Judges also rendered opinions, and they eventually retired. Julie had made a few calls, and the rumor was, Judge Davidson was indeed thinking of stepping down, though nobody had a date.
Very likely, Derek had heard those rumors, and been inspired by them, not the other way around. Derek might have had lunch with Davidson, and dangled a few hints, but Judge Davidson was a shrewd guy who played by the rules.
While Derek was… an ass and an idiot and Julie’s ex-husband.
“You’re sure this is the right river, Donald?”
“No more whisky for you, madam. This is the same river that’s been flowing through this valley for centuries. Scotland might have temporarily misplaced her national identity, but she keeps good track of her rivers.”
Scottish politics wouldn’t solve this riddle.
“The will states that each child, Nancy’s son and Nancy’s daughter, got half her land. She also said it was to be divided down the middle, so each would have access to the river, but the river doesn’t flow between the two properties.”
Donald stretched out his legs and laced his fingers over a flat belly. “If you’re a judge, you’ll have to handle property cases, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
“And lock people up, and decide who gets custody.”
The sun was warm, the breeze lovely. The river flowed placidly past as an occasional bird flitted. Donald could probably have told Julie the names of each species and their song.
Judges did lock people up. They also decided how a broken family was to reorganize its assets and liabilities, and its parenting responsibilities. They made decisions based on bad evidence, or worse, very good but entirely conflicting evidence.
They made mistakes, despite their best efforts, and people’s lives were wrecked or spared as a consequence.
“I don’t want to leave here, Donald,” Julie said. “I don’t want to leave Niall, but as best I can figure, Nancy MacPherson’s last will and testament ruins his plans.”
“Then it ruins his plans, Julie. Another nip?”
“No, thank you.”
A spring morning by the river wasn’t silent, but it was quiet. A bird twittered somewhere in the woods, the water lapped at rocks along the bank. Niall and Declan were probably glaring daggers at each other back at the Hare, and Julie had no good answers for them.
Or for herself.
“I’ll toddle over to the Hare,” Donald said, shoving to his feet. “Take this,” he said, pushing his flask at Julie. “It wants a good home, and I have plenty of others.”
He walked off, whistling Scotland the Brave, while Julie felt anything but courageous.
Chapter Seven
* * *
“You left her half-pickled, wandering around the river by herself?” Declan asked from the stool on Niall’s right.
“Julie’s not pickled,” Niall shot back. “Donald likes to be dramatic.”
“Hamish, get down the Longmorn,” Donald said, taking the stool to Niall’s left. “It’s not the whisky that has the woman fuddled. It’s the will, or the deciding about the will. You two should never have asked this of her.”
Niall set the bottle of Longmorn in front of Donald, along with his empty glass. Hamish went on polishing glasses.
“You just want poor, daft Cromarty to put the only woman who’ll have him right back on the plane, then?” Declan asked. “Spank you, thank you?”
“God help your sheep, MacPherson,” Hamish muttered.
A change in the air hit the back of Niall’s neck. He turned, and Julie stood framed in the doorway. Thick walls meant the Hare’s windows didn’t let in much light, so Julie was silhouetted against the sunny day, her hair limned with gold by the sunshine.
“I figured it out,” she said, marching across the common. “I figured out the damned will, and you will not believe where it leaves you two.”
Nor did Niall care about the will. He cared very much that Julie was done with a task they should not have put on her shoulders.
“So don’t keep us in suspense,” Declan said. “Do I have a say over half his golf course, or will he get the use of my farm?”
“Hamish,” Julie said, straddling a stool, “this calls for the Longmorn.”
Hamish slapped a clean whisky glass before her, Donald slid her the bottle, Niall poured.
“I couldn’t figure it out,” Julie said. “Nancy left each half of the family half the property, but she described boundaries, and said she wanted you to have equal access to the river.”
“Our properties are about the same size,” Niall said.
“Mine’s prettier,” Declan muttered into his whisky.
“I was stumped,” Julie said. “Flummoxed, bumfuzzled, ready to cast you upon the tender mercies of the Edinburgh solicitors.”
“A prospect to strike fear into the heart of any Scotsman who values his wallet,” Donald said. “But get to the point, child.”
“The river changed course,” Julie said. “The damned river tried to trick us. This has happened with the Potomac River, between Maryland and Virginia. I’d forgotten about that. Tigers can’t change their stripes, but rivers can change course.”
“Granny mentioned something about this,” Declan said. “Said her own grandmother talked about fishing from limbs of the big oak, but the river is hundreds of yards from there now.”
“She would have been fishing well over a century ago,” Donald said. “Who knows what tricks the river has got up to since then?”
“I can tell you where the property lines go,” Julie said. “But neither one of you will like it.”
Niall liked it just fine. “They cut across the middle of his farm and my golf course, don’t they? He has a claim on half my golf course, and I have a claim on half of his farm, or I can certainly waste a lot of energy trying to convince the courts I do.”
Declan’s brows drew down, Donald took a judicious sip of his Longmorn, and Hamish abruptly needed to fetch something from the back.
While Niall began to laugh.
