Must Love Scotland (Highland Holidays)

by Grace Burrowes

  “My sister’s buried over there,” Declan said as they passed a smallish stone church. “Cancer, when she was twenty-three. Lindy’s the one who took to the organic approach to farming, though my grandmother would have approved.”

  A confidence, unlooked for, but appreciated. Loan officers were pricks, but in the grand scheme, that simply did not matter.

  “I’m sorry, Declan. I don’t always get along with Julie, I often don’t even feel like I know her very well, but I’d be devastated to lose her.”

  Had been devastated when their parents had died within a few years of each other. Was probably a little devastated right that moment, come to think of it. Even Julie’s hugs had been distracted, as if part of her focus simply could not be pried away from her handsome fiancé.

  Thank God for a thriving business back in Maryland, and for people who liked flowers.

  “We’re on my land now,” Declan said some moments later. “I like saying that, probably the way you like walking into your shop in the morning, like the smell of it, the sound of the bell above the door jingling every time you walk in.”

  Megan walked into the back of her shop, usually. She’d use the front door more when she went home, though.

  “Will I see your place in daylight?” she asked.

  “What the fookin’ hell?”

  A beast loomed up in the middle of the road, a bovine sort of beast. A warm brown, with an udder in the usual location. The cow switched her tail irritably, as if leaving the vehicle’s headlights on was just plain rude, mister.

  “A fugitive?” Megan asked.

  “A damned heifer on the loose, and if Auld Molly’s out, the others are likely loose as well.”

  Declan kept speaking, but not in a language Megan could understand. Mary woke up and stood on the seat, then put her front hooves up on the dash like a curious dog.

  “That’s not English,” Megan said, when Declan brought the Land Rover to a stop. The cow hadn’t moved, but stood in the middle of the lane, chewing half-sideways as cows did, and flicking her tail.

  “Gaelic’s an excellent language for strong sentiments. Dundas probably left the gate open. He’s fine in the dairy, has been dairying for half a century, but I shouldn’t rely on him beyond that.”

  “So what do we do?” Megan asked as another cow came strolling out of the shadows to stare at the Land Rover. “Cows are bigger than I realized, or maybe yours are just the extra-large kind.”

  “We herd them back into their pasture.” Declan switched off the engine but left the headlights on. “If you’re offering to help, I’ll not refuse. I might be able to do this alone, but that could take until morning if the ladies are feeling contrary, and we won’t get much yield in the milking parlor if they keep the whole farm in a ruckus the entire night.”

  Declan’s tone said he’d spent other nights—entire nights—chasing his cows in the dark.

  Which must be like arranging flowers and rearranging flowers for a nervous bride, and then having the wedding called off. Didn’t have to happen very often for a florist to know getting paid after a fiasco like that was hopeless.

  “Tell me what to do,” Megan said, unbuckling.

  The cows were in a good mood, apparently, and went toddling back to their pasture amiably enough. Declan knew them by name and dissuaded wayward behavior with growled threats to turn this one into hamburger, and that one into a fine pair of boots. The affection in his tone probably had greater effect than the dire promises.

  When he closed the gate, Megan stood beside him for a moment, enjoying the peaceful sound of cows munching on grass by moonlight.

  The moment was sweet and crushingly empty. A one-night stand between the maid of honor and the best man was no big deal, and yet… it would be something. With Declan it would be something precious and—what a concept—fun.

  “Were you teasing about wanting to see my articles of copulation?” Megan asked, leaning her head against a muscular arm. Declan’s sweater was blissfully soft, and the sheer masculine bulk of him comforted even as his nearness made Megan’s hands ache to arrange him.

  His arms around her, his mouth on hers, for a start.

  One of the cows lay down, an ungainly business of lowering herself to her knees, then letting the back end flop to the grass with an enormous sigh.

  Something in Declan relaxed as two other cows followed suit. “You’re leaving in two weeks, Megan, and I have a farm to run, but we’re both here now.” His arm came around her shoulders, warm and easy. “If you’d like to have a look at my articles of infatuation, I wouldn’t mind seeing yours.”

