Rosslyn Chapel was a cathedral in miniature, a gem of fifteenth-century extravagance intended to ensure the St. Clair family a warm welcome in heaven. Thanks to well-timed preservation work and mention in a little book by Dan Brown, the chapel also welcomed tens of thousands of visitors every year.
“Who’s that?” Louise asked when they’d paid their fare and crossed onto the green surrounding the building.
Liam saw nobody but— “That is the chapel cat. I don’t know his name.”
“Even the chapels have kitties in Scotland. Do you know how lucky you are?”
Louise picked up the cat, a well-fed black beast who, apparently sensible of the relationship between tourist revenue and his diet, began to purr.
The cat also gave Liam a “she likes me best” look.
Dougie had worn the same expression, last Liam had seen him. “I’ll be in the building, Louise. No photos allowed inside.”
Without setting the cat down, Louise passed him her cell phone. “My first photo in Scotland, and I’m with a handsome, dark-haired man of few words. If you wouldn’t mind?”
Liam had held the camera up to his eye before he realized he’d been teased. “Shall I leave that gargoyle perched on your head?”
“You will do exactly as you please, Liam Cromarty.”
He positioned the shot so the blue Scottish sky and the massive stone of the chapel—no gargoyle—formed the backdrop to an image of a smiling woman and a smug cat. The composition was perfect, the sort of balance that often came from careful contrivance, while the content was anything but contrived.
Before Liam handed the phone back, he e-mailed himself a copy of the photo. An art appreciation class could learn a lot from it.
While Louise read every bit of literature inside the chapel, and peered at length at stonework so delicate as to defy modern comprehension, Liam studied her.
The lady did nice things for a pair of worn jeans, and she did nicer things for Liam’s mood. She had the knack of challenging without threatening, of offering insights instead of hurling them at him, cousin-style.
Rather than intrude on her further acquaintance with the chapel, Liam went outside, found a sunny bench, followed his phone call from Stockholm with a text to Copenhagen, and then took out the latest of the many art periodicals he tried to keep up with.
He was slogging through another attempt by Robert Stiedenbeck, III, to be profound and witty on the subject of fur as symbolism in American colonial portraiture when Louise joined him on the bench.
“I suppose you’ve seen the chapel a dozen times?” she asked.
“At least, and I’ll see it a dozen more. When I teach in Edinburgh, we bring the class here. The chapel makes an excellent starting point for discussions of the economics of art, and how art can make a different contribution to society as that society changes over centuries.”
“They stabled horses in there during the Reformation,” Louise said as the cat leaped onto the bench. “Horses, Liam. One swift kick from a cranky mare, and wham, a detail on a carving somebody labored two years to create could have been gone.”
Americans had had a revolution and a civil war, but without the oppression of a state religion, they were baffled by the complexity and violence of the Reformation.
The cat walked right into Louise’s lap, with the same casual dignity as old ladies walked onto the ferry at the conclusion of an afternoon’s shopping.
Liam offered the cat a scratch to the nape of its neck. “Fortunately, the mares were either equine Papists or more interested in their hay than architecture. What is it with you and cats?”
“Have you ever been to Georgia?”
“I have. Friendly place.” And the food, holy God, the food… Fried heaven, even for a vegetarian, though the accent was baffling.
“I grew up there. Everybody’s nice, but nobody’s real, and then,”—she cradled the cat against her shoulder—“they can slice you to ribbons, all the while blessing your heart, darlin’, and you poor thang, and that is such a shame-ing. I’m convinced the mixed message was invented by women of the American South.”
“Family can be a trial.” Liam had the sense Louise’s family was worse than that. They were an ongoing affliction that bewildered her and wouldn’t go away, like persistent grief.
“I grew up with cats,” she said. “Cats are honest. If they don’t want you to pick them up, they hiss and scratch. I love them for that. Love that they are simply what they appear to be, and if they enjoy your company, they are honest about that too.”
Liam enjoyed Louise’s company. He ought not. She wasn’t precisely reserved, though she wasn’t quite friendly either.
“Georgia is far away,” Liam said, closing the periodical. “Family often means well as they’re wreaking their havoc, and if you’re lucky, they find somebody else to plague with their good intentions before you’ve committed any hanging felonies. Have you seen enough?”
Louise set the cat on the ground, and the beast went strutting off to its next diplomatic mission for the Scottish tourist industry.
“Your family was hard on you?” Louise asked.
