Scotland to the Max

by Grace Burrowes

  “She has no idea?” Maguire asked.

  “Shayla Walters, a professional engineer who’s as pretty as she is smart, and she’s very smart. MBA, summa cum laude.” Smart some ways. More than that, Max wouldn’t say, even when his future hung in the balance. Shayla’s ambition was based in an upbringing that few would connect with the woman she’d become.

  Maguire was eating, his chomping coming through the connection clearly. “Ms. Walters is finishing up a job in Edmonton, a regional headquarters for one of the major oil companies. Not much to it once you figure out where the cable and conduit go.”

  “You know her?”

  More munching. “You have trouble, I have connections, also plans for Brodie Castle. I am acquainted with Pete Sutherland’s wife, who is in a position to cause a lot of inconvenience for everybody who invested in this project.”

  Inconvenience, as in court orders, subpoenas, depositions, and witness summonses. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned—and Mrs. Sutherland was a Scotswoman.

  “What do you want to know, Maguire?”

  “Find somewhere comfortable and reasonably private, because I want to know everything.”

  “Give me a few minutes. There has to be at least one bar still open in this airport.”

  Max ended the call and considered loyalties, confidentiality requirements, and his flagging energy level. He found a quiet corner of a quiet eatery, ordered some sustenance, and dialed a number.

  “This is Elias.”

  “Maitland here. Your castle is being invaded by barbarians, and Connor Maguire is pretending I’m his new best friend. If you know anything, now would be a good time to share.”

  “I know Connor Maguire well enough. He’s smart, filthy rich, and mostly trustworthy.”

  Mostly trustworthy? “Come to Scotland, you said. The project will put you on the international map, you said. Now you’re telling me my wealthiest investor is only mostly trustworthy?”

  “He’s trustworthy as long as you don’t play polo against him. He’d never hurt a horse, but put him on one, and he’ll find a way to score. What the hell is going on?”

  Max wasn’t entirely sure himself. “Pete Sutherland wants to replace me as project manager with somebody who’s leading him around by his shorts. Somebody I proposed to five years ago. She’s a first-rate project manager, but not always so shrewd in other regards and has never done a renovation like Brodie Castle. Mrs. Sutherland is likely ready to start divorce proceedings, which could tie up progress at the castle if the litigation gets ugly.”

  Elias’s silence spoke volumes. Then, “Shite. Bollocks, bastard, bloody, shitting shite. A divorce will stop the engines, Max. Sutherland’s money will be tied up, the other investors will get cold feet, and my castle is all but ruined. It’s harder to resume a failed renovation than it is to start one from scratch.”

  At least Elias grasped the scope of the problem—for the castle.

  Max’s food arrived, a fruit and cheese plate, along with a pot of decaf tea. He plowed through the offerings while briefing Elias. Another call came through, doubtless Maguire, expecting Max to pull plaid bunnies out of Harris Tweed hats.

  “I gotta go,” Max said. “I called to ask you a favor.” He didn’t like saying those words, didn’t like needing to say those words, but he also didn’t like vegetables, particularly, and consumed them regularly.

  Henry and Jeannie were counting on him.

  “Asking for a favor takes balls, considering you’ve let the Visigoths camp at my castle gates.”

  “I will save your castle, Elias, but you have to do something for me first.”

  Jeannie had kissed Max good-bye and pretended good cheer for Henry’s sake. She’d fooled her son through the evening meal, and thank every angel who guarded the sanity of single parents, Henry had gone to sleep a little later than usual, but without a fuss.

  Jeannie had just settled into bed with the Toughest Cowboy in Texas when her phone rang. Her heart leaped in happy anticipation—Max, calling to say his flight was delayed until tomorrow and he was coming home?—but, no.

  No, indeed. “Hello, Millicent.”

  “Jeannie, I hope it’s not too late.”

  And if it had been? If the call had woken Henry? Had woken Jeannie? “Henry’s fast asleep. I have a few minutes to chat. How are you?”