  Declan was upping the game, from copulation to infatuation, making the terms friendlier.

  Megan cast around for a snappy comeback, and found none. She sidled around to face him, pushed his man-purse-thingy over to his hip, and tucked close.

  “I have to e-mail the damned bank first, Declan.”

  Declan’s chin rested on the top of her head. His heart beat steadily beneath her ear, subtle concussion more than a sound. All the stomping around behind the cows, and his heart rate wasn’t elevated, while transatlantic anxieties stalked Megan with every breath.

  “Let’s check on the livestock,” he replied, urging Megan back toward the Land Rover. “You’ve met my dry cows, but the working ladies are in this barn.”

  He introduced her to his heifers, though Megan knew what the real agenda was. Declan was giving her time to change her mind, to decide that she’d rather not sleep with a guy who owned a poop pit and spent much of his day on a tractor.

  His plan backfired. The way he talked to his cows, the way he scratched a three-legged barn cat’s ears—“We call him Numpty, but his real name’s Hector”—the way he wasn’t in any hurry, only made Megan desperate to push him up against the walls of his tidy, sturdy stone barn and get her hands under his kilt.

  So when Declan had made a complete circuit of the dairy barn, secured latches, scratched ears, and checked automatic waterers, Megan did just that.

  ***

  “So what time is it in Scotland?” Dixie Miller asked, flipping her braid over her shoulder.

  Tony didn’t even glance at the clock, just kept clipping daisy stems at a precise forty-five-degree angle.

  “Five hours ahead,” he said, “probably twenty degrees cooler. Why do daisies have to stink?”

  Dixie gathered up the six dozen white daisies Tony had already trimmed and put them into a bucket with fresh water.

  Tony Amatucci was one of those guys with Mediterranean bloodlines who’d look good until the day he died, the kind who made all the little brides think twice about what they were agreeing to when they walked up the church aisle.

  Dixie pulled a trimmed daisy out of the bucket and stripped foliage off the bottom foot of each stem.

  “They smell like daisies, Tony, they don’t stink. You missing Megan?”

  The question was disloyal. Megan had given them both a chance, taken them on when they’d had little experience and no references. Tony had started a year ahead of Dixie, and they’d met at a flower show at the community college. She’d hoped he’d been trying to pick her up, when he’d instead been interviewing her informally for a job.

  “Missing Megan?” Tony put his clippers down and flexed his hand. He wasn’t a brawny guy, but he had some height, and his proportions were perfect. His smile was… beyond perfect. Megan said Tony’s smile was rarer than Rothschild’s orchid, too.

  He turned a hint of that smile on Dixie, a sad hint. “Yeah, I miss Megan. I miss the Megan who hired me, and probably the one who hired you. I miss the Megan who loved to design, who got as excited over a baby shower as most people do over a baby. You should leave on more greenery.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Dixie said, though Tony’s instincts with flowers were faultless. With a time sheet or a job estimate, he was hopeless, but watching him work magic with ferns and ivy did funny things to Dixie’s breathing. “Maybe once the loan goes through, Megan
will get back to being a florist and leave off being a flower tycoon. I’m a toad for saying it, but ever since she started talking about opening a second shop, coming to work hasn’t been as much fun.”

  Hadn’t really been any fun, except the shop was still a way to share the day with Tony, and that meant the world to Dixie.

  Tony picked up another bunch of daisies and held the clippers poised in one hand, the flowers in the other.

  “I thought it was just me,” he said. “Megan’s off meeting with the bank, the accountant, the insurance guy, the lawyer… I love flowers, and I love Megan, but pretty soon, I won’t love my job anymore. Might be time to move on, Dix.”

  People thought working with flowers meant being surrounded by beauty and sweet scents, and that was part of it, but working with flowers also involved cold. In the cooler, in the shop, in the constant wet hands.

  And the thought of Tony moving on left Dixie’s heart half-frozen. “You love her, Tony?” Dixie asked, tearing leaves off stems and tossing them onto the work table. “Love-love her? Does Megan know that?”

