| |
––––––––
Half an hour later, Keir stomped back down the stairs to his garage. Mairi had locked herself in the bathroom with a pile of sandwiches and half a dozen magazines and told him she wasn’t coming out until she’d used all the hot water, and she was sure her hair was bug-free.
Since she was out of his reach, Keir made sure the doors and windows were locked, and then retreated to regroup. He needed a better plan of attack. The one he was using wasn’t working fast enough—not if she was itching to get her hands on the twins’ abs. He lifted his shirt and looked down. His abs were way better than theirs, and she was welcome to put her hands on them anytime.
“Not sure acting all caveman was the way to win her over,” Sean said from the desk, where he was setting up the website Keir didn’t want.
“What was I supposed to do? Let her fondle the twins? Not on your life.” He opened the tiny fridge in his even tinier office and took out two cans of Scotland’s other national drink, Barr’s Irn-Bru. He threw one at his brother, who snatched it out of the air with a thanks. “These guys have no self-respect. They camp out here, mooning over Mairi, flashing their abs to tempt her. It’s time they went home.”
Sean took a long drink before wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Aye, how dare they? Don’t they realize they’re homing in on the woman you’ve been stalking for years? How many times have you flashed your abs at her, again?”
Keir narrowed his eyes at his brother and wondered if hitting him would help relieve some tension. “Not stalking. Staying close to and looking out for her. There’s a difference.”
“Aye, sure there is.” Sean sat back in the rickety office chair and gave Keir a considering look. “And it just gets hot in the garage. That’s why your top comes off at the drop of a hat.”
Keir answered with a hand gesture. He didn’t have time to deal with his brother. Not when there was a gang of geeks outside trying to tempt Mairi away from him. A little voice asked him if they could really tempt her away if he didn’t have her to begin with. That little voice was just someone else Keir needed to punch.
“Can you keep an eye on her while I go home, shower and pick up some stuff?” he asked Sean.
“Sure. This will take a while anyway.”
“I told you already,” Keir said. “You don’t need to do this. I don’t need a website.”
“And I already told you that you do. Whether you like it or not, old man, I’m dragging you and your business into this century.”
“Fine, knock yourself out, but don’t blame me when none of my customers use the damn thing.” He tossed his crumpled can into the trash. “I need to get cleaned up. I’ll be back soon.”
“Keir?” Sean said, stopping him on his way out. “Are you sure about this? About Mairi? You’ve been here for two years and she hasn’t given you the time of day. You’re no closer to winning her back than you were when you bought this place.”
Keir ran a hand through his hair. Sean wasn’t wrong. Keir had foolishly thought that he’d buy the business and worm his way back into Mairi’s good graces. All he’d really managed to do was irritate her further.
“You don’t know everything that happened with me and Mairi. She has a right to hold a grudge,” Keir said, staring at the wall, but not seeing the shelves, instead seeing the past. The look on Mairi’s face the one and only time they’d made love. The vulnerability in her eyes when he’d left straight afterward.
“It’s been years,” Sean said softly. “She didn’t come see you the year you were in prison. Then you spent more years working, building up your business and seeing other women. Then one day, out of the blue, you decide you want another chance with Mairi and buy this place. I hate to say it, you know I’m behind you one hundred percent, but maybe you missed your chance. Maybe the time you had with Mairi is gone for good. Maybe it’s time to move on.”
Keir leaned back against the vintage muscle car they were restoring for a customer in Glasgow. Suddenly, the situation with Mairi felt heavy, as though it were a weight he would never get out from under. Could a person attain forgiveness? Was there really such a thing as a second chance? Did he deserve one? Hell, did anyone? All he knew was that he needed one, and he needed it badly.
“We were together months before we slept with each other,” Keir said to his brother. It felt as though the words had to come out. That he had to tell someone before the weight squashed him flat. “I wanted her to know I loved her before I took her to bed. I wanted her to know she was different from other girls. Because she was. She is.” He let out a long, heavy breath. “After Mairi, I tried dating other women. I tried moving on. But every one of them was measured against her and found wanting. It got to the point where I had a choice: either settle for second best and always pine for the woman who got away or throw everything into trying to get her back. I chose the latter option, because settling for someone other than Mairi wasn’t fair to me or to the woman who got stuck with me.”
“I get that, I really do,” Sean said. “But it’s been two years. How long do you keep on trying? The rest of your life?”
Keir looked at his younger brother and saw such genuine concern on his face that it reminded Keir just how much he loved the annoying wee fart. Sean had been a surprise baby when his parents had thought Keir was enough, which meant there were six years between the brothers. The night Sean had gotten into trouble and messed up both their lives, he’d been just nineteen years old—one year younger than Mairi at the time. Keir had been twenty-five, older, wiser, smarter—or so he’d thought. All he’d known for sure at the time was that he had to step in and give his baby brother the chance to turn his life off a rotten path. And he had.
