“I hate weddings,” Megan said. “They’re so full of hope and cluelessness. Like your lamb. She doesn’t know she’s going to end up as mutton stew. Between then and now she’ll grow up to become a smelly, muddy, stinky sheep, with dingleberries and burdocks in her coat.”
Somebody’s lantana was definitely droopy.
Declan got out of the Land Rover, retrieved the suitcase, and followed Megan up the porch steps.
“Mary will go to a breeding herd, but how does a nice florist like you even know what dingleberries are?”
“I live in western Maryland. We have sheep. Anybody who’s seen the back of a sheep knows what dingleberries are. Nice, fluffy, pretty sheep up front. Dingleberries and grossness behind. Weddings are full of dingleberries, figuratively. The ushers get drunk, the bridesmaids get high. The in-laws fight, the bride makes out with the groom’s best friend, or with her own maid of honor. The buffet gives everybody food poisoning, and the DJ sucks. The lantana droops, and somebody always has to make a lewd comment about the anthurium.”
The cottage was a snug two-story stone structure with a lot of picture windows. Not a very practical place, but pretty. Couples had honeymooned there, a fact Declan kept to himself.
“Is anthurium that red flower with the,”—Declan wiggled a single finger—“willy sticking out of it?”
Megan trooped inside after him. “The very one. In the language of flowers, anthurium symbolizes a bride who hasn’t got a clue and a groom who five times a night had better be able to—I like this place.”
Declan liked her. Liked her honesty and her loyalty to a sister she didn’t have much in common with. Liked her defiant hair, and her willingness to deal with weddings, despite all their problems.
Mary stood outside the door, looking in through a picture window.
“My lamb has taken a fancy to you,” Declan said. “I can leave her with you, if you want the company.”
Megan opened the door, and Mary came strutting in, the wee tramp. “That is so sweet. You’d lend me your lamb?”
“She was an orphan, so I bottle fed her in my kitchen,” Declan said. “We had a cold, wet spring, which meant she spent more time with me than most orphans. She took to following me around, and she’s learned a few commands.”
Declan would miss her, which was pathetic in a man who called himself a farmer.
“Then yes, I’d like to borrow your lamb.” Megan said, closing the door. “So far, I like having you for a best man, Declan MacPherson. Now shoo so I can fall asleep on the couch.”
“Bedroom’s upstairs,” Declan said, hefting the suitcase and heading for the steps. “Kitchen is stocked, according to Niall, and Mary will be fine with what she can forage in the yard, though you’ll have to give her water.”
Megan declined to follow him upstairs, which was fine. The less he saw of her in proximity to a bed, the better for them both. He needed to pop into Perth some Friday night and behave like a single adult male for a change.
Declan set the suitcase on the stand in the bedroom, cracked a window to let in some fresh spring air, and generally indulged in a bit of nosiness. He’d not been inside this cottage often, but it was a cozy, peaceful place.
When he came back downstairs, Megan was sprawled on the couch, her feet bare, Mary cuddled up by her side.
“No need to worry about me,” Declan said, scratching the lamb’s shoulder. “I’ll be fine without you.” He scrawled his number on a note pad by the phone and stuck it to the fridge with a bagpipe magnet. “No worries at all.”
He unfolded the All Scotland plaid afghan from the back of the couch and draped it over the sleeping woman, then let himself out of the cottage.
The woods were beautiful this time of year, with shafts of mellow sunshine slanting down between green boughs and stately trees. The redwoods mixed with the oaks created a unique fragrance, and the river wended placidly along on the other side of the hiking trails.
To a farmer who loved the land, the moment should have been lovely.
“I’ll miss a damned sheep,” Declan said, getting behind the wheel of his Land Rover. He navigated the single track back to the road and turned toward town, mentally trying to prepare for the quarterly ordeal of meeting with the accountant.
Declan would be on time, his ledgers up-to-date, and the totals showing a tidy profit, as they had for the past five years. That profit was a source of pride, despite the brutal hard work necessary to earn it. As Declan took a seat in a pleasant baronial office that had probably cost too much to furnish, he was plagued by a question.