  “Easy, lady,” Tony said, gently prying the daisy away from her, but Dixie didn’t let go, and so they had a non-tug-of-war, both of them holding the same daisy.

  “Megan gave me a chance,” Tony said, putting his clippers aside, “and I will always, always love her for that. For the longest time, I’ve been wondering something, though.”

  He was leaving. Damn and daffodils, Tony was leaving, going someplace in Baltimore or DC where he could design all day long and leave the bookkeeping and delivering and endless detail tasks to somebody like Dixie, who simply loved flowers and making a shop work well.

  She let him have the stupid daisy. “What have you been wondering, Tony Amatucci?”

  He bopped her gently on the nose with the daisy. “I’ve been wondering, Dixie Miller, would you give me a chance?”

  ***

  Declan spent much of his day around livestock, animals big enough to hurt him, who couldn’t tell him what they were thinking, where the pain was, or why they were acting oddly. A good farmer learned to pay attention, to take the time to watch and listen.

  A good farmer knew a creature thrashing around in bewilderment when he held one in his arms.

  Megan Leonard was a ferocious kisser. She went at Declan like a soldier coming home from war goes at a spouse who’s waited faithfully, as if mad passion were the only conduit sturdy enough to contain her sentiments.

  Declan widened his stance, got a hand under Megan’s backside, and shifted them, so she was wedged against the barn wall. She hooked a leg around his hips and used the wall to lever herself up, so she was wrapped around him from the waist down.

  The daft woman would be under his kilt and have him right here if he didn’t put a stop to her nonsense.

  “MacPherson, we’re burning daylight, or moonlight. These are not virgin cows, and when a man asks to see a lady’s articles—”

  He kissed her soundly. “We have time, Megan. We have hours and hours, we have days and nights. Cease yer frettin’.”

  A farmer never had enough time though. Declan ignored that exhausting reality and showed Megan how to take a moment for a kiss. He brushed a thumb over her eyebrows, nuzzled her cheek, then settled in for a proper greeting, lip to lip.

  Megan fisted a hand in his hair. “Declan, what the hell are you—?”

  She wanted to shout her desire, Declan was determined that they start with gentle whispers. Shouts could be ignored, whispers, never. He offered her soft words in Gaelic, soft kisses amid the rustling and sighing of animals settling in for the night. When Megan’s leg slid slowly down Declan’s hip, he wedged his thigh between her legs, and she sank against him.

  By inches and sighs, she settled and began to listen. Declan’s tongue paid a call, Megan returned the invitation, but slowly, gently. Her weight against him relaxed, her hands under his sweater mapped his back rather than dug in for control.

  “I know what it is to lose a sibling, Megan,” Declan said, resting his cheek against her crown. “It’s a violation of the natural order, a wrong so profound we’ve no real rituals for it. The elders, they go in their turn and so will we, but a sibling—it’s hard. A chamber of our own heart, a friend, somebody who has shared more with us than any other, who will know us longer than our own spouse. We shouldn’t have to give them up, not entirely.”

  She pressed her forehead against him, her breath coming heavily. “You are no good at a casual encounter, MacPherson. Insights aren’t part of it. You’re not a virgin, are you?”

  He’d never told anybody that much before, never tried to describe the magnitude of the grief Lindy’s death had left behind.

  “I’m a farmer, you’re a florist, and the next two weeks might be fun, lusty, and interesting, but I doubt I can keep them entirely casual.” He nuzzled her ear, she flinched, but finally, finally, he had her full attention. “I like you, Megan Leonard. If that means I take you to bed with me tonight, then let’s get your e-mail sent, and prepare to endure two weeks of billing and cooing from the happy couple. I hope, though, that we can at least be like your flowers. Lovely for a short time, and fondly recalled.”

  She raised a slightly perplexed gaze to him. “My e-mail. To the damned bank. Right.”

  Declan stroked her hair, while Hector curled up on a straw bale at eye level. The cat managed to strut about the barn despite having only three legs, and before the vet had relieved him of certain parts other than his left front leg, he’d even found an occasional lady cat willing to tolerate his advances.