She was a perceptive woman, so Liam gave her a version of the truth.
“I went through a bad patch a few years back. One of those bad breakups you mentioned earlier, followed by a bit too much brooding for a bit too long. They worried.”
If Louise regarded that as an invitation to pry, Liam would have only himself to blame, because he never disclosed even that much. He’d done a bit too much drinking, too.
She picked up his magazine, a quarterly journal useful for inducing sleep or lining Dougie’s litter box. Liam intended to cancel his subscription, but hadn’t got ’round to it.
“You seem to have found your balance now,” Louise said. “You read this stuff?”
“I read the abstracts. Somebody needs to teach most academics how to write. The article I attempted was worse than usual, though the learned Dr. Stiedenback will cite it at every lecture he gives for the next three years.”
Louise made a face, as if the milk had turned. “You know him? This is an American journal.”
“The art world is small, especially the gallery art world.” And that world was the last topic Liam wanted to discuss with Louise Cameron. “Do you ever visit those people in Georgia?”
“Every other Christmas. They tsk-tsk over all the boyfriends I don’t bring along, cluck about the New Year being full of new opportunities, and tell me I’m nothing but skin and bones.”
Well, no actually, she wasn’t. “They’re of Scottish descent, then?”
Ah, a smile. At last another smile. Part of Liam had been waiting hours to see that smile, and now the image he beheld—pretty chapel, pretty spring day, pretty lady—went from well composed to lovely.
“You’re hilarious, Liam Cromarty. As a matter of fact, they are Scottish on my father’s side. Mom’s DAR royalty—Daughters of the American Revolution—and related to Robert E. Lee, too. Daddy is the reason my sisters and I ended up with middle names like Mavis, Fiona, and Ainsley.”
“Good names.” Beautiful names. “Shall we head back to town? The temperature will drop as the sun sets, and Arthur’s Seat can be windy.”
Louise passed him the periodical and stood. “You really think that Professor Stiedenbeck doesn’t write well?”
Odd question, but at least she wasn’t interrogating Liam about his family.
“Somebody has taken pity on the bastard and assigned him a decent editor this time around, but he offers nothing original and takes a long-winded, self-important time to do it. Not very professional of me, but I imagine he’s the sort who lectures his lovers into a coma before he gets on with the business, and then doesn’t deliver much of a finish.”
Lovely became transcendent as Louise fought valiantly against Liam’s unprofessional humor and lost, heartily, at length, in happy, loud peals. She was still snickering when they got back to the car, and Liam was smiling simply because he’d made her laugh.
“Cromarty, please don’t ever become an art critic,” she said, opening a bottle of Highland Spring. “With analysis like that, you will develop a following wide enough to end the career of anybody you take into dislike.”
Liam pulled out of the car park, and when Louise offered him a sip from the bottle, he politely declined.
* * *
Long-dormant powers of observation and analysis stirred inside Louise as she and Liam trekked up the eight-hundred-foot hill flanking Edinburgh to the southeast. The views were lovely, of course, but the terrain, like what she’d seen of Perthshire, wasn’t much different from Maryland between the Appalachians and the Chesapeake shores.
And yet…
“I see differently here,” Louise said as they stood aside to let an older couple coming down the slope pass them. “I’m noting the details, the colors, the relationships, the geometry. Maybe it’s the light.”
“Maybe you’re on holiday,” Liam countered, starting up the trail. “You got a good night’s sleep, you’re in different surrounds, and you’re paying attention. One of the advantages of travel.”
Louise paid attention to him, and not only because from a three-hundred-word abstract, he’d described Robert Stiedenbeck, III, exactly.
“Men move differently in kilts,” Louise said, scrambling up a set of natural rock steps. “More freely. It’s attractive.”
Even the older guys with their walking sticks and stolid ladies at their sides moved with a certain assurance, but then, so did many of the unkilted men.
And all of the ladies.
“I was hoping I’d hate it here,” Louise said, because clearly, Liam wouldn’t dignify her comment about the kilts with a reply. “I’m not hating it.”
“Hating is a lot of effort. Mind your step.”
Liam needed to work on his charm, but he could hike the hell out of a Scottish hill.
“There are no guardrails here,” Louise said, taking Liam’s proffered hand to negotiate another natural incline. “No signs all over the place. Climb at Your Own Risk, or No Littering, or All Dogs Must Be on a Leash, or Scoop Your Poop.”
No litter either. Nobody taking stupid risks.
