Take Me Now
Nancy Jardine
Copyright © 2018 by Nancy Jardine
Cover Artwork: Stockerteam / Crooked Cat
Editor: Kelly May Illingworth (First Edition)
Take Me Now
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be stored, shared, copied, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the express written permission from the author, except for brief quotations used for promotion, or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Second Edition Nancy Jardine with Ocelot Press Dec 2018
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Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
About the Author
Author Note
Acknowledgements
Nominations
Ocelot Press
Other novels by Nancy Jardine
Chapter One
Nairn Malcolm’s only hope was chugging into the cove down below.
His fingers clamped onto the wrought-iron railing as he compelled himself to accept reality. Waiting for other candidates wasn’t feasible; time was too precious for that. He had to be mobile to ferret out the saboteur who’d caused havoc again that morning, never mind to do his normal work. Yet, even if the person below was suitable, could he involve her in something he knew was dangerous? His conscience smarted as much as his niggling wounds. Cantankerous rumbles from the healthy side of his mouth accompanied another squint at the boat now docking.
Shapely legs clambered from his newest catamaran. Deep-pink stilettos touched down on his floating jetty and found balance as it dipped and swayed, while tangled tresses billowed around her head in the stiff breeze coming in off the water. His irritability burbled further at her impractical footwear, his temper worse than that when a wicked gust of wind blew up her flirty little skirt, a flash of white widening his eyes. His fingers scrunched at the railing.
The woman’s clothes might pass muster in an office, but how could they be called practical for sailing around the islands off the west coast of Scotland, on a breezy end-of-June day?
Not in any noticeable hurry, she was chatting happily with Aran, his boatyard manager. Though he couldn’t hear their words, their easy conversation belied a long-time friendship as the painter was secured to the mooring hook. He heard the generally taciturn Aran chuckle a second time. How the heck did the woman draw the man out of his usual reticence?
Her echoing laugh annoyed him.
His grumble was loud enough to startle the tern settling alongside him on the wrought-iron gate as he willed himself to be ready for the coming meeting, his eyes closing for a moment to regroup. The dip of the wind turned in his favour whipping words up from the cove.
“Honestly. It’s no problem. I’ll take it with me.”
The loud claim came as Aran answered that he could look after it till later. Look after what? Nairn’s one-good-eye popped open and locked onto her rear as she shrugged into the laden backpack Aran passed up to her from the catamaran.
A backpack?
He shook his head to dispel the peculiar image. Why wasn’t she shouldering a jaunty little handbag, or a briefcase? His vision was loopy, but he wasn’t imagining the monstrous bag as she straightened up. The dull wallop of a pile driver at the back of his skull had been present all day. Now it pounded even more from the stress this woman produced – and he hadn’t even met her yet. Who, in their right mind came to an interview wearing bright pink stilettos, for God’s sake, and sported a groaning backpack?
Aela Cameron’s agile skip along his undulating floating-jetty was unimpeded by the weighty luggage. When she came to a halt at his boatshed, she peered in the little side window, her Canadian accent clearer when it drifted up to him.
“That’s a cool collection in there. Can I have a peek at his floatplane?”
He watched the woman vanish inside his boatshed after Aran, his mouth pursing at the continued delay. Shifting his body to a better position, he waited.
Then waited some more.
A peek? He could have built a ruddy fishing boat by now!
What the hell took them so long? A dilly-dallying female wouldn’t suit him at all, but he owed his ex-PA, Brian, big time. Brian had worked his ass off to get even one candidate to come for an interview, though he doubted this woman could possibly have the experience he needed. An awkward shunt moved his aches and pains to the side of the gate. Just out of view, he still overlooked the boatshed.
Finally, they exited the wooden building. Aela Cameron’s head whipped up when Aran indicated the climb, his finger pointing to the top of the cliff. Unladylike snorts and comments burst free from her as she tackled the zigzagging wooden stairway built onto the rock face. Part way up, a huge smile lightened her face before she quipped something down to Aran, who lugged a box of supplies. Aran’s laughing answer drifted off on the breeze.
A funny woman was she? Nairn shuffled along the wall to prop himself against a stout beech tree. The tumult in his head amplified as he prepared to meet her, his usual control as elusive as the vision he struggled to balance. The greenish gull-plop that landed on his elbow was one more indignity, exemplifying how he felt.
Fresh horse crap. Steaming and hazy…and overheated.
***
Aela huffed but only a little bit.
Nobody had warned her about the climb. The only information given by the appointments agency was that she should present herself at the marina for two p.m. where she’d be met and ferried to the island of Lanera, for an interview with Nairn Malcolm at his Garvald home.
Aran, the pilot of the catamaran, had been chatty during the journey, though had been circumspect about her prospective employer, the location of his house and of how she would get there once they arrived at the island. Not being bothered over what she considered minor details, she’d told him about her sailing experience as they skirted the Mull of Kintyre on their way north to the island of Lanera.
