“Okay. Thanks.” Cait realized this was the most her gran had said to her that didn’t involve biting her head off in the process.
When they got to Saint Henry’s, two bundled-up boys stood out front with bulletins in their hands. “Happy Christmas,” they said, handing each of them one and opening the door.
The narthex was nearly deserted. Deydie slipped out of her wool coat and shoved it at Cait. “Here,” she said and shuffled off to talk to a small group of women by the sanctuary’s entrance.
Not having attended church for the last eighteen years, Cait felt like a mackerel out of water. She stood there for a moment, trying to get her bearings.
She slowly gazed around and saw nothing had really changed except for a new coat of white paint. The church boxes were still lined up against the left wall. They were nothing more than cubbies for each family in the parish, but they served as mailboxes of sorts, invaluable to a small community as a means of communication. An old memory flooded her senses.
“Caitie, run to the church and put this recipe in Pixie’s box. She said she’ll pick it up tomorrow.” Her mother had been standing in the kitchen of their cottage, wiping her hands on a yellow-and-blue dish towel. “While yere there, check our box to see if anything is in it.” She had felt like a big girl for being entrusted with such an important task as checking the church box.
She forced herself out of the memory as Moira walked over to join her.
Cait pointed to the bulletin board on the right-hand wall. “It all looks the same. The flyers, the lone glove, and has that key been hanging there since I left?”
Moira smiled. “Saint Henry’s Lost and Found. It’s the first place I come if I’ve lost anything. Did you see we have a bigger box below now for the larger lost items?”
Cait nodded at the hoodie hanging over the side.
A hand tapped her shoulder. She spun around and found Father Gregory, the Episcopal priest of her childhood. He was old now, but his kind eyes remained unchanged. “Ah, Caitie Macleod, how good to have you home. I’d heard you’d come.”
She received the underlying scold as if she’d skipped his confirmation class. The only thing absent was a tsk-tsk.
“Deydie’s been missing you, child.” Another veiled reprimand.
Cait couldn’t say what she really thought in God’s house. “Aye,” was her only reply.
He patted her on the arm as if he understood and shook his head. “Deydie’s quite the . . .” He seemed to be searching for the right word.
“Character,” Cait provided.
“One of God’s finest,” the good father added.
Rhona called to the priest. He and Moira said goodbye and went to help Rhona.
Cait went down the hall to find the coatrack. As she hung up Deydie’s coat, another hand laid itself on her shoulder. At first she assumed it was Father Gregory again, but then Graham’s aftershave teased her nose.
“Caitie.” That deep voice she’d grown so used to. It melted her like a marshmallow over a warm fire. “How are ye this Christmas Eve?” he continued.
She turned around and saw Graham wearing an Italian suit with a charcoal gray overcoat slung over his arm. And he looked better than good. She tried to play it cool and slip out of her jacket as nonchalantly as she could. But he took over, spinning her around and slipping the coat off like she was his marionette. His breath was on her neck and goose bumps rose all over her. She bit her lip. Surely somewhere in the Bible it said not to entertain intimate thoughts within the confines of a church.
“How’ve you been?” To anyone else, his voice would’ve been perceived as interested or concerned, but her delighted heart chose to hear it otherwise, as flirtatious and seductive.
She had planned to lambast him and demand to know why he’d left her alone the past two days. Instead she just gazed up at him, captivated not only by his good looks but by what made him Graham—that boy-next-door quality in the hard body of a warrior. The way he studied her with intensity made the quiet, dark hallway turn from a cozy respite into a sexually charged opportunity.
We’re in church, for heaven’s sake! She tried to counter what was going on between them by answering his question. “I’ve been good.” Except for the naughty thoughts she’d been having about him.
He surveyed her brown sweaterdress. “Aye.” Judging by the eager and lustful look in his eyes, he should be struck down for his erotic thoughts as well.
He leaned down, and she wondered, and worried, that he’d kiss her in front of God and anybody who might peer down the passageway at them.
But Mattie appeared, thank goodness, and put his hand into Graham’s. Such a tender kid, such a tender act.
Cait automatically knelt down and brushed the hair out of the boy’s face. “Hey, Mattie. Happy Christmas.”
He gave her no reaction except to look into her eyes. He reminded her of a portrait she’d once seen of a solemn Amish boy. That boy’s eyes, like Mattie’s, held a wisdom beyond his years, his whole demeanor guarded.
She didn’t know how to get through the barricade that Mattie had built around himself. How could she assure him the world could be a safe place when he’d witnessed otherwise? She had the urge to march into the sanctuary and demand God do something—take back the boat from sinking, let those drowned men live, or just let Mattie go back to being a kid again.
Graham looked from her to Mattie. “I’m ushering. And running a little late. Do you mind getting Mattie to Rhona? He’s in the pageant as a shepherd.”
“I’d love to.” She smiled down at the somber-faced boy.
“You’re a doll,” Graham said, while hanging up his coat. Before he walked away, he ruffled Mattie’s hair. “Knock ’em dead, lad. Do Grandda proud.”
Mattie nodded.
“I’d better get to work.” And Graham was gone.
