He was trouble. No two ways about it.
Anna turned away, answering a couple of questions herself and trading a few jokes at her own expense with the villagers who had gathered around her. Despite not looking at him, though, she couldn’t help being aware of Connal approaching, as if the air around her had charged itself up, molecules exciting, pushing her toward him.
He slipped in beside her at the bar. “I hear we’re going to need to hire a chauffeur to keep you out of trouble. I’m not sure there’s any other way to safeguard the livestock.”
“Ha,” Anna said. “I’ve already told Elspeth I’ll be walking from here on out.”
“I’ve just arranged to take you both home when the meeting’s over, but you’re all right? You didn’t get hurt in the accident?”
Anna shook her head and accepted the glass mug of coffee Flora slid toward her, taking an overly-enthusiastic sip. The coffee was hotter and stronger than she’d expected, but also as sweet and smoky and creamy as Connal MacGregor’s voice, with that deep, sexy quality to it.
No. She wasn’t going to think about Connal MacGregor like that. She wasn’t going to notice his sexiness. She’d work with him to find a compromise about the festival—for Moira’s sake and for the sake of the village—which was what she’d agreed to do. Strictly in a professional capacity. Because he was trouble, and if she thought about him in any other way than professionally, she might as well hang a sign above her head: trouble welcome here.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Connal was watching her, staring at her mouth. “You like it?”
She wiped a smidge of cream off her top lip and blinked at him in confusion before realizing he meant the coffee. “It’s delicious.” She whipped around to Flora. “This drink might be my new best friend,” she babbled. “You may need to pry me away from here with a crowbar after the meeting.”
“I can offer a tire wrench and a willing shoulder if you like,” Connal said, smiling down at her again. That smile. “But I’m fresh out of crowbars.”
She blinked at him like an idiot. “It was a joke.”
He leaned closer. “I know that,” he said, his breath fanning across her cheek. “So was mine.”
This was flirting. He was flirting with her, wasn’t he? Or was he?
Maybe, like Henry, he said things like this to every woman.
See? This was why it was treacherous to be around a man like Connal.
Anna couldn’t come up with a single word to say. Mercifully, the bell jangled again above the door, and he glanced across the room. “Here’s Elspeth,” he said, sounding relieved. “I suppose we should go through and get the meeting started.”
Anna blinked again and took another long, slow sip of spiked coffee that scalded her tongue, seared warmth down into her stomach, and left her disoriented. At least, it must have been the whiskey’s fault. Another explanation would have involved admitting that it was Connal as much as the Scotch, and that was inconceivable. Men hadn’t had this kind of an effect on her since high school. Since college.
Since Henry.
She’d grown up since Henry. Grown more rational since Henry. And she’d learned a thing or two about not taking actors at face value.
Actors lied. Their charm, their seeming sincerity and devoted attention, those were all an act. Underneath the pretense, they were always looking out for their own best interests, and the moment a better deal or opportunity came along, they would drop you like a bomb and turn their back on every promise they’d ever made.
Negotiations
And there begins a lang digression
about the lords o’ the creation.
Robert Burns
“The Twa Dogs”
The largest of the inn’s several dining rooms was packed and growing loud as the villagers drifted in to start the meeting. Already, the booths along the perimeter overflowed with bodies, and people sat crammed at tables in the center. Brando and about twenty others had squeezed into the empty spaces along the paneled walls.
The wooden paneling and high ceilings amplified the many conversations and quiet arguments that had already broken out in clusters. Facing the room, Anna sat in her seat between Elspeth and Connal, trying to imagine what it would have been like to grow up in a place where everyone was comfortable enough with each other to argue like this. In her experience, people who disagreed hid behind icy smiles—or lectured and bludgeoned each other with words until one gave in and walked away.
She slid a sideways glance at Connal. In the brighter light of the dining room, he looked unfairly better than he had in the bar, the stormwater blue of his eyes and that sure jaw beneath the beard and those lips that could stretch into the most unexpected and warmest smiles . . . He glanced over as if he felt her watching and arched a brow at her. She turned and stared anywhere except at him, until Elspeth leaned over and whispered, “I think about everyone’s here. Do you want to start us off? Introduce yourself.”
“Go ahead.” Connal nodded.
Anna dug in her purse for the clipboard and pen she had brought with her, then stood to get everyone’s attention. She might as well have been invisible for all the effect that had.
“Not like that,” Elspeth said. “No one stands on ceremony here. You want their attention, you have to be louder than they are.” She took a last sip of the still-steaming—and deeply spiked—toddy that Flora had fixed for her before setting it on the floor. Rising to her feet, she shouted, “Quiet, you lot! Most of you have already met Anna, my niece. She’s come to save us from ourselves, and she’s fair magic at organizing things, so try not to make your usual objections while you listen to her. We wouldn’t want to scare her off.”
Duncan Macara, Flora’s ruddy-cheeked bear of a husband, laughed at that from the table where he’d settled beside his wife. “She doesn’t scare too easy, or Seumas and the sheep would have already sent her packing.”
