Scotland to the Max

by Grace Burrowes

  Max was tempted to pull out his phone and make a note: Talk of the first earl’s wedded bliss makes Jeannie sad. “That stuff smells terrific.”

  “Whisky sauce, though most of the spirits have been cooked off.” She set the warmed gingerbread on the counter and retrieved a tub of vanilla ice cream from the freezer. “I could eat sticky toffee pudding for three meals a day.”

  “Mrs. Hamilton made enough to last you at least until Tuesday.”

  The cold ice cream went over the warm gingerbread, and the hot whisky sauce went over the ice cream. Jeannie brought both servings to the bar end of the counter and pulled up a stool.

  “Here,” Max said, sliding the larger piece in front of Jeannie. “Motherhood has its privileges.”

  She looked pleased, surprised, and willing. “Thank you. For what we are about to receive, we are grateful.”

  Henry was content to munch on a teething cracker, while Max embarked on an experience of gustatory bliss.

  “I want Mrs. Hamilton’s recipe.” The whisky was subtle, more an aroma than a flavor, while the sauce was sweet, the ice cream rich, and the pudding itself the perfect intermediary to blend the two. The textures melded while the temperatures contrasted, and ye gods… to enjoy this with a good single malt…

  Max reached for his phone, though he’d left it in his room.

  “Just eat the pudding, Mr. Maitland. I’ll ask Mrs. Hamilton if she’ll part with the recipe, though I suspect I know which one she uses. The whisky sauce is where most of the secrets are.”

  “First, ghosts, now secret sauce?”

  She dipped her spoon into a swirl of melting ice cream and whisky sauce. “Not secret secrets, just little cooking secrets. A dash of pepper, a hint of cinnamon, those sorts of secrets. God, I love this.”

  For the first time in more than a day, Jeannie Cromarty wasn’t managing, explaining, cajoling Henry, cajoling Max, lecturing Max, reciting history, dealing with a baby’s endless needs, or keeping either Max or Henry from starving. She was purely, happily in the moment, and again, Max realized…

  She was a lovely woman. He’d liked her voice the first time he’d heard it, and now he liked how the rest of her went with that voice. Light, warm, sturdy. Not a pushover, which from Max was high praise. She’d badger Fergus for his progress reports and make it sound like teasing, but those reports would happen on time, nonetheless.

  She’d badger Max too, and be the reason he avoided eighteen different disasters in the first week.

  “You look sad,” she said. “Is the homesickness catching up with you?”

  He’d tried calling Maura again and left a message that he’d try tomorrow before dinner. Then he’d replied to her earlier email, attaching a picture of the view from the countess’s solar. Lush green fields, a silver ribbon of river running down from high hills to the west… Damson Valley’s geological older sister, though beautiful in much the same way.

  “It’s the time of day,” Max said. “Darkness approaches, though as you say, it’s the darkness of a summer night. When I’m far from home and facing a project that’s still mostly a dream, this time of day—the transition from afternoon to evening—can leave me feeling…” Melancholy was the word, but Max refused to say it. “Reflective.”

  “The Germans probably have a word for it,” Jeannie said, considering a spoonful of half-melted ice cream. “Time-of-aching-thoughtful-evening-heart or something. Whoever she is, I hope she waits for you, Mr. Maitland.”

  The comment punched an empty place in Max’s heart. “I don’t expect any woman to wait for me. Property development means travel, long hours, stress, work-site drama, and frequent moves.” And only a very special woman would understand the role Maura played in Max’s life.

  “Your life sounds like that of an oil rigger,” she said, tipping up her bowl to scrape the last of the sauce onto her spoon. “I agree—that’s not a formula for a successful relationship. Somebody has eaten all of my pudding.”

  Max passed her the last of his. “Stuff is rocket fuel. I’ll go into a hypoglycemic coma in forty-five minutes.”

  Henry began to fuss. If Max had to guess, he’d suspect another wet diaper. He used the worktable to effect the requisite change and began a slow circuit of the kitchen with Henry on his shoulder while Jeannie tidied up the dishes.

