Alasdair lay beside Isabel in the aftermath. They’d crossed a line. No, they’d leapt across. Or maybe sped across in a Porsche. The line was so far behind them, they could never get back within sight of it. Yet, he didn’t regret taking her to bed.
What he did regret was the looming crisis he’d accidently set in motion at Wellington. But he’d fix it. As soon as he figured out how. Isabel and Rose need never know. The more immediate dilemma was whether he stayed at her side or sidled through the connecting bathroom into his room.
He very much wanted to stay, but didn’t want to overstep his welcome. Indecision kept him on edge but unmoving.
Isabel heaved a sigh and flopped to her back, one arm thrown up over her head. She had maneuvered her way under the sheet, much to his disappointment. Returning after retrieving her purse to the sight of her laid out naked on the bed like a personal sensual buffet had been startling in the best, most arousing way. He flipped his kilt down to cover his nakedness.
“I’m glad we didn’t end up in the loft of the barn,” she said on a yawn. “It’s secluded, but I don’t think it would have been all that comfortable. Forget ants. Can you imagine coming face to face with the beady eyes of a possum in the middle of the good stuff? It might have put me off sex for the rest of my life.”
His body relaxed the longer she talked. “That would be a shame because you’re so good at it.”
She turned to punch his arm playfully then resumed her position. “You did all the hard work. In fact, if I had one, I’d give you a gold star.”
“Where would you put it?” He propped his head up on his hand and grinned down at her.
The moon had risen over the horizon and shone through the window, turning her pale skin luminescent. Skin he had caressed and kissed mere moments ago. Her hair was tousled from his hands and her thrashing while she’d been in the throes of her orgasm. He did feel rather proud of himself.
“I’d put it on your very talented mouth.” She ran her finger over his bottom lip, her eyes shadowed and mysterious. The corner of her mouth quirked. “Or maybe right on the tip of your magnificent erection.”
His gasp morphed into a laugh.
She covered her eyes. “I swear, I usually don’t say what I’m actually thinking. Just around you.”
“I love it.” The L-word hovered in the air like an interloper.
To cover his discomfiture, he kissed her. What was meant to provide cover for his slip of the tongue turned into a kiss so sweet and sexy, his growing erection longed to earn a second gold star. Their lips parted, their quickened breathing mingling. He couldn’t seem to get close enough.
“I wasn’t sure I even liked you when you showed up,” she said. “I was convinced you and Gareth were here to scam us like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.”
Although, neither he nor Gareth were attempting to bilk the Buchanans of money or possessions, the morass of what he was hiding shadowed the moment. He attempted a light tone. “I was sure your mother was using Gareth.”
“For what? Mom said even his cottage is owned by the earl.” Isabel misread his disquiet, stroking his cheek and adding. “Don’t worry. Mom doesn’t care if he doesn’t even have two cents to rub together. I think she might even be in love with him.”
As if on cue, footsteps and whispers echoed from the foyer. “They’re back,” Isabel said in her best horror move voiceover imitation. She added in a normal voice. “Do you think they know?”
“They would have known if they’d been in the house. We weren’t playing quiet mouse, still mouse, that’s for certain.”
“I think I lost consciousness for a hot second when I … Am I loud? Oh my God, am I a screamer?”
“You’re a talker, not a screamer.”
Laughter sparkled in her eyes. “Don’t even think about repeating anything I said. My bed is like Vegas.”
“A slot machine?”
“No, you crazy man. The slogan. What happens in bed, stays in bed.” Their combined laughter faded into silence, which Isabel broke in a casual voice. “Speaking of what happens … What happens now?”
He linked his hands on his chest. “My bed is too far away. I hope you’ll let me stay tonight. Tomorrow, how about I use my not-inconsiderable skills to help you with the festival?”
“What are your specialties?” Her smile was magic and moonlight.
He ticked off on his fingers. “Moral support. Brute strength. Stress relief.”
“What kind of stress relief?”
He slipped his hand under the sheet to her bare hip. “I have the next hour available for a job interview.”
“Wow, an hour seems pretty optimistic.”
“That sounds like a challenge if I ever heard one.” He stripped the sheet away from her body to the accompaniment of her breathless giggles.
A crash from downstairs cracked their cocoon. Ears straining, Alasdair froze. Quick footsteps passed down the hallway followed by the slam of a door.
Isabel sat up, grabbed the sheet, and whispered, “Oh, dear.”
