Scotland to the Max

by Grace Burrowes

  “Will a royal couple trysting at the hunting lodge help sell honeymoon bookings?” Max asked.

  “I can’t imagine anything more effective for marketing to newlyweds. Victoria and Albert are well regarded in Deeside, and they did have nine children.”

  Ye gods. “Can you imagine eight more just like Henry?”

  Jeannie straightened from buckling Henry into his car seat. “One of their children was a hemophiliac. He lived to be thirty and had a child, but still… to be taken so young, despite all his parents’ efforts to protect him... I cannot fathom how Victoria coped or how deeply she grieved for him.”

  Jeannie’s words were a bucket of cold water dumped over Max’s silly quibbling over a nascent attraction. Sure, he’d like to get to know Jeannie better, and for certain, he and Jeannie could have a great time in the sack.

  But that wasn’t meant to be.

  Max knew all too well how low genetic cards could give somebody a bad hand in the longevity sweepstakes. Family and loved ones might do everything possible to argue with fate, all to no avail. He kept those thoughts to himself and let Jeannie navigate the track to the hunting lodge in silence.

  One of Max Maitland’s many fine qualities was that he didn’t chatter, but this silence was different. Something about the meeting had started him brooding, staring out the window at the woods going past, while worrying some problem Jeannie could only guess at. The day was lovely, the river a sparkling ribbon beneath a brilliant blue summer sky.

  “The river’s low this time of year,” Jeannie said, “but don’t trust it. If there’s a cloudburst in the hills to the north, the level can rise at a dangerous rate.”

  “Flash flooding,” he said. “Like when the bank, the occupational safety inspector, the environmental protection task force, and the attorneys all show up unannounced on a Friday morning. The site’s usually a mess, everybody’s tired, and nobody wants to stand around making small talk with a passel of greedy fools.”

  He occasionally sounded cynical, but that comment had been bitter. “Are you having second thoughts about the project?”

  “No. I’ll turn that pile of rock into a conference destination. I’ll bring the job in on time and within budget and then turn it over to the management crew and collect my percentage of the first five years’ proceeds. I gave my word, and I do not go back on a promise.”

  He wanted to. His litany hinted of doubts, regrets, unspoken wishes.

  Jeannie turned down the track that led to the lodge. “Do you like your job?”

  Henry was awake, thank heavens, and fascinated with the flicker of sunlight through the trees.

  “I like ensuring a job goes smoothly, but development is a jealous mistress. The business pays well, and that’s why I persist with it. I can make much more turning straw into gold for a lot of rich guys than I can hanging out a lawyer’s shingle in a small town or slaving away as a project engineer.”

  “That’s too bad.” Though how odd to think she could pity Maxwell Maitland. “I honestly enjoy managing the cottage. I like contributing to a holiday or a honeymoon. I like making people feel welcome and appreciated.”

  Max rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Is any of this lumber ever harvested?”

  “Over on Skye there’s some forestry, but the deerstalkers have the prior claim here.”

  The road ran along the shore of a crystal-blue lochan. The water would be cold as hell, also clear as heaven. Jeannie hadn’t been this way for ages, though the memories here were good.

  “As teenagers, the cousins would assemble at the lodge in summer, have bonfires and all-night card games while nipping whisky and feeling wickedly sophisticated. Winter was for skating parties and ice hockey.”

  “You have family. You have good association with that family.”

  Didn’t everybody have family? “I’m not too fond of Uncle Donald right now—he’s bound for Germany to do some fishing—and several of the cousins weren’t very pleased with Elias’s decision to develop the castle.”

  Max left off studying the landscape. “You talked them around.”

  “I’m the first among my generation to have a child, much to my surprise. If Henry had ended up with that castle hung around his neck, I’d want him to be free to do with it as he pleases. It’s a fine old place, but if we refuse to let it evolve as the present earl sees fit, we pass a worse problem on to our children.”

  “A commendable perspective. The project wasn’t my idea, by the way. Elias Brodie pitched it to me when what I wanted was to buy his farm out from under him.”