Now, a few hundred treads up, she was on the top step of the cliff staircase thankful she was fit. The climb with an overloaded backpack, and wearing the ridiculous heels, would have killed some people. She chuckled at the silly image as she unlatched the wrought iron gate set into a high grey granite wall and stepped through onto rough grass. Exhilarated by the scene, she stood transfixed for a couple of moments. It was inevitable, though, that her throaty gurgle sputtered out since she wasn’t one to suppress her mirth too often.
“Holy shit, Aran. Would you look at that? Hell’s bells and baubles. You said it would be worth it when I got to the top, but you never mentioned it was a cute
little castle. Hey, can you hear me down there?”
Aran’s amused answer echoed up. “The whole island can probably hear you, Miss Cameron.”
So taken was she by the scenery, she didn’t lower her volume. “This is my first visit to a real Scottish castle. Jeeze. Just look at that dinky turret up there. I could pretend to be the lonely little virgin watching my handsome knight in shining armour gallop in on his trusty steed. I’d drop my token handkerchief for him to scoop up on his lance before he fought death-defying tourneys over my honour.”
Her unladylike hollers and arm gestures wouldn’t have matched the weeping-willow creature she portrayed, but she was on a roll, her mind's eye taking flight in the magical setting.
Aran’s voice floated from just short of the top step, the weight of his large package having slowed his climb. “Your historical references are a wee bit mixed up, Miss Cameron. We were short of that brand of champion up here in the islands. Our heroes were more likely to be uncouth, more hairy, and a lot less chivalrous.”
Aela’s loud chortles echoed all around as she scanned the rooftop crenellations. “Sounds exactly my type. Bring the hairy ones on, please, and we’ll have a big party in that dinky castle.”
Fifty yards ahead, the original turreted keep had been renovated, two extensions having been added to make the whole construction form a U-shape. The facade of grey granite had dark wood bordering lots of shining windows, blending harmoniously. The windows, she guessed, had been widened from original gun-looped embrasures since a couple of these thin rectangular openings remained at each end of the centre section on ground-floor level.
“This is the greatest start to an interview, Aran. I’m so impressed,” she whooped, unable to contain her bubble of pleasure because in no way did the castle resemble the forbidding bleak structures she’d read about in traditional Scottish tales. “Okay. So, what’s next on this escapade?”
She turned back as Aran stepped through the gate. Her beaming smile froze, her hand whipping up to slap her chest. “Who the hell are you? Jeeze. You scared the crap out of me. The castle comes with its very own ogre?”
She released an indrawn breath. Fairy tales were abandoned as medieval images resurfaced, her heartbeat settling. The vision alongside the wall was so unanticipated there was no way could she suppress a burst of laughter. “Whoa. This is so incredible. I get to meet the battle-scarred champion as well? I love these full re-enactment deals. It’s great to meet you, Sir Smash-Em-Up.”
An uncomfortable throat-clearing came from Aran as he crossed the stretch of grass.
The stony stare of the other man curtailed any further gusto. Aela belatedly grasped that her glib comments weren’t well received. It appeared that Sir Smash-Em-Up’s appearance maybe wasn’t set up for her enjoyment.
A huge guy stood braced against the tree near the gate. She wasn’t small at five feet ten, but this man was at least six and a half feet. He was attention-grabbing in the way a poster for an Accident and Emergency Department would be: downed in an earthquake and a hotchpotch of his parts thrown up in its wake sort of image. Why was the guy out of his sick-bed if the injuries he seemed to have were genuine?
His plastered right forearm nestled inside the waistband of his sweatpants. That wasn’t so odd, but she gulped over the rest of him. The left leg of the black sweatpants had been haphazardly hacked off at crotch level: the sturdy thigh below a mish-mash of scratches, plasters, purple-black bruises and dark leg hair. A rigid white plaster cast stretched from a little above the kneecap all the way down to his toes.
The view above his waist wasn’t encouraging either because the short-sleeved black shirt the man wore was open, and flapping in the warm breeze. White gauze was strapped on below his left collar bone, the rest of his chest splattered with deep scratches and Technicolor bruising. The man was a mess, but quite a glorious mess.
“You’re not an actor?”
Her question gained no response.
The man never blinked once as she stared, no part of his shuttered face showing any emotion at all. Eyes of an intense blue regarded her, though the left one was barely open. Dark bloody-bruising and puffy-red inflammation around the eyelid with swelling and discoloration on the cheekbone below, made his features unbalanced. Thick black hair, tousled like a blood-sticky thatch, drooped above his bruised brow. An angry gash slashed across his forehead, the wound scabbing over but not sufficiently deep to require stitching.
Mmm…definitely an ogre.