“A lover’s spat, do you think?” He wanted nothing more than to ignore the brewing trouble and remain in her bed. Isabel’s hair fell over one shoulder, her back luring him closer. Without being able to help himself, he trailed his fingers down her spine and dropped a kiss on her shoulder.
She shoved his shoulder. “Go check on your friend.”
He sighed, but rolled off the bed. His shirt was nowhere to be found. Padding through the bathroom, he retrieved another and pulled it on, exchanging the kilt with worn athletic shorts. He could hear Isabel rustling for clothes in her wardrobe as well, but when he returned to her room and stopped short, she was still in bed.
“Aren’t you going to check on your mother?”
“Are you crazy? If I ask Mom about her and Gareth, she’ll ask me about you, and I’d rather maintain a don’t ask, don’t tell policy where s-e-x is concerned.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper at the end.
“Are you embarrassed we had s-e-x?” If he had to quantify the emotion roiling him, it would be something akin to hurt feelings. He was self-aware enough to see the irony of not wanting to be her secret when he was keeping secrets from her.
“Super embarrassed to talk to my mom about it, yes.” At his silence, she rose to her knees. The sheet fell away and left her in a tank top and short-shorts. Blast and damn. If he could keep her naked in bed twenty-four hours a day, he’d be a happy man. She crooked her finger. “Come here, Alasdair.”
Alasdair obeyed. When the heat of her body pressed into his, his hands automatically found her bottom. “What?”
“Sex”—she said the word as if it was a forbidden curse, but at least she hadn’t spelled it again—“is complicated when you live with your mom in the middle of the Bible Belt.”
“Bible Belt?”
“You can’t throw a rock and not hit a church in Highland and along a stretch of Southern states, hence Bible Belt.” The hands she ran over his chest and back and through his hair ramped up anticipation for the sin they’d wreck in her bed later.
“I’ll report back.” He gave her butt a slap and kissed the tip of her nose. “Don’t go to sleep.”
“I’ll try not to.” She flopped backward on the bed and yawned.
He descended the stairs and found Gareth sitting in the dark morning room overlooking the moon-touched field of flowers, drinking whisky. Alasdair joined him with a drink of his own and waited.
“I thought you were otherwise occupied,” Gareth said.
“I was about to be occupied a second time when a crash and a slamming door killed the mood. Do you need to talk?”
Gareth took a large swallow from his glass. “Rose asked me to stay in Highland.”
“Until when?”
“Until … forever.”
Alasdair drank from his glass and sat forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Did you tell her?”
“No. I … I tried, but the truth got stuck. She took my bumbling non-answer as a rejection.”
“If you told her the truth, she might understand the reason you can’t stay has nothing to do with her.”
Gareth’s reluctance was palpable, but Alasdair couldn’t pinpoint what his uncle’s internal struggle involved. “I’ve promised I’ll come clean after the festival and I will.”
Alasdair’s stomach rocked, and he took a sip of whisky. Instead of a confession, he hoped to neutralize the threat he’d unleashed. If he failed, Isabel would never forgive him for setting Wellington on Stonehaven.
“What got broken?” Alasdair asked, wanting a subject change.
“Nearly my head. I tripped over the end table.” He paused, then with a smile in his voice, said, “Ah, but Rosie is a bonnie thing when she’s angry.”
“Gareth, it isn’t funny.”
“No, it’s ironic I fell for an American who is tied to her life and land as surely as I am tied to mine.” Resignation weighed Gareth’s voice.
“Couldn’t you work something out? Like she stays with you part of the year and the two of you come back here for the festival.” Even as he suggested it, he wondered where that would leave Isabel. More responsibility would fall on Isabel’s shoulders, and she wouldn’t have the time to travel to London for a visit, or anywhere else for that matter.
“Perhaps, there are options,” Gareth said with a glimmer of hope.
“Or, I don’t know, I could take care of Cairndow, so you could stay here.” The suggestion popped out as a way to keep Isabel from being tied too tightly to Stonehaven, but it would leave him tied to Scotland, unable to restart his career or pursue a relationship with her. It seemed Alasdair and Gareth couldn’t both achieve happiness.
Gareth shifted on his seat and swirled the whisky in his glass. Light sparked on the surface of the thick crystal. “Is that a serious offer?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest.” In a desperate move to gather his wits, he drained his glass of whisky, the burn only clouding his thoughts further. But the offer had come from somewhere. Had his subconscious been mulling the idea since Isabel planted it in the field?
Gareth patted his shoulder. “Your life has been turned on its head. You don’t have to upend it further, even though I appreciate the offer.”