Keir couldn’t be prouder of him. They’d spent years working through the guilt Sean felt over ruining Keir’s life. The truth was that Keir didn’t regret stepping in to save his brother, and he knew if the situation were reversed, his brother would have done the same. So, no, he never blamed Sean, and he made sure Sean got over blaming himself. The only thing Keir wished had been different was that the car theft had happened on another night. One where he hadn’t managed to get Mairi into bed for the first time. That was his only regret—timing. Maybe if the timing had been better, she would have listened to his explanation and would have stood by him. Maybe.
“This is my last stand, Sean. I hear what you’re saying, and it’s nothing I haven’t thought myself. So, this is it. If I can’t break through now, I’m walking away.” And he knew it would kill him to do so.
“I don’t get it,” Sean said. “I love Mairi, I do, but why her? She’s grumpy and stubborn, unforgiving and annoying. Okay, she’s gorgeous, but seriously, there are plenty of women out there just as good looking. So why Mairi?”
Keir closed his eyes and smiled. Visions of Mairi from their short relationship assaulted him. She was all the things his brother said she was, but she was also much more. She was kind and funny. Eccentric and smart. She saw the world differently from anyone he’d ever known, and she was fiercely loyal to the people she felt she could trust. He’d broken that trust at a time when she was at her most vulnerable, but he’d had it for a short while and it had felt like he was basking in continuous sunshine. And then there was touching Mairi. Nothing felt like touching Mairi. It was as though their bodies were completely in tune with each other. The smallest touch sent off shock waves—something that, thankfully, hadn’t changed in their years apart. When he’d kissed her at the hospital, the whole world had ignited.
“She makes me feel completely alive,” Keir said softly, his eyes still closed, his mind on the memories of Mairi laughing and leading him astray with her wild plans. He opened his eyes to look at his brother. “She makes me feel like I can do anything when I’m with her. She makes me feel steady. Complete.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it. But when I’m with her, I feel like I’m looking at my purpose. I feel like I was born to love Mairi. And that’s why it hurts so bloody much that I can’t do what I’m meant to do.”
There was a long silence, each brother lost in his own thoughts.
“Then,” Sean said at last, “we make this last stand count. We give it our all. I have your back, Keir. Together, we’ll bring your girl around.”
“I know you do,” Keir said, believing every word.
With a nod to his brother, he headed out to retrieve his car from where he’d parked it on the bluff the night before. Mairi’s men had gathered together in the middle of their camping area. Someone had made a McDonald’s run, and they ate while they discussed ways to woo Mairi that ranged from setting up extravagant dates to buying her expensive gifts.
Keir ran a hand over his hair as he passed them. How was he supposed to compete with that? It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford to shower her with gifts; he made a good living and had decent savings. But he had nothing like the amounts some of these guys were talking about. On top of that, how was he supposed to stand out in a crowd that was throwing every romantic gesture on the planet at Mairi? If he gave her flowers, he was just another guy standing in line to give her flowers. It was the same story for evenings out, dinner dates, gifts. No matter what he did, he’d end up one of the crowd.
And that was the last place he wanted to be.
At least he was the one inside Mairi’s apartment, while they were camped outside. It was an advantage he had to make the most of, which meant stepping up his game. But how? He almost tripped over his feet when the answer came to him. The fake boyfriends were trying to romance Mairi—therefore, what Keir needed to do was seduce her. Yeah, that was exactly what he needed to do. He needed to bypass all that flowers and chocolate crap and shoot for the goal. He needed to show Mairi that the chemistry between them was still off the charts and that being with him was something she couldn’t live without.
As he drove out of Arness and headed for his house on the outskirts of Campbeltown, he started planning all the ways he could go about seducing Mairi. She wasn’t going to know what had hit her until after she was wearing his ring. Stealth. Seduction. That was what she needed. And that was what she was going to get.
♦♦♦
Even after two hours of washing and combing her hair, Mairi still wasn’t reassured that there wasn’t a colony of bugs in there somewhere. She wiped the condensation from the bathroom mirror and examined her body. Some bruises, a few scrapes and angry red dots on her rear from the thistles—it could have been a lot worse. When she remembered the moment she fell over the cliff, her stomach dropped. If it hadn’t been for Keir grabbing her and pulling her closer to the cliff, she was sure she would have ended up in the water rather than on that ledge.
There was a thump at her bathroom door, and Mairi grasped her towel around her. “Who’s out there?” she snapped. Seriously, if one of her men had broken in, she was going to break them before she threw them out again.