If he never had children, then for whom was he preserving the legacy of the MacPherson farm? To whom would he pass it on? If the answer was nobody, or some toff from Edinburgh who wanted a vanity farm, then what was the point of all that hard work?
***
“So this is the bachelor party?” Megan asked, peering around a wood, glass, and stone structure that Declan said belonged to a Cromarty cousin.
“This is a family dinner,” Declan said, “and Liam and Louise agreed to cook. Niall doesn’t want to sit around getting drunk with the men, and Julie wants your company, so here we are.”
Though Megan had slept like the dead yesterday afternoon, evening, and night, she still felt muzzy-headed. A walk with Mary along the river this morning had helped, but then the afternoon had been spent on the computer and on the phone with the flower shop staff back in Maryland, the accountant, and the bank.
“Is there protocol here?” Megan asked as Declan led her up a set of stone steps. “I mean, do you toast the queen, not mention the queen, take your shoes off, never drink until the host has taken a sip? I don’t travel much and—”
She’d been an observer at so many rituals—weddings, showers, family reunions, funerals, retirements—but never a participant.
“I wish I had a great big urn of gladiolus to hide behind,” she went on. “I think half the contribution flowers make to any occasional is their scent. They’re beautiful and full of life, but the simple scent of them calms everybody down.”
Everybody being herself. Megan. Sister of the bride, which bride might never return to Maryland again.
Declan kissed Megan’s cheek, and apparently his scent calmed her down too. He was in a kilt again, not plain black, but a pretty gray, red, and blue pattern with a black V-neck sweater. The wool must have done good things for his aftershave, because he wore the outdoors, the mild night air, the velvety sky in that scent.
“Settle yourself, Meggie Leonard. You’ll be fine, and if you aren’t, I’ll just explain to everybody that you’re Julie’s crazy sister from America. Crazy relatives are something of a cultural fixture here.”
He didn’t knock, didn’t ring a doorbell, but simply opened the door.
“I never met such a man for kissing, Declan MacPherson. The Scottish Tourism Board ought to make a calendar out of you, or you and Mary. She’s good company, though a guy in a kilt and a sheep might not be exactly the impression you want to—”
He tugged her through the door and kept hold of her hand during an endless succession of introductions. Julie had stopped by last night while Megan had been snoring her evening away and left a note. She’d come by again for breakfast, but had been in a hurry to join Niall at a whisky tasting in preparation for the wedding.
Plenty of time to talk about the flowers later, of course, because clearly, that wouldn’t happen tonight either.
The evening passed in a blur of laughter, excellent food, stories, and more laughter. Julie had never looked lovelier, and her fiancé, Niall, never left her side for long. Various other Cromarty cousins ringed the table, some drinking wine, some beer, and some single malt whisky sent by a cousin referred to as an honest-to-God earl.
“You had enough?” Declan asked, handing off a baby boy named Henry to another guy whose name Megan forgot.
“More than enough.” She wanted to fall asleep on the couch back at the cottage, Mary beside her, the soft scent of the woods
coming through the window.
“Then let’s go.” Declan rose and pulled Megan to her feet. “Niall, Julie, we’ll see ourselves out. Megan hasn’t quite got herself on Scottish time yet, and unlike you lot, I have to get up in the morning. See you the rehearsal.”
And then they were outside, heading for Declan’s Land Rover.
“That was simple,” Megan observed. Holding Declan’s hand was simple too. His entire palm was callused, but his grip was warm and easy.
“They’ll tell stories half the night,” Declan said. “Then tell the same stories when Alasdair, Cameron, or Morag tie the knot, drinking more of the same celestial whisky cordially sent over by their cousin, the Earl of Strathdee.”
Who would tell stories for Megan? And when would they tell them, if she never married? Scotland was making her philosophical, or crazy.
“Julie isn’t exactly obsessing about her flowers,” Megan said as the Land Rover bumped along the dirt lane.
“She’s in love, Megan,” Declan said gently. “If she’s obsessing about anything, it should be Niall.”