Liam tugged her over a scattering of loose rock. “Sounds like a lot of noise and blather. How could you see the pretty landscape for all those lectures and scolds?”
Liam’s question brought them to a stretch of gently rising grassy slope.
“Stop, please,” Louise said, keeping hold of Liam’s hand lest he conquer the summit on the strength of forward momentum alone.
He obliged as a quartet of teenagers went giggling and flirting past. “You’re in need of a rest?”
“How could I see the pretty landscape for all those lectures and scolds?” Liam’s words caught in Louise’s throat as she repeated them. “Lectures about posture, deportment, the family name. Lectures about appearance, the right people. Lectures delivered with the arch of an eyebrow or a serving of pecan pie.” Her breathing hitched, as if her lungs had been squeezed by a giant, familial hand. “Crap and a half, I thought I was done with all this.”
Liam didn’t drop her hand, and his grip was reassuringly warm. “Has your family come to call?”
He was quick—the Scots would call him canny—and his gaze was kind.
Louise managed a nod. “Anxiety along with them. I almost never have these episodes anymore. Damn.”
She’d learned to breathe through the dread, to count her breaths instead of hoard them. She didn’t have panic attacks. She had episodes, or—Auntie Ev had of course chimed in—little spells.
“Let’s sit, shall we?” Liam suggested. The trail was flanked by boulders and rocky outcroppings in spots. He drew Louise over to one, and she sank against it. Liam came down beside her, right immediately beside her.
And he kept her hand in his.
“I’m sorry,” Louise said, while the predictable elephant tried to sit on her chest. “New places, schedule whacked. Should have been more careful.” Mention of Robert, when he was supposed to be thousands of miles away, lecturing another, younger, more confident woman into a coma, probably hadn’t helped either.
Liam rubbed his thumb back and forth across Louise’s knuckles. “You should be less careful. Enough new places and pretty views, and you’ll get your heart back, but that takes time.”
And courage. “You speak from experience?”
His thumb slowed. A dog that looked like Irish wolfhound-lite sniffed at Liam’s knee, then went trotting off toward the top of the hill.
“I speak from experience, and from hope. Bad things happen, but then there are friendly dogs, beautiful portraits, delicious curries, and lovely views. There’s wee Henry, whom I will spoil shamelessly exactly as I do his cousins. There’s meaningful work, and a good sturdy piece of granite to oblige us when we’re a bit winded.”
A bit winded. Louise dropped her forehead to Liam’s shoulder, as the certainty that all creation faced imminent doom faded, replaced by a simple lump in her throat.
“Were you a bit winded, after your bad breakup?” she asked.
“I was flat knackered, but I’d already been going too hard and too fast for too long.”
“I’ve left the profession that was supposed to be my salvation,” Louise said. “I’ve moved, ditched a relationship that wasn’t right, and I have no idea where I’m going.” And she’d been going at the lawyer stuff too hard and too fast for the five longest years in the history of lawyering, too. Trying to build a practice, trying to be a solid partner to Jane, who’d been born quoting Marbury v. Madison.
Liam’s arm came around Louise’s shoulders in a bracing squeeze. “Catch your breath, and we’ll take the last part slowly. The hill isn’t going anywhere, and we still have some light.”
For one more moment, Louise had the blessed pleasure of Liam’s hand in hers and his arm around her shoulders in a friendly hug. Then he stood, though he remained beside her.
Louise gave herself the space of three more slow, medium breaths—deep breaths could lead to hyperventilation—then got to her feet.
“I’m not going back to Georgia for Christmas,” she announced. “Not this year, maybe not ever. Travel at the holidays is crazy, and I can see my sisters anytime.” Especially now that her life wasn’t ruled by the almighty court docket—though the academic calendar could be just as tyrannical.
“Onward, then,” Liam said.
He had the knack of companionship, of neither leading nor following, but staying mostly at Louise’s side. When the trail narrowed, he might go first, or Louise might. They didn’t need to talk about who led or who followed or which fork to take when they faced a choice.
Because the afternoon was well advanced, the very top of the hill was mostly deserted. They passed the occasional couple or family on a picnic blanket, or a lone walker contemplating a view, but at the highest, rockiest point, they had the hill to themselves.
The North Sea glistened off to the northeast, while beyond Edinburgh, green countryside stretched inland around the Pentland Hills. Louise got out her phone, wanting to capture the memory of a wonderful day.
