutes? I want to talk to you about something.”
“Sure. Come back to my office.” He led her down the hall and held the door open for her, slightly puzzled by her serious tone. Was there a problem with the hotel? Or with them?
“I forgot to tell you last night.” She gave him a mischievous smile, no doubt remembering the previous evening’s exchange in her lounge. So it wasn’t about them. He shifted and fought to keep his attention away from those memories and on the present, where she was still talking.
“Jamie and Ian agree it’s time to hire someone else.”
He blinked, jerked back to the present. “What?”
“You knew it was coming; I mentioned it in the bar.”
“What? No.” Clearly he’d missed something important. “You’re firing me?”
She stared at him as if he’d begun speaking another language. “I said I wanted you to hire an assistant manager and another bartender. Weren’t you listening?”
“Uh, apparently not.” He let out a breath of relief and gave her a suggestive grin. “I was thinking about other things.”
A smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. “Well, try to think about this for now. I’d like to meet your final choices before the official hire, but the decision is yours.” She pushed a piece of paper across the desk. “Here’s the revised payroll budget.”
Malcolm lifted the sheet and scanned the lines. When he came to his own name, he did a double take. The figure beside it was much larger than what he currently made in the course of a year. “Serena, I know you said you were giving me a raise, but this is . . .”
“I’m putting you on salary. We would like you to still be here in the afternoons and early evenings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, since those are our busiest times. As for the schedule, you can work that out among you, Liam, and the new assistant manager. You’ll have more flexibility for Kylee at least.”
“I don’t know what to say, Serena. This isn’t because we’re . . .”
“No.” She didn’t flinch, didn’t hesitate. “I checked pay rates for managers of hotels of the same quality as this one—or at least the rating we’re aspiring to—and this is competitive. Even if it is somewhat high for Skye.”
“I don’t know what to say.” It didn’t sound like a favor because they were dating, but it still felt odd to be given a raise by a woman he’d just kissed rather thoroughly last night.
“Say you agree and you’ll put out the job listing immediately.”
“Yes. To both.”
“Good. I’ll go sit at the front desk until I have to pick up Max from school.” She retrieved her bag and headed for the door.
“Wait. When can I see you again?”
A tiny pleased smile returned to her lips. “Since Muriel still isn’t up for dinner tonight, you can come over for dessert instead. Say, nine o’clock?”
“I’ll be there.” He rose and moved toward her. “One more thing?”
“Yes?” She stepped back inside.
He shut the door, threaded his hands through her hair, and kissed her. It took her only a moment to switch gears and respond with abandon, her hand gripping the collar of his shirt. When she finally pulled away, she laughed. “Pace yourself, Casanova. Unless we want the entire staff whispering about our relationship.”
He pretended to grumble, but inside he felt downright elated. “Casanova?”
“Do you prefer Don Juan?” she asked. “Lothario?”
“None of the above.” He tugged her back into his arms and looked directly into her eyes. “In case you missed it, I’m a one-woman man. And I’m completely devoted to you.”
Serena stared up at him, breathless and wide-eyed, a tinge of pink coming to her cheeks. “I believe you.”
Then with a secretive smile, she ducked out of his arms and slipped from the office.
Malcolm stayed behind for a moment. He’d certainly been persuasive. He just hadn’t expected that the one he’d convince was himself.
Something had changed. Maybe it was Malcolm’s declaration after he’d pulled Serena back into the office for that kiss—not words of love but of devotion, which considering the context was plenty. Or maybe it was the ever-present realization that however she’d planned on holding herself back, she’d fallen for him anyway.
Now Serena supervised Em and Max’s bedtime routine, her entire body humming with anticipation. Baking short crust perfumed the house with the delicious aroma of Irish butter and freshly ground spices.
“Can’t we have dessert too?” Max asked, giving her the puppy-dog look that usually preceded him getting exactly what he wanted.
Serena wiped a smudge of strawberry sauce from the corner of his mouth. “You had dessert already, monkey. Time for bed now.” And please stay asleep for a change, she added silently.
Max finally relented and snuggled under the covers while Serena said his bedtime prayer, his eyes closing before she was even finished. She repeated the same process with Em in her bedroom, then closed the door and tiptoed into the hall.
Blissful silence. She loved her children more than anything in the world, but some days she couldn’t wait to have the nighttime quiet to herself.
She paused in the kitchen to remove the pastry from the oven and then moved into the lounge, where the half-finished painting stood, taunting her, beckoning her. Malcolm wouldn’t be here for a while yet. It couldn’t hurt, could it? She squeezed fresh paint onto the palette and began to define the details of the Callisto figure, which was still merely broad strokes of background and highlight, a suggestion of shape.
An insistent knocking brought her back to the present. She blinked away the image in her mind’s eye and opened the door for Malcolm.
“I’ve been knocking,” he said. “Did I wake you?�
�
“No.” She held up her paint-stained hands as explanation and stepped aside for him to enter.
He dropped a light kiss on her lips and wrapped his arms around her waist. “If you’re in the middle of something, we can do this some other time. I don’t want to interrupt your work.”
“No, stay. I can stop now. Besides, I made a berry crostata for dessert, and it’s never as good the next day.”
He pulled back. “Wait, you meant dessert literally?”
Serena gave him a little nudge. “Stop. You knew very well what was on offer.”
He grinned, and she rolled her eyes as she moved into the kitchen to wash her hands. The crostata had cooled, leaving the crust of the rustic tart crispy and flaky, the berry filling just warm enough to ooze over the sides when she cut them each a slice. She handed Malcolm a plate and fork and poured them cups of tea.
“I could get used to this,” Malcolm said when they were seated on the sofa and he took his first bite. “Culinary skill really does run in your family.”
“Jamie got the cooking ability, and I got the baking. It pretty much skipped Ian altogether. Fortunately his wife is an excellent cook, or he’d continue to live like a bachelor on takeaway.”
“Like me, you mean?”
“So Kylee was telling the truth?”
“I can make porridge, toad-in-the-hole, and anything from a tin.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t expect a dinner invitation anytime soon.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you. I kind of want you to stick around.” Malcolm smiled warmly at her, the humor still glimmering in his eyes.
“Is that right?” She took a teasing tone, but her heart was once more thudding dully against her ribs.
“That is right.” He took her hand and held it tightly, his eyes never leaving hers. “I meant what I said before. However we might have started, this isn’t just a casual thing to me.”
“No,” she murmured, even though fear threatened to overtake the wonder. “Not for me either.”
From the look on his face, she expected him to kiss her, but he just squeezed her hand and went back to his crostata. When they finished their dessert, Serena curled up against him on the sofa, cradling her mug between her hands while they talked about everything and nothing: growing up on Skye, Malcolm’s boxing, the children. Somewhere along the line, that turned into kissing like teenagers while their parents weren’t home, which then led to a fit of giggles that Serena couldn’t stop.
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