Off Kilter

by Donna Kauffman

  “I believe our carriage awaits,” Shay announced, giving Roan a quick once over, then standing next to him as they looked into the full-length mirror perched in the corner. “We almost look respectable.”

  They were wearing their plaids and full clan regalia. McAuley colors for Roan, Callaghan colors for Shay. He was one of only a handful on the island of three hundred plus who wasn’t McAuley or MacLeod.

  “A shame we already know all the single women at the reception,” Shay said, quite seriously.

  “Aye. No’ a chance we’ll field the question,” Roan said, adjusting his sporran.

  “What question is that?”

  They turned as Blaine waltzed into the room—which, was the only appropriate adjective, really. His gait was too regal to be a sashay.

  The man was a bit godlike in appearance, in a magazine advert kind of way, Roan supposed. It was only when he moved … or talked … that one realized there was a goddess hidden beneath his mythical exterior. His arrival on the island hadn’t initially been met with enthusiasm, given the villagers immediate affection toward Katie and fear he’d come to interfere with the impending nuptials. But once that fear had been put to rest, they’d quickly accepted the chatty and quick-witted Yank. Roan couldn’t be certain his sexual orientation had been met so open-heartedly by some of the more devout and traditional clan elders, but life on a remote island wasn’t for the faint of heart. Islanders were rugged individualists. In that regard, his very differences were seen as endearing quirks. And God knows, they all had them.

  “What a true Scotsman wears beneath his kilt,” Shay responded, still admiring his oh-so-serious self.

  Blaine considered the response for a moment, appearing thoughtful, then tossed off a quick grin. “And here I was already a fan of any culture that endorses men wearing skirts. Hmm.” He gave them both a cheeky once over.

  Shay glanced at Roan, who glanced back. They shared a quick shake of the head. Then Shay looked back at Blaine. “Today, we shall let you live. But only because Katie would make our lives an eternal living hell if we were found responsible for anything happening to you.”

  “Not to worry,” Blaine said, not remotely chastened. He tipped his top hat in their direction. “You’re not my types anyway.”

  Again, Shay and Roan exchanged glances. “I believe we’ve just been insulted,” Shay said, turning back to the mirror, serious as ever. “What’s not to love?”

  “Graham’s reaction if the two of you scoundrels are late to the meadow,” Eliza said, hustling back into the chamber, only to stop short as she spied Blaine. “My, my, don’t you look the vision.”

  Roan had no idea where Blaine had acquired his get up, though he wouldn’t have been at all surprised if it was simply a part of the regular wardrobe the man traveled with. He had on pinstriped dress trousers, a dove gray, cutaway jacket with tails, and had completed the look with a deep rose pink cummerbund, cream silk ascot, dove gray top hat, and a slender black cane. The shame was that he actually carried it off with more elan than even the swishiest of Brits would have.

  Blaine doffed his hat and bowed deeply in front of Eliza, then took her hand. “You are as delightful a vision as the first blush of spring.” He kissed the back of her hand, surprising a delighted smile from her, and if Roan wasn’t mistaken, a bit of a blush.

  He hadn’t thought that was actually possible. His estimation of Blaine rose a notch or two just for that feat alone.

  “We were just heading out,” Roan told Eliza.

  “If I could have a short moment,” Blaine said, sending a gracious smile toward Eliza, who didn’t need further explanation that he’d wanted the short moment to be a private one.

  “Dinnae be late!” she warned, then winked at Blaine, the blush still pinking up her ruddy cheeks. She bustled out, arrayed in quite the fancy mauve church dress, with a lace hat pinned to the back of her gray bun.

  “We’ll be along shortly,” Shay assured her, then turned to Blaine. “What is it?”

  Blaine waited for the office door to shut. Roan could have told him it wouldn’t stop Eliza from hearing every last word if that was her intent. But it would be a waste of time.

  “As you know,” Blaine said, looking back at the two of them, “Katie has made overtures to her parents more than once since her arrival.”

  Roan frowned and felt a certain tension slide down his spine. “Are you saying they’re going to somehow interfere in the proceedings today? I thought they’d maintained their silence throughout.”