Despite the visit from her relatives.
“You’re smiling,” Liam said. “Shall I take a photo?”
“Please, and try not to put any gargoyles in my hair.”
The same big, wire-haired dog came sniffing up the rocks, only this time his examination of Liam’s knee was cursory. As Liam fiddled with the phone, the dog came panting to Louise’s side.
“You smell the chapel kitty,” Louise said, offering her hand for inspection. The dog licked her wrist, then took a seat at her feet as if photobombing was all part of the service, ma’am.
“The local Scottish Tourism Board representative wants his picture taken,” Liam said as the camera clicked. “I expect the chapel cat sent him. You might smile now, Louise. Scottish deerhounds can be particular about the company they keep.”
Louise smiled, because she was particular about the company she kept. No more Roberts—he had been a weak moment brought on by a career transition and a sexual drought—and no more pecan pie topped with mixed messages.
For the next two weeks her company would be Scotland and Dougie.
Also Liam Cromarty.
“I think I’ll get a dog,” she said. “A nice big, friendly dog.” Blackstone would have to adjust, or join Jane and Dunstan’s practice.
“I like dogs,” Liam replied, as the camera clicked again. The breeze whipped his dark hair every which way, but his concentration as he tapped the screen was unwavering.
Down the hill, somebody whistled, and the deerhound trotted off.
“Your turn,” Louise said, taking the phone from him. “Think Scottish thoughts.”
“Just for that, I’ll introduce you to tablet,” Liam said, shifting so the wind blew his hair back, not into his eyes. “Or Jeannie’s whisky brownies.”
“You’re talking to a Southern woman, Cromarty. Don’t make me get out my bourbon cake recipe.”
Viewing him through the camera lens, Louise had to both look and see. What aspect of this guy belonged in his portrait? What would those painters whose works hung in the gallery do with this subject?
Louise shifted the angle, so wide blue sky got honorable mention, along with the cairn of red-brown rocks topping the summit. The sea shone behind the hill, a flat, silver mirror saying farewell to the late-day sun.
And yet the kilted man standing off-center in the frame dominated the image easily.
“What’s tablet?” Louise asked.
Just as she hit the shutter button, Liam smiled. Not a Scottish Tourism Board grin, not a pained male, “for God’s sake, get it over with” smile.
“You would probably call tablet fudge,” he said, with a hint of a challenge. “Sort of a blend of sweetened condensed milk and butter. The perfect treat to tide you over until supper, and I have some in my sporran.”
Louise took a second shot of that slight, diabolical smile, but the fiend had dangled a lure her blood sugar couldn’t resist. She put her phone away.
“What do I have to do to get some of this magical treat?” she asked.
They were alone at the top of Arthur’s Seat, the light would soon fade, and Louise did not want to leave. The views were magnificent, and the climb—and the company—had done her good.
Liam dug in his sporran and passed her a bite-sized square the color of turbinado sugar.
“What you must do to earn this treat, Louise Cameron, is enjoy it.”
The texture was perfect, between fudge and hard frosting, the sweetness underlain with the richness of cream. Hot, strong coffee would hold up to such a delectable morsel.
“This stuff ought to come with a gym membership,” Louise said. “Chunky Monkey pales by comparison. You aren’t having any?”
“My treat,” Liam said, brushing a loose strand of hair back from her jaw, “is that right at this moment, you’re happy. Tablet is not as delectable as the smile you’re wearing, Miss Cameron.”
On that unexpected bit of gallantry, he moved off down the incline.
Louise finished her tablet, munching slowly, letting the pleasure dissolve on her tongue as the sun sank lower and the sea gleamed on the horizon.
“I’m happy,” she whispered, letting the realization replace all the anxious, dark, doubting feelings she often carried around inside. More baggage than she realized, heavier than she’d known. She lifted her arms to the sky, not caring if Liam was watching.
I’m happy.
When she’d clambered down to the path, she fell in beside Liam, content to walk beside him all the way back to the car park. The day had been magical, and some of the magic clung to her, even as she wondered:
What would it take for Liam to be happy too?
* * *
A prediction of rain saved Liam’s sanity, for yesterday’s frolics had about done him in. He took himself down the path to the cottage, intent on confirming with Louise that she’d not need her driver for the day.
Honesty compelled Liam to admit that Louise Cameron’s mouth—a perfectly mundane arrangement of two lips—had about done him in. Her mouth had moods— thoughtful, determined, merry, frustrated. He’d taken to studying her mouth when he ought to have been studying portraits of old Rabbie Burns or Mad King George.