  “I’m missing my grandson. When are you coming back to Perth?”

  A pleasant reply, one that turned Millicent’s rudeness into a joke, died aborning. “I wish Harry missed his son enough to ask after him even weekly, but I haven’t heard from Harry since the first of the month.” Since assuring him that she had a job.

  Ah, silence. Jeannie envisioned Millicent swiveling her cannon to take aim in a fresh direction.

  “In Harry’s absence, you should be all the more appreciative of the interest I take in my grandson.”

  Because a father’s love was that small of a loss? No wonder Harry stayed out of range, if his mother was so lacking in compassion for half-orphaned boys.

  “Henry is fine, Millicent. No sniffles, no signs of allergies. He hasn’t taken his first steps yet, but it’s still a little early for that.” In case you were wondering.

  “That’s good to hear. When can I see him?” Not may I see him.

  “I’m staying at Brodie Castle for the present. I have weekends off, and you’re welcome to visit any time, provided you give me a little notice.”

  Millicent made a sniffy sound. “I heard an American is in charge of the renovations. If you talk to Elias, tell him that was not well done of him.”

  Americans apparently figured next to leaky septic tanks in Millicent’s social hierarchy.

  “It’s American money funding the renovation, Millicent, and American money keeping me gainfully employed on a job that makes terrific use of my skills and abilities. I’m also involved in the renovation of my family’s castle, which will someday be Henry’s family castle.” Bad of me, to be so ungracious. Even Millicent’s fancy pedigree didn’t include a castle.

  “Deeside is a long way to drive,” Millicent said.

  “Ninety minutes, if the roads are dry. Was there something else you wanted, Millicent?” The conversation was supposed to end with Jeannie making arrangements to drive those ninety minutes, both ways, Henry in tow, at the time most convenient for Millicent.

  “Why don’t you drive down tomorrow?” Millicent said. “The weather’s supposed to be lovely, summer days are long, and I haven’t seen Henry for weeks. Babies grow so quickly. We could go shopping for a few new outfits, and maybe find something for you to wear to interviews too.”

  This was bait. Do as I say and I’ll spend money on you and Henry.

  “Millicent, I have a job. I just said as much. It pays well, I can spend a lot of time with Henry, and like everybody else on-site, I’m welcome to work in my jeans. If you’d care to visit next weekend, let me know and I’ll adjust Henry’s nap time accordingly.”

  The silence on the other end was intended to be indignant, though Jeannie suspected desperate would have been a better description.

  “Is this what comes of working for an American, Jeannie?”

  The question was ridiculous. The answer was not. “This is what comes from having a good job, working for decent people, on a project that matters to me. Let me know when you’d like to visit.” And this was what came from spending time with a decent, honorable, lovely man who wasn’t afraid of a child’s vulnerability.

  “Harry will hear about this, Jeannie. If you’re relocating without his permission, he will certainly hear about this.”

  The poor woman… “I let Harry know as soon as I got the job. He spared me a seven-word reply: ‘Glad to hear it, best of luck.’ I suspect he’s found somebody new, and I wish him the best of luck as well. I am free to move wherever I please, and Harry—not you, Harry—will have to drag me to court to prove that moving Henry less than two hours from Perth matters, when for all we know, Harry is working in the mid
dle of the Indian Ocean and won’t set foot back in Scotland for months. Good night.”

  Jeannie ended the call and waited for guilt to rise up and swamp her relief.

  But… nothing. Not guilt, not remorse, not regret, unless it was the regret of not putting Millicent in her place sooner. Not reading the court orders word-for-word sooner. Not realizing that a typical heels-and-silk-blouses office job wouldn’t be right.

  Not fighting for the respect any parent was due.

  “Though I certainly expected Max to fight,” she murmured—quietly. Henry could be a devilishly light sleeper.

  She put aside the Toughest Cowboy, sat in the middle of the enormous bed—a bed she’d shared with Max—and considered what she’d asked of him.

