CHAPTER SIXTEEN

DATING WAS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT when you had two children, Serena thought at ten minutes until seven on Friday. When she’d started seeing Edward, she’d spent hours getting ready—soaking in a bubble bath, styling her hair to perfection, redoing her makeup until it was runway perfect. Now she was putting on mascara as quickly as possible, while Max splashed in the bathtub beside her. After she got him dried off and into his pajamas, she would change from her robe into her date clothes—once the imminent danger of sticky fingers was mostly past.

“Mummy!”

Serena turned toward Max just as he slammed his hand onto the surface of the water, sending up a splash that sprayed across the room and splattered everything in its path: the wall, the mirror, her newly made-up face.

“Max! Stop that!” She grabbed a towel and dabbed her face, trying not to smear her work.

“Sorry, Mummy.”

“All right, monkey, it’s time to get you out. What pajamas do you want to wear?”

“Dinosaurs!”

Of course. Everything was dinosaurs lately. She grabbed a towel and lifted him out onto the mat, then gave him a good rubdown before she carried him down the hall to his bedroom. As soon as she pulled out his pajamas from the built-in drawers, though, he yanked them out of her hand. “I’ll do it.”

“All right, Mr. Independent. You do it. I’m going to get dressed.”

She left him wrestling his legs into his underpants and climbed the stairs to her own bedroom, where she’d already laid out her clothes. Her patterned lace tights and slinky sweater-dress required nearly as much wiggling as Max was doing downstairs. She checked her reflection in the full-length mirror she’d picked up at a big-box store in Fort William this week, giving her rear view a critical once-over. Well, nothing to be done about that; she’d had two kids. At least the deep V of the faux-wrap front made her waist look small and her other assets impressively perky.

“Not bad for thirty-nine years old,” she murmured to herself.

“You look pretty, Mum.”

Serena looked away from the mirror to where Em stood in the doorway, wearing the T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms she’d selected for her pajamas. “Thank you, cupcake. Are you okay staying with Kylee tonight?”

“Yeah. She’s fun. And she said she would help us make blondies.”

“Good. We won’t be too late.”

Serena zipped up her knee-high boots, then grabbed her watch from the nightstand and fastened it on her wrist. As she followed her daughter down the stairs, Em asked, “So is this a date?”

“Well . . .” Serena still hadn’t decided what she was going to tell the kids. “Kind of. He asked me if I wanted to go to dinner, and I said yes.”

“That’s a date,” her daughter said with all the certainty of an overly romantic eight-year-old.

“I suppose it is. But Malcolm and I are friends. We like to spend time together.”

“You know, it’s okay, Mum. If you want to date, I mean. Even if you want to get married again someday.” Em looked up at her earnestly, her eyes shining, and Serena’s heart gave a clench.

All this time she’d devoted herself completely to her kids, thinking she would be doing them a disservice otherwise, and Em was worrying about her mum’s lack of a social life. She gave her daughter a hug and kissed the top of her dark head. “Thanks, cupcake. Let’s not get carried away, though. It’s only dinner.”

“Okay.” But Em’s look said she believed otherwise.

A knock sounded at the door, and before Serena could respond, Em ran for it. “I’ll get it!” she yelled as she yanked the door open. “Mum! Malcolm and Kylee are here!”

Serena shook her head. Her foot touched the last stair as Malcolm walked into the house. He wore a pair of dark trousers, a light wool pullover, and his signature leather jacket, though his hair looked a little less tousled than usual and he’d given his beard a trim. She’d never thought she’d like a rugged, outdoorsy look on a man, but her heart gave a little leap when she saw him.

“You have purple hair!” Em squealed. Serena dragged her eyes away from Malcolm when she realized that Em was talking about Kylee.

The teen shrugged sheepishly. “It’s just chalk. Is it okay if I do some in Em’s hair?”

Em turned puppy-dog brown eyes to Serena. “Please, Mum? Pleasepleaseplease?”

“If it washes out,” Serena said, earning a round of cheering from her daughter.

“Uh, Serena,” Malcolm said, “I think you have an escapee.”

She turned just in time to see a bare three-year-old bum disappear around the corner, Max’s delighted laughter trailing down the hall behind him.

“Excuse me while I deal with my little nudist.” Serena strode down the hall after her son. “Max, how is this getting yourself dressed? Come on, Son.”

After a short game of tag with Max darting out of reach each time, she wrestled him to a stop long enough to get both his underpants and his pajamas on his body and then gave him strict instructions to stay fully clothed. He clung to her as she walked back into the lounge.

“Are you ready? Or should I have made the reservation for three?” Amusement sparkled in Malcolm’s eyes, and the relief rushing through Serena’s body surprised her. Any other man would have been halfway out the door if he walked in on this display.