Louise was leaving in less than two weeks, but the image of her smiling atop Arthur’s Seat would linger in Liam’s memory long after her departure. More excellent composition, which he’d e-mailed to himself, but he’d probably not share those photos with his classes.
He knocked on the front door of the cottage, and nobody answered. From the base of the picture window, Dougie blinked up at him.
“I brought cat food,” Liam informed his pet. “Though I suspect you’ve wheedled cheese and worse from the lady.”
Dougie replied with a squint—a self-satisfied squint.
The door was unlocked, practically guaranteeing another visit from Uncle Donald. “Anybody home?” Liam called as he walked into the kitchen.
Perhaps Uncle Donald had kidnapped Louise for a spot of fishing. She had Liam’s cell phone number, and might have called if her plans—
Somebody was down the hall in the studio, humming along to the strains of “Caledonia.”
Bless the rainy forecast. Liam set the can of gourmet cat food on the kitchen counter, slung his damp jacket around the back of a chair, and eased down the hall.
Louise sat before the pottery wheel, a small column of wet, reddish clay rotating slowly between her hands. Liam’s reaction was immediate, erotic, and inconvenient as hell.
He was going daft. First her mouth, then her hands. She pressed her thumbs into the top of the column, creating the beginnings of a dished shape, then continued to press, so the column developed a hollow interior.
Just like Liam’s mind. Arousal, visual pleasure, consternation, and surprise rocketed about inside him, but nothing as coherent as an actual thought.
“I know you’re there, Liam,” Louise said as the clay became a vase. “I thought I heard the door, and I can smell your aftershave. You’re allowed to watch. I’m not one of those artists who throws mud at someone who interrupts her work.”
From the CD player, Dougie MacLean—such a helpful fellow—sang gently about kisses, love, and going home.
“Wouldn’t fiddle music be easier to work to?” Liam asked, leaning on the doorjamb. “There’s a Paul Anderson album in that stack that’s breathtaking.”
Everything Paul Anderson recorded was breathtaking.
Louise used the back of her wrist to scratch her chin and got a daub of wet clay on her jaw.
“I’ll listen to them all before I leave, possibly before the day’s done. The forecast said rain for most of the day.”
And thunder and lightning behind Liam’s sporran, apparently. For years he’d not been plagued with unforeseen arousal, with much of any arousal. His equipment functioned, he made sure of that from time to time, but Louise with her wet hands and her hair in a haphazard topknot had ambushed him.
“If you want to spend the day here, I have plenty of work to do,” Liam said. “Papers to read, lecture notes to prepare. If you need anything, you have only to—”
“I need a hard-boiled egg or two and a cup of coffee.”
Liam nearly told her, as he would have told any sister, cousin, or other presuming female, to get it herself or at least say please, but Louise hadn’t looked up from her project. She bent closer to the wheel, shaping the vase into a taller column, gently, gently, then spreading the base with the same deft, sure movements.
She’s happy. She was once again happy.
“You’ve done this a lot,” Liam said. Louise did it well, too. Her expertise was evident in her focus and in the results of her efforts. Some people had the gift of creating art directly with their hands—no brushes, knitting needles, or musical instruments required. They had art—vision, texture, composition—in their very touch.
Louise apparently owned that gift, an ability that went beyond talent to the very nature of the beast doing the creation.
“Used to stay up all night, throwing and re-throwing the same clay. If clay worked for God, why not for a high school kid dragging around thirty extra pounds in all the wrong places?”
More self-disclosure, or another nod to the Georgia pecan pie mafia. “I’ll fetch you an egg and a cup of tea.”
“I asked for—damn it to hell and back. I’ll need all day to learn this wheel. I asked for coffee.”
“I don’t know how to work that fancy machine,” Liam said, and his ability to read directions was none too reliable at the moment. The smudge on Louise’s chin was driving him ’round the bend. “Jeannie bought the coffee maker for a couple of German engineers who visited over the winter.”
Then too, tea might steady Liam’s nerves.
Without looking up, Louise smiled at her vase and let it pirouette on the wheel for a few rotations, delicacy and dirt dancing together. Then she demolished it, smushing it back onto the wheel with both hands so a formless lump of wet mud twirled off-center where art had been.
“Tea then,” she said, using a tool that resembled a wire garrote to free the clay from the wheel. “And some of that tablet stuff you keep in your man purse.”
