Meredith shook her head slowly as if even now she couldn’t believe it had happened that way. “The next day I started writing down appointments on three different calendars. A habit I’ve kept all these years. I even carry a daily to-do list in my pocket.”
Elliott ran his hand through her hair at the nape of her neck. “What’s on your list for today?”
She smiled, feeling pleased with herself. “Ignore my phone.”
His eyes widened in surprise, and he whistled. “I’ll help you stay on task.” Then, he pressed his lips against hers, creating an explosive heat deep within her body. She wasn’t used to wanting a man like this and the feelings both excited and frightened her.
“I’ll try to make it worth the sacrifice,” he whispered against her lips.
“You’re doing well so far.” She kissed him back, letting their tongues dance the tango, a dramatic and seductive dance. Finally, she broke away before the sexual tension building like an engulfing flame proved she was capable of being irresponsible.
David drove the car out of Edinburgh. They crossed the Forth Road Bridge and followed the A90, which became the M90, toward Perth. No cars. No people. Only trees and fields. Nothing to make note of except that Elliott fidgeted. He adjusted then readjusted the straps on the walking boot as if he wanted to rip the damn thing off and throw it out the window.
“Is there something I can help you with,” Meredith asked.
Elliott shook his head. “Damn boot. Six weeks of this will drive me mad.”
“I’ve never had to wear one. Does it itch?”
“No, it’s just blasted uncomfortable.”
The flush and strain on his face said it was much more than uncomfortable. His discomfort fueled her concern. After the trauma of Jonathan’s stroke, she automatically assumed the worst would happen whenever anyone got sick or injured. And Elliott had only been out of the hospital a few days. As stubborn as he appeared to be, he probably left before the ink had dried on his discharge papers.
Now it was her turn to fidget. She needed her phone. But after making such a to-do about turning it off, she couldn’t very well turn it back on.
“Am I making you nervous?” Elliott asked. “You seem jittery.”
She shook her head. “No, not at all,” she stammered. “It’s the middle of the night at home, but I’m still suffering from communication withdrawal.”
He chuckled. “I didn’t think you could go very long. Check for messages, set the phone to vibrate, then put it in your pocket.”
“Is that what you’ve done?”
Although he smiled, it was a tight smile. “I don’t have the luxury of disappearing even on Christmas Day.” He sounded weary, and not just physically tired.
As hard as it was for her to believe, she knew the winery could function without her for several hours, days even. That she had learned following her father’s death when she’d been stuck in a moment of grief—a moment that had gone on for several weeks until Cate bullied her into going back to work, playing the role Meredith’s father would have played.
David took the Boxden Roundabout and turned onto A9 toward Inverness. The four-lane, divided road was lined with open fields, rolling hills, trees, a rare house, and a few road signs.
Meredith asked, “How long have you had a house in Inverness?”
“Fraser House has been in the family since 1468.”
Her jaw dropped. “Fourteen?”
“The family has been around for a while. The house burned during the Jacobite rebellion. The Frasers rebuilt in 1780.”
Dozens of questions rushed to the forefront of her brain, but she stemmed the tide of her unrelenting thirst for answers. She could be annoying, as her staff often complained, when she got on one of her question/answer jigs.
He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. “David, turn the heat down, lad. It’s a sweatbox back here.”
Meredith looked up and caught David watching Elliott in the rearview mirror. She knew the heat was on a low setting, and if anything, it was cool in the car. Her fingers itched to do the forehead fever-touch-test, but the Elliott Fraser she’d come to know would be offended and would probably push her hand away.
“Is there a room with a large fireplace where we can take off our shoes and relax for a while?”
He leaned in so close that his breath stirred tendrils of hair that had fallen loose of her hair clip. They brushed against her cheek and tickled her face. “My wee darlin’, you can have your pick of fireplaces.”
“We’re not talking about a wee house, are we?” she said, giving lift to her eyebrows.
“The place can be intimidating.”
“Because of its size or appearance?”
“There’s a wee bit of history in the old walls.”