  “You’ll put him to sleep before he’s had his bath,” she said when she’d hung the towel over the oven handle.

  “One night without a bath won’t lead to a life of crime. Thank you for staying.”

  She gently peeled Henry from Max’s arms. “Somebody has to defend the castle from your heathen notions.”

  Her smile was impish, and Max endured an odd impulse to kiss her. She’d kissed him—on the cheek—but he’d written that off as Scottish hospitality. This urge was different, personal to her, to somebody who’d take him to task for his own good, and to somebody who was turning her life inside out on behalf of a fatherless kid.

  Dangerous ground. Mixing business with pleasure even for a casual encounter was invariably stupid. Jeannie was family to the castle’s owner and thus firmly in the business column.

  “Have you plans for tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Catch up on emails and reports, sketch the floor plan of the castle, poke around up there when nobody else is on the premises. Site security is seriously deficient, the project needs a safety officer, and I need to figure out where sixty workers can assemble comfortably and eat lunch without leaving a mess when the castle doesn’t have a dozen chairs to its name.”

  “Have the meeting in the ballroom here,” Jeannie said. “We have the chairs, the washrooms, the tables. Won’t be much bother to set up for a few dozen men.”

  The project needed her. “First-rate idea, which we’ll discuss at greater length in the morning. Thank you again for sticking around.”

  “I’ll wish you good night, then.” She wafted from the kitchen with Henry cradled in her arms. Max had insisted she have the earl’s apartment because it had a kitchenette and a second bed where Henry could be banked in with pillows.

  Max’s bedroom—the blue bedroom—was across the corridor from the earl’s apartment and about four doors down. He poured himself a glass of water and made his way there, intent on firing up his laptop and drafting a job description for a safety officer.

  He’d fallen asleep in the middle of that very task when the insistent ring of his phone—Scotland the Brave—woke him the hell up.

  Henry was settling in for a Bad Night. He’d perfected that dark art before the age of three weeks. First, he collected catnaps all day long. Second, he pretended to crave sleep at bedtime with the endearing conviction of a tired baby. Third, he pretended to drop off so sweetly, drifting away to the land of baby dreams just long enough for Jeannie to dodge into the shower—door open, of course, one ear cocked at all times—tend to her evening routine, and curl up with a book.

  When Henry was in top form, he’d time his first cries for the very moment when Jeannie was deciding that she ought not to read even one more scene. She’d reach to turn out the light, ready to sleep the sleep of the single mom, and Henry would whimper softly.

  That whimper had been twenty minutes ago, and any hope that Henry would give up had been dashed when he’d shifted into full-fledged wailing.

  He never “cried himself to sleep.” Not after thirty minutes, not after forty-five, not after an hour, which was the limit of Jeannie’s patience, particularly when her neighbors at the apartment took to pounding on the bedroom wall.

  So helpful, that.

  Mr. and Mrs. Abercrombie were an older couple, no children, but plenty to say on the matter of irresponsible young people and single mothers mooching off the dole. The Abercrombies might well call the authorities if Jeannie tested Millicent’s “let him cry it out” theory once too often.

  Instead, she resorted to the advice of her pediatrician, which was to offer a colicky baby a rotation of distractions—walking, singing, rocking, touring
a different room, listening to music, going outside to admire the stars, trying a bottle, trying a snack, playing with Henry’s stuffed Bear-Bear, then Bun-Bun, then Duck… At one point, Jeannie had taken to sitting on the washing machine with Henry while running a load, and for a few weeks, that approach had soothed him.

  Nothing soothed him now.

  “I haven’t a washing machine,” Jeannie said over Henry’s cries. “Haven’t your stroller or bouncy seat, haven’t—”

  A knock sounded on the door of the apartment.

  “Jeannie?” Max Maitland, here to tell her that Henry was awake, no doubt.

  “Coming.” She opened the door. “He’s not wet. He’s just… fussy.”

  Max stood before her in nothing but sweats, the phone in his hand. “The luggage guy is about five miles away and wants to know how to get here.”

  Henry’s screeching paused.