“You know, one of the things I like about you Declan, is that you’re big enough I could smack you and not hurt you.”
“One of the things I like about you, Megan Leonard, is you’re not given to gratuitous dramas. Shall I pick up Mary?”
Damn. “You might as well.” Megan closed her eyes, tired in ways that had nothing to do with jet lag. “I hate weddings.”
“I know, love.”
Her phone buzzed. “I hate my goddamned idiot, never-ending, ceaselessly annoying cell phone.” The shop was calling, for the third time that day.
She swiped the screen and put the damned phone to her ear. “Megan here.” Part of her was also not here, caught in some time warp between home and away, happy and sad, exhausted and wired.
“Yo, boss. You got a message from that guy at the bank. They want you to fax over some document and it’s closing time here so I thought I’d let you know.”
Tony was a genius with flowers, finesse itself with nervous brides, and a complete zero in the administrative skills department.
“What document, Tony?”
“The lease?”
“Tony…”
“Hold on, boss lady. Looks like… your articles of copulation. I can’t read Dixie’s handwriting.”
“My articles of incorporation, which I cannot fax until tomorrow morning, assuming I can find a fax machine, or scanner and fax, because I have the frickin’ useless, stinking, infernal, damned articles with me.” The original was in the bank’s safe-deposit box, of course.
“So… how you likin’ Scotland?”
Declan pulled into the cottage driveway and shut off the ignition.
“I’ll be back on the tenth, come fire, flood, or fungus. Do not store your beer in the walk-in, or I will fire you.”
“Oh, Dixie! Save me! Megan’s blood sugar is low again!” In the background, Dixie hollered profanity, and Tony dropped the cartoon falsetto. “Go drink some whisky, boss woman, and you’re welcome.”
“Love you, too, Tony.” Megan ended the call. “The bank wants a copy of my articles of copulation.”
“I wouldn’t mind having a look at those myself, but for now, how about I retrieve my sheep?” Declan asked, climbing out of the Land Rover.
Chapter Two
* * *
“I like your sister,” Niall Cromarty informed his intended. Julie had led him out to the kitchen and had bundled against him the instant they’d had privacy, maybe so they could have this very conversation. He’d watched Megan and Julie smile, laugh, and carefully avoid being private with each other all evening.
“I like her too, what I know of her,” Julie said, dropping her forehead to Niall’s shoulder. He was tall, but at five-foot-ten, Julie fit him perfectly. “Megs is always in motion, always off to some banquet, or meeting with a client or her bankers. She’s not the kind to let moss grow under her feet.”
“She was happy enough to stick to MacPherson’s side tonight.” And MacPherson had been happy to stick to hers.
Niall’s observation earned him a smile. “Declan has an affectionate nature, and a guy can’t spend every waking minute with his livestock.”
Yes, he could, or tending to his farm. When Niall had last come across Declan at The Wild Hare, MacPherson had been poring over a damned seed catalog as if it had naughty pictures across the centerfold.
“I don’t suppose what they do is any of our business,” Niall said. “I’d hate to lose my business partner the instant I stop feuding with him.”
Julie drew back and began scraping dishes into a pot. Helen, Liam’s mongrel deerhound/mastiff, would get first go at the scraps, though they were vegetarian scraps. Niall took each dish from Julie and rinsed and stacked it for washing, the rhythm of their cooperation making his soon-to-be-married heart happy.
“I’m not sure when I lost my sister,” Julie said. “I love Megs, I’d do anything for her, but somewhere along the way, she marched one way, I went the other, and we haven’t really—” She fell silent, a scraped plate in her hand. “Why am I weepy, Niall?”
He took the plate from her and set it in the sink. “We’ll visit at Christmas, if you like. We’ll fly Megan over here, we’ll Skype, we’ll e-mail, we’ll keep her supplied with haggis she’ll feed to her cat.”
“Megs doesn’t even have a cat. She has that flower shop, and me.”
“She’ll have me now too, Julie. That’s how it works here.”
Niall was marrying a woman who’d been a damned good criminal prosecutor, and he loved her dearly. She resumed scraping plates, he went back to sink duty, but Julie’s unspoken concern filled the spaces of their companionable silence.