  Save the castle, find us a future, solve your sister’s situation, solve the problems with the site. Settle down unruly investors, protect your job, love my son as if he were your own… While I fuss about with spreadsheets and keep track of Bear-Bear?

  But how else could she help Max best those challenges?

  That question prompted her to pore over every document she could get her hands on that related to Brodie Castle’s renovation. Max had sent her a copy of his employment contract, a seventeen-page quagmire of heretofores and provided thats which most project controllers would have filed under “Too Long, Didn’t Read.” She read it. She also read the articles of incorporation and the by-laws, the minutes of the directors’ meetings, and the project mission statement.

  She read them all again and dozed off on the couch in the living room. The directors could turf Max out by a unanimous vote, even in the absence of good cause. He’d get his buyout money, but to be pitched off a job mere weeks after arriving would make finding another job nearly impossible.

  In the guest room, Henry stirred. Too early for his bottle, but then, his schedule had been at sixes and sevens for the past few days.

  “I’m coming,” Jeannie murmured, straightening legs stiff from being curled under her. She turned down the lamps, lest Henry develop ambitions of a post-midnight play session, and fetched his bottle from the kitchen.

  Henry took the bottle enthusiastically and drifted back to sleep before he’d even burped. Jeannie laid him in his crib and prepared for a night of dreams in the earl’s bed.

  The earl… the earl owned the castle. The renovation project was undertaken by virtue of a ninety-nine-year lease. Under the lease, the earl retained certain privileges—such as the use of the apartment, without notice, at any time. He retained the right to collect rent from the properties in the village and the right to open any Highland Games held on the castle, Hall, or village grounds… Among other rights.

  The present earl was Elias, and he was five time zones behind than Scotland. Jeannie dialed him up—this was too urgent for emails—and got him on the second ring.

  “Jeannie, aren’t you up past your bedtime?”

  “Don’t mess with me, Elias. I’ve already faced down a half dozen stinky diapers today, put the man I love on a plane bound for America, and delivered a long overdue spanking to my former mother-in-law. Your castle is about to fall into the hands of the infidels. I need a favor.”

  “I seem to be in the business of giving them out this evening. What do you need?”

  “I need a claymore, Elias. One sharp enough to chop off the head of a serpent in the castle courtyard.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The trains in Scotland ran on time for the most part. They did not run overnight, at least not between Edinburgh and Perth past the hour when Max had finished Connor Maguire’s briefing. Maguire had asked good questions and lots of them.

  Why did Max want to stick with this job when the investors were either meddlesome or easily swayed by a meddler?

  That one was easy: Every project hit snags, impasses, and quagmires. Walking out didn’t get the problems solved, and Max’s job was to solve problems.

  Was there a price for which Max would walk? The answer to that question had surprised even Max: There was no price for which he’d cave to Sutherland’s games. Not only no, but hell no.

  He’d committed to seeing the project to completion. Resigning for the convenience of a bunch of squabbling good old boys wasn’t going to happen. Not even for the sake of Maura’s special-needs trust, which Max would continue to add to as best he could. And yeah, that conclusion had a lot to do with Jeannie Cromarty—and Henry—and also with the castle itself and the community it had held together for centuries.

  “Perhaps the Scottish air has addled my wits,” Max murmured, hefting his backpack from the passenger’s side of the car. Even the wrong-sided cars and backward roads felt normal now, as did the golden morning light and brilliant blue sky over the Baron’s Hall.

  Max climbed the porch stairs, fatigue and frustration dogging his steps. If he went inside now, he’d lie down, and if he lay down, he’d sleep for hours. The key to clipping Sutherland’s wings lay in finding a plan that joined the castle and the Hall without breaking the budget or wrecking the schedule. Blasting wasn’t an option. Trams were expensive, and building them required highly specialized crews.

  Sometimes, what a problem wanted was a view from a new angle—literally.

