by Anna Durand
Dressed like freaking Indiana Jones.
I gave myself a mental slap upside the head. Getting rid of him was the only prudent option. I'd thought I loved him once, but that had been a lifetime ago. I would not fall for him again. Nope. Not falling. Not even if he called me gràidh again in that soft, rumbly voice.
Malina had left for California three days ago and wouldn't come home for another eleven days. Maybe I could—
Stop right there. My foolish heart, or maybe my libido, had almost canceled out reason.
My fingers curled into my thighs. "Probably wasn't as good as we remember. Memories get glossed over until all you see is a pretty fantasy, not the gritty reality."
"Please stop calling it a fantasy. I loved you, Rae. I still do."
Though I made a somewhat rude noise, my tummy fluttered and excitement zinged over my skin yet again. Would I never learn? Letting this man into my life the first time had nearly destroyed me. Letting him in again might hurt more than my heart and soul. It might hurt my daughter too, and I could not allow that.
Iain aimed that easy smile at me. "You don't believe me yet. I understand. A few days is all I'm asking for, only a few days."
Faced with his smile—so casual and yet infused with languid sensuality—I melted on the inside and the outside, slumping in my chair as I permitted myself precisely five seconds to relish the bliss of being enveloped in Iain MacTaggart's full attention. He looked so good, too good, like he'd stepped through a time portal from fifteen years in the past. No one should be so unchanged after all these years. He should've had the decency to grow some flab or at least sprout a few wrinkles.
Oh, he had changed a little. His physique had become tougher, more muscular, and his hair sported a smattering of gray strands. His hands, once smooth, now bore calluses, and his skin had been toasted by the sun. He hadn't gotten older. He'd gotten hotter.
So unfair.
I leaned in, squinting at his face. "How many facelifts have you had? You don't look any older."
"Natural youthfulness," he said with a teasing tone. Then he leaned in too, our faces a breath apart. "You don't look any older, either."
"I have a wrinkle." I tapped the corner of one eye. "Here."
He brushed his thumb over the spot. "That's not a wrinkle. It's dirt. You are eternally beautiful and youthful."
"And you are so full of it."
With that thumb, he traced a line down my cheek to the corner of my mouth, skimming the pad across my bottom lip. "Even your name is beautiful. Rae. The English version means 'doe,' which I suppose is appropriate since female deer are elegant and bonnie. But I prefer the Scottish meaning—grace. It suits you best, even if Rae was originally a man's name in Scotland."
"You always were obsessed with the meanings of names."
"Not obsessed. Interested. In history, and in you." He dragged his thumb down to my chin, fanning his fingers over my cheek. "Everything about you fascinates me."
I cleared my throat, which had suddenly gone tight. "Don't think you ever told me what your name means."
He tapped my chin with his thumb. "Gift from God."
"Of course that's what Iain means." I shook my head, but that only made his fingers scrape across my mouth, and I tasted a hint of the salty flavor of his skin. "Does that mean you are a gift or you received a gift?"
"What I gave you in the end wasn't a gift, but I'm hoping you'll bestow one on me now in spite of that. The gift of days."
Bestow? Only Iain could make the word sound erotic. "Are you suggesting I let you hang around because of what your name means?"
"No. My middle name means 'follower of St. Colomba,' after all, and I doubt that would convince you."
Iain Malcolm MacTaggart. I'd always loved his name, the way it rolled over my tongue. I'd wanted to name our daughter after him, so I chose the feminine version of his middle name—Malina, for Malcolm. He would figure it out if I ever told him her name, so I would never speak her name in his presence. He'd figure out she was his if he ever saw a picture of her, so I'd rushed around the living room, hallway, and kitchen stripping out every photograph of her.
Malina had his pale-blue eyes, his honey-brown hair, and his disarming smile. Every time I looked at her, I saw him.
I'd also spirited away every one of the books about Scotland I kept on the now-empty shelves in the living room. The books currently lay in a pile in the corner of my bedroom. If Iain saw those books, he might figure out I'd become obsessed with his native land. He might wonder why. I wondered why sometimes.