Alasdair took both glasses, refilled them, and returned, dropping heavily into the chair. “A week ago, I knew exactly where I was headed and what I’d be doing for the next decade.”
“Did the future you envision bring joy?”
Alasdair considered the question as he sipped on the whisky. “Not joy, but satisfaction. Success. Money.”
“And that would have been enough?”
Alasdair slumped over his knees, clutching the glass in both hands. The past year had seen him neither happy nor fulfilled. With a promotion being dangled like a carrot, his job had turned from challenge to crucible.
“Once upon a time, it’s all I wanted.” Alasdair ran a hand down his stubbly chin. “I would have been the youngest VP at Wellington. Mum would have been proud.”
Gareth regarded him with eyes so like the ones that stared back at Alasdair in the mirror every morning, it was uncanny. Although Gareth’s reflected years of wisdom Alasdair had yet to earn.
“My brother was a spoiled younger son. Intemperate, unreliable, but bloody good fun.” Gareth smiled into his whisky before turning serious once more. “Your mum deserved a better man. She worked hard to salvage a life for the two of you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about state of your da’s finances after he went and got himself killed. Do you not know?” At the brusque shake of Alasdair’s head, Gareth took a sip. Alasdair gained the impression Gareth was suppressing his surprise and gathering his thoughts. “Your da left her destitute. Actually worse than destitute. Because they never filed separation or divorce papers, she assumed his debts and treated them as her penance.”
Alasdair riffled through a catalogue of memories. Soon after he left for Cambridge, his mum had started work at a real estate office, eventually buying in and becoming a majority owner. She’d worked long hours during those early years, but Alasdair had assumed she’d wanted to, not had to.
“I tried to help her, but she’s prideful and refused.” Admiration warmed Gareth’s voice. “She did allow me to help you with your expenses at school.”
“Gareth,” Alasdair whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you even help me after I acted like such a little git after the funeral?”
“Because you’re my nephew and I love you, no matter our falling out. Now that I know about Kyla and the lad, I understand why you were upset with Rory and me and your Blackmoor heritage.”
Alasdair slumped back in the chair, considering the past through clearer eyes. “I thought I knew everything back then. I thought I was so right. I didn’t know shite.”
“Ah, the vagaries of youth. It’s a universal truth that anyone under twenty thinks they understand the world until they hit thirty. At some point, you’ll realize none of us really know what we’re doing. Even the old codgers like me muddle through.”
“I’m not sure if that’s depressing or comforting.” Alasdair killed the rest of his drink feeling pleasantly warm and buzzy but still confused. “What are we going to do?”
Gareth stretched himself out of the chair and set his empty glass on an end table. “A good place to start is to figure out what will make you truly happy; not what will make me or your mum or anyone else happy.”
“But what about you and Rose?”
“I suppose I need to take my own advice.” Gareth’s smile flickered like a bulb on its last watts. He stood and laid a hand on Alasdair’s shoulder, giving him a strong squeeze. “By the way, you might want to collect your shirt from the banister.”
The creak of the stairs signaled his uncle’s retreat. Alasdair stayed where he was, considering his future, but seeing only brambles and no path through. His uncle was still hale and vibrant and deserved to experience life outside his indenture to Cairndow. Yet, was Alasdair ready to assume the responsibility?
A week ago the answer would have been an emphatic no, but he waffled on the precipice of change. The idea didn’t seem as preposterous as it would have a week ago.
He gathered his shirt from the banister and slipped into Isabel’s room, the house and its occupants at rest if not at peace. She was sprawled on her back in the middle of the bed, an arm over her head, snuffling a little in her sleep. The abandon she exhibited when kissing or making love and now sleeping was at odds with the reserved, suspicious woman he’d met that first morning in the coffee shop. How many people got to see this side of her? Not many, he’d wager.
He slipped under the covers, shifted Isabel like a doll onto her side, and spooned her from behind. She mewed a little protest and elbowed him in the stomach, but didn’t wake. This was as quiet as she’d been all night. Never had he been with a woman who teased and said anything and everything on her mind before, during, and after sex. He smiled and kissed the top of her head.
Her musings had not only made him laugh but they’d turned what had always been a purely physical endeavor into one that charmed him body and soul and made his release all the more intense.
Even though it felt like a beginning, the end loomed in the distance like a hurricane he was approaching at warp speed in a teeny plane with no parachute. He would ignore the warnings and live in the moment while the skies were still cloudless and blue. Sleep finally caught him, although his dreams were fitful and saw him chasing Isabel along the cliffs of Cairndow.