Scotland to the Max

by Grace Burrowes

  “I’d love to have it, and your recipe for sweet rolls too.”

  Millicent gave up tormenting Henry with the spoon. “Harry loves my sweet rolls.”

  Harry loved his mother, which Jeannie had initially considered one of his strengths. Over time, she’d seen that his regard for Millicent was laced with both guilt and greed. Millicent was a wealthy widow, and Harry was a shrewd, lazy charmer. He flattered his mum with attention, and she lent him her credit card. When she became too controlling, Harry found another rig in need of an engineer.

  “Thank you for lunch,” Jeannie said, though she’d had little chance to eat, between feeding Henry and dodging Millicent’s sermons. “Next time, I’ll have you over to the apartment.”

  Millicent rose while Jeannie packed away toys, a cloth diaper for burping, a bottle of watered-down apple juice, wipes, Bear-Bear, and Henry’s favorite blanket.

  “Do you have a will, Jeannie?” Millicent asked. “A mother can’t be too careful, and with Harry out of the country, you ought to have Henry’s situation properly documented.”

  “His situation?”

  “If anything happens to you, I’ll become Henry’s guardian. You don’t have to thank me, because I know that’s what Harry would want.”

  So that’s what this three-fork display of graciousness had been about. “Have you seen Henry’s spoon?”

  “He’s old enough that he can use regular utensils, Jeannie.”

  Jeannie fished the spoon out of the pile of silverware on the stack of plates. The baby spoon was small enough to be comfortable for a tiny mouth, and the bowl was covered with some soft white plastic material that would be easier on teething gums.

  She stuffed the spoon in a pocket of the diaper bag. “You gave him that spoon, didn’t you? It’s his favorite, and he’d miss it. Thanks again for lunch.” Jeannie looped the diaper bag over her shoulder and extricated Henry from his high chair—Harry’s high chair, in fact.

  Millicent followed her around the side of the house to the driveway. “I’d be happy to make an appointment for you with Vernon MacEnroe. Every responsible parent should have a will. Vernon’s a very good solicitor and has been handling the MacDonald family affairs since before Harry was born.”

  No wonder Harry had fled to the Mediterranean Sea. “I do have a will, Millicent. Elias was most insistent that I tend to it. He considers himself the head of my family, and I respect his advice in legal arenas. Please thank Mrs. Nairn for a lovely meal, and we’ll see you again soon. Wave bye-bye, Henry.”

  Mentioning Elias had been cowardly, though effective. He was an earl, wealthy, very well connected, and the equal of any attorney. Also the equal of any meddling granny.

  Jeannie made her escape feeling as if she’d been ambushed by a press gang. Millicent would not rest until she’d badgered Jeannie into naming her as Henry’s potential guardian. She’d badger Harry as well, and then Harry would badger Jeannie—from a safe distance of several thousand miles—and another wrong turn would happen out of sheer maternal exhaustion.

  Elias would become Henry’s guardian if anything happened to Jeannie. A man orphaned in childhood was well suited to look out for a grieving little boy.

  Though Elias was in America to stay, and Millicent would fight tooth and claw—sparkling white teeth and manicured, painted claws, rather—to keep Henry in Scotland.

  “I need a job,” Jeannie muttered when she’d buckled Henry into his car seat. She climbed in behind the wheel and started the Audi. “I need a good job, one that lets me work from home or pays enough that I can afford decent child care.”

  Jeannie negotiated the driveway, which wound through half a mile of towering rhododendrons and ancient lime trees. If Harry had been furloughed, she could not rely on him to provide any more rent money. He had money—she was almost sure of it—but they’d not commingled their finances, so she’d never glimpsed the extent of his reserves.

  “I don’t want to go to court.”

  “Buh.”

  In fact, she could not take Harry to court. “If I go to court, Millicent will unleash her pet barristers and make me look like an unfit, lazy, mooching gold digger. Harry will feel terrible about it, but never cross his mum, and that will be that.”

  Jeannie took the road back to the highway slowly, thinking and worrying, worrying and thinking. Should she email Harry? Call him? Let Niall and the cousins know what was afoot? Liam and Niall had both married attorneys, though the ladies were Americans and wouldn’t know Scottish family law.