“Hey, Max,” Kylee said, “I’ve got something for you in my bag. Do you want to go into the kitchen and see what it is?” Kylee held out her arms, and after a moment’s hesitation, Max went to her instead.

“Thank you,” Serena mouthed to Kylee. She gave Em one last hug and then grabbed her handbag off the console table.

“Ready?” Malcolm asked.

“Finally. Let’s escape while we can.”

They slipped out the front door, Serena pausing to lock it behind them, and then she followed him down the drive to where his black compact was parked. He opened the door for her, and she spent the time it took for him to circle to the driver’s side to draw in a few deep breaths. In and out. In and out. Turn mum mode off. Turn woman mode on. If she could even remember what that was. And then Malcolm leaned across the console, took her chin in his hand, and kissed her, and she had no problem at all remembering.

“All right, so this is a little embarrassing,” he said when he sat back again.

“What? That you couldn’t wait until the good-night?”

His smile flashed, accompanied by an irresistible crinkle of his eyes, and her heart did another little leap. “I’m not embarrassed at all about that. I hope you’re not going to make me wait until the good-night to kiss you again either . . .”

“Hmm. We’ll see. What’s embarrassing? Did you forget to make reservations? This is Skye. It’s not like everything will be booked.”

“Best you see for yourself, I reckon.” He buckled his seat belt and then backed down her drive. By the time they turned down the Sleat Peninsula, she thought she might know the source of his embarrassment. When he pulled up in front of the MacDonald Guest House, it was clear.

He turned sideways on the seat to face her. “Listen, I asked around for opinions on what the best restaurant on Skye was, and every single person said—”

“This one.” She laughed. “Blame my brother. At least we know the food is good.”

“Chef Villarreal is about to try out a new menu, and I convinced him to give us a preview. So other than Jamie, you will be the first person to sample these dishes.”

He looked so simultaneously uncertain and eager to please that she leaned across the seat and kissed him again. “It’s perfect. I’ve only eaten here once, if you can believe that.”

“I hoped that might be the case. What’s the use of all your hard work if you can’t enjoy it?”

If anyone thought it was odd that the owner and the hotel manager were having dinner in the dining room like regular guests, no one let on. Serena did notice that they were shown to the best table in the back corner, dimly lit and away from even the small amount of noise that came from the cozy restaurant. Every detail was simple and perfect, from the white linen tablecloths to the lushly upholstered chairs to the candlelit ambience.

Almost immediately after they were seated, the hostess brought a bottle of wine to the table. “Spanish cava,” she said quietly, pouring with flair into their two glasses and then slipping away just as unobtrusively. Being on the receiving end of the restaurant’s service, Serena could see why everyone had pointed Malcolm in this direction.

“Was this your idea?” she asked as she reached for the glass of sparkling wine.

“No,” he said. “I considered it, but it felt a bit . . . presumptuous.”

“I appreciate your restraint. But it doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy the wine now that it’s here.” She took a sip and gave a nod of approval. “I’m guessing by the fact we have no menus that it’s chef’s choice?”

“Exactly.”

Serena reached for the bread basket and spread butter garnished with pink salt on a dark slice. “This is pumpernickel, I think. Rather nice pumpernickel, actually. I’m typically not much of a fan. It’s usually too sour.”

“We get this from an artisanal bakery in Portree,” Malcolm said. “They supply us and a few other restaurants on the island, as well as their own store.”

“It’s very good.”

“So this wasn’t a horrendous idea after all?”

His insecurity was endearing, particularly considering how cocky and overconfident she’d thought him when they first met. “It was an excellent idea.”

He leaned back in his chair and studied her. “I’m curious. Why did you sell your interest in the hotel if you were just going to buy back in?”

Serena considered how much to tell him. “I know it’s hard to believe now, but after our father died, my brothers were at odds. Ian worked for Jamie, but they barely spoke to each other outside of business matters. If one said black, the other said white. As the third partner in the hotel, I was always having to play tiebreaker.” She shrugged. “I was more interested in maintaining my relationship with my brothers than I was in staying involved with the family business. Jamie offered to buy out my share to keep it in the family. Now neither of them really has the time to be as hands-on as they’d like, so Jamie asked me to buy back in. And here we are.”

“Here we are.” He smiled warmly, seeming comfortable just to look at her, even though she squirmed under the scrutiny.

“My turn to ask a question. My brothers said you were an engineer. What kind of engineer are you exactly?”

“That’s what you wanted to ask? You know you could have pulled my CV from the employment files a long time ago.”

“I thought about it,” she said, “but enough time had passed, and our relationship became not so strictly business, so it felt as if I’d be spying on you.”

“It’s a bit hard to explain, actually. I work with telescopes.”

“Telescopes? Like the ones you can buy for stargazing?”

“No, the space-based ones like the Hubble.”

She blinked at him. Of all the answers he could have given, she never expected anything so . . . technical. “How does one go about doing that for a living?”

