by Caro LaFever
“Then come and make sure I don’t.” Figuring he wasn’t going to take her hand of friendship, and maybe that was for the best because touching him always froze her mind, she dropped it and turned.
A hard tug on her wool sweater stopped her in her tracks. Before she could respond, he’d fenced her in with his legs, and his hands came to her waist in a tight grip.
“Iain.” She drew his name out in warning.
“Iain.” His voice mimicked her drawl. “Ye sound like my mum when she’d scold my da.”
She jerked her head up from watching his potentially wandering hands and caught the last of the shock crossing his face.
It shocked him to talk about his mom and dad?
Or it shocked him to tease her?
The laser-blue of his gaze met hers, and the shock disappeared behind his usual fury. “Go away.”
“I can’t.” Again, she looked at his hands grasping her waist, because she had a hard time seeing this man struggle so much with his emotions. For all his rage and cynical teasing, she could see the hurting beneath. “You’re holding me.”
He pushed her back like she was poison. “Now, will ye leave?”
Ignoring his typical response to everything and everyone, she pulled herself away from his heat and allure and headed for the kitchen. “Come and help me with your beloved Angus steaks.”
Lilly focused on washing the potatoes, instead of listening to his grumbling as he placed the meat on a plate and slid it in the microwave. She pretended to ignore him as he pulled out a cast iron skillet and flipped on the oven. With evident skill, he coated the pan with oil and ground fresh pepper into the mix.
Her inevitable curiosity about him couldn’t be contained. “You cook.”
Glancing at her, his straight brows rose. “Do ye see any wee fairies dancing around, waiting to make me my food?”
“Was that a joke?” she ventured a tease of her own. “Was that Iain Arrogant McPherson actually attempting to be humorous?”
The dark brows shot up. “What did ye call me?”
A flush of hot embarrassment ran through her. The nickname had just slipped out. She’d used the moniker for so long in her head, she hadn’t realized how easily it could slip from her mouth.
“Arrogant. Hmm.” He swished the oil and pepper in the pan before sliding it into the oven. “Interesting take.”
“Ignore me.” She forked the potatoes and wrapped them in foil.
“I’m trying,” he muttered. “But it isn’t easy.”
Another flush threatened. She pushed it back by looking in the small pantry he’d set up in a closet. “We should have some greens.”
“We should have some greens.” His head cocked as he echoed her again, his voice in sing-song.
Lilly threw him a scalding glare over her shoulder. Yet amusement bubbled behind the irritation as well as hope. If he had begun to tease, then he’d begun to come back from his depression. “You’re being childish again.”
He shrugged while sticking the potatoes into the oven. “You’ll not be finding any greens in there.”
“Maybe you could tell me where to find some?”
Pulling the skillet out of the oven and the steaks out of the dinging microwave, he slid the meat into the heated oil and pepper. “Maybe.”
She sighed in exasperation and turned to face him. “Where?”
“I’ll get it.” He flipped the steaks over in an expert move. “Ye sit.”
If the man was going to do the majority of the cooking, that was fine with her. She walked to the table and perched on the bench to watch the show.
And it was a show.
The man did know how to cook.
He moved from the smoking skillet to the cutting board on the cedar island with assurance. Diving into a bin she hadn’t spotted, he pulled out what looked like some fresh herbs and then, a head of green lettuce.
She recognized that lettuce. “Kale. Yuck.”
Beginning to chop, he gave her a shot of those blue eyes. “The person who’s sitting waiting for the food isn’t the one who gets to comment on what’s good or not.”
“I hate kale.” The stuff was one of her mother’s current obsessions. Kale salads and sautéed kale and even some odd kale pasta. “It’s bitter.”
“Not when I’m finished with it.” He turned around, tossed some of the herbs onto the meat and slid the pan into the stove once more.
“You enjoy cooking.”
Enjoy.
The word floated through the air and appeared to hit him right between the eyes. He reared up from looking in the oven and gave her a stunned look.
“You do.” She pushed the knowledge at him again. “Enjoy something besides liquor.”
“I like to eat.” His terse tone matched his tense movements as he stepped back to the cutting board. “Now be quiet or you’ll get not a spot of this food.”
For once, she was obedient.
Chapter 8
She liked her food, the lovely Lilly did.
Actually, she liked his food.
Iain smirked as he cut another slice of the rare beef on his plate. Dipping it into the sauce he’d created using melted butter, garlic, and thyme, he sucked it into his mouth. Before he could help himself, he hummed his own appreciation.
Appreciation. For food.
You enjoy cooking. Enjoy.
He hadn’t allowed himself to really taste anything he’d put in his mouth other than the whiskey. He hadn’t allowed himself the pleasure of cooking, instead forcing himself to eat his food cold and congealed.
Not for months.
Her eyes met his and although her mouth was busy munching on the kale salad, he could still see the smile in those sea-green eyes.
Something almost like contentment trickled through him.
Contentment.
A shock of rejection shot through him. He didn’t deserve to feel any such thing as contentment. Or enjoy anything. Or appreciate.