  Jeannie had known that. “A bit of embellishing for the sake of your reception made sense to me. I suppose you’ll want to return to Maryland when the project is done?”

  She’d managed a casual tone, but her stupid, lonely heart was interested in the answer. Maybe now wasn’t the time to fancy Maxwell Maitland, but Henry wouldn’t be an infant forever, and a lot could happen in the months and years it would take to get the castle up and running.

  “What family I have is in Maryland.”

  And that seemed to decide the matter for him. Well… crap.

  The lodge came into view a few minutes later, a two-story stone structure with a wood and glass A-frame addition on the lakeside.

  “Zebedee, the previous earl, added the A-frame during his last flush period, about twenty years ago,” Jeannie said, putting the car in park. “I think old and new blended well here, and the trout fishing is outstanding.”

  “Isn’t salmon fishing more prestigious?”

  “More lucrative, you mean? Do you think only of money?”

  She knew he did not. He thought of Henry’s wet diaper, Fern’s good opinion of him, the safety and well-being of the crews on the site, and apparently of his family in Maryland.

  “I have to think of money, Jeannie. I have to think of it seriously and often.” He retrieved the diaper bag. Jeannie freed Henry from his car seat and led the way to the front door by way of stone steps that rose to a spacious covered porch.

  “The benches need a good sweeping,” Jeannie said. “The place also wants flowers, of course. Pansies, because the shade is fairly deep on this side of the house. Petunias and geraniums would do well on the lakeside.”

  “Is the code the same as for the lodge?”

  “Aye.” She rotated the tumblers in the lockbox and passed Max the key.

  He opened the door and stepped back, allowing Jeannie to precede him into the front hallway. The lodge made a lovely first impression, with a stairway rising on a curve to the right and a high-ceilinged great room opening straight ahead. The back deck and the loch were visible through two-story picture windows, and a stone fireplace occupied the corner beneath the stairway.

  “I see heating bills,” Max muttered. “Great big, expensive heating bills.”

  “You’ve solar panels on the lakeside of the roof,” Jeannie said. “Elias modernized to at least that extent. The woodstove in the dining room sends out a terrific amount of heat.”

  Jeannie expected Max to get out his phone and make a note, but he wandered to the fireplace and ran a hand over the rocks.

  “Native stone and handsomely done,” he said. “Somebody cared for craftsmanship.”

  Jeannie let him meander from room to room, until they’d made their way from a gleaming kitchen to the spacious deck, past various comfy bedrooms to the master suite.

  The balcony looked out on the lake. The bathroom sported stained-glass windows and a claw-foot monstrosity of a tub. Jeannie set Henry in the tub along with Bear-Bear and some soft-textured ducks that rattled and chimed when moved.

  “He’s dry?” Max asked.

  “He is dry. What do you think of the place?”

  He gazed up at the exposed-beam ceiling, then out at the lake shimmering azure in a bowl of high green hills.

  “This is my dream home,” he said. “Plenty of room to work, domesticate, socialize, and rest. Great workmanship, smart design, excellent location, and first-ra
te build-out and finish. It’s a house that can accommodate multiple generations without losing the sense of being a home rather than an expensive dormitory. I’m impressed.”

  “You’re also sad.” Happy baby sounds came from the bathroom, which only made Jeannie more certain of her conclusion.

  Max took Jeannie’s hand, his grip warm. “May I kiss you?”

  Of all the—? Jeannie would drop him off in the village and then head back to Perth. She might not see him again until the ribbon-cutting ceremony months from now. She might never see him again.

  So why not enjoy a kiss?

  “Yes, you may kiss me.” She slid her arms around his neck. He settled his hands on her waist. The fit was lovely, the mood too sad for a pair of people indulging in a very small, ill-advised pleasure.

  “Now would be good,” Jeannie said. “Henry is a fiend for interrupting at all the worst times.”