“And a few ghosts, I bet?”
“So they say.”
Goosebumps rippled over her skin. She casually rubbed her arms, wishing Louise had packed a thermos of coffee or better yet, whiskey. In the last couple of days, Meredith had become even more hypersensitive, especially to Elliott’s intoxicating earthy fragrance with notes of cedar and incense along with the depth and fullness of a honey and spice flavor. Delicious and captivating.
“What’s your family name?” Elliott asked.
“Montgomery.”
He gave her a curious glare that asked the same question others had asked through the years.
“I didn’t change my name when I married. If that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Did you come from a large family?”
She curled her goose bump clad legs up under her hip and faced him. “My grandmother was a Cameron. She emigrated from Scotland after World War II and met my grandfather, James Montgomery, during one of his business trips to New York City.” Meredith took a quick breath and continued. “They married and had three boys. My father was the youngest. The Vietnam War took his two older brothers.”
“That happened to a lot of families,” Elliott said.
“To your family?” she asked.
“No. If you know that history, why are you doing research here?”
“All the genealogy records were lost when the estate house burned at the turn of the century. So no Montgomery family records exist before the birth of my grandparents in the 1920s.”
“I think you said you didn’t have any siblings?”
Meredith dug through the picnic basket, found a bottle of water, and took a long drink. “There was just me to torture my dad.”
“What about your mother?”
“She died shortly after I was born. She was an only child, too, and her parents were already dead.”
It wasn’t pity she saw in his scrunched face; it was empathy. He knew. He understood her loneliness. Quickly, he rubbed his fist across his lips in a warning signal to his emotions to stay put or die. She knew what he was doing, because she often did the same thing.
He cleared his throat. “California Montgomerys?”
“If you’ve come across any, they aren’t related to me.”
“No, I doubt they are.” A dark tone of disappointment sounded in his voice and probably matched hers. His shoulders hunched ever so slightly, and he seemed to distance himself. Then after a moment, he turned back toward her. “Did your dad ever remarry?”
“He didn’t date anyone more than a month or two. So no, he never remarried and never had other children. The line ends with me. I’m the last Montgomery.”
Elliott chuckled, although the laugh held little humor. “I’m the last Fraser.”
“Is Kit the last MacKlenna?” Meredith asked.
He didn’t answer.
She wrenched her gaze away from him, biting her tongue, determined to sit on her curiosity until her butt got sore. “I don’t know about you, but being the last one doesn’t agree with me.”
“Didn’t you ever look into adoption?”
“Jonathan wouldn’t consider it. I mothered the winery instead of a child.”
“Wa
s that satisfying enough for you?”
“Yes,” she answered bluntly, feeling a slight burn in her gut.
“I’m surprised your father didn’t push for an heir—natural or adopted.”
“He did, but I wouldn’t kowtow to his demands.” She picked at the label on the bottle, making the thin plastic bend and pop. “The new wine I’m launching is my legacy. It’s not the same as having children, but if the wine is successful, it might have staying power like a . . . I don’t know, maybe an 1870 Lafite.”
He smiled. “Have you tasted the 1870 Lafite?”
“If I drank a ten thousand dollar bottle of wine my grandmother would roll over in her grave and my father would stand up in his.”
“Ah, wee sweetheart, sometimes you have to pay extra for special experiences.”
His voice lapped against her, soothing yet erotic, like waves spilling onto a soft, sandy beach.
“If your new wine tastes similar to the wine I liked yesterday, I’ll look forward to tasting it.”
“Cailean is a light, crispy white wine like a Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc. It doesn’t have the oaky taste you like.”
“Cailean.” He seemed to let the name swirl in his mouth, tasting it, paying attention to its texture. Then he pursed his lips and let out a soft whistle. “That’s Gaelic for child.”
Her cheeks flushed.
Elliott pointed over her shoulder. “We’re approaching Blair Castle.” David slowed the car, so they could take in the panoramic view.
