Barefoot in the Dark

by Suzanne Enoch

  She didn't exactly want to jump out of an airplane, either. Not when she'd never done it before, and not when she was in a jet. Another time, in a plane made for jumping out of, sure. In fact, it sounded fun. Keeping a wary eye on him, she sat down again. "Talk."

  “I wanted to see your genuine reaction to Canniebrae,” he said after a moment, sinking into the seat directly beside hers. “I didn’t want you to look it up online or call any of your nefarious business contacts to see whether anyone had cased the joint or anything.”

  Samantha grinned. “‘Cased the joint’? Who are you, Dick Tracy?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “So, you think something about Canniebrae will be unexpected,” she mused, half to herself, and caught the swift narrowing of his blue eyes. “Is it haunted?”

  Rick snorted. “I thought so eighteen years ago. There were certainly tales told ‘round the dining room table. It was built in 1291, after all.”

  Wow. Anything that old was automatically interesting to her, and he would know that. Which begged a couple of questions. “Why have you never mentioned it before?”

  “I’ve been saving it, I suppose. As I said, I haven’t been there in quite a while. I don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about it.”

  “Just how oldy moldy is this place?”

  He stretched, slipping one arm around her shoulder as he settled again. “I suppose we’ll find out.”

  Leaning in, he nibbled at her ear, and her eyes rolled back in her head. It might be that he was attempting to distract her from asking any more questions, or it could be that they hadn’t had sex in nearly forty-eight hours. Whatever it was, he was good at the kissing thing. And the sex thing. She settled into the curve of his arm, kissing him back, sliding a palm beneath his T-shirt and up his warm, flat abdomen.

  “Mr. Addison,” the overhead speaker burped into life with Amber’s perky voice, “we’ll be landing in ten minutes. May I come in and clean away the drinks?”

  “Fuck,” he muttered, then leaned across Samantha to tap the intercom button. “Come in, Amber.”

  “Non-fuck,” Samantha whispered into his ear, chuckling despite the fact that she was a little annoyed, herself.

  While Amber wiggled her ass around the cabin, clearing away the remains of their breakfast and a tea cup and two sodas, Samantha buckled herself into her seat. Rick did likewise beside her, curling his fingers around hers. Even after a year he still looked for opportunities to hold her hand, and she’d gotten well past the suspicion that he was holding her to keep her from escaping. He liked touching her. She liked when he touched her. It didn’t have to mean anything more than that.

  Samantha sent him a sideways look, to find a slight grin on his face. Okay, she’d missed something. “Did you tell Donner where we were going, or did he suggest we might try getting away to Scotland?”

  Damnation, she was clever. That was what Richard loved about her, of course, but sometimes he wondered what sort of business tycoon she would have become all on her own if her proclivities and upbringing hadn’t led her to a life of high-end crime. “I mentioned that I wanted to take you somewhere with a guarantee of some privacy, but where you wouldn’t feel trapped. He might have mentioned Canniebrae first, or I might have. I don’t remember.”

  Samantha shifted to face him more directly. “So, he suggested an seven-hundred-year-old castle in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, a place you haven’t been for eighteen years, one that you didn’t even remember you owned. He thinks I’ll be bored to tears, doesn’t he?”

  “I don’t care what he thinks. I think–“

  ”Does it have electricity?”

  “They answered the telephone when I called, so I assume so.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “So, what, you guys think that just because I like city life that I can’t hack it in the boonies?”

  Richard stilled his responding smile. “Boonies” didn’t even begin to describe Canniebrae. “I never said that.”

  “He did though, didn’t he? Donner?”

  “You are paranoid.”

  “Damn straight. That’s what he said, wasn’t it? That I’d hate it here. That manly man Rick would go for hikes and shoot elk with a bow and arrow and live off the land, and I would be stealing a car within an hour when I couldn’t find a hair dryer.”