He chuckled. “I’m not sure how most people do it. I went into it backward. I’ve always had a talent for figuring out how things work, especially if they involve power of any sort. I was the lad who was always trying to make an electromagnet out of car batteries and the like. I ended up getting a degree in electrical engineering and then going to work for an aerospace contractor, but I hated it. I’d always had an interest in astronomy, and I had a fair amount of programming knowledge, so when I learned there was work in the field outside of astrophysics, I decided to go back to school for a graduate degree in computer science.”

That was completely unexpected. She associated the hotel management and the repair skills with something more blue-collar, like mechanical engineering. But to find out he was somewhat of an academic? “So you quit your job and tended bar to support yourself?”

“Exactly. It was too hard to get my courses while keeping the day job.”

“I’m impressed. But I still don’t understand what that has to do with telescopes.”

“I am—I was—a software engineer for a space research institute at Johns Hopkins in Maryland. Basically I wrote programs that analyzed and interpreted the data that came back from the telescope so astronomers could use it.”

“So the whole time I was on about Dark Sky sites and star charts and all that, you not only knew what I was talking about, but you actually worked in the field. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Malcolm had the grace to look abashed. “You were so excited about it and you wanted to take on the work, so I didn’t want to burst your bubble. Would you have continued on if you knew I worked in astronomy?”

“Maybe not.” She sat back from the table. “But now I feel foolish.”

“You shouldn’t. Most of our guests want to know the best place to see Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper, not the algorithms scientists use to classify an object as a star or a galaxy.”

“That’s true,” Serena said with a little smile, “but I still feel somewhat at a loss. Scientific people are my natural enemy.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I read art history. Which, before you say it, I realize is the degree for people who don’t actually need to work for a living.”

“I gave up a high-paying job to look at star data and play with telescopes,” he said. “I hardly think I’m in a position to judge. Why art history?”

“I’ve always loved art, ever since I was a child. But fine art seemed just too—”

“Unemployable?”

Serena smiled. Somehow when Malcolm said it, it didn’t make her feel defensive. “Something like that. I was able to get an internship at the Tate Gallery in London after I finished university.”

“How does one do that?” he asked.

“Well, first one has to have a nearly useless degree from a very good university. And then one uses her family connections to call in favors to get a coveted position.” Voiced aloud, she realized how snobbish and privileged she must sound. At the time it had merely seemed sensible. “However, it was my qualifications that landed me a permanent position there, and then later a job managing artists at a rather prestigious gallery in Edinburgh.”

“So deep down, you’re an academic like me,” he said.

“I can’t tell whether you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

He laughed again. “It’s a good thing.”

“So why do you hide the fact that you’re obviously very intelligent? Why didn’t you say anything about all this?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized they could be taken as an insult. But his eyes just sparkled as if her fumbling amused him. “I don’t hide my intelligence. I just don’t go on about my education.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you?”

A slight smile crept onto her lips. “You are very good at turning things around so I forget what I’m asking you. If you want a real answer from me, I expect you to answer first.”

Now he looked a little uncomfortable, which she found endearing. “I suppose I didn’t tell you because I wanted to know if you liked me for me, not just because you thought I had a suitably impressive collection of diplomas at home.”

She leaned forward, holding his gaze. “And once more you didn’t entirely answer my question.”

He thought for a long moment before he answered. “We are from completely different worlds, Serena. In yours, a good education is assumed—demanded even.”

“We both grew up here on Skye.”

“Except I moved away when I was eleven. And even then, you can’t compare our experiences here.”

“What happened exactly?”

He drummed his fingers on the table. “Before or after my dad emptied out the bank account and left us destitute?”

A mixture of horror and sympathy washed over Serena. She suspected that reaction was exactly why he hadn’t told her. “I had no idea.”

“How could you? You probably didn’t know that my mum used to clean this hotel either. But it still wasn’t enough to make ends meet. My aunt invited us to come stay with her in Glasgow and got Mum a job cleaning a hotel there. You see, she dropped out of school at fourteen to work her family’s croft, so it wasn’t as if she had marketable skills.”

“But she did what she had to do to support you and your sister. That’s admirable.”

“My sister was seven years older than me, and she stayed on Skye to get married,” Malcolm said. “So it was just me and Mum. And the place in Glasgow—well, the city usually gets a bad rap, but where we lived deserved its reputation. It wasn’t exactly a place you wanted to be seen as a bright and innocent lad, fresh from the country, if you know what I mean. I went to school and got perfect marks and spent my afternoons trying to not get my face bashed in.”

He told the story with a light tone, but she sensed the deep scars beneath the words. For a moment she could see beyond the swagger and the humor to the little boy who had been terrorized by bullies.