Meredith turned to see the white stately home that had started life as a medieval castle commanding the wild mountain passes to the Highlands. “It’s beautiful. I toured it years ago.” The castle spoke to family and tradition. Something she understood.
“I’ve always felt at home in Scotland.” Meredith moaned—a vocal representation of a sweet memory. “Culloden was my grandmother’s home. There’s no family left there now, of course, but when I was a child, we’d visit and I’d listen to old stories about the Highlands. It always seemed so mysterious.” She gave a quick shiver, and then they rode in silence for several miles, watching the landscape and relaxing, an activity in which Meredith rarely engaged. Elliott probably didn’t either.
“We’re almost there.” His eyes seemed to brighten, his brow less furrowed.
When David drove the car into a clearing, she blinked then blinked again. “Oh my God.”
Fraser House was not a house at all but a castle, sitting amongst a backdrop of rocky cliffs, woods, and hilltops. The hills, filled with hardwoods and Scots pine, rose steeply from the loch and created a formidable frame for the rest of the landscape. Each branch sagged under the heavy weight of snow. Chunks of ice fell to the ground. First one tree, then the other, and another—a snowball fight among the ancient Caledonian pines.
The castle featured a Z-shaped plan with towers and turrets. There were even arrow slots. She gulped. She had envisioned a rather nice house, maybe even a mansion, but not a fourteenth century castle.
“Originally, it had the traditional defensive design of three towers connected by rectangular buildings, but mason workers added the roll-mounted window surrounds, corbeling, and the faerie-taleish circular turrets with pointed candle snuffer roofs.”
She laughed. “You sound like a tour guide.”
He pulled her into an embrace and kissed her. “I heard my grandda describe the additions so many times, I memorized it.” He smiled. “Inside, you can see original paneling and stonework.”
His voice held unfettered energy and she loved the way it rumbled against her skin. It was as if the land had instantly rejuvenated him. “How can you ever leave here? Is there a place more beautiful?” She gazed around drinking it all in. “It’s magnificent.”
“I’m not sure there is a place more beautiful.” He gave her a pensive look. “MacKlenna Farm comes close, but like your winery, its history is limited to a few hundred years.” He swept his hand in a circular motion. “There’re miles of trails through the forest and alongside the loch.”
“Are we driving the trails?”
“We’ll take the sleigh.”
“Sleigh? Really? Are you up for it?”
He waved away her concern. “I bought the sleigh during an Alpine skiing trip several years ago but never got around to using it.” He glanced at his watch. “I asked for it to be hitched and ready by noon. We’re a wee bit early.”
A few minutes later, David stopped the car in front of the barn.
“There’re facilities inside if you need to freshen up before we go out.”
Meredith envisioned something akin to an outhouse, but found the bathroom more in line with an upscale hotel. A few minutes later, she met Elliott beside a red sleigh straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. A groom had hitched two bay Clydesdales with white feet and stacked thick wool blankets on the leather seat. The picnic basket sat on the floor.
With a slight tug, she pulled a striped knit cap down over her ears and jumped aboard. Elliott handed his crutches to the groom. “We’ll be out a couple of hours.” He then took his place on the bench seat next to her. “Are you ready?”
“More than ready.” She spread the blankets across their laps and tucked the end around Elliott’s booted leg. When she glanced up, she noticed David standing in the barn’s doorway, grimacing. “David’s not happy.”
“He never is.” Elliott picked up the reins in both hands and snapped them, clucking at the horses, saying, “Ginger. Fred.”
Meredith laughed. “You’re kidding. Fred and Ginger?”
“Grandda’s responsible for the names. If I had named them, they’d have power names.”
“Like what?”
“Highlander Spirit and Winter Jubilee.”
“Those sound like race horses.”
Elliott winked. “That’s what Grandda said before he tortured these two extraordinary animals by giving them dancers’ names.”
She wrapped her arm around Elliott’s and moved in closer, feeling like a woman who’d been left out in the cold and was finally standing in front of a fire. “Well, then, let’s go dancing, Dr. Fraser.”
