by Donna Grant
Aiden couldn’t help it, he smiled.
“You think that’s funny?” Her brow furrowed as fire blazed in her blue eyes. “Shall I show you what I can do?”
“I’ve no doubt you can handle yourself, lass. I’m just surprised is all. I thought I was meeting Dr. Smith.”
“Ah. Well, she’s on sabbatical for the next month.”
Aiden squeezed his eyes closed for a moment. “Bloody hell.” As much as he wanted the woman, he couldn’t waste the time talking to her when the lives of his family were at stake. “Thank you,” he said, and turned to grab his bag.
“What did you need Dr. Smith for?”
Her words halted him in his tracks. Aiden slowly turned to her. “It’s … confidential.”
“You expect me to believe that?” she asked, and leaned an elbow on the table. “We’re microbiologists. What could be so secretive?”
“Forget I came.” Aiden pulled his messenger bag back over his head. “Do you know another microbiologist with pathology experience?”
“Yes.”
She answered without hesitation. A shiver went down Aiden’s back as he looked into her bright blue eyes. They were the color of a summer’s sky, brilliant and bottomless. He knew he should walk away, but he couldn’t. Nor could he stop his next words from falling from his lips.
“Who?”
“What’s your name?” she asked instead.
He glanced at the door. “Aiden MacLeod.”
“Wow. A real Scottish name. Well, Aiden MacLeod, I’m Britt Miller. Dr. Britt Miller, actually. I’ve got my PhD in hematology and my undergrad in microbiology.”
“Hematology,” he whispered.
She grinned. “Yeah. You know, the study of blood disorders.”
“I know.” Could this have worked out any better? Aiden was almost afraid to even think that question. “I thought you were too busy.”
Britt shrugged and crossed one jean-clad leg over the other, dangling one of her gold flats by her toe. “I’m offering to help. Not something I do all the time.”
“So why are you?”
She gave a bark of laughter and shook her head. “I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s the disappointment I saw in your face when I said Dr. Smith wasn’t here.”
“Look,” Aiden said and walked closer to her. “I need help. I want to accept your help, but in doing so, you need to understand that there are things I can no’ tell you.”
Britt studied him for a long minute, as if weighing his words. She pushed one of the curls behind her ear and touched the small gold orbs that dangled from her earlobe. “Can you tell me anything?”
“I can tell you the information I need is to help family and friends.”
“Why not go to a hospital or a real medical doctor?”
Aiden had to be careful in what he told her. “They’re no’ sick. Well … damn. I can no’ answer that correctly.”
“So you can’t tell me much of anything, in other words.”
“Aye.”
Britt looked at her microscope. “What will I be looking at?”
“Blood.”
Her gaze jerked back to his. “Blood. Why?”
“There are special properties in the blood I need determined. I need to know what could affect them adversely.”
She held out her hand. “Let me see a sample?”
Aiden prayed he was doing the right thing. Instead of getting the blood, he reached for his phone and called Gwynn’s mobile.
With his gaze locked with Britt’s, Aiden gave Gwynn her information to see if there was any connection to Jason Wallace. When Gwynn gave the all clear, Aiden ended the call.
“Well, then. Why do I suddenly feel like I’ve been scanned by the CIA or MI5?”
Aiden inwardly winced. “I apologize. There are things going on that you’re better off no’ knowing for your own safety. And I needed to make sure you were no’ working with Ja…” He trailed off and hoped she didn’t ask more.
“The blood?” she asked, her hand once more held out.
Aiden pulled out the small vial. There were several tests he needed done. The first blood she would see was his. He grabbed a slide and pulled out the vial. With the dropper, he put two drops of blood and covered them with another slide before handing the slides to Britt.
“Nothing abnormal here. This blood comes from a healthy individual,” she said as she looked through the microscope. She then leaned back. “Next?”
Aiden repeated the process with his father’s blood and waited as Britt stared into the scope for several quiet minutes.
She finally sat back slowly and looked at him. “Where did you get this?”
“It doesna matter. What do you see?”
“I … I need to run some tests. Come back in an hour.”
Aiden shook his head. “Nay. I’m no’ leaving the blood with you.”
“You don’t trust me.”
He grinned slyly. “Nay. As I said, my family and friends are at risk. I willna put them in more danger.”
“This could take hours, days even. Are you willing to stay here that long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“I work alone.”
“No’ this time,” he retorted. The idea of spending so much time in Britt’s company was more than agreeable to him.
She tapped a finger on the table, her nail softly clicking in the silence as she regarded him. “I’m curious now. I need to know all the properties of this blood and why it’s so different.”
“Then get to work, Doctor.”
She eyed his bag. “You have more blood for me to look at, don’t you?”
“Aye.”
“Let me see.”
Aiden pulled up the nearest stool and opened his bag.
CHAPTER FIVE
Laura straightened from putting up the new bottles of gin from beneath the bar. Brian, the bartender, had needed to leave early to take his son to soccer practice, so she stepped in to cover the bar in his absence.