Elspeth leaned toward Anna and prodded her with an elbow. “Start talking quick now, or you’ll never get a word in edgewise.”
“Thank you all for trusting me to help you with this,” Anna said, shocked at how nervous she suddenly felt, aware of Connal and the crowd both watching her, all of them wanting different things. As crowded as the room was, there were probably only seventy people present. But she was used to arguing in packed courtrooms and presenting at meetings full of Washington power brokers, lobbyists, and the political glitterati. Or at least, she had been, before she’d had her Mike’s-getting-married meltdown.
Getting dumped, fired, and being on the way to broke hadn’t—as it turned out—done wonders for her confidence. Especially when half the people in the crowded room had gone back to talking to each other instead of waiting to hear what she had to say.
She dragged her spine up straighter and pasted on the smile she’d learned to fake early in her childhood. Confidence was ninety percent appearance, her mother had always said, but if you didn’t look a hundred percent in control, no one was going to trust you.
Briefly, Anna waved the clipboard like a flag. “I’ve brought along a signup sheet for the various committees we’re going to need,” she continued, “one for each of the main events listed in the press release Elspeth sent out the other day. If you’re willing to help out, sign your name under the event you most want to work on, and if you’re able to work on more than one, please put an asterisk beside your name. Elspeth and I will group everyone from there. Also, if you have any special skills, write those down. We’ll use some of the money from the Village Hall Fund where we need to, but the more we can do on our own, the better. Painting signs, helping set up the craft booths, building sets for the play, anything at all. Also, speaking of the play, try-outs for that will begin here promptly at six o’clock tomorrow night.”
Stepping to the nearest table, she handed the clipboard to Flora Macara to start passing around. Sitting at Flora’s right, Duncan Macara leaned forward in his seat. “So the festival is going forward, then? Connal,
you’re all right with that?”
Connal stood and moved up alongside Anna. “Elspeth, Anna, and I have worked out a compromise that—hopefully—will work for everyone.”
Without any visible shift, he’d suddenly turned into Gregor Mark as he spoke. He hadn’t so much as raised his voice, but he commanded the room, drew the audience in with a force as clear and palpable as if he’d stepped into one of his most famous roles.
“I’ve agreed to have the Sighting go ahead as part of the festival,” he said, “as long as we can move the bonfire to the village somewhere. Also, I’d like the procession to turn back at the hotel instead of going all the way around the loch so I don’t have to unlock my gate until Beltane morning. That will keep the focus of the activities centered on the village and the craft booths anyway, which is where you want them.”
Brando peeled himself away from the wall where he’d been leaning. “Are you giving us a choice, or are you saying outright you won’t allow the bonfire on your property?”
“I’d like it to be your choice.” Connal shifted his stance, about as close to uncomfortable as Anna could imagine him. “That’s the point of a compromise, and if it will help, I’m still willing to pay for the Village Hall to be rebuilt.”
“That seems very generous to me,” Anna said, nodding at Brando and practically willing him to agree.
He shook his head. “Aye, it’s generous, but we’ll have changed tradition—everything the festival was built around.” His eyes swept the room, appealing for support. “We all love Moira, but it’s not right to throw away a thousand years of what’s always been done for her sake.”
“If you’re worried about not having as many people to stay at the hotel, I’ll—”
“I don’t need your help with the hotel,” Brando snapped at Connal, “and there are other businesses besides mine who aren’t situated right here in the village and may miss out if the procession doesn’t go all the way around the glen. But that’s not my only point. What if the Sighting doesn’t work if we change the traditional celebration?”
“Traditions change organically over the centuries. We can’t even be sure the bonfire was always held on the peninsula. It would make more sense for it to have been on Tom-nan-aigeal originally,” Connal said in a level tone.
Anna shifted close to Elspeth. “What’s Tom-nan-aigeal?”
“The knoll behind the present church,” Elspeth said. “Hearth fires in the glen have been re-kindled there since Druid times, and Duncan usually lights the torch there and carries it to the bonfire site on Connal’s peninsula where the Sighting takes place.”
Arguments had broken out around the room, everyone talking to be heard above their neighbors, and no one listening to anyone but themselves.
“Seems reasonable to me,” someone shouted.
“Aye, it would—seeing as you’re a MacGregor,” someone else shouted back. “But Brando said it: What’s the point of having traditions if we throw them away so easy?”
“I say it’s worth trying if himself will pay to rebuild the Village Hall,” a woman in the back responded. “Otherwise, we could do all this work and still not raise the money we need.”
“What if moving the bonfire means the Sighting doesnae work?” yelled another, older, voice from off to the left somewhere. “Then people come this year, see nothing, and we’ll get no one coming back next year.”
“No one will come expecting to see anything anyway. No more than they would going to see a fortune teller at the circus,” Rhona Grewer yelled from near the front.
“Just because you didn’t see anything doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t want to,” a young woman in the middle shouted.
“Want all you like, Saundra.” Rhona turned to glare at her. “Wanting won’t make it happen.”
Saundra crossed her arms. “We’ll see. Maybe my heart is purer than yours.”