He sighed deeply with obvious regret. “That’s one thing I can’t do, lass.”
Her face heated with embarrassment. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
He squeezed her hand that she’d laced with his arm. “At least not vertically.”
The flush intensified. “Does everything with you always come back around to sex?”
He belted out a laugh. “Not everything, but almost. I am in the breeding business.” The roar of his laughter echoed off the hills behind the house. He snapped the reins, and the sleigh’s runners glided across snow glistening in the late morning sun. The temperature hovered around the high thirties. Bells, dangling from the harnesses, jingled, bringing to life acres of pristine forest.
“Are you warm enough?”
She nodded. “I’d freeze to death before I’d give up one moment of this.” This is why he often smells of cedar and Christmas trees.
Elliott belonged in his Highland hills, rugged and independent. He held the reins as naturally as others held a steering wheel. What hold did MacKlenna Farm have on him that could pull him away from this land? Did a place exist anywhere in the world that could pull her away from Montgomery Winery?
No. Her life’s blood seeped into the dry, rocky soil that nurtured her grapes. Separate and apart, she would wither.
The trail took them through the forest where he pointed out red deer and gray spotted woodpeckers. They didn’t talk much. Mostly they laughed, hanging in a make-believe world where Derby winning horses didn’t die and young women didn’t get breast cancer. They laughed because they could, because Meredith knew—and felt certain Elliott did, too—that they were living on someone else’s time. Their lives were too hectic, too full of responsibility to feel this free. She laid her head on his shoulder and gazed at the treetops touching heaven.
Feeling an involuntary se
nsation warm her body, she asked him to kiss her. He stopped the sleigh, and without any prelude, kissed her full on the mouth—a long, sweet invasion. When she slipped in a breath, his tongue stole its way inside, waltzed across her teeth, and entwined in a continual dance with her tongue. A moan carried past her lips, a husky sound of the need building within her. Time stopped for a heartbeat, and she found herself lost in the feel of the hard planes of his body against hers. The wild smell of outdoors and musk added to her arousal. She deepened the kiss with her tongue as she held tightly to his shoulders, pressing her breasts intimately against his chest. A deep ache urged her to surrender, but not here, not now. She drew back and took a breath. His eyes held the same smoky gaze she’d seen before. Her tongue swiped her bottom lip.
“I don’t think the scenery can compete with that,” she said, her voice breathy.
He chuckled. “Ah, hen. Hold that thought. We’ll continue this as soon as I can get us back to the house.”
Elliott drove the sleigh alongside the loch. The turquoise blue water rippled crystal-clear. Opposite the wild and remote lake, several hundred yards off the road, the lawn and terraced walled gardens created a formal and grand vista. The wild beat of Meredith’s heart matched the rhythm found in the isolation and beauty.
They rode in silence, engulfed by a sense of peace Meredith didn’t think she’d ever experienced. If the day could last a thousand hours, it would still end too quickly.
She’d ridden for miles bundled up in the curve of his arm, but now she noticed him twitching, his teeth gritted. “Are you in pain?”
“No more than usual.”
“Let me drive.” She reached for the reins.
He shrugged her off. “We’re almost home.”
She placed her hands over his. “I can drive, Elliott.”
Surprisingly, he handed them to her. “They’ll recognize the lighter touch and try to pull. Don’t let them. They’ll get away from you. Follow the road.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. Cold and riding in a bumpy sleigh was not what he needed. She tossed the blankets off her legs and folded them over him. Even from under a pile of wool, he shivered.
“Giddy up.” The horses ran at a slow gallop but faster than they had for Elliott. Ahead there was a slight curve with a tree lying across the road. No time to react. The horses swerved. The sudden movement threatened to upend the sleigh. She held tight to the reins and leaned in. She had the wherewithal to throw her arm across Elliott’s chest to keep him from falling out, but his head hit the metal on the back of the seat. The sleigh righted with a bad bounce. The shock traveled up her spine. Her teeth caught her lip and held on while tears pooled in her eyes.
The Last MacKlenna Page 11