The damned suitcase would never close. “I am coming home, Elias, and when I get there, I’ll deliver you a proper thrashing for that bit of disrespect.”
“Tell me about your cowgirl, Magnus. Tell me why you aren’t setting up a home on the range with her.”
“I’ll thrash Shamus too, next time I see him, for telling tales out of school.”
“You took enormous risks for that woman, when you’re the last man who ought to be exerting himself on behalf of the ladies.”
“What are you babbling about?” And where had Magnus’s belt…? He spied it looped around the back of the chair at the master bedroom’s desk.
“Celeste. Seems Husband Number Two has served her with divorce papers, and she’s being told to either slink away quietly, or face uncomfortable inquiries into her business dealings behind his back.”
“Tell him to take away her keys to the warehouse before he does anything else, even before he changes his passwords and terminates the credit cards.” Putting on a belt while holding a phone was impossible.
“I’ll pass that along, or you can tell him yourself when you get home. Did you get the water analysis results I sent last night?”
Last night, Magnus had indulged in a wee dram too many, such as a man might when frustrated with the love of his life.
“Water is water, Elias. I have the distillery’s supply monitored for purity and mineral content, but it hasn’t changed in twenty years.”
Thank God. Ruin a distillery’s water supply, and you ruined its future.
“Not your distillery, hers. I sent you the results, and you haven’t even bothered to look at them. Some micromanager you are. I’m off to feed your cats their salmon pâté.”
“That’s not cat food, you daft excuse for a deranged—”
“They like to eat it right off your marble counters. Take a look at Bridget MacDeaver’s water, Magnus. It’s not like yours at all.”
Elias ended the call.
Magnus stared at his phone, resisting Elias’s taunt for about two seconds before scrolling back through his messages. The complete lab report on Bridget’s water was only a few pages, but it took some skimming to get down to the interesting parts.
At first, Magnus couldn’t believe what the screen was telling him, because her water was, indeed, very, very different from his. Then bits and pieces of conversation, stray glances, and odd silences came together, and he whooped out loud, tossed the phone in the air, and fished out his kilt.
He and the lady were about to have a long, honest talk. If she told him after that to leave Montana and never come back, he’d abide by her wishes, but he’d bet everything—his distillery, hers, his heart, their future—he could persuade her to come see Scotland instead.
“Luke and Patrick elected me to take you to the airport.” Bridget had argued, she’d pleaded, she’d even tried stonewalling, but given what else she’d had to tell them, they’d guilted her into this penance.
Magnus was traveling in his kilt apparently, the plain black work kilt that swung around his knees and made her think wicked, hopeless thoughts.
“We have time for a wee chat before I catch my plane, Mary Bridget. Let’s take a walk to the foaling barn.”
As good a place to say good-bye as any. In the past week, two more foals had been born, an elegant chestnut filly and a friendly black colt who looked like he’d take after his plow-horse mama in size and temperament.
“Will you be glad to get home?” Bridget asked.
“Overjoyed.”
He didn’t sound overjoyed. “Magnus?”
“I’ll come home to two dyspeptic cats who now think I owe them salmon pâté served on the family silver. Aunt Helga will stop speaking to me when I retire Fergus from my board of directors, though he’s apologized profusely for allowing his head to be turned by Celeste’s pretty face. At his age, that he can see a pretty face is amazing.”
“I’m sorry,” Bridget said, because Magnus was very likely reciting facts. “But you can salvage your whisky, right?”
“I can. Uncle Zebedee is hunting up the requisite wine casks for me, because his connections on the Continent are vast and complicated, and Daryl MacKinnon is lending me a team of coopers as a gesture of goodwill or commiseration, I’m not sure which.”
The doors at both ends of the foaling barn were open because the day was mild. A pregnant mare who looked ready to drop her foal any minute stuck her head over her Dutch door and whuffled.
I want to have children with Magnus, and we leave for the airport in ten minutes.
“Hello, Katydid,” Bridget said, giving the mare a scratch under the chin. “Not long now.” The mare lipped at Bridget’s jacket pocket, looking for treats that weren’t there. “I love the smell of this place. The horses, alfalfa, sweet feed, spring on the breeze… It’s a good combination, home and hope.”
“Then make a whisky that brings those scents to mind.”
Bridget wanted to make a life that brought those scents to mind. “You don’t want to miss your plane, Magnus.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. I’ve analyzed the water supplying your distillery, Bridget. You’re sitting on a gold mine.”
He wasn’t making a marketing claim. He was accusing her of something. Something serious.
“My business has potential,” Bridget replied carefully. “Someday—”
“Someday, you will tell your brothers that upstream from your distillery, very likely on the property you inherited from your grandfather, there’s actual gold. The kind people hoard. The kind entire economies have been built on.”
Bridget’s middle went cattywampus on her, and the solid dirt floor felt wavy beneath her boots. “You can’t… That’s not…”
“The lab report fairly sparkles with traces of gold in the water, not merely the occasional part per billion, but enough to get the attention of any respectable geologist. Whose secret are you guarding, Bridget?”
By some miracle, a pair of straw bales were stacked right where Bridget needed to sit.