Had I really gotten over Iain? Could I get over him with our daughter reminding me every day? No matter what happened, I would forever have a piece of him with me.
I used to like that. Today, sitting beside him in my kitchen, I worried about that unbreakable bond, the one he knew nothing about. Maybe I should tell him.
No way in hell. Iain had abandoned me once, and I would not give him the chance to do the same to our daughter.
I squinted at him. "Why are you really here? I don't have anything worth stealing, if that's your game."
Why I said it, I had no idea. Desperation, I supposed. I needed him to give up the crazy notion of winning me back.
Iain snapped his spine straight, his jaw tight. "I am no thief."
The razor edge to his voice surprised me. I'd hit a nerve, though I had no idea why. I considered asking, but I didn't want to know him better. I wanted him gone, to preserve my sanity and the life I'd fought so hard to carve out for myself and my daughter.
He seemed to brush off the tension with a heavy sigh, relaxing back into unflappable mode with his Buddha smile in place. The crack in his affable facade had sealed up again.
Strange, but irrelevant.
Pushing up out of my chair, I gave Iain a decisive nod. "I'm driving you into town. Then, you can make your way back to wherever you came from."
"You'd leave me homeless in a strange place?" That smile broadened just enough to dimple his cheeks, and his eyes twinkled with humor.
"Don't you have a room at a motel?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "Didnae think beyond tracking you down. Find you. See you. Talk to you. That was the extent of my plan."
I let my head fall back and groaned miserably.
He rose and stretched, yawning. "I'll find something in town."
"No, you won't." I rubbed my forehead. "It's tourist season, and there are only two motels in Ricksville. Plus, this is Twine Festival week, which means if you didn't book ahead, you won't find an available room."
Iain's forehead crinkled. "Twine Festival?"
"We have the world's fifth-largest ball of twine. It's behind the town hall."
"And there's a festival to celebrate it?"
He looked so adorably flummoxed I couldn't help smiling.
"Yep," I said. "Texans are weird, in an endearing way."
Rubbing his neck, he grabbed the glass and swigged the rest of his water. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, stretched again, and swept his gaze over me. The interest in his eyes, heated and yet gentle, made a warmth blossom in my belly.
"I'm driving you into town," I said, and whirled around to snatch my keys off the hook beside the sink. I flapped a hand toward the door. "Go. You can catch a bus to the airport."
Disappointment flashed on his face, but he ambled out the door and through the living room. I hurried after him, and within minutes we were heading down the driveway in my Ford F-150, dust pluming in our wake, visible in the red glow of the taillights. The sun had set, plunging the world into a darkness speckled with the glittering diamonds of stars, things that had died out eons ago but their ghosts lingered.
No, that wasn't a metaphor for me and Iain. Not at all.
I focused on the road ahead revealed by the spray of the headlights and a question that had occurred to me. "Why did you walk up my driveway? How did you get here if not by car?"
"A taxi
brought me to your mailbox, but the driver refused to come down this way. He claimed your driveway is a 'potholey mess.' His words verbatim." The dashboard lights cast a strange green glow on him. "I haven't noticed any potholes, though."
"I have the driveway graded every spring." I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. "Did you by chance call Long Star Taxi Service, did you?"
"Aye," Iain said, sounding surprised. "It was the only service that would come out this far. I caught one taxi from the Austin airport to Llano, then took another one to get here."
"I live in the boonies, but I've got great Internet."
"At least you have the essentials, then." He gazed out the windshield, seeming lost in thought. "Shouldn't it be Lone Star Taxi, not Long Star? Thought that was the state's nickname."
"Yeah, it is." My hands tightened around the wheel. "The moron who runs the taxi service thought he was being clever by naming it Long Star. He thinks he's clever in every way."
Bitterness tainted my voice. Even I heard it. For about two seconds, I hoped Iain had missed it.