She turned when the door opened, flooding the pub with sunlight and blinding her from seeing who had walked in. The pub quieted as each patron turned to the newcomer.
Ben gave a bright smile when he spotted her and hurried to the counter. “I was hoping I’d catch you here.”
“Hello, Ben.” Laura was flattered with how much attention he paid her. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t good looking, he just wasn’t Charon. “What can I get you?”
“You.”
She smiled as the door to the pub opened again. Finally the door closed, allowing Laura to see again. And in the entrance stood a gorgeous man with hair black as midnight. It was parted down the middle and fell to just brush his shoulders.
He stood tall and a bit wary, while his eyes scanned the pub as if he were a predator looking for prey. Laura’s skin prickled as his gaze stopped when it reached her.
He said not a word as he walked with long, sure strides to a far back corner. Somehow she wasn’t surprised when he moved a chair so that it was situated in the corner and then sank into it.
The patrons in the pub went back to their drinks and conversation. Laura cleared her throat and returned her attention to Ben.
“I mean it,” Ben said. “I’m going to keep asking you out until you agree.”
She licked her lips as Ben’s blue eyes held hers. “Let me see to this customer,” she said and hurried to the newcomer.
“Hi,” she said when she reached his table. “What can I get you?”
“Your best scotch,” he replied in a rough voice, as if it hadn’t been used in a while.
Laura went to the counter and grabbed the bottle of scotch and a glass. She went back to the table and poured the scotch before scooting it across the table in front of him with a smile. “You’re in luck. We have one bottle of Dreagan left.”
The man began to laugh as he looked at the glass and amber liquid inside it. “Of course it would be Dreagan,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry?”
His gaze lifted to her, and she found herself held by the eerie light of his golden eyes. “What’s your name, lass?”
“Laura,” she answered.
“Well, Laura, life is nothing but one ironic thing after another,” he said as he lifted the glass in a mock salute.
Laura went back to the bar, unnerved by the man’s response.
“Well?” Ben urged. “Let me take you to dinner. One dinner. If you doona want to see me again after that, just say the word.”
She’d been putting him off with one excuse after another for weeks. The excuses had run out. He was nice enough. He sent her flowers and called often to talk. He’d done a good job of wooing her, and it wasn’t his fault that she was interested in someone else.
It had been so long since she’d been on a date that she wasn’t sure she knew what to do. But she also didn’t want to spend the rest of her life alone. Life was too short. She needed to have some fun.
“All right,” she agreed. “Dinner it is.”
“Perfect. I’ll call you.” Ben lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “You’ve made me verra happy, Laura.”
She was still grinning when he exited the bar. It slipped, however, when she saw the black-haired man staring at his glass of Dreagan as it sat untouched.
“If you don’t like it, I can get you something else,” she said as she walked to him.
“Dreagan is the best. I asked for the best.” His voice was flat, as if just saying those words had cost him untold torture.
“Yes, but why do I get the feeling you don’t want that particular brand?”
A half grin tugged one side of his mouth slightly upward, giving him a devilishly handsome appearance. “A perceptive one you are. What are you doing in this place?”
“I like it.”
“Aye, but neither of us belongs here. You should be in England.”
“And you?” she prompted.
His golden eyes darkened a second before he looked away. “Nay, I’m no’ meant for this place. Let me give you a piece of advice I wish I’d adhered to: Watch the decisions you make, sweet Laura, because they’ll change your life in a second.”
He drained the scotch in one drink. Laura tilted the bottle and refilled his glass.
At his questioning look, she shrugged. “I know when I see a man who needs a drink.”
“And your price?”
“What makes you think there’s a price?” she asked with a grin.
He leaned back in his seat, one arm on the table and the other dangling over the back of his chair. “Nothing is free in this world. Ever. What do you want?”
“Your name.”
He looked away and inhaled deeply, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “You’d be better off no’ knowing.”
“What does it matter if I know your name?”
His head swiveled back to her to pin her with his gold eyes. “Ulrik.”
“It suits you, I think.” She nudged the glass at him again. “Now, take your drink.”
She started to walk away when he said, “Leave the bottle.”
Laura turned back to find two hundred-pound notes on the table. “That’s too much.”
“For your trouble then.”
She looked into his golden eyes as he returned her stare. “This is a good place to hide from the world. This village, I mean. It’s quiet. Private.”
His head cocked to the side. “You think I’m hiding?”
“I think you have a look of a man who is trying to find something. Peace, maybe?”
“Peace will never be mine.” His gaze shifted around her, and for just a moment he stiffened, but it was so fleeting she wasn’t sure if she saw it. “And there isna a place in this wretched world I could hide from…” His voice trailed off and he lifted the glass to his lips again.
Whatever he had been about to say, he’d changed his mind. Laura left the whisky and took the money, his words unsettling her. As she turned back to the bar, she found Charon watching her. She walked to the register and put in the pound notes as Charon stood silently beside her.