***
“I’m a little tipsy,” Julie said as she and Niall meandered back to the cottage. “That Longmorn is wicked good.”
“You’re relieved,” Niall said. “Declan is too.”
“What about you?” Julie asked. Niall was so damned good-looking, in his kilt and boots, so sexy. Lord, she wanted to take him to bed for the rest of her—
Right. The plane took off tomorrow. She’d reached a decision about that too.
“Declan’s advice on environmental matters will be very useful,” Niall said. “And I’d rather he be on my board of directors than suing me over every golf ball that strays into his pastures.”
“You get free organic dairy and eggs, and landscaping out of the deal.”
Solemnized on a bar napkin, as the best deals always were. Scottish common sense had won the day, while the Longmorn had suffered a thorough defeat. Declan had been eyeing a bottle of the twenty-one-year-old, and neither Donald nor Hamish had seemed inclined to stop him.
They’d been too busy arguing over why and when the river had changed course.
“Niall, how would you have reacted if you’d lost your dream for the golf course?”
He slung his arm over Julie’s shoulders, and that, oddly, lifted a weight from them.
“Declan was probably fretting over that very outcome. Converting my golf course into properly fenced pasture would have taken capital, and he’s not fond of parting with his capital. If I’d lost control over half my land, I’d probably have offered to farm with him. We’re cousins, if you go back far enough.”
“You’re friends, right now. That makes me happy. I think it will make your family happy, too.”
Niall remained quiet, but it was a contented, sweet silence that lasted until Julie was sitting side by side with him on the cottage’s porch swing, her hand in his.
“If I hadn’t sat by the river,” Julie said, “if Donald hadn’t offered me a few sips of inspiration,
if Maryland and Virginia weren’t recently quarreling over the Potomac River, I might have misinterpreted Nancy MacPherson’s will, Niall. You could have lost everything, or Declan might have, because I couldn’t see the evidence clearly.”
He kissed her knuckles. “You might have made a mistake, true. I would not have lost everything.”
His voice no longer bore a Scottish accent to Julie, it was simply Niall’s voice, and beautiful.
“You have your family,” she said. “You have golf, you have the ability to dream. You’re right, you would not have lost everything. We still have most of the afternoon. Do you want to hit some balls?”
“No, Julie Leonard, I do not want to play golf right now, not in any fashion.”
“Are you angry?” Niall was something, not necessarily upset, but neither was he asking Julie to tear up her plane ticket.
“I am in love, Julie Leonard,” Niall said, kissing her cheek. “And I would also like to be in bed, with you.”
***
The words felt good: I am in love.
The emotions were indescribable. Niall had hit a hole in one twice and an albatross on a par five once in his life, and what he felt for Julie was stronger.
A river could change course, so could a dream.
“I’d like to be in bed with you, too,” Julie said, though she made no move to leave the swing.
What did Niall expect? An effusive declaration from a woman he’d met two weeks ago?
One step at a time. He stood and scooped her up against his chest, then carried her straight to bed. Let Donald walk in on them, let the entire pipe band come marching by, and the anglers and quilters too, Niall had a dream to build.
“I’m tired,” Julie said. “I didn’t sleep well.”
“I know, love.” He’d rubbed her back until she’d fallen asleep, held her as she’d stirred restlessly. “Today had you worried.”
“Frantic,” she said, yawning when Niall set her down on the bed. “Does whisky make you sleepy?”
“Whisky makes my clothes fall off,” Niall said, pulling his shirt over his head.
“I love it when your clothes fall off, Niall Cromarty. I might be tipsy.”
Niall finished undressing, loving the feel of Julie’s gaze on him, hungry and pleased. He took off her shoes and socks, then helped her with her jeans, bra, and sweater.
“I’m tipsy, too,” Niall said, stretching out beside her on the bed. “Though the whisky isn’t to blame. I’m not sure I can finesse this, Julie.”
“Finesse later, Cromarty. Kiss now.”
Niall managed a leisurely start to the proceedings, though desire rode him hard. Julie felt something for him, that much was evident in how she mapped him everywhere by touch, by kiss, by sighs.
“I want to tell you something, Niall Cromarty,” she said, as Niall was poised to join them.
“You want to talk now?” If she started thanking him for the best two weeks of her life, he’d howl like a wounded wolf.
“Not really, but I have to get this off my chest.”
Don’t look. Do not look. “I’m listening.” He was also pushing, nudging, testing… right there.
“I love the feel of you inside me,” she said, kissing his chin. “But I can’t think when you move like that.”
Niall went still, and would have pulled out, except Julie’s ankles locked at the small of his back prevented that.
He and Julie spoke at the same time: “Please don’t go,” and, “I don’t want to leave.”
Niall tucked in close. “That’s all I need to hear, Julie. That you want to stay. We’ll find a way to make it work, I promise.”
Her fingers feathered through his hair, her smile lit up all of Scotland. “I promise, too, Niall, with all my heart, we’ll find a way to make it work.”
The loving after that was sweet and easy, full of quiet touches and soft laughter, shuddering pleasures and silent wonder.
