“I just sent you to Paris,” Erin reminded her.
Dana let out a deep sigh of contentment. “And did I remember to thank you for that assignment from the bottom of my very, very, very appreciative heart? It was so fantastic, Erin.”
Erin smiled, hearing the exact same kind of excitement in her assistant’s voice as she felt when she got to scout a new place. “Sounds like you owe me.”
Dana laughed. “Damn, hoist by my own petard. And yeah, maybe I do. But I found the most magnificent date sites. Nothing cheesy or touristy. You’re going to love them, I swear. I even have three back ups that are also to die for. Tommy might even smile.”
“You’ll be handsomely rewarded if you can pull that off at the moment,” she said with a laugh. It occurred to her then how much she did trust Dana, because she had little doubt her assistant was going to come through as promised. Erin took pleasure and a certain kind of pride in seeing someone she’d trained spread her wings a little and do well. “I can’t wait to see the dossiers. I knew you were ready, but—”
“Hey, don’t thank me. Well, thank me, but you should also thank Jacques. If it wasn’t for him…” She trailed off, then there was another deep, appreciative sigh.
Erin rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me, you left a string of broken hearts all up and down the Champs Élysées.”
“Hey, I was only there for a week.”
“Let’s just say I have faith in your dedication and ability to focus.”
Dana laughed. “Interestingly, that’s just what Jacques said.”
“I bet,” Erin muttered, but she was smiling as she said it.
“So come on,” Dana cajoled. “I’ll tell you about my hot Frenchman if you tell me about your Great Scot.”
“He’s not mine.” More’s the pity, she thought with a sigh. “So there is nothing to tell.”
“Uh huh. That’s not what I heard.”
Sometimes Erin wished her assistant was a little less focused. “Well, with all you’ve apparently already heard, there’s no need for me to cater to your prurient interests, is there?”
“There was prurient stuff? Oh come on!”
“Just get up here safely, okay? We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Okay, okay, I fold. For now. Night, boss. Sweet dreams. Sweet, hot dreams,” Dana added with a laugh, before signing off.
Erin groaned. Hot dreams, indeed. Like the past two nights hadn’t been a scorching marathon replay of their time by the waterfall and in Dylan’s library. Only in her dreams, they hadn’t stopped. Either time.
She hadn’t heard a word from him since he’d abruptly left the library two days ago. Not one measly pink slip demand. Which she’d told herself was a good thing. Except that didn’t stop her from thinking about him. Constantly. She kept half expecting him to suddenly pop up out of nowhere as he had before. She’d be doing something totally innocuous, like going over production notes, and, bam, out of the blue, she’d remember how it felt when he put his mouth on her, the way he’d pushed her up against that bookshelf, half tugged off her clothes, flicked his tongue over her oh-so-sensitive nipples…and god help her, her entire body would go all hot and wet and needy.
She turned away from the hotel window and stared at her bed. Her big empty down-filled bed. Sweet, hot dreams, indeed. Thanks, Dana. “I am so firing you,” Erin said into the now dead phone. An empty threat, especially since Erin would be lucky to hold on to her for another season before Tommy promoted her to take on more responsibility anyway.
Or worse, gave her Erin’s job when she couldn’t produce next season’s Prince Charming on a silver platter and got her ass fired. That was the one pink slip she didn’t want to see.
She sank down on the side of her bed, then flopped back and stared at the ceiling. She needed a plan, dammit. She needed to talk to Dylan. In this whole crazy mess she’d gotten herself into, he was the only one she felt she could really talk to about any of it. And yet, he’d steered clear of her, which, to her mind, was sending a pretty clear signal that he’d appreciate it if she did the same.
Well, considering it was his demands that had put her square in the middle of this situation in the first place, she figured she had a right to contact him if she needed to. He’d been the one insisting on having her as the go-between. So if she did contact him, she’d be doing so for strictly professional reasons.