  Blaine lifted a perfectly tailored shoulder. “They have. But I know the McAuleys—our branch, anyway—and though it doesn’t surprise me that they’ve cut Katie off without so much as a single tear shed, I’ve had my doubts that they’d actually allow her to tie the McAuley name legally to anyone without some attempt at intervention. It’s one thing to allow her to run off and have a tantrum, no matter how unseemly. Quite another to go off making decisions that could affect the corporate bottom line.”

  “What’s going on?” Roan asked, the tension turning to dread.

  “I’ve been keeping tabs.”

  “From here? How?”

  “I might not have had the fortitude to do what Katie did, but one big difference in our manner of parting is that, as the tragic, betrayed victim, I still have my allies back at home.”

  Katie’s family was bound to Blaine’s through their joint industry of building expensive racing yachts as well as other high-end floaties. McAuley-Sheffield had been in the boating business together for several hundred years, in fact. The pairing of Katie with Blaine had happened almost at birth, their collective parents all but salivating over the legal union and what it could do for the family-owned business, especially when there was an ever bigger push to take the company public. Katie had ruined all that by walking out on their wedding day. Roan knew how the McAuleys had responded. He had no sense what Blaine’s side had done after his defection.

  “Are you in contact with your family, then?” Roan asked.

  Blaine’s jaw tightened a little, but otherwise he kept his tone upbeat and wry. “Let’s just say that if you think the McAuleys are being chilly toward their daughter, my family is being downright glacial to me.”

  “They’re not blaming you for the wedding being called off, are they? Katie said it was pretty clear that it was all her doing. I can see them transferring blame to Graham, but not—”

  “No, it’s not that. Not only that, anyway. Let’s just say other information became public that day that was even more newsworthy to my family’s assembled friends and business associates.”

  “Ah,” Roan said.

  “Indeed,” Blaine said, not looking particularly upset about it, at least not outwardly.

  Roan couldn’t imagine such a pivotal moment being received so poorly as anything other than brutal, bordering on devastating. But Blaine seemed to have recouped well enough. Perhaps he hadn’t expected anything different.

  “The biggest difference between our circumstances now is that I had the foresight to do a bit of self-preservation planning. You know, just in case,” Blaine went on. “I told Katie time and again she needed to squirrel away a little here and there. The Caymans are lovely for that sort of thing, as it happens.” He waved a gloved hand—Roan had missed that detail—and said, “She didn’t think it was necessary. Kind of ironic, given how things turned out, but she won’t let me help her. Not in that regard. However, there are other ways friends can support friends. So … I’ve been keeping an ear to the ground.”

  “She doesn’t know about that?” Shay asked.

  “I tried to talk with her about it, but she was fairly adamant that I not stick my nose in. I had no intention of stopping, so I just stopped talking to her about it.”

  “What have you learned? There is still a ferry docking before the ceremony. Is there a surprise waiting us?”

  Blaine smiled at him indulgently. “Oh, the McAuleys would never arrive by ferry. How … plebian.”
/>
  Roan and Shay frowned. “The closest airstrip is on Barra,” Shay said, referring to the nearest island to Kinloch. Even that was just a narrow strip on the sandy beach.

  “You have docks, don’t you?”

  “For fishing boats, but we’re hardly set up for anything elaborate.”

  “What I mean is, you have a harbor. That’s why they make offshore anchors and skiffs for taxi transport.”

  “Of course they do.” Roan sighed, feeling that the inevitable was upon them. Poor Katie. Nothing should dampen that day for her. “The wedding is less than an hour from now. Will they have time enough to say their vows?”

  “Yes, but you know how they weren’t planning on going anywhere for their honeymoon?”

  “The flax harvest—Graham feels he needs to be here. They’ll go after the harvest is done.”

  “But you could spare them for, say, the weekend, right?”

  “That’s what I tried to tell him, but—”

  “A weekend in the Cotswolds would be lovely this time of year,” Blaine added. “Lovely private cottage, a bit of hiking, taking in the beginning of the fall colors.” He sighed somewhat rhapsodically, then went on with a sharp look in his eye. “In fact, I was thinking it would make a nice wedding present. Especially if they left immediately after the ceremony.”