  “He didn’t call me ‘manly man Rick’.” Richard didn’t bother trying to hide his amusement this time; she would see it anyway. Aside from that, the lady loved a challenge. If climbing the walls kept her from climbing the walls, so to speak, then so much the better. If that had been the end of it, he would have counted the conversation as a victory. But she’d made it plainer than ever that she didn’t appreciate surprises. And he had another one.

  “Well, you can call Lawyer Man right now and tell him that I’m loving Scotland,” she announced, settling back into her seat again. “Nessie could chew off my leg and I’d still be loving Scotland.”

  “I’ll pass that along,” he said, trying to decide whether now would be better than after they landed. Now made more sense, because the plane was too low for parachuting. “There’s one more thing.”

  She turned her head to look at him, clever green eyes searching his expression. “What?” she asked dubiously.

  “Since you’re joining the Addison family, it’s time you met them. The rest of them.”

  For a long moment she stared at him, a hundred different emotions flitting across her face. Samantha Jellicoe had been raised by her father – if one could call it being raised as opposed to being unleashed. These days Walter Barstone, the towering, male version of Diana Ross, was as close to family as she had. Except for him, of course, and an assortment of other nefarious characters she seemed to charm and collect. He, on the other hand, was not a hanger-on; he was the one riding the whirlwind.

  “You have an uncle.” She narrowed her eyes. “Rowland, isn’t it?”

  Richard blinked himself free from wayward metaphors. “Yes. My father’s younger brother. And his wife, Mercia. And their son, Reginald.”

  “They live at Canniebrae?”

  “No. They’re coming to visit. To meet you.”

  He waited silently, the muscles down his back tense as he readied himself to react to whatever she might do. Punching him in the head seemed the most likely, closely followed by silence and then an attempt to flee once they touched down. She didn’t move either, her gaze blank as she no doubt ran a dozen or so possible scenarios through her agile mind.

  “Well, you met my so-called dad,” she finally said, furrowing her brow. “I suppose it’s only fair.”

  That had not been what he expected. “You’re all right with it, then?”

  “Depends. What are you going to tell them about me? Or do they already know something?”

  “I’m in occasional contact with Reginald. When the photos of our first outing came out he emailed me. You were ‘hot’, as I recall, and he wanted to know if you had a sister. I called my uncle after our engagement news leaked, an—”

  “You mean, after you blabbed about it,” she broke in.

  “Yes, after I unintentionally cooperated with the police department after impaling a man in my library.” He frowned at her; reminding her that Gabriel Toombs had been in the Solana Dorado library because of the lunatic’s obsession with her would only gain him more barbs. “Anyway, Reg suggested that the family be introduced to you. The rest was my idea.” Richard took a breath. “As to what I’ll tell them about you, you are a retrieval expert hired by some of the most prestigious institutions and collectors in the world.”

  Her scowl flipped into a grin. “Ooh, I sound awesome. Just don’t mention how I’ve also stolen from most of those same places.”

  “I won’t. Neither will you.”

  Thank God. The weight on his shoulders for the past few weeks, the worry over how she would react to all this, melted away. It had made his typical tensions over business dealings feel like so much fiddle-faddl
e. This mattered. She mattered. Nothing else came close.

  The jet bumped, followed by the unmistakable sensation of deceleration. Samantha gripped his fingers. He knew quite well that she wasn’t frightened. She liked the feeling of going too fast, of being not quite in control of circumstances. Of course she would have preferred it if the jet had been a convertible, so her hair could blow in the wind. Whatever he was getting himself into with her, however mad she drove him, he was never letting her go. No matter what.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” she said, squeezing his hand and then with swift fingers unfastening the seatbelt and standing. “But duh, I’m not going to tell anybody how I make a living.”

  “How you used to make a living.”

  She used the present tense just because she knew it would provoke a response from him, but reminding her on occasion that she’d elected to travel the relatively straight and narrow couldn’t hurt. Standing, he watched as she collected her handbag, which she’d likely chosen because she could sling it across one shoulder to leave both hands and arms free. It wasn’t an escape back pack, but she would consider it the next best thing.

