Fergus tossed down the pencil he’d been using to total figures that refused to add up. “A man can’t seek a little peace and quiet to tend to his work on a fine Saturday morning?”
Stupid comment. With walls twelve meters thick in places, the castle was quiet. Close the door—an arched monstrosity carved of two matching oak panels—and the solar was as silent as an abandoned chapel.
Hugh picked up the pile of papers that was all the vendor invoices Fergus could find. Fergus smacked Hugh’s hand.
“Fern has an unusual accounting system,” Hugh said, leaning back against the wall and folding his hands over a flat belly. “She stashes the bills owed to her in a shoe box by the cash register. Dinty was behind the bar a lot last night because nothing would do but Pete and Fern play a duet every other set.”
At least Fern had a system. Jeannie Cromarty had had a system too, and she’d shown it to Fergus and emailed him her lovely spreadsheet and then sat with him and whipped through all manner of cleverness. Fergus had nodded and murmured appreciatively and told himself he’d figure it all out later. Maybe buy a spreadsheet course or do a tutorial or something.
Hugh moved the bucket around to Fergus’s side of the table, the plastic rim scraping on the slate floor. “You aren’t listening to a word I say.”
Hard to listen when a man smelled like the first day of spring. “If you’d leave me in peace, I might stand a prayer of catching up on the few reports that aren’t exactly complete. Maitland’s a reasonable man, and he’s always going on about data security and corporate memory. Perhaps he’ll hire me a pretty little admin, and then you can pester her.”
Hugh grabbed Fergus by the scruff of the neck, and—have mercy upon a poor kilted laddie—his grip felt wonderful.
“If you lose your job over this, Maitland will bring in some fancy Yank who won’t be content to sit over in his project office making notes on his phone for most of the day. The lads like working for you, Fergus, and you’ve never had a problem keeping the tallies before. What the hell is afoot?”
Why did Hugh have to have such beautiful eyes, such long lashes? “I’ve been distracted.” For the past six years, ever since Hugh had slung an arm around Fergus’s shoulders after a particularly brutal shinty match and kissed him on his sweaty temple.
Working on the same project had escalated the preoccupation into an affliction, though that was really no excuse.
“The auld earl, Zebedee, he left you a mess, didn’t he?” Hugh sat back. “Then Jeannie came prancing along and set everything up her way—like she was managing some holiday cottage—and you were lost even before all the new hires came on board. You jotted everything down on your damned yellow pads, and Maitland hasn’t a clue what a mare’s nest you’re dealing with.”
“I’m planning to tell him.”
“Fergus, my dear, this cannot end well.”
Truer words…. “So leave me to it, and I’ll do what I can before Maitland and I have a wee chat.”
“Dinty says you haven’t paid Fern for that spread she put out nearly two months ago. Fern will have a wee chat with Maitland, assuming she hasn’t already. If there’s one way to piss in the well with a Scot in trade, it’s to pay late or short, and Maitland has been very careful to stay on good terms with the locals.”
Fern was a dear, darling woman, but not to be trifled with when it came to her family’s business.
Hugh grabbed the invoices before Fergus could stop him. “I’m guessing we have until Monday to get this sorted out, or it will have been very nice knowing you.”
“The payroll taxes should be up to date,” Fergus said. “Those weren’t a part of Jeannie’s meddling, though I have no notion how she tracked them as part of the larger project budget.”
“So you’ve been signing checks and keeping a list?”
“Lists,” Fergus said, feeling heat rise from his neck. “I never throw anything away, so I know they’re here somewhere.”
Hugh slugged him on the arm. “I’ll visit you wherever they keep the embezzlers. Probably some posh campground for wayward bankers. You can teach them all to play the tin whistle while you compare the size of your regrets.”
Was that a joke? A scold? A line? Just because a man was on good terms with the womenfolk didn’t mean he wasn’t also…
“Read off the names of the vendors, the dates of the invoices, and the amounts owed, and I’ll compare them to my list,” Fergus said. “Don’t sit so close. You’re in my light.”