"I'm getting the idea," he said, "you have history with the taxi driver."
The Unflappable Iain MacTaggart could also be the Impossibly Perceptive Iain MacTaggart. Way back when, I'd loved that about him. I'd loved everything about him. Tonight, I wished to hell he'd stop poking his perceptive nose into my business.
Maybe if I shared one tidbit about my life with him, he'd lose interest.
Not likely, my rational brain warned. But my rationality had said adios the second Iain kissed me.
"I sort of dated him," I told Iain. "Grayson Parker. He worked for me as a ranch hand for a while, part time. We got involved briefly. When I suggested he should have dinner with me and my daughter, to get to know her, he skedaddled. Said he wasn't interested in taking over someone else's family. He wanted his own kid, not some deadbeat dad's castoff."
"The scunner said that? Castoff?"
"Not sure what a scunner is, but yeah. He called my child a castoff."
Iain grunted. "Better off without that ersehole."
"At least he waved goodbye when he sped off down my driveway and out of my life."
Peripherally, I caught Iain flinching.
"Go on," he said in that infuriatingly even tone, "insult me all ye like. I deserve it. But I am not skedaddling ever again."
How odd to hear the word skedaddle spoken in a Scottish brogue. A deep, sexy brogue. The kind that molded a rather goofy word into something decadent. Made me want to skedaddle with him anytime, anywhere.
I bit my upper lip so hard I winced. Nope, I hadn't learned a frigging thing in the past thirteen years. One hot guy could make me act like a twenty-two-year-old coed drunk on hormones. Grayson had been hot, nowhere near as sizzling as Iain. No man I'd ever known compared with Iain MacTaggart.
"Tell me," Iain said, "is this Grayson erse really out of your life? He refused to come down your driveway."
"He lives in town. I see him sometimes at the feed store or the grocery store." I sighed, my shoulders sagging. "In a small town, you can't get away from your past completely. Grayson is as out of my life as possible."
We lapsed into silence, the only sounds the rumble of the truck's engine and the ticking of gravel on the undercarriage. At the end of the drive, I braked to check for traffic—not that there ever was traffic way out here in the boonies. I was just letting up on the brake when I made the mistake of glancing at Iain.
He was watching me. Eyes soft and gentle. Mouth curved into the barest smile.
The wistful expression shivered a tingle over my skin and made my heart do an idiotic thump-thump. I was too damn old to get nostalgic about a college crush. Oh, but if he'd been a simple crush and nothing more, why had I cried for days after he left? Why did I name our daughter after him? And why, goddammit, had I enjoyed our brief time in my kitchen more than I'd enjoyed anything in years?
His words from earlier replayed in my mind. Deceive yourself if you like, gràidh, but we had a relationship. It was good. It was real.
I shoved the gear shift lever into neutral and twisted sideways to face him with the folded-down middle seat between us. "Here's the deal. I have a guest bedroom. You can stay there for a few days, but my daughter comes home next Sunday, so you have to be gone before then."
He nodded, his expression brightening but keeping that subdued aura, unflappable as ever. "That gives me ten days. Thank you, Rae."
"Don't thank me yet. You haven't heard the rest of the deal."
"Go on."
I twisted around further, bending one knee. "This is a working sheep ranch. I don't have time to entertain you. My life is not glamorous or sexy. I work my butt off all day and then, at night, I sit through Disney cartoons and Justin Bieber concerts on TV to spend time with my daughter."
He slanted toward me across the seat barrier and laid his arm over the back of my seat. "Your child isn't here. You could watch something more…adult. With me."
"Not watching porn with you, Iain."
The blasted man chuckled. "I didn't mean pornography. Interesting that you thought of it, though."
"Iain—"
"Relax, ahmno seducing ye in this truck." He eased a little closer, his fingers grazing my shoulder. "I'm happy to help out around the ranch. Anything you need done, I can do it."
"You're a college professor, not a ranch hand."
The smile faltered for a split second. "I haven't been a professor in thirteen years. These days, I work construction and odd jobs."