  Roan was smiling as he glanced at Shay, who’d also cracked an uncustomary smile. “Great idea. Except the last ferry will be gone before—” Roan broke off as an odd sound vibrated through the air. “What is that?”

  “I’m not much for boats,” Blaine said, by way of explanation. “You understand.”

  They walked outside the abbey just as a small, sleek black helicopter landed on the smooth beach below, off to the west of the abbey, in the shadow of the ancient ruins.

  “How did you manage—?”

  Blaine smiled. “As I said, self-preservation planning. Comes in gloriously handy, doesn’t it?”

  Roan looked back at the chopper and grinned. “Aye. That it does.”

  “Now all we have to do is convince Graham to get on the damn thing.” Shay looked at Blaine. “He’s no’ much for flying.”

  “I’m thinking once I explain that there’s a yacht on the horizon with Katie’s parents on board, along with their lawyer—”

  “Lawyer?” Roan’s eyes widened. “They’re bringing legal representation to their daughter’s wedding?”

  “One never enters into commodity negotiations without legal being present.”

  “Bugger that,” Shay said.

  Roan had known her parents’ attitude was bad, but Katie tended to play it down, make jokes at her own expense. Even so, he hadn’t known it was quite like that. “Fine. I’ll go have a talk with Graham.” He took two steps toward the exit, then turned back and stuck his hand out to Blaine. “Thank you. You’re a good friend.”

  Blaine shook his hand once, firmly. “You’d do the same for someone you cared about.”

  Roan’s mind flashed immediately to Tessa. “Sometimes the path to giving aid isn’t always so clear, or appreciated.” He let that go, wishing he hadn’t said anything. He was worried about Katie. “What if Katie doesn’t want to go? What if she wants to confront her parents?”

  “That’s her choice,” Blaine said. “But this is her wedding day. I don’t think this will be the day she’ll want to take them on. They had their chance to deal with this before now. I’m going to talk to her while you talk to Graham.”

  “She doesn’t know? About any of it?”

  Blaine shook his head. “I wasn’t sure until this morning.”

  Roan nodded and turned to go again, but Shay asked Blaine, “What is it we’re supposed to do with them? Katie’s parents, I mean. Do you have a course of action?”

  “It depends on whether they stay until she returns.”

  “They’d come all this way and not stay to see her?”

  “They’re coming all this way to prevent a wedding. Once that plan is thwarted, I doubt they’ll see any real reason to stick around.”

  “That’s pretty cold-blooded,” Roan said.

  Blaine smiled, but it wasn’t like any smile Roan had seen on his typically amicable face thus far. In fact, it was downright chilling.

  “Welcome to our world,” he said.

  “I’m beginning to see why you came here.”

  “If we can just get the two of them married and off to the Cotswolds, then I think the problem will resolve itself. For now, anyway.”

  Roan just shook his head. “Hell of a resolution.”

  Shay shook his head, too, but his tone was far more fatalistic. “I’ve seen worse.”

  “And people wonder why I have no desire to leave this place,” Roan muttered as they exited the abbey, his thoughts on one person in particular.

  Chapter 10

  Less than twenty minutes later, Roan and Shay were standing proudly beside their best mate as he awaited his bride. Graham hadn’t taken the news of the impending arrival of the senior McAuleys at all well, but Blaine had been right in guessing that when faced with disrupting Katie’s wedding day—again—the option of a weekend in the English countryside had taken on a better shine.

  The helicopter had made quite a stir with everyone. He and Shay had passed the word to Eliza that it was a honeymoon surprise. As expected, she had quickly set the gossip mill into action. The news had the women in the crowd swooning at the romance of it, and the men envious of the hot ride.

  Despite being distracted by the latest turn of events, Roan automatically searched out Tessa to watch her work. She was lithe, graceful, and surprisingly unobtrusive. Aye, there were several hundred folks trampling the meadow grasses—the whole of the island had turned out for the happy occasion—but Tessa’s focus was on the bride, groom, and their small wedding party.