Cait stared after him, trying to wrap her mind around that man. A world-famous movie star seating the lowly people of Gandiegow. But she knew that he wasn’t doing it to lord it over the townsfolk or to put on a show of being a “regular” person. He did it as a service to his community.
And she felt humbled by it. “Wow,” she said aloud, a mixture of warmth and giddiness filling her.
Mattie studied her face, taking everything in with his big eyes and big heart.
“I know. I’m such a mess.” She put her arms around him, and he responded by standing as still as one of the planks in the manger by the altar. He smelled of Christmas cookies, pine trees, and the cold wind outside. “What am I going to do?” she said to the universe.
Mattie lifted one hand up and patted her back. Twice.
“Come on, you. Let’s find Rhona.” She led him away.
After leaving Mattie with the other pageant players, Cait headed back to the narthex. Graham held his arm out to her.
“Will ye be sitting with me this evening?” He might have been behaving like a perfect gentleman, but she caught the gleam in his eye—one that undressed her and had her in his bed, begging for more.
“No. I’ll be with my gran.” Cait peered into the sanctuary.
“Not likely,” he added.
Of course he had seated Deydie, so he would know. Cait looked and saw it, too—the quilting ladies taking up a whole pew with her gran in the center.
“Come.” He took her hand and tucked it into his arm.
And, bold as brass, he marched her down the aisle. With all Gandiegow’s eyes on her, she felt as hot and ruddy as a red Christmas stocking hung too close to the fire.
He led her to the nearly packed pew behind the row of quilters. “Save me a seat,” he said, then retreated back to his post by the entrance of the sanctuary.
No way. She stood up and moved herself farther down, squeezing herself between two families until she was directly behind Deydie. There, she said to herself.
But it didn’t
work. A few minutes later, Mr. Christmas Charm himself excused his way down the pew between the two families just as she had and squeezed in beside her. He took her hand.
“No handsies in church,” Cait hissed out of the side of her mouth.
“Just hanging on so ye don’t slip away, that’s all,” he whispered back.
Deydie turned her head and shushed them both.
Cait glared at Graham and he shrugged. The lights went down, except the one over the altar.
A fair-headed teenager came out in a white shirt, tie, and black trousers with a microphone in his hand. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, to be taxed with his espoused wife, Mary, who was great with child.”
Two other teenagers, a boy and a girl dressed in period clothing, entered. It was the same Christmas story being played out all over the world. The same one Cait had been in for so many years long ago.
Until finally, her last Christmas here, she was old enough to have the part of Mary. It had no lines to learn—then as now, there were no speaking parts except for the narrator who told the story while others acted it out. But she remembered being Mary, and how, in those moments, utter peace had surrounded her, even though her young life was spiraling out of control. To be part of a bigger story—the story of birth and ultimately the story of forgiveness—had left her with some hope that her own life would turn out okay. Now, eighteen years later, the fact that the Christmas story hadn’t changed was comforting. And despite what Jesus had done to her and her family, Cait’s uneasiness unraveled just a hair.
She looked at Graham’s hand holding hers. It was big and strong, a confirmation that she had landed in a safe place.
Mattie came onstage then wearing his brown shepherd’s costume, and all the shepherds were visited by an angel who was perched high on a ladder, close to the cross. Cait saw the Jesus’s feet with the nails in them and looked away. A curious mixture of guilt and pity came over her.
Mattie crossed over to where the cradle lay. In years when there wasn’t a new infant in their parish, like this one, they used a doll. But the way Mattie stood over the crib, solemn as a pastor at a funeral, one would’ve thought he’d witnessed the miracle for real. One of the other shepherds had to move him along, he was so transfixed.
This gave Cait courage to look up at the full-grown Jesus hanging over the altar. He didn’t look coldly indifferent, as she’d imagined him all these years. He looked accepting of the things that had come to pass. A peace came over Cait and she knew who to share the feeling with. She reached over the pew and laid her hand on Deydie’s shoulder.
Deydie turned her head slightly for a second, then went back to watching the play. Cait kept her hand there a moment longer, then sat back feeling content. It had been a long time since she’d felt truly connected to anyone. But here she was, knotted into the same net as her gran.
Two blocks in the long-lost quilt of their family.
Graham leaned over to her. “You all right?”
“Yes,” Cait whispered. “Now, shhh,” she said gently.
After the pageant, Father Gregory said the Mass, the people had their Communion, and then all of Gandiegow gathered in the narthex for cookies and punch. Children ran between the tables, shoving goodies in their mouths, as the adults chatted, the buzz deafening. Cait hung out with the quilt ladies, Moira and Amy on either side of her. Graham had gone to find Mattie, and Cait could see him now across the room, standing with Duncan. Soon they made their way over to where she stood.
Graham held Mattie’s hand. “Can I have a minute, Caitie?” he asked her.
Duncan took Mattie, lifting him up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “We’ll be going now. I’ll see you back at my house later. The couch will be made up for ye.”
“Sounds good.” Graham turned to them all. “I’m spending the night at Duncan’s so he can set the nets in the morning.”
“Isn’t that grand,” Rhona said. The other quilting ladies agreed.