Hugh scooted closer. “Now I’m not in your light. You owe Fern a goodly sum, which surely foretells a period of teetotaling misery for you, if not outright banishment from the pub…”
He read from the stack. Fergus checked his list and suffered torments of unrequited love far worse than any misery he’d experience if Fern locked him out of the Pint.
Jeannie was pathetically glad to see Max, who stood at the kitchen counter in worn jeans, a plain black T-shirt, with a tea towel of Scottish wildflowers tucked into his belt like a makeshift apron.
The kitchen was perfumed with oregano and basil, and a tossed salad sat in parts on a cutting board—shredded baby spinach on a towel, chopped hard-boiled egg, black olives, tomatoes, sliced red peppers.
Good, fresh food, not the heat-and-eat poison Jeannie had been subsisting on.
“You can cook,” she said as Max lifted Henry from her arms.
“If a man can’t put together a salad, he’s a sorry excuse for a man.” He nuzzled Henry’s cheek, provoking an enormous smile from the baby. “You’re assigned to quality assurance, Henry. I’ve set aside product samples to keep you out of trouble.”
Slices of red pepper, carrot, and celery were laid out on a paper towel, along with an eighth of a peeled apple.
The contrast with the hospitality Millicent had offered yesterday—nothing prepared for Henry, not for his nourishment or for his entertainment—fortified Jeannie’s pleasure in Max’s company.
“I brought his booster seat. I’ll fetch it from the car.”
Max left off nose-tickling Henry’s ear. “We’ll get it. You can check on the pizza. I grated extra cheese, in case you’re as fond of a little pizza with your cheese as I am.”
He and Henry disappeared out the back door, and Jeannie was left to marvel at the pleasure of not having to lug every blessed thing—one-handed—from car to house to car to house and everywhere in between.
By the time she’d snitched some cheese and added the rest to the baking pizza, Max and Henry were back with the booster seat. The meal was soon on the table—amazing how much more efficient Jeannie could be when Henry had somebody else to focus on—and Max was pouring a round of ginger ale for the adults.
“Your ginger ale tastes more like ginger than what’s typically served in the States,” he said. “I prefer it. For what we are about to receive, we are grateful.”
He passed Henry the sliced veggies while Jeannie helped herself to a wedge of pizza that was nearly as deep as it was wide.
This meal should have been nothing—casual food consumed with a friend at the kitchen table—but Jeannie was unaccountably upset by it.
“You do not look like a woman who is contemplating gustatory bliss,” Max said. “Mrs. Hamilton made bread pudding if you’d rather go straight to the treats.”
“I’m trying to recall if Henry’s father ever fixed me a meal—or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, for that matter.”
Max passed her the salad. “Do you miss him?” The question was merely curious, but not one anybody had asked Jeannie.
Not one she’d asked herself for months. “I thought I would, though a rigger is gone for weeks and then home for weeks. I dreaded the days when Harry would leave, because what if the baby came early? What if I fell and something awful happened? Harry told me I was being silly, that some pregnant women send their menfolk off to war…”
“I don’t think I’d respect Harry very much, though I’m sure he’s likable as hell.”
Jeannie scooped out so
me salad, aiming for the black olives. “You’ve put your finger on something. I’m struggling for a reason to respect Henry’s father and finding it honestly difficult.”
“Henry’s young. Some people do better parenting older children. Some people shine with babies. Some are better parents for one gender as opposed to the other. How’s the pizza?”
Max might have made a comment about finding something to respect about a man before marrying him and conceiving a child with him. Jeannie sliced off the tip of her piece of pizza, wound the melted cheese around her fork, and took a bite of heaven.
“The pizza is delectable.”
“Duh!”
“The official taster has weighed in,” Max said as Henry resumed gnawing on a portion of crust Max had cut for him. “Tell me about your job hunt.”
“I’ll spoil your appetite.”
“When I was job hunting, I figured for every hundred résumés I sent out, I’d get five interviews and one offer. For every ten offers I got, one of them would be acceptable. For every ten acceptable offers I got, one of them would be worth taking. Hunting for a job is a job.”
