Scot on the Run

by Janice Maynard

  What was the point of stopping by? She wouldn’t know who he was. She hadn’t recognized him for a long time. Still, he made the trip on her birthday and at Christmas. Today was neither.

  His father, God love his crotchety, closed-off self, dutifully came twice a month. To this day, Ian didn’t really understand why. This woman had betrayed her wedding vows, abandoned her husband and young son, and ruined the reputation of a man to whom she had pledged her eternal devotion.

  Even more inexplicable than Ian’s father’s regular visits was the fact that the senior Mr. Larrimore had married his wife a second time when she became ill and needed health insurance. Ian had never understood and likely never would.

  The urge to flee was strong, but now that he had driven this far, it seemed crazy to walk away. Instead, he got out of the car, trudged up the shallow front steps, waited to be buzzed in by security, and signed the visitor register in the lobby.

  His mother’s room was on the third floor. She had a private suite with a view that looked out over the gardens in the back.

  The door was ajar. Ian knocked quietly and entered.

  Often he found his mother in bed dozing. Sometimes her attention would be fixed raptly on the TV set mounted high on the wall. Today, she sat in a comfy armchair by the window. Though her hearing was perfectly normal, she gave no sign that she recognized his approach.

  He studied her in that moment, trying to remember a day when he had been part of a happy family of three. The image wouldn’t come into focus. All he could claim were wispy recollections—the scent of her perfume, the way she laughed, the warmth of the kitchen when she was cooking.

  “Mother,” he said. “It’s me. Ian. I’ve stopped by to say hello.”

  Still she stared out the window. Sighing inwardly, he sat down in the second chair. Now their knees practically bumped. Surely she knew he was there.

  “Mother…” He tried again.

  At last her head swiveled in his direction. Her once beautiful auburn hair was white, pulled back by some caretaker into a bun on the back of her head. Though years ago her skin had been soft and pale, betraying her Irish heritage, now her face and hands were wrinkled and sallow.

  She gazed at him, her pale blue eyes vacant. “Did ye bring the ice cream, boy? I told them I wanted vanilla.”

  He floundered, never accustomed to the random zigs and zags of her conversation. “It will be here soon,” he said, knowing she would soon forget whatever it was that prompted the request. “Do you know who I am?” He’d given up asking that question years ago, yet still he grasped at a connection that wasn’t there.

  Her blue-tinged lips trembled. Without responding, she ignored him and returned her attention to the world outside the window. It was her way. Whenever something upset her, she vanished inside her head.

  They sat there in silence for an hour. Ian had come looking for something, though he couldn’t have said for what or why. Nothing about his life had ever been normal…whatever the hell normal was. Even so, he’d found a measure of peace in his studies and his work.

  Most parents hoped their children would inherit the best of both gene pools. Ian had always been terrified his DNA included the worst. Though he wasn’t a substance abuser, some would say he was addicted to his research and his own company. As for the Y chromosome, Ian had a small circle of friends, but was he really anymore sociable than his taciturn, close-mouthed dad?

  He kept vigil with his mother for an hour. The mix of emotions in his gut was the same as always. Guilt. Pity. Distress.

  It hurt to see this frail, frightened woman a prisoner in her own fragile, damaged brain.

  Finally, he forced himself mentally to let her go. It was the same every time… almost like a death. He stood up slowly, so as not to startle her. Picking up his cell phone from the bed where he had laid it, he glanced down to see if he had any messages. There were none.

  Stepping away from the window, he tried to end the visit on a positive note. “Your flowers are beautiful.” The small crystal vase sat on the table beside her bed.

  At last, she looked at him again. The querulous frown was the most expression he had seen on her face today. “Your father brought them. I told him I hate carnations, but he never listens to me….”

  One moment of lucidity, and then it was gone. Ian wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. For a split second his poor addled mother connected the dots correctly, but only to criticize her disappointing spouse.

  He bent and kissed the top of her head. “I have to go now, Mama. It’s a long way back to London.” Six hours. Not so far at all. But he’d had all he could bear of this soul-crushing family reunion.

  Her hands twisted in her lap, picking at a fold in her flowered cotton dress. “Have you seen the puppy?” she asked. “I don’t want him making a mess on the stairs like he did last night.”