  Max smiled, then brushed his lips over Jeannie’s mouth. She at first thought that was to be the extent of the festivities—a mere tease—but then he drew her closer and did it again.

  He stole into the kiss by inches and degrees, letting Jeannie get used to the intimate feel of him. Then came his taste—slightly sweet and cinnamon around the edges from Fern’s shortbread. He was a patient kisser, giving Jeannie time to relax and run her hands over his chest and shoulders, then sink her fingers into his hair.

  She pushed the diaper bag to the floor and got a knee between his legs, twining herself into his embrace and into the kiss.

  All hell broke loose inside her as longing, glee, desire, and joy welled. I am not dead to all pleasure. I am not simply an exhausted single mum with money woes and a compulsive reading habit.

  Max was growing aroused, which made Jeannie want to haul him to the bed on a trail of discarded clothing and abandoned reservations.

  “This has to stop.” He cradled the back of her head, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. “We can’t. I didn’t mean for this to become that sort of kiss, but I’m not sorry it did.”

  If there was one rule Jeannie would drill into Henry’s head when he approached adolescence, it was that no meant no. Boundaries were for respecting, not heedlessly ignoring.

  “We have to stop?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to, but… yes. We have to stop.”

  Still, she remained in his embrace. “Why? I’m not employed on the project, we’re consenting adults, I like you, and I believe you like me.”

  She sounded like a very young woman, one who needn’t think beyond a moment’s pleasure, when that wasn’t who she was. Not anymore.

  “I like and respect you tremendously, which is why…” He stepped back and took her hand, leading her not to the bed, but to the sofa that looked out on the lake. “I have family.” He reached into his back pocket, and if he produced his phone, Jeannie would open the sliding doors and pitch it into the water.

  He got out a worn leather billfold and opened it. “That’s Maura. She’s my sister, my only living family. Dad died of a heart attack at fifty-one. Mom died of ovarian cancer two years later.”

  Maura was a sweet-faced brunette with a sunny smile. She looked out on the world with an innocent joy that Jeannie associated with young children, though clearly, she was well into adolescence, if not early adulthood.

  Max put his wallet away. “Maura has mosaic Down syndrome. Took some time to figure that out because we didn’t have the money for a lot of fancy testing. Maura is smart, but vulnerable, and I’m all she has.”

  Jeannie put an arm around his shoulders, for in a few words, he’d sketched a reality as inescapable and compelling as being a single parent—or more so, because nobody grew out of Down syndrome.

  “Tell me about her.”

  Max rose, and Jeannie let him go. “She’s stubborn, good God, is she stubborn, but she’s also compassionate, tenacious, determined… She can look after herself to some extent. Hygiene, laundry, microwaving—she has all of that knocked, but she has no sense of what shirt will go with what skirt, and she can be easily distracted. She really has to watch what she eats, which frustrates her, and she has health problems.”

  The words came out all in a rush, followed by a self-conscious silence.

  “She sounds very high-functioning.” And very much beloved by her brother.

  “Mosaic Down is unpredictable. Maura doesn’t have the classic Down features at first glance, but she got some of the cardiac issues, the thyroid problems, mildly delayed speech and language, and she’s not exactly graceful.”

  Jeannie rose and took the place beside Max at the sliding glass doors. “You love her.” This explained how Max knew his way around a diaper bag, why he never entirely lost awareness of Henry, why Henry instinctively trusted him.

  “I took one look at her in that hospital incubator—she was so tiny and so fierce—and I promised her she’d never have a reason to doubt me. I was thirteen, and I’ve kept every promise I’ve made to her.”

  Jeannie rested her head on Max’s shoulder and put an arm around his waist. “You promised her you’d come home from Scotland.”

  “Every three weeks, I’ll pop back to Maryland, if it kills me. I will finish the project on time, if it kills me, and I will return to Maryland, if it kills me.”

  His father had died at fifty-one. His mother might not have made it even that far. “The money is about Maura, isn’t it? Your government won’t provide for her if anything happens to you.”

