Scotland for Christmas

by Cathryn Parry

  Donna hooked Isabel’s arm and brought her to a table in the corner, crowded with seven or eight other women. Then she flagged down a cocktail server, a young guy dressed all in black. He walked over, looking harried.

  “One good thing about not being pregnant anymore is that I can have a cocktail,” Donna said. “You first, Isabel. What’ll you have?”

  Isabel glanced at what the other women were drinking. Wine. Cosmopolitans. One or two mixed drinks.

  “I’ll take a gin and tonic, please. What kind of gin do you carry?”

  In a bored tone, the server mentioned a brand that Isabel hadn’t heard of. “Is that okay? It’s all we have upstairs.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “What kind of tonic water do you have?”

  The server shrugged and glanced at the busy table beside them.

  “Well,” Isabel said, knowing she was being rushed. “May I please have the bottle on the side? I prefer to mix my own drink.”

  He stared at her.

  “The tonic water comes from the gun,” Donna explained to Isabel. “The bartender mixes it with the liquor for you. I think that’s a rule or something.”

  “Very well.” Isabel smiled at the server, who was already turning away. Yet again, she’d subtly misunderstood the customs. This wasn’t how they did it at home.

  Across the room, a bartender was setting down a beer bottle at Jacob’s place before the bar. She smiled as he sipped his beer and contentedly bounced Alden on his lap.

  “I’ll be damned,” Donna mused. “That has to be the first time I’ve ever seen Jake Ross go near a baby, never mind hold one.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Are you kidding? Usually he acts like he’s allergic to Alden.”

  And yet, Jacob was quietly smiling at the little one. Surely that couldn’t be just to prove a point to her?

  She felt an itch to join him but restrained herself.

  She wished she could stop the diplomacy act for once and just blurt out to Donna, Tell me everything I need to know about Jacob, but that wouldn’t be wise.

  Instead, she followed Donna and took a place with her at the table.

  “So, how did you meet Jacob?” Donna asked. “That’s what we’ve all been dying to know. We’ve been trying to fix him up with our girlfriends for ages.”

  “Er...” Isabel paused. She hadn’t expected to be the one being quizzed. “Well, my boyfriend...my long-term boyfriend broke up with me unexpectedly...and I was upset...and Jacob was there, and he helped me.”

  “The damsel-in-distress thing.” Donna shook her head. “Darn. I should have tried that.”

  Isabel’s relationship to Jacob had nothing to do with that dynamic, but she kept that information to herself. To her mind, her attraction to him was private.

  “Jacob works too much,” the woman on the other side of her said, and Isabel turned to her. “They all work too much.”

  Isabel nodded politely. Is Jacob trustworthy at work? she needed to know. Do his bosses like him?

  The waiter set their drinks before them. Isabel took a sip of her gin and tonic, quite different from what she was used to, and tried to think of another way to phrase her question. “Is there a reason, you suppose, that Jacob didn’t get the transfer to Washington that he wanted?”

  Donna ate a piece of sushi from a passing plate. “My guess?” she said, wiping her lips with a napkin. “Politics—because Jacob doesn’t play them. Mind you, I’m not saying that Eddie does.”

  “Jacob is rather blunt and gruff,” Isabel agreed. “If he’s mad at you, you certainly know it.”

  Isabel liked that about him, though. A person always knew where they stood with Jacob.

  Not like her uncle John. He tended to be a closed book.

  Her father had been closed, too, now that she thought about it. Still, she knew how deeply his circumstances had bothered him, but that was because she was one of the few people he’d confided in.

  Like Jacob. Isabel glanced over at the bar where he sat on a stool, quietly rocking Alden as Eddie relayed to him some expressive story that required the use of both hands.

  Jacob was rather sexy.

  Suddenly, he turned and stared back at her. She had the feeling he’d been watching her all along.

  Isabel quickly turned away.