Glaring at her, he chewed the tasty, tender meat.
Her smiling eyes didn’t leave his face and he wondered what secrets he’d unintentionally given her.
He swallowed and pushed aside the shock and appreciation and contentment. Trying to distract her attention away from him, he focused on her salad. “I thought ye didn’t like kale.”
He teased.
The realization made his hands still over his plate. This wasn’t the first time he’d teased her. Wasn’t the first time he’d roused himself to egg her on.
She swallowed before moaning in clear delight.
The sound made his idiot cock harden.
This wasn’t the first time for that, either. Not the first time he hadn’t thought about her naked and under him. Not the first time he hadn’t pictured her pouting mouth falling open as he sucked on various parts of her juicy body.
“This is superb.” Her fork plucked another batch of kale and avocado up. “You have to give me the recipe and I’ll pass it on to my mom.”
“Your mum, eh?” Intent on distracting himself from teasing and sex and contentment and enjoyment, Iain stared at her. “Tell me about what happened between your mum and dad.”
“What?” She gaped at him. “You want to know something about me?”
Yes, he did. And it wasn’t the first time for that, either. Even at the age of fifteen, he’d been enchanted by the wee wisp of the blonde lass he’d found dancing on his family’s stone bridge. He’d thought of her as a fairy tale creature, so delicate and light, so glowing with life and peace. He’d thought he’d give her a gift of his family’s secrets and maybe she’d gift him with some of the happiness that had leaked from his life as he watched his mum slowly die.
She had given him a spot of happiness. For a moment. Then he’d killed that, too.
“You’re teasing me again, right?” Her pretty mouth pouted.
His blood pressure spiked and he jerked his gaze back to his steak. “I just asked a question. Ye don’t have to answer.”
&
nbsp; “I’ll answer. It’s not like it’s a secret.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw her lovely hands lay down the knife and fork as if she were about to tell a long tale.
As a kid, he’d loved long tales. His da had been a master of them, and so had old man Hume. But in the military, there was no time for long tales. No time to ease into a story and stretch out the good bits. In the military, a man needed to tell his story quick and sharp or someone might get killed. In the military, his love for stories had died.
“Never mind.” He slashed into the meat. “I don’t want to know.”
“No, no.” She gave him her husky, sexy chuckle. “You asked, now you have to listen.”
“Then get on with it.” Before he reached across the table and stopped her chuckle with a kiss, he stuck the steak in his mouth instead.
“My mom came to Europe after her senior year in college and met my dad when she was backpacking through Inverness.”
He grunted as he chewed.
He’d always wanted to do that. Take a pack and take off. But his da had dreamed of the glory of the Royal Marines for him and after his mum died, all Iain McPherson had lived for was his da’s happiness.
So he’d joined. And learned to be tough and driven and hard.
Until the end.
“I think my mom fell in love with my dad’s accent more than she fell in love with him.”
He looked up in time to catch her wry grimace.
“We do have a sexy accent, us Scots.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
Glancing his way, she laughed. “Another tease. What am I going to do with you?”
The combination of her husky laugh and challenging question made him speak before thinking. “I have some thoughts on that.”
Without missing a beat, and obviously picking up on the sexual slant of his words, she wagged a finger at him. “Don’t go there.”
“No?” He smirked. “Are ye saying ye don’t want to go that way?”
“Eat your food and listen to my story.” She sipped on the bottled water he’d dug out of the back of the fridge and the movement of her mouth, the puckering, the sucking…
Dammit.
He’d had a hard-on throughout this meal. Hell, he’d had a hard-on since he and the lovely Lilly had skirmished at the top of the stairs.
“Anyway, Dad did fall in love.” Pausing, she cocked her head in contemplation. “If I’d had to guess, I’d say he still loves her now.”
Exactly like his da. Malcolm had mourned his lovely Margaret for the rest of his life. As far as Iain knew, he hadn’t looked at another woman ever in the last nineteen years of his life. When he’d been a kid, a dreamer, he’d imagined finding his own lovely lass to build a life with and love forever, like his da had.
But he’d seen too much now.
Seen the weary gazes of women who’d given up hope of their men coming back. Seen the dead eyes of children who’d lost their way in wars. Seen his own haunted eyes in that mirror he’d stupidly hung in the bathroom.
She stared at him, her gaze filled with a wistful sadness. “I guess I always felt like I needed to make up for that in some way.”
“Ye couldn’t.” Glowering at the remains of his meal, he found himself unable to confront the purity of her emotions. For almost twenty years, he’d learned to keep his emotions bottled because there was no room for them when a man was fighting for his life and protecting his men. He’d forgotten how to process other people’s emotions, much less his. “Ye had nothing to do with it.”
“I did, though.” She picked up her fork and knife and cut into her potato. “I was their kid.”
A wild whip of emotion tore into him at her claim of responsibility. “No kid is responsible for his parents’ lives.”
“No?” She chewed while she thought.
“No.” Throwing his fork down on his empty plate, he rose, no longer able to deal with the confusion storming inside him. “Ye get to do the dishes.”
