That damned phone call had called forth her armor, in all its hard, shiny, impenetrable glory.
“Trouble?” Niall asked, drawing a finger across the baby’s nape. Such soft, soft skin.
“Not trouble. Just somebody who can’t take ‘I’m in Scotland, leave me alone’ for an answer.”
Tension went out of Niall, tension associated with the worry that he might have to let Julie go before they’d become lovers, before they’d taken their friendship—amazing, unusual word—down whatever fairways the next two weeks allowed them.
Abruptly, a bunker loomed. “Does a woman tell her steady boyfriend, ‘I’m in Scotland, leave me alone’?”
Julie’s shoulders dropped—golfers noticed posture—the tension left her, and her smile was soft and impish.
“I haven’t had a steady boyfriend since law school. My ex occasionally tries to pick a fight about the separation agreement, but it’s signed in triplicate, and a very simple deal. The divorce is final, and the appeals period ended last week.”
“He’s run out of holes,” Niall said. This apparently pleased the man’s former wife.
Pleased Niall too.
“He’s run out of holes,” Julie agreed, “and his father has run out of patience with him, and Derek has never before been in a situation where charm or dear old dad couldn’t get him what he wanted.”
While Julie was enough of a lady not to gloat over that—much.
“Let’s put Henry down for his nap,” Niall said, “and we can watch some of my favorite lessons.”
Julie lifted Henry’s warmth and weight from Niall’s chest. “I have a better idea. Let’s do a little tidying up here, so Jeannie won’t have to deal with housework when she gets home.”
Jeannie had never been house proud, but Henry’s arrival seemed to have tipped the balance from relaxed housekeeping closer to messy. Toys in primary colors were strewn about the floor, the kitchen sink was half-full of dirty dishes, flat surfaces were cluttered with a combination of magazines, bills, and baby-gear.
“The golf will wait,” Niall said. Though it couldn’t wait indefinitely.
Julie put Henry in his crib while Niall started on the dishes. Forty-five minutes later, the sheets had been changed on Jeannie’s bed, the rugs vacuumed, the clutter organized into tidy stacks, the toys restored to their toy box, and a casserole was thawing on the counter.
“Is this how you practice law?” Niall asked, as Julie rearranged throw pillows on the couch. The result was prettier than their previous order, more settled. “As if you have only twenty minutes to do forty minutes of work?”
“I like to be productive,” Julie said, snatching a baby blanket from the arm of the rocker. “That’s why I earned a master’s degree while in law school. You can get a lot done if you stay focused and get enough sleep.”
She folded the blanket over the back of the rocker, creating softness and order where clutter had been.
“You never answered my question,” Niall said, stepping closer and slipping his arms around her. He’d been wanting to do this all morning, but Henry had stolen that march. “Do you want children, Julie?”
She smelled of baby powder and oregano, a domestic combination that went well with a hug.
“If I want children, I’d better get busy. Derek and I didn’t discuss having a family when we were courting.”
“For all three weeks of your courtship?”
Julie’s hair was a marvel of ruthless order. How did she do that, and would she kill Niall if he undid the chastity belt around her bun?
“We dated for four months,” she said, biting Niall’s earlobe gently. “I suspect Derek changed the subject when children might have come up. He would have been a lousy dad.”
She’d longed for children, then, but hadn’t brought them into a marriage she’d regretted probably from its inception.
Niall kissed her, because to say she’d make a wonderful mother would simply add injury to the insult her ex had done her. Julie relaxed into the kiss, sinking a hand in Niall’s hair and letting him have her weight.
He was about to insinuate a thigh between her legs and go after her perfect bun when the front door opened and Jeannie bustled through, a dripping umbrella in her hand.
“I wouldn’t take that job if it were—oh, beg pardon.” She tapped the point of her Winnie the Pooh brolly on the flagstones, creating a shower pattern near her boots. “You’ll want to watch that cuddling. It can have permanent consequences.”
Niall kept one arm looped around Julie’s shoulder. “I hadn’t realized it was raining. Henry went down about an hour ago.”