“Now you’re spoiling my appetite.”
He set down his knife and fork. “You could come back to work at the castle.”
Not exactly an effusive offer. “I’ve thought about it,” she said, “because I liked keeping everything organized and liked the idea that Elias asked me to help, but I’d have to move up here. Harry’s mum would disapprove. She lives outside Perth and takes an interest in Henry.”
Was Max relieved by that answer? Disappointed? Neither? Did Max assume that even a casual relationship could go nowhere if Jeannie went back to wrangling time sheets, invoices, bank statements, and bills of lading?
“May I discuss something with you that’s work related?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Max cut off a fresh section of crust, dabbed butter on it, and passed it to Henry. “How conscientious is Fergus about his bookkeeping?”
Oh dear. “If you’re asking, then he hasn’t printed you out the incurred-expense report, has he?”
“I’ve only been on-site a week. He said it’s usually a monthly report, which struck me as odd. A lot can go wrong in a month when dozens of people are clocking in every morning and deliveries are showing up several times a day.”
Jeannie debated having another slice of pizza. Max picked up the knife, cut a slice, then cut it in half and put the larger share on Jeannie’s plate.
“You don’t dare suggest an actual time clock be installed,” Jeannie said. “The crews would be insulted.”
“They’re easily insulted. I got away with requiring hard hats only because it will help keep the bankers from wandering at will. Damn, I make a good pizza.”
“Fergus is known to be a first-rate project manager, and he’s done a number of castle renovations. Zebedee wasn’t as keen on modern management tools as Elias is, but I made sure to show Fergus my system and to walk him through it.”
Max paused with his slice of pizza halfway to his mouth. “I’m only now realizing I’ve never seen Fergus with a computer actually on, much less seen him with his fingers touching a keyboard.”
“If he’s a slow typist, he’ll save the data entry for when nobody’s on hand to watch. The guys are brutal to each other when they’re in a certain humor.”
“But let me criticize Fergus while one of the masons is within earshot, and I’ll find a hammer accidentally dropping on my head the next day.”
Henry pitched a carrot stick across the table, and Max put a hand on Jeannie’s wrist before she could get up.
Oh, she had missed his touch. Missed the sound of his voice, his steadiness, his ability to treat Henry as something other than a cute nuisance.
“Give it a minute,” Max said, “or he’ll think he has you trained to step and fetch. In fact, if I were made of steely reserve, like I’m supposed to be, I’d ignore the little guy when he pulls that stuff.”
“You’re sure he’s pulling crap, rather than simply enjoying himself?”
Max dusted his hands over his plate. “Not sure, but where’s the harm in letting the carrot sit there until we’re ready to clean up?”
The exchange was like the meal—pedestrian, nothing remarkable—but it was a discussion Jeannie could not have had with Harry, Millicent, or even a friend like Fern. Parenting Henry was a moment-by-moment experiment in love, behavior modification, resource allocation, and luck. Max had the knack of being supportive and making no-big-deal conversation out of issues Jeannie would have worried over by the hour.
“I suspect tossing food is a way to signal that he’s through,” Jeannie said. “Then I wonder if Henry throws food when I’m frustrated and his infant radar has picked up on my mood.”
“Are you frustrated now?”
Yes—though not in the sense Max meant. “I’m full of very good pizza. Shall we go for a ramble before getting into the bread pudding?” She’d liked watching Max eat. Liked watching him run the tip of his finger around the edge of his glass. Liked imagining his hands on her, God help her.
“Let’s clean up first, or I’ll fall into bachelor habits, letting the dishes pile up in the sink, scandalizing Mrs. Hamilton.”
Tidying up the kitchen took only a moment, and Henry spent that moment getting reacquainted with Bear-Bear. Jeannie spent it stealing glances at Max—ye gods, he did justice to a pair of worn jeans—and not allowing herself to touch his hand when he passed her a washed glass.