In Scotland, a woman’s husband might become her sister’s friend. Megan wasn’t living in Scotland, and might never be visiting in Scotland again.
***
So Declan MacPherson, Scottish Rhymes with hottish, wouldn’t mind having a look at Megan’s articles—?
“Part of the trouble with being in Scotland,” Megan observed, tromping up the cottage steps behind Declan, “is that the men here are Scottish, and a woman—even a very perceptive woman—can’t tell when the guys are teasing and when they’re making a lady an offer. Who around here has a fax machine?”
Moving up stairs behind a man wearing a kilt provided a very distracting view. Good thing kilts were in short supply back in Maryland.
“I have a fax,” Declan said, “also a scanner. I own a farm, a farm is a business. If I had to run into town every time I needed to send somebody a copy of a document, my livestock would starve and so would I.”
Declan was in no immediate danger of starving, though sitting next to him throughout the evening, Megan had endured a growing sense of her own hunger.
“Speaking of your livestock, MacPherson…” Mary was curled up on the couch, cute enough to have been auditioning for a Christmas crèche. “It’s a shame to wake her.”
“She’ll go back to sleep easily enough,” he said, lifting the lamb against his shoulder. “Fetch your articles of confiscation, and I’ll send them off for you tonight after I check on my coos.”
Must he look so adorable with the sleepy lamb cradled in his arms?
“Don’t run off. You want a cup of tea or coffee?” A roll in the hay? An invitation to lose the kilt?
What was wrong with her? This kind of panting, tail-wagging interest in a guy hadn’t bothered her since… well, ever.
“No tea for me, thanks. I feed early in the morning and regret a late night far worse than I did as a younger man.”
The almighty highfalutin articles of incorporation were a single page of small print. When Megan brought them downstairs, Declan was standing with his back to the living room, staring out at the dark woods, the lamb dozing on his shoulder.
The line of his back put Megan in mind of gladiolus. Powerful, masculine, curving exactly along the edge between grace and strength—with a s
leepy lamb resting her chin against his sweater.
“Would you be offended if I sent these myself?” Megan asked, wondering what held his attention out there in the shadowy, quiet woods.
He twitched a tired smile at her. “I check on m’ coos, no matter how many times Dundas tells me they’re fine. If you must send your own faxes, then I’m no one to judge you for it.”
Coos were apparently cows. “Who’s Dundas?” Megan asked as they made their way out to the Land Rover.
“My dairyman. Inherited him from my granny. Who’s Tony?”
Megan paused beside the vehicle. In the darkness, she could hear the river easing between its banks, the sound going unappreciated in daylight. Overhead, stars winked down from above the canopy of leafy branches.
Pretty. Where Declan lived was pretty. Where Megan lived was probably pretty in much the same way, but she hadn’t noticed that lately, because Maryland was simply home.
She climbed into the Land Rover and buckled up. “Tony is my number two in the shop, and enough to give any boss nightmares. He has a heart of gold, an excellent eye for design, dotes on the customers, and would bankrupt me in a month flat if I let him. Dixie doesn’t have his flair for the flowers—nobody does—but she’s a work horse, she gets the paperwork, and she likes arranging for funerals.”
“What do you like, Megan?”
Mary was curled up on the seat between them, her head against Declan’s thigh. Right then, Megan might have liked to switch places with the sheep.
“I like having my own business. I’m self-taught, though I picked up enough night classes to get an associate’s in business a few years back. I like that it’s my show, and that I’m the best in town. The bank has finally, finally acknowledged as much by approving my loan, but Mike Cochrane, the loan officer, has to be a fiend about the paperwork. I included a copy of my articles with the loan application, and he’s being a triple butthead by asking for another copy.”
Declan’s driving was smooth to the point of sexy, no wasted movements, no miscalculations. The village was quiet, though the hour wasn’t much past ten o’clock, and his Land Rover eased down the darkened streets as if it knew where it was going.
Must Love Scotland (Highland Holidays) Page 12