She stared at him as she swallowed. “I wasn’t done with my story.”
“I’m done listening.” He stomped into the den and stopped still. A wave of guilt at how he acted toward her washed through him in a violent surge.
This one emotion was familiar, too familiar.
Guilt had hung over him throughout his wretched recovery, when he’d willed his wrecked body to die and it hadn’t obeyed. Guilt had wrapped around him as he’d made his way back to Somairie because he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go when he’d been released—outwardly healed, inwardly damaged beyond repair. And guilt had certainly been the reason for the fine whiskey pouring down his throat during the last months.
God, he wanted some whiskey.
“Just because you’re hurting, doesn’t mean you get to be rude.”
Her snappy words came from behind him, reminding him of who had poured all his whiskey down the drain so he had none to pour down his aching throat.
“Fuck off,” he snarled over his shoulder not willing to look at her and give his idiot cock a reason to respond. Marching past his music collection, he decided he’d take another shower and have an early night. If he was lucky, by the time he woke tomorrow, the storm would be done and he could place another order for more whiskey.
“What happened?” she called out. “We were having a good time.”
A good time. Good God. As if he ever deserved to have a good time again. Ignoring her, he walked into the bathroom and slammed the door. Iain glared at the steel doorknob he’d installed himself and cursed. Why the hell hadn’t he thought to put a lock on it?
Because he hadn’t thought he’d have a wee, pesky donas around who had no compunction about walking into a bathroom where a naked man stood.
Donas.
His mother’s long-forgotten voice whispered through his memories, shooting an arrow straight through his heart.
You’re a little donas, aren’t ye, Iain?
A little devil. An imp.
Love had filled the nickname when his mum had said it.
“Iain.” His own personal donas spoke his name in her flat drawl from right behind the door.
“Stay out of here, ye hear me?” he growled at the stone and at the little devil behind it. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“You already took one today.” Puzzlement filled her words. “A really long one too.”
“Is there some American rule that says I can’t take another? Well, too bad. You’re in Scotland now. Much to my regret.” He leaned on the door to ensure she didn’t burst in. “Go away.”
“I think I should have that saying tattooed on your forehead.” Her voice was so clear and near, he was sure she was leaning on the door, too. “It would save you time when you meet people, going forward.”
“Going forward, I’m not meeting any people.” A stirring of unwanted amusement ate at his ugly mood. He hadn’t sparred with anyone for months. Once, he’d sparred all the time. With his men.
His dead men.
The memory yanked him straight. Ignoring the mirror, he pulled off his clothes and turned on the water. “Go away,” he yelled at the closed door again just to make sure.
She made no response and he hesitated at the glass door of the shower, wondering if he should find a way to block it before slipping into his favorite place.
“We’ll talk when you get done,” she finally said.
Breathing in a sigh of amused annoyance and relief, he stepped under the water and tried to forget. About his men. And about his own personal donas.
The man liked to shower.
Lilly eased back in his favorite leather chair, prepared to wait him out. To wile away the time, her imagination brought up a series of amazing shots of Iain McPherson naked. His broad shoulders slicked with silky water, his biceps flexing as he soaped himself, his muscled thighs arching as he let the water wash off the soap.
“Crap,” she muttered to her vivid imagination. “Crap, crap, crap.”
Friends. Not lovers. Frie
nds.
She’d seen flashes of what she thought was the real man as they ate the delicious dinner he’d created. The intelligence in the eyes, the confidence as he cooked, the wry humor trying to worm its way past the depression. The man was a serious looker, could seriously cook, and a woman could seriously fall hard if she wasn’t careful.
Fall for not only that gorgeous body.
Fall for not only the chef and his food.
Fall for those sky-blue eyes that shone with so much emotion it made her want to cry.
The look in his eyes when he’d told her she wasn’t responsible for her parents’ happiness…
Tortured.
“Crap,” she muttered to the blazing fire.
At one time, had he thought he was responsible for his dad’s happiness? That look seemed to say so. Perhaps she had more to deal with here than a simple case of PTSD.
Not that a case of PTSD was simple.
Curling into a ball, she gave herself a pep talk.
They’d started to connect. She’d thought she was making progress at becoming his friend. He’d talked to her. He’d asked questions. He’d seemed interested. Then something had sparked him off and he’d stomped away from her and their connection.
Still, she had that fragile connection to build on.
The shower went silent.
Her irritating imagination jumped to life again, presenting her with a picture of him toweling off. His marble-white skin gleaming in the soft light, the towel brushing over his body, hiding and then showing all of his glory.
Pushing away the mental image, she stood and walked to the deep-seated window and stared out.
There wasn’t much to see, but plenty to hear.
The wind howled its wrath onto the castle and the crag it perched on. The lash of the rain drumming on the roof reminded her of the downpour she’d endured in a hut in the Brazilian jungle. If she let her imagination go, she could swear she heard the pounding rage of the waves on the beach far below.
“I’m going to bed.”
She swung around to find him standing in the doorway, one big shoulder leaning on the stone arch. He’d slipped on his jeans, but nothing else.