  “My family is from Maryland, on the Eastern Shore.” Donna had pulled over a plate of nachos and was talking between bites. “I’m so happy to be moving back to the area. I miss my parents. When I was in high school, I never thought I’d say that. But it’s true.” She waved a chip as she spoke. “Did you hear about that teenager who’s in court trying to divorce her parents but she still wants them to pay for her to go to college?”

  “No. That’s crazy.” Isabel sipped her drink.

  “If that ever happened with Alden, Eddie would have a fit. End of story.”

  “Mmm,” Isabel sympathized.

  “If you’re going to date Jacob, then go into it with your eyes open,” the woman on the other side of Isabel warned her. “Because they travel all the time, without warning. I didn’t expect that when I signed on for this.”

  “We’re here for you, Sandy,” Donna said, pressing her hand. “It will get better.”

  “No family event is sacred,” Sandy said. “It seems like we’re always sacrificing.”

  Donna leaned over the table and gave her a hug.

  Then she turned to Isabel. “I hope we’re not scaring you away. Don’t get the wrong idea.”

  “Why do you suppose Jacob wants to guard the president of the United States so badly?” Isabel asked.

  There was silence at the table.

  “He’s a protector type like Eddie.” Donna shrugged. “It’s what they do.”

  “The PPD is the most elite job in the Secret Service,” another woman said. “To make it proves they’re the best in their business. They all aspire to guard the president.”

  “Even though it can trash their personal lives,” Sandy said gloomily.

  There was more silence.

  Donna whispered into Isabel’s ear, “Sandy’s husband got called out of town this weekend and he’s missing their daughter’s birthday. It happens a lot in this job. It’s why we all stick together so much.”

  * * *

  “SHOULDN’T YOU GO over there and intervene?” Eddie asked Jacob. “She’s probably getting all the dirt on you.”

  Jacob rocked Alden in his arms and shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not involved with her. I’m not going to get involved.”

  “That’s not what it looks like from where I’m sitting,” Eddie said drily.

  Yeah, so? He and Isabel were glancing back and forth at one another, but so what? That was part of the setup. Spy versus spy.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jacob said, shifting Alden because the baby was frowning as if his neck were uncomfortable. “We’re good.”

  “What happened between you two up in Vermont last weekend?”

  Jacob held out his finger for Alden to latch on to. The little bald guy had a major grip. “Not a damn thing,” he said to Eddie.

  “I don’t know why I hang out with you,” Eddie muttered. “You’re no fun.”

  Jacob hid his smile. Alden was making funny faces in his father’s direction. Every time Eddie spoke, the kid gurgled and jerked his body toward him. Kids knew their fathers, that was for sure.

  “So,” Jacob said as casually as he could, struggling to get his finger back from the little guy, “what did you find out about Isabel? You ran her accounts, right? Phone records? What did they say?”

  “Aha!” Eddie reached over and snatched his kid back from Jacob. “I knew it. Something is going on. I knew there had to be a reason Sage invited you to Scotland.”

&nbs
p; He laid Alden against his shoulder, rubbing his back. “He wants you to find out specific info about her, doesn’t he?”

  Jacob couldn’t fool Eddie. Jacob hated having to ask this, but... “Were there any big lump-sum deposits in Isabel’s accounts?”

  Eddie danced around a bit, in a bid to help Alden stop squirming. “Not that I noticed.”

  “Any calls to any of the big newspapers or magazine reporters?”

  “Nope. She doesn’t call much of anyone, it seems.”

  “She works too damn hard,” Jacob muttered. Something about that bothered him. A sweet woman like her, well...

  He glanced across the room at her, just in time to see her looking back. Why was she tormenting him?

  * * *

  “I WANT JACOB to come to D.C. with us, too,” Donna was saying to Isabel. “Did you know he’s godfather to Alden?”

  “I did not know that, no.”

  “I like you, Isabel. If you two do decide to date, and you get serious, is there any chance of you moving to D.C.?” Donna asked, swaying slightly.