“Och, Rhona’s heart ain’t been pure since she were a wee barra no higher than my knee,” the older man on the left retorted.
The room erupted in laughter. Even Rhona gave a brittle laugh. Then an instant later, the arguments had started up again, growing in volume as even more villagers chimed in.
Connal sat back down and watched Anna, his intent expression a reminder that he was counting on her to help craft a solution. She had no idea what to say. Neither he nor Elspeth had mentioned the village truly believing the Sighting was real—or fearing that it might stop working if they moved the bonfire. How was she supposed to know how to counter arguments she didn’t understand?
“They can’t mean to turn Connal down, can they?” she asked close to Elspeth’s ear. “What do you think, Aunt Elspeth?”
“I think arguing’s a local sport, and everyone’s determined to have their say. Nothing for it except to nudge them along and wait.”
They’d be waiting all night, at this rate. Anna couldn’t negotiate a compromise if she didn’t even know who she was compromising with or how many were on what side. She could at least find out that much.
Climbing onto the seat of her chair, she attempted an awkward whistle. “How about if we take a vote? Maybe it’ll turn out we don’t have anything to argue over.”
There was a mutter at reduced volume and a rustle of fabric as people glanced around at their neighbors. Anna took advantage of the lull.
“All right. All those in favor of moving the bonfire and changing the procession route, raise your hands.”
Hands went up eagerly. Additional hands rose more slowly. Still more were prodded up with sharp elbows administered by neighbors, and a few other people pulled their hands down in response to glares from friends and family.
Standing on her chair, Anna counted the votes one by one.
“That’s thirty-five in favor,” she said with a sinking feeling.
“Thirty-seven if you count me and Elspeth.” Connal did not sound pleased. “And you didn’t raise your hand.”
“I shouldn’t take sides, or I’ll lose credibility for the negotiation,” Anna said, not daring to turn around and look at him.
The vote had been a mistake, she realized with her stomach turning sour. A vote implied a democratic decision, which this wasn’t. She shouldn’t have allowed the village to think it would be—that wasn’t fair to Connal.
“Aren’t you going to ask for the votes against?” someone shouted at her.
Anna gave a sigh. “Fine. All those against Connal paying for the Village Hall in exchange for moving the bonfire?”
Hands shot up again. She felt queasy as she counted them.
Brando beat her to it. “Good. That’s thirty-nine against and thirty-seven for, so that’s it then.”
“It’s still Connal’s land,” Anna said, “and we can’t force him to unlock his gates. That means we need a different compromise. Anyone have suggestions?”
Connal sat stiff with shock or anger, or perhaps a bit of both. He scrubbed a hand across his jaw and rose to his feet. Catching Anna’s hand as she climbed down from the chair, he drew her toward him instead of letting go. “I thought we’d agreed to work together.”
“Negotiations usually go several rounds,” she said, working to project confidence at him. “This is only the beginning.”
“But you just gave away the endgame.”
“I can’t make them agree, Connal. I don’t live here, and they don’t know me—much less trust me.”
“That’s the point. I do live here, and so does Moira.”
“Which is why you voted, and I didn’t.” Anna took a breath and prepared to gamble that he would have flat refused to have the Sighting on his property if he was absolutely set against it. She hoped she was reading him right.
“Tell them no, then, if you want to. But you’ll have to be the one to do it.”
“Are you always so bloody-minded?” Connal muttered beneath his breath.
Anna tilted her chin at him. “Are you going back to being rude?”
“For the love of heaven, you two.” E
lspeth stepped between them. “There are enough of us disagreeing without you both going at each other. Find a solution. We still have the play to settle, not to mention all the other events.”
“Yes, the play!” Rhona cried. “What about it, Connal? Will you direct?”
Elspeth shifted around to glare at her. “If he ever meant to consider it, he’d hardly be likely to now, would he? I want the festival as much as anyone, but we have to be fair to him.”
Flushing, Rhona shook her head. “What’s wrong with asking him? I’m not saying we’d have to publicize he’s directing, but we don’t want the play to be a complete disaster. He knows the play. He did it with Julian Ashford in London between filming Steal the Night and Cry of the Falcon.”
Connal winced as if the sound of his films was physically painful, or maybe he was uncomfortable at the thought that Rhona knew his resume so well. Without having moved an inch, he was very distant at that moment, distant and alone and worried. His shoulders had bunched themselves into knots.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Anna said to him quietly. “A possible compromise. You could offer to help direct the earliest rehearsals and turn it over to someone else before people start arriving for the festival.”
Raising his head and staring out across the room, Connal cleared his throat, a small sound that with the sweep of his gaze drew attention as much as if he’d shouted. “I’ll direct the play if you will all agree to move the bonfire and the procession. It takes two sides to compromise.”
“And there are two of you and a hundred of us.” Brando stepped forward again, and though he didn’t raise his voice either, it sliced like steel through the murmur of the crowd. “This isn’t the Middle Ages, Connal. Why should you have more say in our livelihoods than we do? How many times are we supposed to go to you hat in hand, waiting for you to pull out your checkbook or give us your cooperation so we can solve our problems?”
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