  Wounds healed, grief resolved, and life went on, but a maid of honor must not be rushed.

  “I like you, too, MacPherson,” Megan said, making no move to leave Declan’s embrace. “Were you the older sibling?”

  “Aye.” And the brother.

  “Nobody shows the oldest how to cope. We figure it out for ourselves.” Megan toyed with the hair at Declan’s nape, a soft, shivery tickle from an odd location. “We’ll figure out what to do with the next ten days or so, too, MacPherson, but I warn you, my creative impulses have been stifled lately with a poop pit of paperwork. I have plans for you.”

  Happiness settled around Declan like the herd bedding down for the night. Peaceful, warm, cozy, and ready to dream dreams.

  “Come along, then,” he said, kissing Megan’s forehead. “We’ll deal with your paperwork, and then see what a farmer and a florist can find to talk about as the hour grows late.”

  ***

  Declan’s office was a mix of business efficient and homespun comfy. A skinny marmalade cat curled up in a basket on the floor barely took notice of Megan when she ran her articles of incorporation through the scanner. The chair behind the massive battered desk was up-to-the-minute ergonomic albeit three sizes too big for her. The screen saver was a slide show of Scottish scenery and an occasional picture of young livestock.

  The screen saver on Megan’s computer was images of flowers, her chair fit her, and she hadn’t had a cat since her mother’s old tuxedo cat died three years ago.

  “All set?” Declan asked, passing Megan a plain white mug of peppermint tea.

  “The forces of financial evil are subdued for another day, or night. I’ve been lusting to open a second shop for years, and I will not be thwarted by some bean counter who thinks women entrepreneurs are cute. This tea smells divine.”

  She touched her mug to Declan’s, though how did they make the transition from talking business to getting down to business?

  “My granny put up with a lot of that,” Declan said, settling against the desk. Megan had never seen a larger piece of furniture serving as a desk, but it creaked under Declan’s weight. “Gran said she had to be twice the farmer on half the acres to be taken seriously by the men. So she was, until the men came to her for advice and counsel.”

  “You were probably her secret weapon. This is good tea. You got the honey just right.” Not everybody even kept honey in the kitchen, but Decla
n hadn’t raised an eyebrow at Megan’s request.

  “We grow the peppermint here, and the tea has a spot of our honey in it. Will you take me upstairs and ravish me now, Meggie Leonard?”

  So that’s how they did it. “Yes, if you’ll agree to do the same with me.”

  He smiled at her over his mug, a wicked, I-have-plans-for-you smile that was like the tea—hot, interesting, and sweet.

  Declan led her through a farmhouse that was a hodgepodge of modern kitchen, retro-fussy parlor—nothing that qualified as a living room here—stately dining room, and casual, book-infested TV room. His bed was an enormous four-poster that put Megan in mind of movie sets and full orchestra scores, or sweet dreams and late mornings.

  “What do we do about protection?” Declan asked as he unbelted his man purse. “For we will do something, m’dear.”

  “Yes, we will. I have condoms with me. I always buy fresh when I travel, even if I’m only going to a florists’ convention.”

  Declan opened a wardrobe—no closets to be seen—and stood for a moment staring at neatly arranged clothing, much of which was a red/green/yellow/black plaid.

  “Go ahead and say it,” Megan muttered, setting her purse on a nightstand that probably weighed as much as she did. “I rotate my latex inventory, tossing out the old and buying new, like silk flowers that get dusty. Pathetic.”

  Declan pulled his sweater over his head and folded it onto a shelf in the wardrobe. “I do the same, but prefer to think of myself as having standards. If you hadn’t brought any, we’d be using mine. Bathroom’s through there.”

  Declan MacPherson’s back was… anatomical poetry. The designer in Megan wanted to make him remain still so she could simply behold him. His musculature was the real thing, not the gym-sculpted variety that came from counting reps and filling out a chart. Fancy hybrid flowers might have a lovely scent or a delicate hue, but they seldom lasted. Declan’s physique was meadow and marsh wild flowers, hardy, adapted to meet many challenges, and beautiful when properly appreciated.