  “Katie’ll miss the reception,” Graham muttered to Roan. “Worked hard on it, she did. Wanted it just right for everyone.”

  Roan noted that Graham didn’t seem too choked up by the same loss. “We’ll throw another party when you return. I’m sure everyone will be quite happy to continue the celebration today as planned. Tessa can get it all on film.”

  “That is if it’s no’ still going on when you return,” Shay murmured.

  Roan smiled, then caught Tessa’s gaze as she moved behind Father Maddy to capture the crowd. She paused, too, the camera she’d been about to aim hanging still for a moment.

  She’d avoided him since their interlude the day of the rehearsal. Not that she’d been all that social prior to that, but she’d been all but nonexistent in public since. Her retreat didn’t surprise him, but it hadn’t, as yet, deterred him. He wasn’t retreating from the field that easily. He knew from asking the most casual questions of Katie that Tessa had been in touch with her on last-minute ceremony discussions.

  All that had done was alert Katie to the fact that there might have been another as yet untold part to his story that Kira had rejected him. It had been a half truth at best, but one he thought would put a stop to Katie’s matchmaking efforts. But there had been a notably sharper look in Kira’s eye and a slight edge to her tone when she’d stepped outside that afternoon to tell him they wouldn’t be accompanying him. He’d thought perhaps Tessa had told her about their shared moment in the courtyard … but she hadn’t alluded to it, and he certainly hadn’t. He wondered what else Tessa might have told her.

  Fortunately Katie had been a little distracted by other things and hadn’t pushed the matter as she otherwise might have.

  He’d intended to talk to Tessa at the reception later and at least put an end to their communication embargo, but that option appeared tentative at best. He assumed everyone would continue on with the festivities with or without the happy couple, but how much time Tessa would spend on it without the bride and groom, he couldn’t be sure.

  The unexpected moment they were sharing might be his only chance. And there was nothing he could do to capitalize on it. If he smiled, she’
d scowl.

  Instead, he simply held her gaze. Steadily, unwavering.

  She didn’t look away.

  See, Tessa. I’m no’ going anywhere.

  Then a murmur rose in the crowd, followed by a round of clapping and cheers. The carriage carrying Blaine and Katie had arrived.

  Roan glanced in that direction, and when he looked back again, Tessa was gone. Showtime for her.

  As stunning and ethereal as Katie was with the dandified Blaine helping her down from her carriage, Roan found his attention fixed on the photographer capturing the moment—every bit as captivated by her as the crowd was with the bride.

  “You’ve really got it bad, haven’t ye?” Shay leaned over to murmur in his ear.

  “Don’t let Graham hear you say that,” Roan said, going for the obvious joke. “He’ll have my head. Though I doubt he’ll start with that bit.”

  Shay straightened as the procession moved toward them. “I wasnae talking about the bride.”

  Roan shot him a quick look. “Then you’re seeing things.”

  The tiniest bit of amusement laced Shay’s deadpan expression. “Oh, aye. I see things.”

  Roan couldn’t do much more than glance at him, because Katie was stepping up in front of Graham. To look at her, Roan would never have guessed her world had just been rocked by the news of her parents’ impending arrival.

  Roan glanced beyond Katie to Blaine, who had just handed her into Graham’s care. Blaine gave him a brief nod. All was okay.

  Good.

  Roan turned to face Father Madaig as he began the ceremony. The crowd hushed. Roan had expected his thoughts would drift to Tessa, or the yacht heading toward their shores, or what to do about both of those situations. Instead he found himself truly listening to the sermon, to what Father Maddy was saying. When Graham and Katie turned to one another to recite the vows they’d written, he actually felt his heart constrict a little, and his throat went a wee bit dry.

  Aye, he wanted that for himself, he did. He’d witnessed many, many weddings over the years. Granted, not as best man, and not when it was one of his best mates saying the vows. But never had he felt the way he did in that moment. As he handed the ring to Graham, he saw no fear or trepidation on his face, just the absolute joy of a man who knew he’d come into possession of the most precious gift he could receive. The smile on Katie’s face, the brightest of sparks in her eyes, as Graham slid the ring onto her finger, left Roan feeling all but gutted.