And she was so full of shit it wasn’t even funny. She wanted to see him again. Hell, she was dying to see him again. All the more reason to lock herself in her room and not come out until filming was over. But she knew he’d be the one person who would listen and perhaps help her figure out a sane, rational approach to solving her problem.
A shame he also was her problem.
Just then there came a tap on the door.
Erin groaned and rolled off the bed. It was almost midnight and she’d been up since dawn. If this was one of Tommy’s minions with yet another addendum to the schedule, she was going to scream. She peeked through the peephole, only to find Amelia standing on the other side. If Erin wasn’t mistaken, she’d been on duty early this morning, too. She threw the latch on the door and opened it. “Hi. You’re working late.”
Amelia blushed quite prettily. “Aye, mum. Getting some extra hours in so I can have off this Saturday.” She smiled. “My boyfriend is to compete for his Gold Clasp in Inverness and I want to go watch him win.”
“Gold Clasp?”
She beamed with pride. “Aye, mum. He plays the pipes, ye see. They’ve a prestigious competition this weekend and only former gold medal winners are eligible for the Clasp. He’ll be one of the youngest to ever win it.”
“Wow,” Erin said, spending a wistful moment thinking how nice it would be to have her life benchmarked by such simple pleasures. “It sounds like he’s got a great supporter in you. If he’s half as determined to win as you are to see him do it, I don’t doubt he’ll bring the trophy home.”
“Oh, he will, I just know it! I know I’m biased, but no one is as good as my Ian. He’s one of the most sought after pipers in the region. I’ll bring you one of his CDs if you’d like.” She leaned in as if to share a particularly juicy piece of gossip. “He’s quite good looking, if I do say so, and I do. Which doesn’t hurt his sales any. Girls chase him all over. But his heart belongs to me.”
“Sounds to me like he knows a good thing when he sees it.”
Her blush deepened, but she gave Erin a saucy wink. “I’d like to think so.” She fanned her face with the envelope in her hand, then realized what she was doing and blanched. “Och, I’m so sorry! Here I am disturbin’ you so late and now I’m going on about my Ian.” She thrust out the small, white envelope. “I would have put it in your box for the morning staff to deliver, but it had a note attached saying deliver immediately. Hope you don’t mind the late intrusion. I’d have slipped it beneath your door, but you all seem to keep pretty late hours and I saw your light on, so—”
Erin took the envelope, her mind spinning on Amelia’s story. “No, problem, really. Let me ask you, is the bagpipe competition open to the public?”
“Aye, ’tis. It’s one of the largest solo competitions in the country, so it’s a big draw. I can get you a copy of the notice, we’ve flyers downstairs, if you’d like.”
Erin smiled. “That’d be great. Just hold it at the desk for me. I’ll pick it up in the morning.”
Amelia beamed. “My pleasure. Is there anythin’ else I can get you?”
“No, I’m fine.” Erin waved the envelope. “And thanks for this.”
Amelia nodded and skipped off before Erin could tip her, but then she’d tried several times since taking up lodging in the hotel, only to be very sweetly rebuffed each and every time. Erin had already determined to do something nice for the girl before she checked out. At the very least, she’d send a note to her boss, detailing what great help she’d been during Erin’s stay.
At the moment, however, her thoughts were on bagpipers. Men in kilts. Lots o
f them. She turned and leaned back against the door, tapping the envelope to her chin. She needed to find a hot Scot. Where better to start than to check out a bunch of studly guys in uniform? And if none of them filled the bill, perhaps they could recommend someone who did.
She was already mentally rearranging her schedule so she could sneak out for a good chunk of the day on Saturday. If this panned out, she was going to owe Amelia a hell of a lot more than a glowing letter to her boss.
All caught up in the hatching stages of her grand plan, she almost forgot about the envelope. It wasn’t large and manila, which meant notes from Tommy or someone on staff. It was small, square, and white. She turned it over. There was nothing printed on it, not her name or room number, so it must have been hand delivered.