Magnus knew. He’d analyzed her water, connected the dots, and leaped to a conclusion that generations of MacDeavers had sworn to keep secret.
“You can’t tell anybody, Magnus. Not a soul, not your cousin, not your drinking buddies, not your uncle Fergus. My land would be swarming with trespassers in nothing flat, and then the politicians would get involved.”
He took the place beside her, sharing her straw bales. “And you’d lose your distillery forever.”
“I’d lose my self-respect forever. The first MacDeaver to settle in Montana made a choice. We could make great whisky with the water running down from those hills, or we could tear up the countryside looking for a great fortune. The whisky has kept us housed and fed, while gold is a recipe for misery.”
Magnus took Bridget’s hand. “But a lack of coin is a recipe for misery too, and the Logan Bar ranch was testing your promise not to go for the gold.”
“Not the ranch, but the need to look out for my family. They are my family, I know that now.” How right it felt to lace her fingers with his.
“Do you also know they can look out for themselves, and for you too, Bridget?”
“I’m willing to entertain the theory. Will you keep my secret, Magnus?”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. The mares in their stalls munched alfalfa, a barn cat leaped from the rafters to a feed rack to the floor.
“I come from at least ten generations of whisky-makers, Bridget. Do you think I, of all people, would jeopardize a successful distillery, with all its tradition, wisdom, and business potential, for something as transitory and bothersome as gold?”
His question was a riddle that only the heart could answer. He was washed in the water of life, had traveled halfway around the world to rescue a batch of whisky, and wanted nothing more than to see his children and grandchildren thriving in the same industry Bridget had made her passion.
“You’ll keep my secret.”
They sat side by side, the peace of the moment settling Bridget so thoroughly, she was a different person, a happier, better person, for having this discussion.
“I have a question for you, Mary Bridget.”
Please don’t ruin this. “I should have told my brothers years ago, I know, but I didn’t, and then it got awkward, and then the ranch hit some tough years, and I couldn’t trust them to respect my wishes.”
Magnus kissed her knuckles. “Can you trust them now?”
Clearly not the question he was determined to ask.
“I hope so, because I told Luke and Patrick yesterday. They made me promise I’d teach Lena the trade, and if she wants to go into the business, to at least consider that. If Shamus will take over my bookkeeping, I’ll have more time to focus on the whisky.”
“Better and better. May I ask you my question now?”
He rose, and Bridget braced herself to be offered a job, a distribution agreement, a scolding. “Ask.”
Magnus stood before her, his arms looped around her shoulders. “I’ll keep your secret to my dying day and guard it with my last breath. Will you keep my heart, Bridget? To have and to hold? Until we’re old and crotchety and driving our offspring daft with our opinions and arguments? Will you raise a family with me, God willing, and cobble together a life that might involve a lot of travel and no little frustration?”
Bridget leaned forward, bracing her forehead against Magnus’s chest. “Is that a proposal?”
“Afraid so.”
He embraced her gently, and Bridget wrapped her arms around his waist. She wanted to honor his offer with something profound, meaningful, and memorable.
“Hell, yeah, Magnus Cromarty. Hell, yeah, I’ll marry you.”
Then they were laughing and kissing, and Bridget was crying, while Magnus cursed the cat trying to strop itself against their boots. Luke showed up on a skid loader and called Patrick, who texted Shamus, who must have texted Elias, and pretty soon, all the ranch hands and Lena were gathered around, until some considerate soul took Magnus’s luggage back to the guesthouse, and Bridget was again alone with… her fiancé.
“This will be complicated, Magnus. We’ll rack up frequent-flier miles and miss the hell out of each other and probably need two houses, and the lawyers will get involved.”
“Stop,” Magnus said as they reached the porch of the guesthouse. “Just stop. In the first place, I’m marrying the only lawyer whose opinion matters, and in the second, I hope this door is unlocked.”
“Sure it is. Why—Magnus!”
He’d scooped her up in his arms. “I believe the important matters are deserving of practice. If you’d get the latch?”
Bridget pushed the door open, and Magnus carried her over the threshold. The symbolism felt appropriate—trusting him, making a fresh start, and shutting the rest of the world out for the intimate parts.
“Thank you,” Bridget said, kissing him. “For the chivalry, for the proposal, for everything, Magnus, but this is still going to be complicated.”
“Not it isn’t. Three ingredients, Bridget: you, me, and love. If we can make whisky, we can make a lifetime of magic with just those three ingredients.”
As it happened, the fourth ingredient, a yowling red-haired terror named Sean Fergus Cromarty, added himself to the recipe before his parents had been married two years. Several more ingredients came along, and with each addition, the recipe yielded more magic, more happiness, and more love.
For Bridget, Magnus, and their offspring.
For dear cousin Elias… well, that’s another story.
To my dear readers
I hope you enjoyed Magnus and Bridget’s happily ever after. Tartan Two-Step gave me a chance to combine whisky, a Scottish hero, and the Big Sky country two of my siblings call home—also a chance to get to know Elias Brodie!