  Max set down his backpack and descended the stairs, striking out across a meadow devoid of either sheep or cattle. A pair of workmen were repairing the wall, rearranging stones, pausing to talk, then shifting a few more stones. As Max neared them, he realized the shorter, more slender workman, whom he’d taken for an apprentice, was in fact a tallish woman wearing a long duster that might have once belonged to her partner.

  The castle sat atop its hill, surrounded by a sea of trees. This was the postern view of the curtain wall, more substantial and less fairy tale than the front view.

  “Good morning,” Max said, meaning to continue his circuit of the whole hill.

  “Mr. Maitland.” The man rose from kneeling before the wall and stuck out a callused hand. “Fine day for a wee daunder.”

  His accent was nigh unintelligible, the breadth of his shoulders putting Max in mind of the curtain wall protecting the bailey.

  Max shook hands, and having been taught that a man never presumed to take a lady’s hand unless she offered it, he nodded to the woman. “Ma’am.”

  “Mr. Maitland, good day.” The lady’s accent was easier to understand. “Michael, stop thinking you’ll wedge that round rock into the bottom row. A surface that flat belongs at the top of the wall.”

  “Aye, lovey.” He set aside the offending rock like a boy parting with his soccer ball on a sunny school day afternoon.

  Max did not recall signing a purchase order to retain the services of a diker and apprentice, but he’d come across the drystone wall tradesmen on other jobs. Many were international vagabonds, traveling from specialty job to specialty job, conducting serial love affairs with the geology and topography of one region after another. Perhaps Jeannie had seen an opportunity and brought these two to the castle in anticipation of a contract.

  “I hope you’re not working on Sunday morning because of any deadline I might have imposed,” Max said. “The day’s too pretty for deadlines.”

  The lady sent her partner an I-told-you-so look. “Mending wall in summer is hardly work, Mr. Maitland, but you should see our spring mornings here in Deeside. The glory of heaven barely exceeds spring at Brodie Castle.”

  “You’ll get her going.” The man’s grousing was belied by a kiss to the woman’s cheek. “Though as always, my wife has an excellent point.”

  He was big, blond, and bristling with muscle, while the lady was a willowy redhead. They weren’t young, but neither did Max detect anything of age about their movements or appearance. Granny McPhee would probably deem them “good stock,” and their ages might be anything from thirty-five to fiftyish.

  And they were clearly in love.

  “Will you be here come spring?” The lady’s tone held something of inquisition, though the question was polite.


  “I dearly hope to be,” Max said. “Isn’t there a song about losing your heart to the Highlands?”

  “Many songs,” the man said, unbuilding an arrangement of stones he’d just stacked. “They all have the ring of truth, but I hear America is quite posh, quite fancy.”

  “This one,” the wife said, using her foot to nudge a chunk of granite. “Start with that one. Have you family in America, Mr. Maitland?”

  The exercise of arranging stones into a solid wall was pulling at Max’s focus, drawing him into a puzzle that was both mental and physical.

  “One sister, and she is entirely dependent on me and likely always will be. That’s not for publication.”

  Michael lifted his wife’s chosen rock easily. “No need to fret, Maitland. We’ll take your secrets with us to the grave.”

  His wife smacked him in the ribs. “For shame, Michael. Mr. Maitland faces a dilemma. He’s needed both places.”

  Michael positioned the rock at the base of a gap in the wall. “I wouldn’t know anything about that problem, but seems to me that when you canna be two places at once, a loyal minion or two might come in handy. Hand me that hammer, lovey mine.”

  She handed him a mason’s hammer and chisel. With one blow, he whacked off a protruding corner of the large rock, creating a surface he could wedge flat against the standing portion of the wall.

  “What do you hear from our Elias?” the woman asked. “One doesn’t like to be nosy, but Brodie menfolk are not conscientious correspondents.”

  This was some sort of criticism of her husband, who grinned sheepishly and pitched aside the broken-off piece of granite.

  “Elias is obnoxiously happy with his Violet in Maryland. He’s counting on me to defend his castle.” Why Max could confide that to these two strangers, he did not know. They would likely be gone next week, but for now, they were a tired man’s sounding board.