Jeannie hung her jacket on a hook and left Pooh dripping against the door.
“Then he’ll be up in no—you cleaned! Oh, you cleaned and tidied! I almost called to ask you to get a casserole out of the freezer—and you vacuumed, and I hear the dryer, and oh, Niall.”
Never had a woman looked at Niall as Jeannie was regarding him then, as if her every wish had been granted, as if he’d given her the ability to hit a hole in one at will.
“He changed diapers too,” Julie said, squeezing Niall’s hand. “You and Henry have a very lovely relation in Niall Cromarty.”
“You think Niall’s lovely?” Jeannie asked, crossing to the kitchen where she peered at the empty sink as if the gleaming stainless steel were a beautiful, recently exposed archaeological mosaic. “Niall, you’d best marry this one. Women who think you’re lovely don’t come along all that often.”
Jeannie grinned, because members of the Cromarty family teased each other, but she was wrong. A woman who found Niall lovely wasn’t a rare occurrence in his life at all.
It was utterly unprecedented.
***
Thank God for Scottish rain.
Julie got a parting hug from Jeannie, Niall endured a kiss to his cheek and a smack on the arm, then Henry made waking baby noises, and all of Jeannie’s attention became riveted on the bedroom at the end of the hall.
Julie braved the downpour to race out to Niall’s car, only to once again attempt to open the driver’s side door, much to Niall’s amusement.
“We can hit balls in the rain,” Niall said as he started the engine, “provided there’s no lightning. I’ve even golfed when it was snowing. We’ll get thoroughly soaked, and thus force the sun to reappear.”
Niall, thoroughly soaked. Julie would be lucky to recall which end of the club did what if she dwelled on that image for long.
“I’m not dedicated to impersonating a weather goddess,” Julie said. “Can we find another one of those fish and chips meals?”
“My thought exactly.”
Even in the rain, the village was pretty. The low granite houses wore the wet with a casual indifference. The flowers were just as cheery, and children played in a flooded gutter, stomping their boots and shrieking as they dodged the resulting mess.
“I love that sound,” Julie said as Niall cut the engine outside The Wild Hare.
“The rain?” he asked, making no move to leave the car.
“The laughter of children. Being a prosecutor, you don’t hear much laughter, unless it’s nasty, gallows humor laughter. The streets without laughing children are the streets where crime is most likely to make fools of us all.”
“You Americans like your guns,” Niall said. “We Scots used to be the same way. Every man armed, the women carrying daggers in their bodices, all of society divided into complicated lines of allies and enemies. A tiring way to go on, as best I can make out, and it wastes effort fighting that could be spent solving problems and pulling together.”
“We Americans like our freedoms,” Julie said as a clap of thunder interrupted the noise from the children. “I like your perspective, though.” Niall’s view of history offered hope. Scotland had outgrown its more violent lawlessness. Children outgrew their teenage dramatics. Perhaps the US might need fewer prosecutors some fine day.
“This rain won’t let up any time soon,” Niall said. “Sha
ll we make a dash for it?”
They’d parked as close to the door as possible, but the rain was coming down in torrents.
“I should have worn a damned raincoat,” Julie said. “I hate when I’m not prepared.”
Niall leaned forward and wiggled out of his jacket. “You don’t know the territory like the locals do. Wear this, and last one past the post buys lunch.”
Julie figured out sleeves and zipped Niall’s jacket closed, but a cold dousing was probably a good idea. He’d looked so damned sweet, holding that baby, keeping up a steady patter of man-talk with the infant kicking and cooing on the changing table.
“A boy who kicks like that could go to the World Cup, young Henry.”
“So you like being the altogether, do you? You’re a Cromarty lad for sure.”
“Ach, you could teach old Helen a thing or two about clearing a room, you wee stinker.”
And then, like the bad fairy turning up at the princess’s christening party, Derek’s text. Call me, baby. I’ve got a surprise for you.
“Ready?” Niall asked, hand on the door handle.
“Ready.” Julie was ready to forget Derek, the practice of law, and at least temporarily, anything approaching common sense. “Go!”