Hmm. Well, that did explain the muscles and the suntan and the calluses.
"Fine," I said, "you can help out. But there will be no fooling around, MacTaggart, absolutely none. Work. Talk. That's all."
"Yes, ma'am," he said in the best fake Texas twang I'd ever heard. "Your cowhand is rearing to go."
"Please drop the accent. And they're sheep, not cows. Fuzzy-wuzzy wittle sheep."
He chuckled again. "Fuzzy-wuzzy? I think you're in desperate need of adult conversation."
"Yeah, probably." I turned the truck around and headed back toward the house, with Iain's arm still draped across my seat back. "Remember, Iain. Work. Talk. And that's—"
"That's all. Yes, I understood the first time." He tickled my shoulder until I glanced at him and then he winked. "We'll see how that goes, gràidh."
Fluttering tummy. Fluttering chest. Tingling skin.
I may have made the worst decision of my life.
Chapter Four
Iain
I would've offered to cook for Rae, but I'd never developed a talent for it. My mother tried to teach me, but as a lad I'd been more interested in girls than braising beef. Since I couldn't help with the cooking, I acted as Rae's assistant, gathering ingredients for her and getting out the various pots and implements she needed. Despite her repeated attempts to convince me she had nothing to offer beyond a week or so of hard work and conversation, I grew more and more determined to prove my worth to her.
Was I being stubborn? She rejected me, so I resolved to change her mind. She'd made it clear she thought that was the reason behind my commitment to winning her over. I knew what I felt, though. From the moment three months ago when I'd resolved to find her, I'd felt more alive than ever before. This quest felt right. Now that I'd found her and spent time with her, I realized I could never give up. I still loved her, whether she believed it or not.
After an amiable meal during which we discussed nothing in particular, I settled onto the sofa in the living room while Rae dropped into the armchair kitty-corner to the sofa.
I patted the sofa cushion beside me. "Plenty of room over here."
She puckered her lips briefly. "I prefer the chair."
"Afraid of me, are you? Maybe you're worried you'll be overcome with desire and tear my clothes off." I smirked and winked. "I wouldn't mind that."
Rae propped her feet on the coffee table. "Thought you wanted to convince
me I can trust you."
"Sex can be a very enjoyable way to engender trust."
"Not in my experience."
She grabbed the TV remote and hit the power button. A cartoon came on, one even I, an old bachelor, recognized—Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. It was in the midst of a musical number with birds flitting around fairy-tale princess.
I set an elbow on the sofa's arm, propping my chin on my raised hand, one finger tapping my chin. "Where is your husband?"
"Don't have one."
"You're divorced?"
"Nope. Never married." Though she aimed her face toward the TV, her eyes kept flicking to me as if she couldn't quite let herself meet my gaze head on.
"Where is the father of your child?" I asked. She didn't want to answer, but that only made me hunger for the truth more. I craved every bit of knowledge about her I could get. Besides, I despised men who fucked women without a care for whether they might get them pregnant, then bolted when they learned they'd done just that.
Rae gnawed on her lip, still facing the TV. "She's never known her father."
"Do you at least get child support from him?"
She punched the power button and the TV went dark. Chucking the remote onto the table, where it hit with a thwack, she turned toward me. "Why are you being so nosy? I take care of my daughter fine without anybody helping me."
"Easy," I said. "Didnae mean to offend you. But I cannae fathom how a man could abandon his child."
She crossed her arms over her chest, a sign I now recognized as defensiveness. "I'm sure you would never, ever do that."
The sarcastic tone of her voice belied the fear I saw in her eyes. Something was going on here, something I didn't understand. Suddenly, I needed to know.
I dropped my hand to tap my fingers on the sofa's arm. "What are you implying? I don't have children, but if I did, I would never run out on them or their mother."
Her bottom lip quivered so slightly I wasn't sure I hadn't imagined it. She blinked rapidly, swiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand, before crossing her arms again.