  “Perhaps I should have accepted Max Maitland’s offer.”

  But, no. That way lay heartache, and his offer had been a mere thought in passing.

  Jeannie was hungry, thirsty, worried, and not a little angry. She nonetheless pulled into the parking lot of the first fast-food place she came to and tossed Millicent’s raspberry cheesecake into the dumpster.

  “I miss Max.” Maura had told Max she missed him when they had finally talked on the phone Wednesday night. She would tell him again when they talked on Saturday, but Max was in Scotland.

  And Scotland was very, very, very far away.

  “I’m sure he misses you too,” Alex said. He was the cottage manager on Friday evenings, and Maura hadn’t decided whether she liked him. He’d had the job for only eight months, though he sometimes substituted during the week or on weekends for the other managers.

  Alex liked his computer a lot. He was handsome, in a skinny, restless way, with thick dark hair and watchful brown eyes. He didn’t talk much, but he had a nice smile.

  “When is Max coming home?” Maura asked, though she knew the answer. She also knew Alex was paying more attention to the laptop he’d set beside the milk jug on the kitchen table than he was to her.

  “Soon,” Alex said, tapping away at the keyboard.

  Two weeks was not soon, and that would be for only a visit. “The milk will go bad if you leave it out.” Pammie was always leaving the milk out, and Miss Fran was always scolding her. Maura had learned to sniff the milk before pouring it. Maybe Pammie wasn’t the only person ignoring the rules.

  Alex moved his mouse, hopping from screen to screen. “Maura, shoulder surfing is rude, and I’m on break right now.”

  No, he wasn’t. Staff didn’t take breaks without first telling each other, so they didn’t both go on break at the same time. “Are you chatting with your girlfriend?”

  “She’s my fiancée.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Maura…” Alex turned the screen a little, so Maura couldn’t see it. “My fiancée is the person I’m planning to marry.”

  “If I had a fiancée, would I have to live here, or could I live in Scotland?”

  Alex scooted his chair a few inches around the table, so he faced his screen. “Scotland is very, very, very far away, Maura. Your friends are all here, and Max didn’t want you to have to leave your friends. This is where you live, and we’d miss you if you left us.”

  “Can you show me Scotland on the computer?”

  Maura had tried searching, but the computer in the living room had a lot of filters and no privacy. Everybody could see from across the room what was on the screen.

  “You can see Scotland on your phone,” Alex said, holding out his hand. “I’ll show you.”

  He took Maura’s phone and tapped the colorful G to get the search bar. “See that?” Then he tapped the search bar itself to make a tiny keyboard pop up.

  “I know the rest.” In fact, Maura had had a vague idea that she could search on her phone, but she’d forgotten how. “You should put the milk away. It goes bad, and then Miss Fran blames Pammie, but if you are the person who leaves it out, then the milk going bad is not Pammie’s fault.”

  Alex put the milk away. “Why would she blame Pammie?”

  Because Pammie was sweet and easy to blame. “Because Pammie forgets. I’m going to my room.”

  Alex glanced at his screen. “You can’t call Max, Maura. We’ve discussed this. You can t
alk to him again on Saturday. Right now, it’s past bedtime where he is.”

  Maura didn’t understand that. Miss Fran had tried to show her, with a globe and a flashlight, how the sun lit up different places at different times, but the explanation had been complicated.

  “Max’s phone doesn’t work the same in Scotland,” Maura said. “He has to call me, and he called on Wednesday. He’ll call me again this weekend.”

  Though when she’d been helping in the office yesterday, she’d overheard Miss Fran talking to Max on the phone, suggesting somebody’s phone was able to reach Max, or somebody wasn’t being honest about how phones worked in Scotland. Miss Fran had said several times, “Maura is fine,” and “Maura understands why you had to go,” but Maura was not fine, and she didn’t understand.

  “I’m going to my room now,” she said again, because Alex sometimes needed reminders. Maura would close her bedroom door to let everybody know she wanted privacy, then she’d search for Scotland, and figure out a way to go there.