They reached the front door at the same time, but when Julie would have yanked it open, Niall stopped her.
He kissed her there in the cold rain, thunder rumbling in the distance, children yelling and carrying on across the street. The moment was perfect, the kiss a point of heat and certainty in the middle of a chilly and unsettled day.
A chilly and unsettled life.
What should have been a casual stolen moment morphed into something complicated as Julie battled the impulse to throw her phone down the storm drain. She clung to Niall instead, to the promise of two weeks of stolen kisses and simple pleasures.
“Julie?” Niall said, brushing wet hair back from her cheek. His fingers were warm, his question embodying more than her simple name.
I don’t want to go home. The conviction blossomed at full strength in Julie’s mind, like the punch line to a closing argument that would conclude days of contested litigation.
She didn’t want to suit up for the judgeship sweepstakes while dragging the gossip about her divorce behind her, didn’t want to face Derek and his damned surprises, didn’t want to deal with more hopeless children, hopeless adults, and clever, ruthless defense counsel.
“My father loved Scotland,” she said. “He gave papers here every chance he could. I never understood why. I’m beginning to now.”
“We have the best rainy days?” Niall suggested, holding the door open as if they weren’t both sopping wet.
“You do,” Julie said. “You absolutely do, and the cutest babies, and best flowers, and the nicest roaring fires.”
Somebody had lit a wood fire in the enormous stone hearth at one end of the dining room. Julie crossed to it, shrugging out of Niall’s dripping jacket and leaving a damp trail on the plank floor.
“If it isn’t a pair of wild geese, blown in from the north,” Hamish Campbell boomed from behind the bar. “Sit you down, and I’ll fix you something before the quilters descend. Nothing stops those women, and they can drink even the anglers under the table. The pipers have them beat, though.”
“Donald sometimes joins the quilters,” Niall said. “I don’t think he can whipstitch a straight seam, but they tolerate him because of his stories.”
The quilters tolerated Donald because of his blue eyes and his charm.
“May we eat here by the fire?” Julie asked, draping Niall’s wet jacket over the back of a chair. “I haven’t been near a real fire for years.”
Hadn’t been held in a real embrace, hadn’t been kissed in the pouring rain, hadn’t made love until she was too satisfied to move.
What the hell has my life come to?
“Fish and chips?” Niall asked, rearranging the table and chairs so they were closer to the fire. “A wee dram to chase off the chill? Sticky toffee pudding?”
“All of the above,” Julie said, taking the chair Niall held for her. “You should eat up too, Niall. We’ll need our strength if the weather ever clears, and I may never again have a chance to enjoy all these wonderful Scottish delicacies.”
Behind the bar, a glass went pinging to the floor, but it must have bounced off a rubber mat because it didn’t shatter.
“I’ll place our orders, then,” Niall said, taking Julie’s purse from her shoulder and wedging it onto the dark beam that served as the fireplace mantel. “You sit right there and decide how you’d like all those Scottish delicacies served, though you can have seconds if you wish.”
He was flirting. Julie reviewed their conversation and wondered if she had been flirting too.
Yes, she had, most definitely, been flirting. A day to renew her acquaintance with simple pleasures then.
“May I have thirds?” she asked, peering up at Niall.
He got a handful of her bun, gently tipped her head back, and kissed her on the mouth.
“Julie Leonard, you may have as many servings as you please, for as long you’re putting your feet under the same table as my own.”
Well. Julie ate every bite, ordered a second sticky toffee pudding to go, and even had a taste of Niall’s caramel apple crisp.
***
Julie Leonard was wrecking Niall’s game. She looked delicious wet or dry, and he had a hunch she’d look good tidy or tousled too. He barely tasted his fish and chips, but the whisky—or perhaps Julie’s hand accidentally brushing his thigh when he’d held her chair?—warmed him up most agreeably.
The rain had slowed by the time Niall pulled into the cottage driveway, and the afternoon stretched before him. He ought to start on his inquiries regarding the blasted will Declan MacPherson claimed to have unearthed. The document could well be some damned writ permitting cattle to graze on the village green, a list of farm equipment, a letter between cousins.