  “Give me the phone,” Jeannie said. “You take the limb of Satan.” They managed the exchange, and Jeannie went into the hallway, shoving Max into the apartment and closing the door.

  Ye gods… Max Maitland without a shirt, sweats riding low on trim hips… Muscle and man, in lovely, tousled quantity. And his bare feet… Why did the sight of a man’s bare feet have to be so personal?

  Jeannie stared at the phone for a moment, trying to recall what she was to do with—ah, yes. Luggage. “Hello?”

  The delivery guy had a strong Glaswegian accent and sounded affronted by life in general. Jeannie explained the landmarks twice, slowly, and then made her way to the front door to put on the porch light and wait for the delivery.

  By the time two enormous suitcases had been set in the entrance hall and the delivery man had gone on his way, grumbling about the bloody bedamned coos, and the feckin’ hour of the nicht, and the infernal country lanes, fifteen minutes had passed. Jeannie returned to the earl’s apartment and paused outside the door, fortifying herself against another encounter with Max Maitland half dressed.

  He was gloriously fit and had clearly spent time shirtless under a summer sun. He had the perfect dusting of dark chest hair that arrowed down a flat stomach to disappear south of where Jeannie should never have been looking. She’d recognized that he was good-looking, in a distracted, where-did-I-put-Henry’s-Bun-Bun? sense.

  But Max Maitland was also attractive. He’d given her the larger piece of sticky toffee pudding. He’d twice changed Henry’s diaper without being asked. He’d asked for her help.

  Nobody asked Jeannie for her help anymore, though Henry made ceaseless demands on her.

  She opened the door and beheld Max Maitland stretched out on the sofa—a sofa long enough to accommodate even him—with Henry on his bare chest.

  “Little bugger wore himself out. I’ve been taken hostage by the Lilliputians, and I don’t dare move.”

  Jeannie couldn’t move either, felled by a sense of… dread? Tenderness? Amusement? The tiny boy was indeed fast asleep, his cheeks working on an invisible thumb, his sighs fanning over an adult male chest slabbed with muscle and probably the perfect temperature to soothe a fussy baby. Then too, Henry would be listening to the steady heartbeat of an adult who held him protectively, and what more could a child want than such palpable reassurance that all was well?

  Max’s eyes held that hopeful, anxious look shared by caretakers of upset babies the world over.

  “Your luggage is here. I’ll help you carry it up in the morning. You can’t sleep with Henry on your chest. It isn’t safe.”

  Max cradled Henry’s head against a large palm. “Why do I feel as if it isn’t safe to move?”

  His smile was self-conscious but happy, and Jeannie’s heart ached. “Let him drift for a while longer, then I might be able to sneak him into his bed.” She passed Max Henry’s favorite blanket, the one edged in satin binding that Henry liked to scratch as he fell asleep. Max wrapped the blanket around the baby and rubbed Henry’s back in a slow, soothing rhythm.

  “How old is he?”

  “Ten months. He tried to creep the other day. Pulled himself up on the edge of a coffee table and looked more pleased with himself than if he’d climbed K2. He got a couple of sidewise steps in before he went down on his butt, but he’ll be back at it.”

  “Be glad he’s on track,” Mr. Maitland said. “Nothing is more heartbreaking than a baby in precarious health.” He kissed the top of Henry’s head.

  Was a great grief behind Mr. Maitland’s peripatetic, rootless lifestyle? Had he learned his competence with a baby at the cost of some private sorrow?

  “You know what the milestones are,” Jeannie said. “I didn’t. I had to learn them from a book and from new-mommy websites. I haven’t any younger siblings, never did much babysitting when I was growing up. Babies are… a new challenge for me.”

  “Babies are a challenge for everybody,” Max said. “That’s good. I think this baby is down for the count.”

  “Another five minutes,” Jeannie said, sinking into a wing chair. “He’s fooled me before.”

  “I gather his father fooled you too.”

  Jeannie considered the question, propping her feet on a hassock. “I simply lack good judgment where men are concerned, and every few years I seem to need a reminder of that. Harry caught me at the end of a long drought, and though I’d met his like once or twice at uni, I’d forgotten what a public menace a charming man can be.”