  “We’ll take the helicopter to Canniebrae,” he announced. “That’ll get us there by midmorning.”

  “Awesome. Is there a landing pad, or do we rappel to the ground?”

  “There’s a clearing. By the loch. And Canniebrae is accessible by car, or at least four-wheel drive vehicle.”

  He couldn’t quite shake the suspicion that she was being too agreeable. Yes, it would be amusing to see a consummate suburbanite like Samantha Jellicoe dealing with the relatively few amenities and amusements of country life, but he also wanted her to enjoy herself. He also wanted her to like his relatives, as little as he generally had to do with them. As to whether they would like her... If they didn’t, they were simply foolish. Her zest for life and everything in it had torn into his heart months ago, and if Reg and his aunt and uncle couldn’t see her the same way, he could only pity them.

  British customs and half a dozen airport workers hurried up to the plane as he descended the stairs to the tarmac, and the helicopter next to the nearest hangar started its engine. He flashed passports and identifications at the customs agent while he gave instructions for their luggage to be loaded on the helicopter, with anything that wouldn’t fit to be trucked up after them. His jet needed to leave again for London as soon as possible, before anyone could confirm where he and Sam had actually gone.

  Her shoulder-length auburn hair kicked up in the downdraft, and she grinned over at him. “Do you think they’ll let me pilot the copter?” she asked, leaning up to shout in his ear.

  “Good God, I hope not.”

  They clambered aboard, and the moment they were both belted in, the helicopter rose into the cloudy sky above Inverness. Sam was already wearing a headset and deep in conversation with the pilot. She’d temporarily taken over the controls of a helicopter once in Florida, but there they’d at least been over water. Now she had a taste for it.

  “So, what do you think, Blakely?” she was asking, as he donned his own headset. “Just once around Loch Ness?”

  “I could lose my license, ye ken. And if we crash, I—”

  “If we crash, I’m sure we can make it look like Samantha’s fault,” Rick broke in. “Otherwise, no one’s going to say anything. You have my word.”

  “And mine,” Samantha seconded.

  “We’ll be passin’ over a few hills where ye couldn’t do much damage, then. If ye’re certain, Mr. Addison.”

  No, Mr. Addison wasn’t certain, but he didn’t want to look like he had a stick up his arse. “Just try not to do the crash thing.”

  “I make no promises,” she returned, and climbed into the front co-pilot’s seat.

  By the time the River Dee came into sight, Richard was regretting the omelet he’d eaten on the plane. He wasn’t certain whether Blakely had invented the rule that a helicopter couldn’t fly below a thousand feet except during landing and take-off, but if the pilot was lying, Richard was giving him a generous Christmas bonus. Generally he liked flying, and he specifically enjoyed flying by helicopter, but he had the suspicion that the light-fingered Samantha was being intentionally ham-fisted. Her revenge for him keeping a secret from her, most likely. That was why he gripped the handhold and kept his mouth shut as they lurched across the Highland skies.

  “We’re coming close to Balmoral air space,” Blakely finally said, and took the controls back. “Don’t want the Royal Air Force shooting us down, now.”

  “No, that would be bad,” Sam agreed, climbing out of the co-pilot’s seat and dropping down next to Richard again. “How was it?”

  “Lovely.”

  She grinned at him. “Did you barf?”

  “Nearly.” If the pilot hadn’t also been on the intercom he would have said more, but any revenge he had in mind for Samantha could wait until they were somewhere more private. From the way she looked back at him she knew it, so he glanced out the window. “Look over there. That’s Balmoral.”

  She leaned across his legs to look down the valley. “Man, that place is huge! It would be awesome to...visit after dark.”

  “It’s haunted, ye know,” Blakely put in, following the River Dee around the bend, continuing deeper into the Highlands. “Every old castle in the Highlands is haunted.”