His story, Elias in Love, comes out May 16, 2017, and takes us back to Damson Valley, scene of my Sweetest Kisses contemporary romance series. Elias has inherited a genuine medieval castle, the title of earl, and a huge pile of debt. If he wants to preserve his family’s legacy, the only asset he can immediately sell is a parcel of Maryland countryside he’s never laid eyes on.
In all Violet Hughes’s years working the land in Damson Valley, she has never seen a genuine Scottish earl, though her first glimpse of one is mighty impressive. Elias is charming, a hard worker, and excellent, um, company, but then Violet learns that he’s determined to sell the largest farm in the valley to a no-good, polecat of a developer. What’s a kilted laddie to do, when he must choose between his true love and the legacy he was born to protect?
I’ve included an excerpt from Elias in Love below, and hope to have the third book in the trilogy, Scotland to the Max, published by early 2018.
I love to hear from my readers, so please do follow me on Twitter, like my Facebook page, or sign up for my newsletter.
Happy reading!
Grace Burrowes
Elias in Love (an excerpt)
by Grace Burrowes
Scottish business whiz Elias Brodie has crossed the pond to expedite the sale of a rural property in Maryland. His neighbor, Violet Hughes, invites him over to dinner, and then things go from friendly to friendlier to…
Farmers developed a sense of time rooted in the seasons and the progress of the sun across the sky. Not for them, the arbitrary movement of hands around a clock face, not when ripening crops and shifting temperatures marked the passing days according to the rhythms of creation.
Elias Brodie’s kisses held a hundred generations worth of patience, centuries of tenderness, and eternities of passion. Violet might have been an exotic garden, one Elias explored as if every nuance of her kisses—her sighs, the texture of her hair, the exact contour of her eyebrows and jaw—fascinated him.
He made it easy to be fascinated in return. Elias was built on beautiful proportions that Violet measured in caresses and embraces. He offered her gentle, relentless overtures and counterpointed them with an obvious and unapologetic rising desire.
So this was seduction… This was what it felt like to be coaxed closer and closer to pleasure, and lured away from lists, schedules, and oughts.
“You’re good at this,” Violet said, as her braid went slipping down the center of her back.
“I’m enthusiastic about shared pleasures. You are too.”
His smile said he approved of Violet for enjoying his kisses, he applauded her accepting the challenge he offered.
“I’m not… I don’t get out much, Elias,” she said, drawing back. “A farmer needs every available hour of sleep, every spare dime, every free moment to keep the land happy and prospering. I’m a fifth-generation farmer. I don’t socialize often.”
Elias let her go, and damned if he didn’t start doing the dishes. “You’re also a woman, Violet. I’m not proposing a three-day bacchanal, and I don’t kiss and tell.”
That he’d exercise a little discretion mattered to her, though she wasn’t likely to cross paths with him ever again—another reason to indulge in what he offered. Violet unwrapped the dishtowel from the wine bottle and accepted a clean plate from Elias.
“I doubt I’m your type,” she said, drying the plate.
He used his thumbnail to scrape a spot of cheese from the second plate. “You should be more concerned with whether I’m your type, assuming you have a type for a friendly encounter. These plates look hand-made.”
He did a thorough job washing dishes, not merely a rinse and a promise.
“My mother made them. I have only the two left.” Blue and white glaze with a violets-and-vines pattern around the rim. The plates were heavy, and didn’t really go with anything else Violet owned. “She made them the year I was born. Took a class when she got too pregnant to do much manual labor. I’ll sleep with you, Elias, but don’t expect much.”
He tackled the mousse bowls next. “Why will you sleep with me?”
Violet’s decision had been made in those moments when
Elias had simply held her. He’d offered her time to consider options, and given her excellent reasons to trust him. He didn’t push. He didn’t wheedle. He didn’t make empty promises.
“You respect me,” Violet said, the words effecting a sort of sunrise where her flagging energy had been. “And you desire me. Both.”
She felt as if she’d solved a riddle, though maybe ten years later than she should have.
Better late than never.
“I respect the hell out of you,” Elias said, passing her a squeaky clean bowl. “You work hard, take your responsibilities seriously, and genuinely care for your property. Respect is not the only reason I’m attracted to you.”
This foreplay without touching was enjoyable, but also more serious than it should have been. “I went to college, Elias. Had my share of rodeos. You don’t have to draw me pictures.”
“Will you dry that bowl or rub the glaze off? What is your degree in?”
Violet set the bowl in the cupboard. “Sociology, undergrad and a master’s, emphasis on rural communities. What about you?”
And why else did he want to spend the night in her bed? Thank God she’d changed the sheets earlier in the day.
Thank God the bed was made for once.
“I studied business at uni, and am considered well informed regarding the organization and operation of charitable establishments. I detect the patter of little paws on your back porch.”
“Good lord, I nearly forgot to feed the pups. Silverware can go in the drain rack. Guys, I’m coming!”
Murphy woofed softly. And the next few minutes were absorbed with more of the odd domesticity she’d been sharing with Elias throughout the evening. He put away the leftovers while she fixed the dogs their dinners—some wet, some dry, some leftovers—and took their bowls to the fenced side yard off the sun room.
When she got back to the kitchen, Elias was checking his phone.
Big Sky Ever After: a Montana Romance Duet Page 45