“Hmm.” She wedged a fingertip under one corner and slid it along the sealed edge. There was one single sheet of folded note paper inside. And when she flipped it open, there were two lines scrawled across the middle of the page:
Still in need of that second fantasy date site?
Meet me in the courtyard at midnight.
She turned it over, but that was it. No signature. But her heart had already started its now-familiar tattoo inside her chest. It had to be Dylan. Who else would write this? Who else knew she still had one site location to nail down? Well, Tommy did, as that had been the focal point of his ten minute harangue tonight after their end-of-day production meeting had ended. She looked at the note again. The writing was bold, masculine. But maybe she was just projecting.
“Yeah, projecting your own doom.” If it was Dylan, the very last thing she needed to do right now was give the gossip mill anything more to latch on to. Which was the least of the reasons why she had no business meeting him anywhere, at anytime, but certainly not in the middle of the night to head out on god knows what kind of adventure.
She walked over to window and looked down over the village square. Night had long since fallen, but given that it was early summer, the square was still dotted with more than a few people. The shops were closed, but Hagg’s was still ablaze and Erin knew a quick walk around the corner would show the windows of Miss Eleanor’s coffee shop still lit with a warm glow. She kept her attention on the square, scanning the couples and the small groupings. She noted a number of the show’s staffers as well as a few familiar locals, but Dylan wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Meet me in the courtyard at midnight.
She glanced over at the bedside clock. It was ten to.
It had to be him. She tapped the note against her palm. But why the sudden turn around after the silent treatment for the past two days? She’d told him what was what in the library, he’d listened, then told her no. When she’d tried to discuss it, he’d stood and excused himself, telling her that particular topic wasn’t up for discussion. She hadn’t heard from him since. Maybe he’d been waiting for her to make the next move.
She looked from the mess of notes and folders scattered on her bed still waiting to be attended to before she could sleep tonight…to the door to her room. A midnight rendezvous, huh? She sighed, the romantic in her trying not to swoon, but it did anyway, just a little. He’d phrased the request as a work meeting, but she knew damn well it wouldn’t be all business. Or she could hope. And it wasn’t like she didn’t need to talk to him, anyway, about her idea to find a replacement. If Dana were here, she’d be personally dragging Erin down to the courtyard.
“Wait a minute,” she murmured. “What courtyard?” She’d read “courtyard” but had been thinking “village square.” Maybe they were one in the same, but none of the locals she knew called it that. He couldn’t possibly mean the courtyard behind Glenshire? If he did, then there was no hope as she’d never make it in time.
She crossed to the hotel phone and dialed the desk before she could change her mind.
Amelia’s perky voice popped up on the other end. “Yes, Miss MacGregor?”
“Is there a courtyard somewhere off the square?”
“A courtyard, mum? You mean aside from the car park behind the hotel?”
“The rear parking lot?” She’d parked back there when she’d first checked in, but once Tommy had arrived, he’d commandeered it for his own personal use. So she’d gotten used to parking along one of the side streets and walking up to the hotel. The one nice thing about the village being so small, was that pretty much everything was in walking distance. She’d all but forgotten about the little courtyard back there.
“Aye. I dinna know of another. Would you like me to ask about?”
“No, no, that’s okay. Thanks.” She’d barely hung up when the phone rang again. Assuming it was Amelia calling her back, she scooped it up and said, “It’s okay, I know where it is.”
“Then why aren’t you down here?” came the decidedly masculine, and very familiar voice.
“Dylan.”
“Erin.”
Maybe it was the amused tone in his voice. Maybe it was the fact that, at the moment, he really was the only one she could talk to. Or maybe it was the way her entire body went on a full, four alarm alert.
“Don’t leave without me.” She dropped the phone, grabbed her bag, and flew out of the room before common sense could return. Common sense was no fun.
Chapter 13
He’d been sweating. Waiting. And sweating. Truly worried that she might not show up. What the hell was wrong with him anyway? He’d walked out of the library the other night, worked up and worn out. His life was already upside down. And everything that was upside down about it, all circled round to one Erin MacGregor.