  Henry kicked at the blanket. Max tucked it back up around the baby’s shoulders. “We all make wrong turns, Jeannie Cromarty.”

  “Even you?”

  “I thought I’d found the one. Shayla was smart, ambitious, charming, told me I was the bee’s knees, and liked the development business. But she and I did not see eye to eye when it came to some significant issues, and when she had an opportunity to take on a major project on the Canadian plains, we could not find a way to resolve those issues.”

  Jeannie tried looking at Max’s feet to distract her from the picture he made cradling the baby to his chest, but even his feet interested her—big, high arches, second toe longer than the first, a scar on his left ankle… What had he been saying?

  “She expected you to leave your responsibilities so she could pursue her ambitions?”

  Max sent Jeannie a disgruntled look. “I want you to resume the job you were doing for Elias, being the project administrator. You connect dots and prevent disaster, and that is the position description in a nutshell.”

  He was offering her a job? Just like that? “We don’t all get what we want, Mr. Maitland, though I think it’s safe now to try putting the wee demon to bed.”

  Sitting in the dim living room spinning fancies about a half-naked Max Maitland was not safe. He’d be gone from Scotland as soon as the castle was open for business, if not long before. Harry had been the restless sort, always ready to drop one dream to chase another, larger dream. That was not the sort of role model for a tiny boy, no sort of partner to throw in with.

  Maybe for a fling… but no. Harry had started off as a fling. Every romantic disaster in Jeannie’s life had started off with a maybe.

  She rose and crossed the rug, intent on scooping Henry off Max’s chest. That maneuver necessitated bending over the man lying on the sofa, insinuating her hands between his naked chest and the sleeping baby, and trying to ignore all the heat, longing, and curiosity that intimate contact inspired.

  Henry’s blanket was wedged between Max’s hip and the sofa back, so Jeannie had to pause, holding the baby a few inches from the man, while Max lifted his hips and freed the blanket.

  Jeannie wasn’t embarrassed by this intimacy, she was frustrated. Why did her body have to choose now to recall a life outside motherhood? Why did her heart have to select Max Maitland as a reminder that the world was full of good men, and some of them were even good-looking too?

  He remained on his back, entirely unself-conscious. “Good night, Jeannie. See you in the morning, and thanks again for staying.”

  Do not look at Max Maitland’
s mouth, or his chest, or his shoulders, or—most especially—his hands.

  She eased Henry to her shoulder, and thank the angelic choirs, he was truly, absolutely asleep. Jeannie let a thought form: I could tuck Henry in and share a cup of hot chocolate with an adult male, let matters progress as they will, and indulge in a little harmless pleasure.

  Stupid, pointless thought. “After we get you introduced on Monday, I’ll return to Perth, though you can always call me if you need anything.”

  “Thanks, from the bottom of my jet-lagged heart.” He rose from the sofa in one lithe move and prowled for the door, closing it behind him with a soft click.

  Max Maitland thanked Jeannie frequently, and his expressions of gratitude were more than platitudes tossed off between family members. Jeannie liked him, she respected him, she was attracted to him…

  And just as she’d said, she’d leave him to his castle and return to Perth by sunset on Monday.

  “Here’s the thing,” Pete Sutherland said. “My wife is Scottish—my current wife. I know that terrain, and you do too.”

  Marty Ebersole’s rhythm remained steady as he sawed at his steak. “Played the Old Course at St. Andrews many times, so has Dwayne. I suspect Frank and Hal and most of the guys have too. Owning a property an hour away will come in handy.”

  The point of the discussion was not where to conveniently park a damned golf cart. “Right, you know the neighborhood, while Max Maitland is a jumped-up lawyer who managed to snag a Professional Engineer’s license when he should have been doing wills and divorces. What does he know about Scotland, and why should he literally hold the keys to the castle?”

  Marty was the primary investor in Brodie Castle—he liked hotels and condos—while Pete preferred residential developments. Each had its risks and rewards. When Max Maitland had pitched his Brodie Castle project, Marty had left off banging his bimbo long enough to take an interest.