“We’ll see what Father Christmas brings to his house before heading up to see what the old elf left at mine.” Graham winked at the ladies, who seemed almost giddy at the prospect of Christmas morning themselves. He took Cait’s elbow. “If you’ll excuse us?” He ushered her away, toward the coatrack.
From this close, she could smell his familiar aftershave again. And God, he looked great. So sexy. And where he touched her, she sizzled.
“Will ye come back to the house with me now for some eggnog before I go to Duncan’s?” The candlelit church made his eyes smoky and alluring.
“Let’s go back to Deydie’s instead.” It’s safer there.
His wolfy grin surfaced. “Ye’re not scared to be alone with me, are you, Caitie?”
She glared at him. “Of course not. You’re harmless.”
“Right,” he drawled, not sounding harmless at all. “I thought we could sit by the fire. And talk,” he added as an afterthought.
Except she could read his mind. The two of them on the sofa, shagging.
She couldn’t—wouldn’t—be destructive with her life again. Tom had played her, known how to make her succumb, like he’d read her instruction manual. He’d wooed her, cajoled her, and convinced her that they were two halves of one soul. But they were only empty words. He was incapable of real love. Like her da. Like all men she knew.
But even though she’d never fall in love, her body burned for Graham in a way she’d never felt before. Literally burned. If she went outside and sat in the snow, the white stuff would melt and go to steam in seconds.
“Deydie will expect me home at the cottage.”
Her gran, with her superpower hearing, made her way over to them. “Go on, now, but watch yereselves. I’m off to see Kenneth and have a wee bit of a nightcap with him and Moira.” Deydie yanked her coat off the hanger and Graham helped her into it. When she was sufficiently garbed, she turned to Cait. “Don’t be long.”
He pulled her coat from the rack and slipped her into it. “I need to have a quick word with Father Gregory. Shall I meet you outside?”
“Sure.” To her own ears, her conviction sounded about as firm as the cotton batting in a soft quilt.
As he walked away, she said a small prayer. Please give me strength. But she was weak. And couldn’t help falling just a little bit for the luscious man sauntering down the hallway.
She should just make her excuses and head back to Deydie’s cabin alone. But when she stepped outside and Graham came toward her, any resolve she’d had got swept away with the wind.
Graham gazed into her eyes, and as if on cue, the wind died down and his wolfish grin faded. What was left was sincerity. He kissed her hand. “Ye are safe with me, Caitie. I promise.”
She tugged her scarf more securely around her neck. “Since you promised.” The problem was, could she trust herself?
Graham led them down the boardwalk, then up the path to his house. “You go in and sit by the fire.”
In the parlor, the first thing she noticed was that Graham still didn’t have a tree. “Surprising,” she said aloud. He’d helped Duncan with his earlier. She wondered for a moment if Graham had an aversion to pine needles strewn all over his mansion. Her next thought was that it was way too intimate in here. She went around the room, turning on every light and even bolstered up the fire with extra logs. The place looked as bright now as if it were midday instead of Christmas Eve.
He returned, shaking his head. “Caitie, shame on you. Ye’ve doubled my carbon footprint.” He handed her a glass mug. “Let’s just enjoy the firelight.”
He turned off the switches himself and came toward her.
She was one of those rabbits caught in the sights of a predator—too scared to make a run for it.
He
reached out and gently took a lock of her hair, examining it as if it were a petal of a delicate flower.
It was a strange sensation, standing by the fire so—one side of her heated to the extreme, the other side chilly. Kind of how she’d felt about coming back to his place.
He leaned down and kissed her. It was all flame then—her insides skipping the pleasant middle ground and kicking straight into full-on desire. She could feel him holding back, and she knew it was for her benefit. He’d promised her safety. But her inner naughty girl took his restraint as a challenge. What harm was there, really, in playing with fire? She deepened the kiss, slipping her tongue inside his mouth and exploring like she had something to prove.
He moaned, and her desire intensified. She held him tighter. Just to up the stakes a little, she found his waistband and tugged out his tailored shirt. Her hands traveled up his body to his warm chest.
“Caitie,” he moaned into her mouth. “What’re ye doing to me?”
“Shut up and take it like a man.” Her wicked hands caressed their way to his back and downward to his waistband, this time moving into the lower region.
“My promise.” His plea came out a bit strangled.
“Screw yere promise.” She was surprised at how thick her own brogue had become. Her hands went downward, to the place of no return.
“Are ye sure about this?” he asked.
She kissed him back, hard. “It’s Christmas,” she finally answered. “What the hell.”
Chapter Fifteen
That was all Graham needed. Still kissing her, he scooped her into his arms. He had a hard time of it making his way up the stairs, trying not to trip or bump into a wall. He used his elbow to switch on the lights and lay her on his bed.
“Now you want the lights on.” She said it playfully and looked smoking hot at the same time. He could’ve lit a firecracker with her. And if he didn’t get inside of her soon, he’d go bang just at the sight of her lying on his bed.
“Ye’re driving me crazy, lass.” He ran a hand through his hair. He wanted her to strip so he could revel as every bit of her came into view.
To Scotland With Love Page 16