Yet, here he sat, in the middle of the night, like a stupid nit, waiting to see if she’d come to him. Or if he was going to have to go in there after her. He’d told himself that steering clear of her was the smart, rational thing to do. But as one day turned into two, then looked to dawn into three, it had started to feel a hell of a lot more like hiding.
When things got complicated, he liked to think he was a take action sort. He’d done that with Glenshire, hadn’t he? So it only stood to reason that he would handle this…whatever the hell it was he was doing with Erin…the same way. Her boss’ mad scheme to have him parade about on the telly as their next pig to slaughter was just that, crazy. But he shouldn’t hold that against Erin.
All he wanted to hold against Erin was himself. Preferably naked, and on a comfortable surface where he could explore her naked self at his leisure. Maybe if he could do that, he could get his head back on straight and stop thinking about her every damn minute of every damn day. And night. Och, but the nights were about to do him in completely. Which explained why he was sitting in the car park at midnight.
He wasn’t sure which was worse, the fantasies his conscious mind dreamed up, or the intensely erotic, highly detailed forays into fantasy his subconscious treated him to the moment he allowed sleep to take him.
It was enough to drive anyone raving starkers. So he was a man with a mission: Get her, take her, get on with life. Only a fool wouldn’t act on the chemistry they shared. It was healthy and good to feel something. Anything. Even lust. Not a bad place to start in his book. So he’d slake his curiosity and his hunger while they filmed their little program, then he’d take their money and free promotion, wish Erin god-speed with her next project, and get on with the business of being an innkeeper.
Hell, after this circus, running a bed and breakfast would seem tame by comparison. He was actually looking forward to having only a handful of guests underfoot. Perhaps he should thank Erin for putting his future career in proper perspective for him.
And he would. If she ever got her flat little arse out here.
As if he’d willed her to appear, there came a tap on the passenger side window, followed by her sharp-eyed, gamine face peering in through the glass. He leaned across the seat and popped the door handle.
“Hello, stranger,” she said brightly, as she climbed in and settled herself in the bucket seat. As if they hadn’t last parted under less th
an lovely circumstances. As if it was nothing out of the ordinary for her to meet up with a man in the dark of night.
And yet, he’d not only asked it of her, he’d expected her to comply. More fool he, perhaps. Except here she was. Alone with him. By choice. His body stirred at the thought, and he wondered if she had any idea of the motives behind his invitation. If she, too, was hoping this was more personal than business.
The overhead light briefly illuminated her face before she shut the door. She seemed quite at ease, not at all anxious. Perhaps she’d taken his note at face value. A peace offering of sorts, for walking out on her the other day, then avoiding all contact since.
“Your note surprised me,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. “I almost didn’t come down.” Before he could ask, she said, “You might want to sign your notes.”
“You receive a lot of midnight invitations, do you?”
She laughed at that. “Only from Tommy, usually involving a crisis that only I can solve, sure to rob me of what little sleep I do get.”
He was more relieved by her confirmation than he’d liked to be. He wasn’t a jealous sort. Or he never had been. He didn’t know what he was now. “Well, hopefully I’ll be helping you reduce your workload rather than increase it. I’m sorry about the loss of sleep time.”
She lifted a shoulder, as if to say he wasn’t to worry about it. “I haven’t had a second to breathe the past couple of days, so if this site is viable, you’d really be helping me out. I’d give up more than sleep to get this particular headache resolved. Speaking of which, where have you been hiding out?”
So, she was here for business, then. He’d see about that. “Catching up on paperwork, my investments, and other things I’ve let go in my haste to complete the construction work for the grand opening. If anything, I’ve enjoyed the respite.”
She shot him a knowing smile. “So it was just coincidence, then, that by holing up in your wing, you’d keep from inadvertently crossing Tommy’s path so he didn’t hound you about the whole Prince Charming thing.”
The Great Scot Page 17