“I did pretty well until I won a science fair at thirteen and ended up in the paper,” he went on. “Couple of blokes waited for me outside my building and gave me a pounding I still haven’t forgotten. I was black-and-blue for weeks. Loads of stitches.” He pushed his hair away from his temple to show a jagged scar at his hairline, now faded to a silvery white.

She winced. “What happened then? What did your mum do?”

“Well, after she was done vowing to kill the delinquents—this woman who couldn’t have weighed more than seven stone dripping wet—she made me promise that I would lie low and avoid trouble. I hadn’t been looking for trouble in the first place, so this advice wasn’t exactly helpful.

“I was determined that my mum wasn’t going to fight my battles for me, so I found a boxing club and convinced the owner to let me train there in return for sweeping floors and cleaning bags and scrubbing toilets—whatever I could do. Mum worked two jobs sometimes, and my aunt didn’t care what I did, so I managed to keep it a secret. It didn’t take long for the owner to figure out what was going on. See, this bloke—Reginald—he’d grown up similarly in Glasgow, and he recognized a skinny kid with too little food, too much intelligence, and no supervision. So he started paying me a little. He just ‘happened’ to have extra food around when I came over from school, just ‘happened’ to be short a sparring partner for one of the more skilled lads.”

“It sounds like a movie,” Serena said, caught up entirely in the story. “Are you sure you’re not embellishing for effect?”

“I swear, it’s God’s honest truth. I got good in the ring pretty quickly, so the next time I was confronted, I didn’t run away. I stood my ground.”

“What happened?”

“I got my—ahem—tail kicked. Badly. I might have been good at boxing an opponent, but it’s a lot different when they don’t wear gloves and they bring their mates. When I showed up at the club the next day, I thought Reg was going to congratulate me on my bravery, and instead he laced into me like I’ll never forget.”

“Because you got cocky?”

“Because he wasn’t teaching me to be a street brawler. He was trying to keep me out of trouble and give me a chance to make something of myself.” Malcolm smiled. “My mum would probably have been horrified had she ever met the man, considering his vocabulary mostly consisted of four-letter words, and his idea of discipline was a sharp slap to the head, but he was the only one looking out for me at a time when I could have really gone down the wrong path. He told me I was too smart to be acting like a prat . . . except he didn’t say prat, of course. And if I really cared about my mum, I would go to university, find a good job, get her into a safer part of Glasgow. In short, he told me I needed to make good choices if I were to be a better man than my father was.”

“That’s some story,” Serena said softly. “Where is your mum now?”

“Well, I got her out of that tenement building that she hated so much and into a safer flat. I moved to America to work at the Space Telescope Science Institute, and while I was gone, she up and married a greengrocer.”

“Do you like him?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “I do, actually. He doesn’t care for me too much. But that might have something to do with the fact I told him I’d knock seven bells out of him if he ever hurt my mum the way Dad did. He took it to heart, I think.”

“Would you have done it?”

“In my twenties, without hesitation. Now, I honestly don’t know. Does that concern you?”

Serena studied him. Despite Malcolm’s rough edges, his physicality, there was still something calm and steady at the core that made her feel safe. “Not a bit. I’ve never thought of myself as a violent person, but if someone laid a hand on one of my kids, I don’t think I could be responsible for my actions.”

“It does change your perspective, doesn’t it? When I was just the uncle, I could get in trouble with Kylee. Drove Nic crazy. Now I worry about Kylee all the time.”

She knew exactly the feeling. After Edward died, she’d felt the weight of her responsibility double. She raised her glass and clinked it together with his. “To the part of being a parent no one ever warns you about.”

“Didn’t exactly come about how I expected it,” he said wryly.

“It never does.”

The first course of their meal arrived then, an exquisitely plated scallop starter that tasted as good as it looked. Serena took her first bite and then set down her fork with a sigh. “My brother is a genius.”

“No arguments here. But this dish is Chef Villarreal’s.”

“Really? Very impressive.”

“I think so too.”

The conversation turned to lighter subjects finally, recollections of the peculiarities of growing up on Skye, funny stories about her children and his niece, current television programs. And with each passing minute, Serena’s admiration for Malcolm grew. She had made so many misguided assumptions about him. He was intelligent, funny, well read. And he looked at her as if there were no one with whom he’d rather share his evening, that singular focus fixed with laser precision on her. She found herself talking too much, even though anytime the topic turned to her marriage or what came before it, she steered it away. There were some things she just wasn’t ready to tell him. He simply listened, refilling her wineglass and asking questions.

By the time he paid the bill and they rose to leave, the growing feeling of connection with him had become more unsettling than the ever-present current of attraction.

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” Serena said when they returned to the car park. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a good, uninterrupted meal in pleasant company, it feels like a holiday.”

Malcolm opened the car door for her. “The evening’s not over yet.”

“And you’re not going to tell me where we’re going next?”

“Oh no. But you’re welcome to try to guess.”

“I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “I’ll just sit back and enjoy the surprise.”