And then, just as Niall recalled the ring tucked in the pocket of his jeans, Julie fell asleep on his chest, her unbound hair tickling his nose.
***
“I called my sister,” Julie said. “She’ll come to the wedding no matter where we have it, and she’s agreed to design the flowers.” Julie sat at the kitchen table, wearing Niall’s shirt and a pair of fuzzy Argyle socks he’d found in a drawer.
She wanted Niall’s scent on her, preferably for the rest of her life.
“Your tea, madam,” Niall said, passing over a steaming, peppermint-scented mug. “I don’t even know your sister’s name. Jeannie is my only sibling, and my parents live down in Cornwall, but we’ve cousins aplenty.”
Niall wore his kilt—only his kilt—and even that hadn’t been properly buckled. Life in Scotland was going to require a lot of stamina.
“Before I met you at the Hare, I called Alfred to talk about restoration work,” Julie said. Her ring, presented to her fifteen minutes and a thousand kisses ago, flashed brilliantly in the afternoon sunlight.
A ruby surrounded by pearls in a gold setting. Someday soon, she’d ask Niall how he’d managed such a lovely piece on virtually no notice.
“Donald claims you’re turning your back on a judgeship,” Niall said, crossing his arms. “There are golf courses in America, you know. A couple hundred in Maryland alone.”
They needed to have this discussion, once. Julie took a fortifying sip of tea.
“I figured something out,” she said, “but it will be easier to tell you if you’re not standing over there looking formidable and hot.”
“Shall I take the kilt off?”
He’d look even more formidable and hot then. “Let’s go in the living room, Mr. Cromarty.”
They settled side by side on the couch, Niall’s arm around Julie’s shoulders, Black Douglas purring against her side.
“I love you,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that, but finding the right moment—”
“We’ll get better at saying the words,” Niall said, “until there are no wrong moments. We’ll embarrass my cousins, though I suspect Liam and Louise will be proud of us.”
“I love you,” Julie said again, because she liked saying those words, “and I loved bringing old documents to life. Dad got sick, and I couldn’t stand not having him to talk over projects with, couldn’t deal with a restoration studio he’d never work in again. Law school was safe.”
“Interesting, that you found a career dealing with criminals safe,” Niall observed.
“Safer than dealing with Dad’s death,” Julie said. “I still miss him.”
Niall merely held her, and that… that helped. That would help with everything, forever.
“Seems a judge really will be retiring from the Damson County bench,” Julie said. “Probably not immediately, probably not to take a job with Derek’s dad, but retiring. I was tempted, Niall.”
“But?”
“But there’s you, and even if you were willing to give up your dreams here, and come to Maryland with me,”—she put a finger over his lips lest he interrupt—“there’s no guarantee I’d ever be chosen to fill the vacancy. I’m very young to be a judge, and there’s the fact that being a judge would make me miserable.”
Niall lifted Douglas away, to recline in feline splendor along the back of the couch. Next thing Julie knew, Niall had stretched out on the couch, his cheek pillowed on her thigh, his feet hanging over the arm rest.
“You’d be a good judge, Julie. You’d be fair, compassionate, and conscientious.”
“I thought about being a judge, when I was stumbling all over the valley this morning, trying to put together pieces of a puzzle for which I had no picture. I could have sent you and Declan into years of litigation, could have cost one of you a life’s work, all while being fair, compassionate, and conscientious. That’s not for me, Niall. I know that now. The idea of giving up the prosecutor’s job was very appealing, but I’m not willing to compete for a judgeship to do that.”
He patted her knee. “W
e’ll keep you busy. We have endless heaps of old documents, and we’ll have the golf course. Somebody will have to keep me from killing MacPherson if he’s to landscape the back nine, and I’d like to expand the summer camps, and, Jeannie thinks custom golf vacations could be really—”
Julie kissed him, because there was time enough to sort out those dreams later.
“Yes, Niall. Yes, to all of it, and now you can take off that kilt.”
He took off the kilt, and left it off for much of what remained of their short engagement, but put it back on for the wedding. Julie’s sister, Megan, came to Scotland for the nuptials, and did a fine job with the flowers, despite being distracted by Declan MacPherson.
But that, as Uncle Donald would say, is another story….
-The End-
My Heartthrob’s in the Highlands
By
Grace Burrowes
Dedicated to Brian and the crew at Slanj Kilts, whose Highland attire has done much for morale in Scotland and elsewhere
Chapter One
* * *
Megan Leonard rubbed gritty eyes, blinked, and tried not to stare. “That man is offering his beer to a sheep.”
Morag Cromarty barely glanced at the guy lounging at the corner table in The Wild Hare pub. He held the sheep on his lap, a small, fluffy beast that Megan might have mistaken for a dog if she’d been any more tired.
She’d never been more tired, though.
“That’s just Declan,” Morag said. “Let’s order some lunch before we get the key to the cottage. You look flat knackered, and I’m peckish.”
“Who names a piece of livestock Declan?” Megan asked, sinking onto a hard chair. The pub was straight out of a Robin Hood movie set—thick whitewashed stone walls, low dark beams, and an enormous fireplace full of blue and white potted pansies.
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