  Chapter Nine

  Max had ignored his usual Friday end-of-day email scroll until it was time to put in an appearance at the Pint. In addition to an email, Elias Brodie had graced him with a text: Quit ignoring my emails and call me.

  “Tomorrow, your lordship,” Max said, stuffing his phone in his pocket. Even standing outside the Pint, the noise was considerable. A fiddle and a concertina could be heard through the open windows, and patrons, most holding beer glasses, were grouped on the walkway and on the front terrace. A small boy who looked to be contemplating scrambling from the window to the bench below it was whisked out of sight by an older woman.

  “Mr. Maitland,” Hugh Morven called. “Come to enjoy a spot of dancing?”

  “He’ll enjoy a spot of falling on his arse if you’re on the dance floor, wee Hughie,” somebody replied.

  “I’ve come to see what a ceilidh is,” Max said, “and to enjoy a cold beer at the end of a long week.”

  “You Yanks and your cold beer,” Dinty scoffed. “Sacrilegious, the lot of you.”

  You Yanks was becoming one of Max’s least-favorite phrases. “Seen any ghosts lately, Dinty?”

  “Saw the ghost of Fergus the Weary in the solar, up to his armpits in invoices and time—”

  “The musicians are tuning up for the Dashing White Sergeant,” Hugh said. “It’s an easy dance, Mr. Maitland, and you get to hold the hands of two ladies at once. Let’s go on in, and I’ll walk you through it.”

  “Hope you’re wearing steel-toed boots, Mr. Maitland,” Dinty muttered.

  Many of the men had turned up in kilts, most of the ladies wore dresses. Babies, elders, and everybody in between ranged around the walls of the Earl’s Pint, while the tables had been pushed away from the center of the common. The musicians had set up near a window, and Max spotted a buffet table through the open door of a private dining room.

  “Is there a cover charge?” he asked, having nearly to shout over the noise.

  “Tip jar on the bar. Pay what you can and order at least two drinks.”

  “Come on, then. I’m buying.”

  Max had settled on Tennent’s as his preferred brew among the Pint’s offerings. Hugh was drinking Deuchars. Behind the bar, a smiling, harried Fern presided at the taps, and an older woman who resembled her was mixing drinks.

  “The Dashing White Sergeant has about six moves,” Hugh said with every sign of seriousness. “Circle this way, then circle that. That part’s easy because you’re holding hands so you can’t muck it up. Then you circle with your partners, which you also can’t muck up because they’ll grab you and throw you about where you ought to go. Watch out for that Morgan. She’s a vigorous dancer after about the third drink.”

  Max was already lost, though the beer was good.

  “Then you do the left shoulder figure of three,” Hugh said. “Just wander around smiling and try not to step on anybody. Bumping into your partners is all part of the fun, though knocking people over is frowned upon. You form up in threes again, raise your arms, and start over with a new set. Nothing simpler.”

  Max barely had time to set his drink on the mantel before Hugh grabbed him by the hand—by the hand—and dragged him into a line.

  “Maitland is a ceilidh virgin,” Hugh bellowed, now holding Max by the wrist, like a referee in a prizefight. “Reward his courage with hospitality, or I’ll partner you right oot ta windae. Morgana May Malcolm, I’m looking at you.”

  This announcement occasioned a cheer and some applause. Morgan was a fine specimen of tall, red-haired womanhood, and she soon had Max by one hand and Hugh by the other.

  The fiddler, a white-haired bantam with snapping blue eyes, stood up. “We’ll walk through the pattern once,” he said. “Think of it as a test. If you can’t remain upright for the walk-through, you’d best yield your place while you take some air.” He tucked his fiddle under his chin and flourished his bow. “Form lines and greet your partners.”

  Max had been forced to take square dancing in college, a scheduling quirk resulting from the vagaries of the third-year engineering curriculum. Phys ed had been mandatory, but the only courses available that hadn’t interfered with core requirements had been bowling, square dancing, and fencing. Square dancing was an easy A and thus the favorite of any major where grades determined life expectancy in the profession.