His attorneys would want a look, his accountant would pitch a fit, the bank would carry on as if—
“Niall, won’t you come in with me?”
Julie’s question was not innocent. She might have intended it as a simple gesture of hospitality, but Niall suspected she was flirting. She was subtle about it, though an invitation hung in the air, like the rain dripping from the leaves, the scent of woods and pine, the glow in Niall’s belly from a nip of smoky, island single malt.
“Julie, if I come inside with you, I’ll want to take you upstairs. Is that what you want?”
“You’ll want to go to bed with me?”
“Yes.” That was the simplest part of what Niall wanted with Julie Leonard. The rest was of no moment, when she’d leave in less than two weeks, and an expensive, protracted battle loomed courtesy of Declan MacPherson and his infernally literary granny.
A little joy snatched on the eve of battle wasn’t too much to ask.
And Niall could be Julie’s joy, too, as she prepared to lay the groundwork for the long struggle to land a judgeship.
“You’ll be my rebound ride?” Julie asked, staring straight ahead at the snug little cottage. “You deserve better, Niall. I don’t want to be one of those golf groupies who sees you as a notch on her putter.”
Julie wasn’t a golf groupie. Niall was beginning to wonder if she was any kind of golfer at all.
He got out of the car, and Julie did likewise. Douglas sat regarding them through the kitchen window, his expression sagacious.
“You’ll soon go back to Maryland,” Niall said when he and Julie were under the porch overhang. “I’ll stay here and thrash through the next round of foolishness with Declan’s lawyers. Why deny ourselves shared pleasure? A candidate for a judgeship can’t exactly kick up her heels in her own backyard, can she?”
Not that she would. Julie Leonard wasn’t a kicking-up-her-heels sort. Even wet, her bun was still tidy.
“A judgeship is years away,” Julie said, perhaps the first time she’d a
dmitted that to herself. “But you have a point. I’m an employee of the state, an officer of the court, and I have to watch my step.”
“You’re on holiday thousands of miles from home, Julie. Enjoy yourself.”
Niall wouldn’t beg. Julie had been wheedled and manipulated enough, and he liked her hesitance. Flirtation was fun, but Niall had learned that what came next, for him at least, wasn’t as easily forgotten.
Julie kissed him, pressed herself close to him in the gloom of the porch, the dripping trees all around them. She was extending an invitation, and maybe coming to a conclusion.
Niall drew her closer, so she could feel the evidence of his arousal, and factor that into her decision. Her arms came around his neck—when had a woman ever fit him so well?—and she snuggled right into his embrace.
“I’m out of practice, Niall. This could be awkward.”
No, it could not, not with a fit like that. “I haven’t used my putter in a while either, Julie. We’ll keep swinging until the ball goes where we want it to.”
She smiled at that. Golf lent itself to all manner of stupid analogies. The law probably did too.
“I’ll need a minute upstairs,” Julie said, slipping away and opening the door. She put the extra sticky toffee pudding on the counter and knelt to pet the cat.
Niall took his phone out and set it on the counter. “You have five minutes, madam.”
Julie stared at his phone, then fished hers out of her enormous bag and placed it beside Niall’s.
“Five minutes, and the cat stays down here,” she said.
The cat went where he pleased. When Julie headed upstairs, Niall locked the various doors to the cottage, though, because Uncle Donald might see Niall’s car in the driveway and invite himself in for a cup of tea.
“Our privacy is in your paws,” Niall said, giving Douglas a scratch under the chin. “Guard it well, and there’s tuna fish in it for you.”
Niall used his five minutes to leave a message telling his lawyer to find him an expert who could decipher an old will without costing him a fortune. Then he made use of a guest toothbrush in the downstairs loo and dragged a comb through his hair.
When Julie’s five minutes were up, Niall took the stairs, making certain his tread was audible. He found her sitting on the bed, still dressed, though her slides were by the window, and her feet were bare.
Must Love Scotland (Highland Holidays) Page 6