“Who is he?” Charon whispered.
The feel of his warm breath washing over her neck as he leaned close made her sway toward him. Laura caught herself before she actually touched him and let Charon know just how much she wanted him. “He said his name is Ulrik.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“The same as anyone,” she said, and faced Charon. “He came for a drink. He looks … haunted.”
Charon closed the short distance between them. “What do you mean?”
“Look into his eyes,” she said while struggling not to notice the heat radiating off Charon, or how his arms brushed against her. Their fingers connected, and Laura found it impossible to slow her breathing. “It looks as if he’s seen everything, suffered every pain, and endured every agony. He appears to be a man who wants to hide, but…”
“But what?” he urged when she paused.
She shrugged and looked away. Charon was distracting. She couldn’t get her thoughts in order, not when her blood had turned to lava and her heart pounded in her ears. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
“He has the look of a man who is searching for trouble.”
Laura put her hand against Charon’s chest to stop him when he would have gone to Ulrik. It was a mistake as soon as she did it.
Charon stiffened, his gaze jerking to hers. For just an instant, Laura could’ve sworn she saw desire in his dark depths.
“I don’t think so. Let him have his drink. Let him have the entire bottle. He was looking for somewhere to rest, let him have his time.”
Charon’s dark eyes lowered to his chest, and Laura realized she was still touching him. She could feel the beat of his heart beneath her palm. But it wasn’t his heartbeat that made her stomach flutter. It was the way his eyes watched her with such hunger that she forgot to breathe.
It had been two weeks since the night he returned with his torn shirt. Several times she caught him rubbing his chest as if it pained him.
Things had returned to normal. Except on the rare occasions she got too close to him. Or touched him.
Like now.
Even when she told herself to move on, there were times she didn’t think she could. Times like this, when they stood close and he looked at her.
Times when they touched.
“All right,” Charon finally said. “I’ll leave him be.”
With no other reason to keep touching him, Laura let her hand slide from his chest. She cleared her throat and took a step back. “Are you ready for tomorrow and your meeting at Dreagan?”
One dark brow rose. “Aye. Because you’ll be with me, remember?”
“What?” she asked, her mouth hanging open. “I thought we already talked about this.”
“I made a decision. You kept talking.”
“Charon, I … I’m not good in front of people like that. You can charm them. You don’t need me. I’ve already told you this.”
“But I do need you.”
The words were whispered in that dark, seductive voice she’d heard him use on women before. It made her stomach clench with excitement.
And pleasure.
She was putty in his hands, her body on fire, waiting for him to touch her. Her nipples puckered and she had to grab hold of the bar to keep herself upright.
“You’re coming,” he whispered as he walked past her.
For several seconds, she couldn’t move. Not because she had to go to Dreagan with him, but because his nearness always caused her heart to skip a beat.
When Laura turned around, it was to find Ulrik staring at her. He lifted his glass in a toast. She shook her head at him as her mobile phone vibrated in the pocket of her pants.
“Hello?” she answered it as she turned her back on the bar.
“Are you ready for our date?”
As soon as she heard Ben’s voice, she shook her head. “Weren’t you just here?”
�
��Aye. I’m waiting for you to agree to tomorrow night. Dinner with me. Sushi, perhaps?”
“Yes,” she said with a laugh. “Tomorrow night sounds fine.”
She felt bad for making him repeatedly ask her out, but he simply hadn’t taken no for an answer. His persistence wore her down.
“Good,” Ben said through the phone. “Be ready. I’ll pick you up at eight.”
She hung up and turned around to find Ulrik gone, the bottle of Dreagan whisky barely touched. Laura looked around the pub, but he was nowhere to be found.
It was a pity. He appeared as though he needed a friend. Yet there had been something dark inside him. Maybe that’s what Charon had seen.
Thirty minutes later, Laura turned over the bar to the next bartender. She used to dread having to cover for them because it required her to interact with people, but she’d come to really enjoy it.
She made her way to the door that separated the stairs leading up to the second floor from the bar and slipped inside. The door closed behind her, shutting out the music of the pub as if a switch had been thrown.
For just a moment she paused, and couldn’t help but think of Ulrik. He shouldn’t take up so much of her thoughts. People came in and out of the pub all the time. So what was it about this man that made her dwell on him?
He was good looking if one liked the dark, moody, broody type that could either be a good guy or a bad guy. She suspected Ulrik was leaning toward the bad part.
Laura sighed and started up the stairs. Her heels clicked softly upon the wood, her hand sliding along the banister as it had done countless times.
When she reached the top and found Charon standing at the sliding glass door looking out at the forest, she knew something bothered him.
She glimpsed a half-empty bottle of Dreagan on the coffee table in front of the couch.
“Care for a glass?” Charon asked without turning around.
“Not particularly. What’s bothering you?”
He shrugged, not looking at her. “I find it odd that after a year Dreagan finally decided to see us.”
“We proved how well the pub is doing. Even in such a small village as Ferness.”