  Isabel smiled politely. Not even an inkling of a chance.

  “Well, on the bright side,” Donna said, “at least he never painted that mural I wanted. We wouldn’t have been able to take it with us anyway.”

  Donna was starting a fresh drink. Isabel wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Had she missed something?

  “What mural?” Isabel asked.

  “I asked Jacob,” Donna said loudly, “to paint Alden a mural for the wall over his crib, but Jacob wouldn’t do it.”

  Isabel glanced at Jacob across the room. He was staring at her again. A muscle was ticking in his jaw. “Did he say why?”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me,” Isabel said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Jacob’s eyes were still boring a hole in her, so she walked over and sat on the empty stool beside him.

  “Did you do your investigative due diligence?” Jacob asked.

  “Well,” she drawled, carefully crossing her legs and placing her hands over the gap on her tights where her dress drew back from her tall boots, “I’ve learned nothing but normal, everyday things about you, stuff that I already knew. And then, out of the blue, Donna mentions that you paint. Do you paint, Jacob?”

  He laughed dryly. “Donna exaggerates.”

  “She says you refused to paint a mural for Alden.” Isabel glanced over at the wee bairn, who was now being passed between his mum and his dad, each of them cooing over his whimpering cries. Actually, Eddie was now sniffing his wee bum. “Is that true, Jacob? You told them no?”

  “Is that a problem if it is?” Jacob crossed his arms. “I refuse to do a lot of things that people ask me to do, as a matter of principle.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” she said calmly.

  Jacob’s lips quirked, as if she was making him smile and he didn’t want to smile. “Is that a deal breaker for you?”

  “It depends,” she said. “Don’t you think that Alden might like a mural someday?”

  They both glanced over at the infant. Donna had grabbed the diaper bag and was rushing him toward the toilets.

  “Would you do it?” Jacob asked.

  Was he talking about the mural or the nappy change? She was confused. “Well, truthfully, yes, I would paint the mural, but I would do it, er, to serve my friend and give him something comforting to look at.” She smiled at Jacob. “But I think I understand why you won’t do it.”

  Jacob leaned very close to her. Into her space. “And what’s that you think you understand about me?” he said in a low voice.

  She wanted to fan her flushed face, but she didn’t. Instead, she leaned even closer to him, her heart beating more quickly. “I’ve noticed you don’t do something just because someone asks you. It has to mean something to you.”

  “And where do you get that from?”

  “Well, the only reason you kept helping me at that wedding was because you saw what happened to me with Alex. And you’d been through it, too. It was meaningful to you, and that made you want to help me, in your way, in your time. Isn’t it?”

  “This is about a mural, Isabel.”

  “Yes, and you didn’t paint it because you want the gift to him to be your expression, your idea, on your terms and with your meaning. Don’t you?”

  * * *

  JACOB STARED AT HER. She’d shocked him. That was probably as close as anyone had ever come to getting him.

  “And I think that’s perfectly valid,” she whispered.

  She had cast her spell on him yet again. He couldn’t keep his eyes from her. Couldn’t keep from moving closer and closer into her orbit.

  Isabel Sage was classy and perfect and successful. Jacob had no doubt she would fit in smoothly and completely wherever he took her, never showing discomfort.

  “The truth is,” Jacob said, “I don’t paint murals. But I do sketches sometimes.”

  Isabel’s gaze flicked to a piece of artwork on the wall behind him. “Like that?” She pointed.

  “No, not landscapes,” he said.

  “People? Do you draw portraits?”

  “Is this part of your investigation of me?”

  She smiled slightly. “No. My uncle doesn’t care about this sort of thing.”

  So she had been checking him out for Sage. It didn’t surprise him. He took a swig of his beer, now getting warm, since he’d been playing with Alden and concentrating on her. “I want to know about you, Isabel.”

  But not about her phone calls and her finances. He personally didn’t give a damn about those. “What do you do at home in Edinburgh? What do you like, really?”