The man bore a vague resemblance to the thirty-two year old Nairn Malcolm of the internet photograph she’d managed to search out, but would the blonde limpet in the recent celebrity snapshot want to curl herself around this forbidding wreck of a man? Aela thought not. She wondered if his blank expression was caused by current circumstances or if this was his normal demeanour since he hadn’t been smiling in the photograph either.
Though, with the high granite wall as his backdrop, she could easily imagine this man lording it over the castle, ruthlessly challenging any invaders to his domain. He looked the archetypal highland laird, yet what had the guy been doing to get himself in such a state?
“Nairn Malcolm.”
Her gaze tracked his hand as it stretched out in salutation, no other part of his body moving since he remained parked against the tree. Maybe the extreme sporting activities the man marketed were a little too extreme? Did she want to be transporting someone who looked like a walking advert for medical insurance?
On the other hand, she could see exactly why he needed someone to fly his floatplane for a while. The appointments agency hadn’t made any mention of his medical condition and that came as no surprise now that she could see what he was like. They’d probably feared she’d turn tail and run from the daunting prospect of him.
She moved to return his gesture but halted when one undamaged eyebrow twitched in scathing inquiry. Ah. Tendering the wrong hand wasn’t a great start, and neither was her right heel sinking into the soft grass. Shit! Other mental curses were quelled as she entangled the fingers of her left hand with his.
“Aela Cameron. Good afternoon, Mr. Malcolm.”
His hand was huge. Warm fingers clamped around hers as he pumped briskly, an awkward three times, a fierce grip that tightened her forearm muscles. Wriggling herself free of his clench, she stumbled right out of her stuck-fast shoe and toppled onto the grass, her backpack bearing the brunt of the impact. An upside down tortoise wouldn’t have been any more graceless, her legs wallowing in air. Her burst of laughter was repeated when she looked up into the disbelieving gaze of Nairn Malcolm.
“Upon-my-ass, indeed. Sorry, Mr. Malcolm. I guess it’s not good form to reveal the tighty-whities during an interview.”
She squirmed her skirt down before attempting to straighten her face because Nairn Malcolm’s good eye had almost popped out. Such events rarely fazed her and this one was proving to be the most comical situation she’d been in for a long time. After rolling to bear weight on all fours, she rebalanced the backpack before rising, her amusement subsiding under his continued displeasure. Sure, she’d fallen over, but it didn’t deserve such a scurrilous attitude.
“I’m away round to Mariskay,” Aran called from the top of the cliff staircase. “Call me when you’re ready, Nairn.”
Aela registered how long she must have been ogling the walking-wounded since Aran had already been inside the castle with the heavy load he’d been carrying.
“Thanks for the deliveries, Aran.” Nairn Malcolm’s reply was brief…and toneless.
“Hey! Thanks for delivering me too, Aran. I adored what you can do with that catamaran.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to be regarded as one of Mr. Malcolm’s deliveries, like a pizza order, although she supposed she almost qualified. She reviewed her circumstances while she waited for Sir Smash-Em-Up to say something else, but all he did was maintain that flinty demeanour. It was definitely the strangest beginning to an interview for a job.
The walking-wounded gru
nted, a heartfelt sigh, before he peeled himself from the sturdy tree. As he lurched past the gate, she watched him glimpse the catamaran already whizzing around the cove before he indicated the French doors. Prior to issuing his orders, she was aware of his deep lingering stare at her lips. She didn’t blame him. The fuchsia pink really wasn’t her norm.
“Miss Cameron. Those doors to the centre of the building lead into the great room. Wait there.”
She nodded, attempting to ignore his rudeness. After padding a few steps towards his castle, twirling her pink stilettos from one hand, she glanced back. The strange man grasped the forearm crutch he’d stashed alongside the wall and hauled it into place, his expression one of sheer resignation. The short walk to the castle must loom like an impossible marathon. The whimper when he started on the first of many lurches made her want to rush to his aid, but he’d set down clear instructions.
On entry to the room, she dropped her backpack to the side of the doors before slipping her shoes back on. Awaiting his slow progress, she admired the décor. When endless seconds passed she returned to the French doors where her grin slipped. “Would you look at that dumb ass? Some bed should still have his name on it.”
For every pace the man took, he stopped to regain breath before he repositioned the crutch, followed by a reel as he forced his leg-cast forward with a lumbering twist. Laughter went on the back burner. How could she find humour in his predicament? The man shouldn’t be interviewing at all, at least not until he was less incapacitated. However, if the idiot wanted to interview her then so be it.
The great room was well named, eminently suitable for someone as large as Mr. Malcolm. Comfortable leather sofas and wide armchairs framed a huge stone fireplace, the grate set with hefty logs and traditional peat blocks. Impressive landscape paintings adorned the white walls and added a kaleidoscope of colour. Small bookcases flanked the French doors. She had plenty of time to examine their contents before he listed into the room.
Take Me Now Page 1