  They were right up against the Cairngorm Mountains, where the low grasses and windswept hills made way for deep ravines and old pine and elm forests, and endless, sweeping moors. It might well have been the most beautiful country in the world. Of course, those poetical thoughts paled when compared to the sensation of Sam doing more intentional wriggling across his thighs.

  “Stop that,” he muttered, his jaw clenched, as he resolutely kept his gaze up and away from her squirming arse. He was damned Richard Addison, and he was not going to exit his private helicopter with a stiffy in his jeans.

  With a chuckle he could feel, she sat up again. “Every castle?” she repeated, facing Richard. “Who’s Canniebrae’s specter, then?”

  Curiosity might kill cats, but she was one former cat burglar who’d found her life saved more than once simply because of her curiosity. Well, that and her exceptional skill and intelligence. Shrugging, he took her hand and twined his fingers around hers. The fact that she’d allowed herself to be captured still stunned him, sometimes. “I don’t know, specifically. I heard noises once or twice that I couldn’t explain, but I was very young, then. It’s generally some ancestor or other, if you believe that sort of thing.”

  “Mm hm.”

  Richard looked out the window again. “Just over the rise ahead. Your holiday from civilization and the paparazzi.”

  Immediately she leaned forward, her hands on the back of the seats in front of them. A moment later it came into view through the mist – a gray, sprawling behemoth of centuries-old stone and wrought iron, ivy climbing the north-facing walls all the way up to the pitched roof of the third floor.

  “It’s Dracula’s castle,” she announced, lifting both eyebrows. “You’re going to murder me here.”

  “If I were Dracula, we would have flown up here at night,” he countered smoothly. “And I wouldn’t spend most of my time in – what do you Yanks call it? – the Sunshine State.”

  She snorted. “Sounds like a perfect disguise to me.” Leaning over, she kissed his temple. “Except you’re James Bond, not Dracula,” she murmured, then straightened to look forward again. “Well, part of it’s still standing,” she commented after a moment. “Blakely, how close is the nearest inn?”

  “Orrisey is down the hill about a mile. It was voted the second bonniest village in the Highlands last year. It’s on Canniebrae land, actual—”

  “We’re not staying at an inn, Samantha. We’re staying at Canniebrae,” Richard interrupted. “It has very gothic turrets. And a widow’s walk.”

  “You’re serious. You didn’t just rent this place to scare the shit out of me or something.
”

  In truth she looked more baffled than alarmed, as if she thought him too…well-pressed to own anything remotely ramshackle. Richard gazed down at Canniebrae as they circled it a second time. Broken windows and holes in the roof of the west wing, which actually sagged now in the middle, at least one tumbled wall around the remains of the garden – yes, it was definitely ramshackle. It was also his. While he’d expected her to be surprised and out of her element, unlike Tom he hadn’t thought she would hate it. “That bad, is it?” he commented aloud.

  Narrowing her light green eyes, she continued studying his ancestral pile. “How much did Donner bet that I’d run?”

  “A hundred dollars.” That wasn’t true, but if he’d mentioned it, Tom would certainly have put a sawbuck on Sam running away to civilization.

  She took another long look before she turned away from the window to face him again. “Okay, then. I’ll play along. Why does it have a widow’s walk? You can’t see the ocean from here.”

  “No, but from the roof you can see across the loch and all the way down the length of the valley. A lady would want to know if her laird was returning from battle.”

  “Or if she needed to gather her wee bairns and flee because the Sassenach lobster backs were coming,” she countered in a pitch-perfect Inverness accent. Even Blakely turned his head to glance back at her.

  “Nicely done,” Richard said, taking hold of her hips to pull her back down to her seat.

  She shrugged. “What? I saw Braveheart and Outlander.”

  He kept his mouth shut. Whatever he wished to say to her could wait until they were alone. In fact, he now had several reasons to want to be alone with her. “What do you think, then?” he asked again, mostly to distract himself.