When the last plate had been rinsed and dried, and Max had wrung out the washrag and draped it over the faucet, he reached for Jeannie’s dishtowel. She wasn’t expecting him to grab for it, and kept hold, and was thus tugged a step closer than was sensible.
Max gave the dishcloth another little tug. Jeannie held on, watching his gaze shift from surprised to interested to… pleased.
“I asked the first time I kissed you, Jeannie Cromarty. When you look at me like that, I want to ask again.”
Jeannie kissed him, pressing him against the sink and going full frontal on him without any preliminaries.
“I thought of you all week,” she managed.
“Dreamed of you,” he replied before resuming the kiss. He wrapped her close, then hoisted her up to sit on the counter, all without taking his mouth from hers. The angle let Jeannie get her legs around him, and her hands in his hair, and her—
A three-inch-long slice of celery hit Jeannie’s arm. Henry grinned from his booster seat and bounced on his butt.
“Unless you want to get beaned with a stuffed bear,” she said, “we’d better continue this discussion when Henry’s gone down for a nap.” Still, she kept her legs around Max’s waist and her arms around his neck.
He rested his forehead against her shoulder. “I wasn’t going to let this happen.” He sounded bewildered rather than resentful. “I can’t offer you much, Jeannie, so it will be a short discussion. I didn’t call you to lure you to my kitchen, but I’ve missed you.”
That he wasn’t particularly pleased to have missed her was fine with Jeannie. “I can’t offer you much either, and I know your plans take you back to the States, but right now, I can’t see beyond sunset, Max Maitland.”
He glanced at the wall clock. “Sunset is hours and hours away.”
“I’m overdue for a friendly fling.” Jeannie eased down from the counter. “I suspect you are too.” A friendly fling sounded credible—getting back on the horse, rebounding from a starter marriage gone awry, taking a break from being all mom, all the time. A fling with Max Maitland sounded lovely, in fact.
And if it was a mistake, then it would be a small mistake, and one fondly remembered. Surely Jeannie was entitled to at least one of those?
Max had awoken in a state every day for the past week, with Jeannie Cromarty on his mind. A few minutes of self-indulgence during his morning shower hadn’t evicted her from his imagination. Neither had hard work, a near miss with Morgan, or a five-mile jog thro
ugh the Scottish countryside earlier in the day.
He was half aroused merely from one kiss, though a few months of sexual drought wasn’t helping his self-restraint either.
“You went to the ceilidh last night,” Jeannie said. “Did you enjoy yourself?”
For their post-pizza ramble, they were taking another path around the hill, the right fork rather than left. The way was steep, but the views magnificent.
“Who tattled?” Max asked.
“Fern sent me a picture of you on the dance floor with Morgan.”
Max held back a branch so Jeannie could pass in front of him. Henry was strapped into a contraption on Max’s back. The baby was a warm, wiggly little bundle of preciousness that put Max in mind of Maura’s infancy.
Jeannie’s expression was as carefully neutral as her tone, suggesting Max truly wasn’t the only camper suffering a case of inconvenient attraction.
Better that way, if nobody expected a fling to turn into something more.
Despite stupid hope to the contrary.
“Hugh introduced me to Morgan,” Max said. “She was mostly interested in figuring out how fast the castle would put her shop out of business.”
“She loves that shop.”
“With any luck, her grandchildren will be loving that shop, but those grandchildren won’t be related to me.”
Jeannie stopped at a widening in the path. “I didn’t mean to imply that anything…” She glanced around at the surrounding trees, as if fairies might be eavesdropping. “Morgan would sleep with a handsome Yank to protect her shop. If I owned that shop, I’d likely do the same.”
Henry left off pulling Max’s hair to grab his ear. “She offered, I declined. I don’t think she judges me for that and is, in fact, mostly relieved. But can we get one thing straight, Jeannie?”
She moved off a few yards, to the edge of the clearing. “A fling is a fling. I know that, Max. I have enough on my plate without trying to make… without romantic complications. One doesn’t want to make a fool of oneself, though.”
The angle of her chin was determined, the set of her shoulders resolute. Everything about her posture radiated independence, which only made her more… dear.
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