“Sporran,” Liam muttered, leaving the lady to her mud. He considered stopping off in the loo, he was that randy, but turned his thoughts to making tea, peeling three hard-boiled eggs, and slicing some cheddar made on the Isle of Mull—island cows were happy cows, according to Jeannie.
The tablet, he left in his sporran, for now.
“Breakfast,” he said, setting a tray on the studio’s work table a few minutes later. On the CD player, Mr. MacLean had mercifully switched to a pair of fiddles waltzing along in slow harmony.
“All I need is a bite,” Louise muttered, leaning far enough forward that a loose hank of hair dropped forward over her shoulder.
An inch more forward and that hair would hit the wheel, which was arguably dangerous and certainly messy. Liam caught the errant lock and tucked it back among its mates.
“Thanks,” Louise said, coaxing the clay upward. “This clay acts like it’s cold, but it’s not. We’re having a discussion, the clay and I, or maybe an argument.”
Liam held Louise’s mug of tea up to her mouth. She took a sip, peering at him over the rim. The smudge of clay on her chin was drying to pale dust, and he wanted to brush it off so badly his fingers itched.
“A bite of egg?” he asked.
“I see you put salt on the tray. I like a sprinkle of salt on mine, please, but just a sprinkle.”
As the clay twirled endlessly on the wheel, Liam suffered the torture of feeding the artist by hand. She nibbled delicately from his fingers, the intimacy endurable only because Louise was apparently oblivious to it.
Her attention had been seduced by a lump of wet clay, while Liam eyed the clock and wished the call he expected from Ankara would come in.
Though the image of Louise and the chapel cat had become his phone’s wallpaper. Not very smart, that.
“You’re an art historian,” Louise said as a lovely fluted bowl was obliterated on the spinning surface. “Are you also an artist? I’ll teach you to throw in return for driving lessons.”
“I dabble with a sketch pad, but I haven’t any real talent.” Karen had assured Liam of that, but only in recent years had he ignored her laughing assessment and drawn anyway. “Would you like more egg?”
“Cheese first,” she said. “I can smell it even in here. I love cheese.”
“What happened to the thirty extra pounds?” Liam asked. Louise had found good homes for some of those pounds, in all the right places.
“My older brother got me a horse. Six months of practically living at the barn, and no more thirty extra pounds. I was mostly out of shape, sitting at the wheel by the hour when I wasn’t sitting in classes at school, or sitting at my desk doing homework—”
Liam held the lightly salted egg up to Louise’s mouth. She took a bite, then another.
“What happened to the horse?” he asked, mostly out of desperation.
“When I went to college, my parents gave me the choice of selling the horse or passing him along to my sister. I went off to school, and by Christmas, Bobo had been sold. My mother claimed my sister lost interest. My sister claimed Mom wouldn’t drive her out to the barn.”
Liam held up the egg again, and Louise’s attention shifted from what had possibly been the beginning of a teapot to the food.
Liam didn’t think. He let protectiveness, sexual arousal, and a need for her to not ignore him drive his actions. When Louise turned toward the half an egg Liam held, instead of the egg he gave her a kiss.
“To hell with Georgia, Louise. If you were happy at the horse barn, sign up for lessons again. You’re happy throwing. Set up your studio again. Teach other people to throw. Finish that art degree.”
She remained right where she was, her mouth an inch from Liam’s.
“I did.” She kissed him back, then resumed tormenting her clay, as if people kissed in the course of discussion with her all the time. “I got the damned degree, a lot of good it did me. Tea?”
This art degree had made her unhappy, or perhaps art degrees didn’t go well with pecan pie and controlling parents.
While lawyering hadn’t gone well for Louise?
“Losing that weight, learning to ride, gave you strength your family wasn’t accustomed to seeing in you,” Liam said.
“Growing four more inches didn’t hurt either,” Louise replied, scraping the clay off the wheel. This time she shut the wheel off, so it spun gradually to a halt. “Your tea will get cold, Liam.”
She picked up his cup in her wet, muddy hands and held it up to this mouth. He drank despite the incongruous scents of wet clay and roses blending with an understated Darjeeling he’d found in Edinburgh.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your work,” Liam said. “You’ll want to converse with your clay, and I’m sure—”
She took a drink of his tea. “I need to think about the clay. I’ve thought about something else, too, though. I’ve thought about taking you to bed.”