  “Besides work?” She lazily stretched her fingers against her legs.

  He nodded, waiting, because there was more to her. He wanted to see deeper.

  “Sometimes, on weekends, I go to the National Portrait Gallery by myself and I walk around for no reason. My uncle is a donor there. Sometimes I sit and meditate on one of the benches inside. It’s peaceful.”

  She glanced up at him, beneath her eyelashes. “Actually, Rhiannon is the one who paints. My uncle helps her sell her landscapes. They do very well, monetarily.”

  He stared sharply at her.

  “You remember my cousin Rhiannon?” she asked.

  Yes, he remembered. The woman from the monitor, at the wedding. The one who’d been kidnapped when his father had died. “I do,” he said softly.

  “Well, that’s what she does inside her castle, she paints landscapes. I suppose it’s her therapy, her way of expressing herself and coping.” Isabel looked so sad. Maybe she felt a longing to fix her family. Maybe, like him, she just couldn’t do it.

  “What kind of landscapes does she paint?” he asked.

  “Pleasant places. Beautiful places. The countryside near the castle. She walks a lot, in the Highlands.” A line appeared in her brow.

  “Do you ever visit her?”

  Isabel shook her head. “We were friends as children, but then, afterward...she stopped wanting to see anyone but Malcolm.” She shrugged. “I have my life in the city, as I’ve said.”

  “What else do you do there?”

  “I told you, I work. I love my work. My last project before I came to New York involved developing a marketing campaign for our new lipstick line. For years, I’ve worked small projects in just about every department in our company, but that was my favorite. Marketing is intuitive. It’s less about numbers and accounting and tax rates, and I like that.” She glanced at him. He had the impression she was reading his face, adjusting what she told him based on his approval. It was easy for him to smile at her—he did admire her. On many levels he was growing to understand her.

  “How about after work?” he said. “At the end
of the day? What do you like to do then?”

  “Well,” she continued, “let’s see... I enjoy films. I read. I walk around the city....”

  “Aren’t you worried about security?”

  “I stay low-key, remember?” she said playfully. “Besides, I take a yearly self-defense class.” She winked at him. “I could flip you on your back if I wanted to.”

  He smiled, doubting that very much. “Do you use a private driver for protection?”

  “At home? No, I drive myself. Here...it’s the wrong side of the road for me, and you have a much bigger, more confusing system, so I’d rather not drive.”

  “Do you walk around Manhattan the way you walk around Edinburgh?”

  “My, aren’t you asking a lot of questions about me.” She laughed lightly. “The answer is...no, not until very recently. It’s mostly a matter of my being busy,” she said quickly. “I’m taking five courses per semester, four semesters in a row without break. I’m here to gain knowledge my company can use. And then, I’m to go home and hopefully get promoted so I’m on track to be my uncle’s successor. That is my plan.”

  “What if you don’t get promoted?”

  “Then I will be terribly upset.” She pulled a tragic face for him. “Seriously, it’s the most important thing to me. Which is why I very much would like you to agree to come to Edinburgh with me for Christmas. Think about it, Jacob.”

  Ah. And so she had circled back to the thing neither of them could avoid. “How, exactly, will it help you to have me there?” he asked.

  “Well, my uncle obviously sees something in you that interests him. He’s never seemed to see as much in me.” She sighed. “Or he hasn’t thus far. But I’m going to make him see the advantages I have over Malcolm. I’d assumed top-shelf grades would do the trick, but...”

  She shrugged. “At the wedding this weekend I learned that I need to speed up my timetable. I need reasons for him to spend time with me. And that’s why you have to come home with me for Christmas.” She looked brightly at him.

  Yes, he did need to go to Edinburgh to see her uncle. But not for the reasons she thought.

  * * *

  “ISABEL DIDN’T DO anything that would harm her family’s company,” Jacob said to Eddie later. “She didn’t leak any stories or give company secrets to the media. I’d stake my life on it.”