  “Eventually, adult protective services might get involved, but Maura’s IQ is substantially higher than a typical Down IQ, even though it’s still too low for her to be in any way self-supporting. She can read and write, slowly, and she has jobs at the facility where she lives. This time of year, she’s in their gardens and greenhouse most of the day, but she can also answer phones, and run copier or scanner because somebody took the time to show her—over and over—how they work. That work history also counts against her if she ever needs to qualify for disability.”

  “That is stupid.”

  “I’ve used much worse language to describe the disability support system back home.”

  Henry’s rattling and tinkling went on unabated, though much had changed in Jeannie’s view of Max Maitland. “You are concerned that you’ll die as young as your parents did, and Maura will be left with nothing and nobody.”

  “I look after myself, but you can’t argue with your genes. Mom and Dad both smoked, they became parents later in life, and they neither exercised nor watched what they ate. Then Maura came along, and life was one operation after another, one specialist after another, one crisis after another. Down syndrome can mean the immune system under-functions, and Maura caught every cold and virus going around and as often as not turned it into pneumonia.”

  A wet diaper would be nothing to a guy who’d gone through that with a baby sister. A crumbling castle would simply be business as usual to him.

  And a relationship of any significance would be asking too much of him.

  “Why are you telling me this?” Jeannie asked, because she was stubborn too.

  Max wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. “Because you are somebody special, and you tempt me. I hope I tempt you too, but I’m not the guy who can step in as Henry’s male role model, not the guy who can take you to Majorca for a two-week holiday, even. I’m the guy who will get all the inconvenient phone calls from Maura’s cottage staff, the guy who will spend every spare minute flying back and forth to Maryland to see his sister, the guy who will leave Scotland for good when Brodie Castle opens its doors.”

  He was being honest, unlike Harry, and yet, Jeannie didn’t like this honesty any better than she’d liked Harry’s charming duplicity. “And are you the guy who provides for his sister’s every need?”

  Max stepped back. “Nobody else is going to do that, and if I drop dead of a heart attack, or Fergus drops a load of concrete on me by accident, then I’m the guy who has been slowly building up Maura’s special-needs
trust fund, so she’ll lack for nothing even if I’m not around to look after her.”

  Jeannie sank to the bed, a king-sized expanse of fluffy comforters, soft pillows, and crisp sheets. She’d never dive under these covers with Max Maitland, and that was… damned unfair, like most adult realities. Unfair to him, most of all.

  “Your plan has a flaw, Max.”

  He picked up the diaper bag and slung it over his shoulder. “I like when you call me Max, but then, I liked when you called me Mr. Maitland too.”

  “You can pile up all the money in the world for Maura, but unless you can find somebody to manage those funds for her, somebody whose integrity you can trust, then she might still end up penniless and alone if anything happens to you.”

  Jeannie had made a will within a week of Harry asking for a divorce. Henry had family, by God, and they’d look after him no matter what.

  “That thought has crossed my mind,” Max said. “A few million times. I’m working on it. It’s a legal problem, and I’m a lawyer, and for now, Maura and I are in good health.”

  The problem was not legal, but Jeannie let Max’s reply suffice. He had done so much more for his sister than many parents did for their own offspring. She collected a happy Henry from his bathtub playpen, stashed his toys in the diaper bag, and took a last look around the lovely bedroom.

  “This will be the scene of more than a few happy wedding nights,” she said. And it has been the scene of one sweet, doomed kiss.

  Max led the way back to the car. Thirty minutes later, outside the Earl’s Pint, he kissed Jeannie’s cheek and climbed from the car. She drove off and did not glance in the rearview mirror until she was sure the bend in the road had taken Max from her sight.

  Chapter Eight

  “Maitland seems all right, for an American,” Hugh said. “Can’t imagine what would compel a man to get schooled in both law and engineering, though. That would take a permanent toll on a body’s sanity.”

  Fergus and Hugh were among the last onto the path up to the castle, having graciously assisted Fern with the cleanup of the ballroom and repacking her catering van.