  The Dashing White Sergeant wasn’t a square dance, but it was easy enough, except for the figure of three. Max muddled through, nearly being plowed over by a granny, bouncing off Hugh twice, and getting bumped into by Morgan on nearly every figure.

  When the dance ended, Max found his beer, and damned if the taste hadn’t gone from good to ambrosial.

  “Morgan’s friendly,” Hugh said. “That’s your only warning.” Morgan blew him a kiss. Hugh saluted with his beer and then marched off, kilt swishing.

  “You’re wondering what it’s like to wear a kilt,” Morgan said. “But then, Hugh more than does justice to his native attire. A pity that. Shall we take some air?”

  Max wasn’t given a choice, because Morgan took him by the hand and led him outside, where the sky still wasn’t quite dark.

  “So what is it like to wear a kilt?” Max asked.

  “Comfortable,” Morgan replied, leading him to a bench beyond the light pouring from the open windows. “Classy and bold. If you want to see it done properly, wait until somebody gets down the swords and then watch Hugh on the dance floor. He grew up in a dancing family, did the competitions, and taught the lads for a while.”

  The moment should have been friendly and superficial, but the feeling was homesickness. Men back home did not, by and large, wear kilts, compete in sword dancing, or spend Friday evening dancing with everybody from grannies to girlfriends to each other.

  The degree of casual affection going on inside, the noise, the community reminded Max that he was the stranger and far, far from home. Though even at home, he also was usually the stranger.

  “Does Fergus frequent these gatherings?” Max asked.

  “Aye, and he’s a fine dancer as well. Knows his way around the tin whistle and the bodhran and can be brilliantly funny once he’s had a wee dram or two.”

  Morgan spoke as if rendering a professional opinion, reciting the dating-app keywords she’d choose for Fergus. Max was abruptly conscious of where the evening might end and why Hugh had partnered him with this particular lady.

  As the evening progressed, the dance unfolded in moves Max knew all too well.

  In conversation, Morgan found reasons to press momentarily closer. When Fern got out her fiddle to play a slow triple-meter duet, Morgan was in Max’s arms. When the grandmas began to pack up the children and the teenagers had drifted off to the shadows on clouds of pot-scented smoke, Morgan’s fingers were laced with Max’s.

  “You could walk me home,” she said. “Have a wee dram to finish off the evening. I live at the foot of the lane that turns off past the garage.”

  The mating game
hadn’t been overt throughout the evening. Established couples had danced with each other, but also partnered others. People sat outside in small groups, though a pair wasn’t unusual either. To the locals, though, Morgan’s plans for Max would have been easy to decipher.

  A slight headache had started up at the base of Max’s skull, probably from the noise. “I’m happy to walk you home.”

  Thus did he find himself outside in what passed for summer darkness, an attractive single woman keeping him company.

  “In winter, the cold sobers you up before you’ve staggered to the corner,” Morgan said, falling in step beside him. “And the cold arrives well before we’re ready for it. Winter will slow you down, won’t it? Up at the castle?”

  “We have an ambitious schedule of interior work to do at the Hall. We’ll keep nearly a full crew straight through for the next year.”

  “That’s good, then.” She slipped her hand into Max’s. “Elias likely knew your project would result in jobs.”

  God bless Saint Elias—tomorrow. Weariness landed on Max along with curiosity. Had Jeannie met her Harry at one of these dances? How would Henry take to a noisy, friendly Friday evening at the Pint?

  “Is there somebody waiting for you back home?” Morgan asked as they turned onto a gravel lane.

  “Not in the sense you mean, but Maryland is home. I’m admitted to the bar there and nowhere else. I’ll be going back once the castle is open for business.”

  She dropped his hand, and that was a relief. “Seems like foolishness to leave as soon as things get interesting. You work for months to spin straw into gold, and then you ride into the sunset, never having a chance to see the results of all your efforts. How much job satisfaction is that?”

  Did Harry MacDonald ever wish he hadn’t ridden into the sunset when things had become interesting? What sort of man turned his back on Jeannie Cromarty and his own newborn child? But Max knew the answer to that, because he’d been raised by such a man.

  “I’m good at what I do,” Max said, “and like every person on my crews, I have to go where the work is.”