“It’s your temporary bodyguard,” Sean said through the door. “You weren’t answering your phone, so your sister called on Keir’s ancient landline.”
Mairi threw the door open. “Temporary bodyguard?”
“Keir’s gone home to shower, seeing as you were hogging the bathroom. He left me here as your guard dog.” He tossed the cordless phone at Mairi. “Got any snacks?” He headed for the kitchen.
Mairi frowned after him as she put the phone to her ear. “Hey,” she said.
“You fell down a cliff?” Agnes screeched.
Mairi held the phone away from her ear and took a deep breath.
“Mairi Sinclair, answer me right this minute,” Agnes shouted.
Reluctantly, Mairi put the phone back to her ear. “I’m fine. Keir’s fine. We’re all fine.”
She sat on the edge of the bed, still clutching the towel over her chest in case anyone else walked into her home.
“Donna said you spent the night on a tiny wee ledge. You could have fallen into the sea. You could have drowned. Or worse, you could have landed on the rocks and lain there, bloody and dying until finally someone found your shattered corpse.”
“Thanks for that visual, Aggie. That makes me feel a whole lot better.”
As usual, Agnes ignored the reprimand. “Were you hurt?”
“Cuts, bruises, thistles stuck in my backside. Other than that, I’m fine.”
There was a long, worrying pause. “That’s it. I’m coming home. I can sit the exams in a few months.”
“You will not!” The last thing Mairi needed was Agnes elbowing her way back into the situation and taking over. When she got in one of her I’ll-sort-it moods, she tended to trample over everything and everyone to ensure her will was carried out. Mairi had a headache just thinking about it. “These exams are important, and you left Keir to look after me.”
“And he isn’t. I know this because. You. Fell. Down. A. Cliff.”
“Keir grabbed me and pulled me into the cliff. If he hadn’t, I’d have hit the water. Trust me. He’s watching out for me, whether I want it or not. And in case you were even vaguely interested in what I might want, the answer is I don’t want him here.”
“I’m coming home,” Agnes said, making Mairi wonder if she’d heard anything she’d just said.
“No. I forbid it. Sit the exams and come home when you’re done. I’m fine. It’s all fine.” She stood up, still holding the towel. “If you come home before the week is up, I swear I will make you pay.”
“How, exactly? Are you going to cook for a month?”
“No.” Mairi narrowed her eyes at the faded Valentine’s card Agnes kept pinned behind the photos on her noticeboard. It had been written by a local hotel owner’s son, whom Agnes had spent a summer with as a teen. The same hotel owner that Agnes had been cultivating for years, hoping to manage his business once her course was finished. “I’ll call Old Man Ferguson and tell him that not only did you have an affair with his son years ago, but there was a love child that you put up for adoption. I’ll tell him that the only reason you want to work for him is to ruin his business and get revenge on his family for leaving you alone and pregnant as a teen.” Damn, that sounded good.
There was an aggravated sigh. “You’ve been watching daytime soaps again, haven’t you? What did I tell you about that? I told you they would rot your brain, and now we have proof, because that was a seriously crap threat. Nobody would believe it.”
“Fine, then I’ll fill your bed with spiders and worms if you come home early.”
“You little witch.” Agnes sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll stay here, but Keir better make sure you’re safe or I’ll deal with him myself.”
“I’ll be sure to let him know. Now go sail through those exams and become a big-time hotel manager.”
“I love you, you halfwit.”
“Love you too, big brain.” Mairi hung up and turned to find Sean standing in her doorway, his arms full of boxes of chocolates.
“They’ve stopped sending flowers,” he said, looking a little bewildered.
Mairi snatched a box from the top of the pile. Thorntons, her favorite. She looked up at Keir’s brother. “You want to watch daytime TV and pig out on chocolate?”
“Works for me.” He turned and headed back into the living room. “Put on some clothes, though,” he called back at her. “If Keir catches me here with you dressed like that, he’ll kill me.”
“Keir wouldn’t care if I was walking around naked when he returned.”
There was the sound of unhinged laughter from the living room. Mairi threw on some old sweatpants, which were a fetching shade of puke green, and a pink and white striped tee and went to join Sean on the sofa. She opened the chocolates, put her feet up on the crate that functioned as a coffee table, and pointed the remote at the TV.
“Jeremy Kyle,” they both said in delight as the tabloid talk show host appeared on the screen, surrounded by shouting guests.
“Which one is it?” Sean tore into giant box of Roses chocolates.
Mairi hit the button that would give them the show details. “Your boyfriend killed my hamster.”
With matching grins, Sean and Mairi settled in to watch some train wreck TV.