  “I’ll find him and take him out,” Ian said, his heart flinching inwardly. “Good-bye, Mama.”

  * * *

  Four months later…

  * * *

  Bella hurried up three flights of steps in the echoing stairwell and unlocked the oak door to her tiny, old-fashioned office. She’d been back on campus for an entire semester, and it was as if she had never left. Her time in Scotland seemed like a dream. Mostly. There were nights when she still cried herself to sleep, but that was understandable. Right?

  After accepting the job offer from the university and doing her best to enjoy her last ten days in Scotland, she had flown home right on schedule. Diving into work helped take her mind off her broken heart. She was in love with Ian, but he didn’t love her back. She was neither the first nor the last woman to find herself in such a situation.

  Though she checked the tabloids for news of him, as she had predicted, other stories now dominated the news cycle. It was impossible to keep up with her Scottish bachelor, even secondhand.

  Moving on with her life was the hardest thing she had ever done. For the first month, she had checked her e-mail obsessively, convinced Ian would write a note and say he wanted her to return to Scotland. Gradually, the truth became inescapable.

  Ian didn’t want her. The one saving grace was that she never had a chance to tell him she loved him. He had left Finley’s house so abruptly the words she had finally decided to say were left unsaid. It was for the best.

  The only exception to his absolute radio silence was the arrival of a small package with her name on it and a Scottish postmark. Although there was no note, she assumed it had to be from him, particularly when she saw was what inside. She stared at the contents in shock. The navy leather box held a necklace and matching earrings, the ones she had seen in a shop window on the Royal Mile. The amber pendant seemed to glow. The gold chain and the gold trim on the earrings was delicate and feminine.

  It hurt to look at them.

  Stoically, she had shut the box and stuffed it on the back of a high shelf in her closet where she wouldn’t have to look at it. Her tears were all used up. Now, all she felt was a deep, aching regret.

  She abandoned the memories and dragged her attention back to the task at hand, refusing to go forward into the holidays with a maudlin mood. As she entered final semester grades in her laptop for the freshmen who had taken her European History course, she glanced out the window now and again. Snow fell in blustery gusts. Soon it would begin piling up. The forecasters predicted six inches by morning. Bella was prepared. She had a fridge full of food and was looking forward to a weekend of binge watching television and wrapping Christmas presents. In a week, she would be joining Finley and McKenzie in Atlanta for the holidays. Finley and his bride had made the decision to split the year between their respective homes. April through September in Portree, the fall and winter months in Georgia.

  It felt odd but nice to have nothing looming over her head. Her dissertation was finished. She had defended it with flying colors. Though she’d chosen not to participate in tomorrow’s mid-year graduation ceremony, she was now officially D
r. Craig.

  Oddly, that didn’t give her the boost of excitement it once had. The goal seemed anticlimactic. Even so, come mid-January, she would be teaching a full load of classes. The head of the department had hinted strongly that with one of the two ill faculty members choosing to retire, the future looked bright for Bella’s career aspirations.

  She wasn’t at all sure how she felt about that prospect. Her novel, barely begun, still beckoned. Perhaps like her relationship with Ian, though, it was no more than an unlikely pipedream.

  At last—her immediate responsibilities completed—she closed her laptop and decided it was time to head home. She didn’t want to be caught in the worst of the snowfall. She put the out-of-office message on her phone and was seconds away from walking out when a firm knock broke the silence.

  Sighing, she arranged her face in a pleasant expression and called out in a cheerful voice. “Come in.”

  When the door swung open slowly and she saw who it was, her heart sank to the floor, shot to the ceiling, and fell again in dizzying succession. She cleared her throat. “Hello, Ian. What brings you here?”

  * * *

  Ian saw in an instant that Bella was perfectly at home in her surroundings. Much the same way he flourished in a lab, Bella reveled in academia. The ivy-covered buildings, the beautiful quad turning white with snow, the gentle, steady pace of learning and growth.

  He faltered only for a moment. “Hello, Bella,” he said quietly. “I checked your schedule online. I was hoping you were finished for the day and might be free to join me for dinner. I’d like to talk.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand. “You don’t have to say a word. Honestly. But I have some things I need to get off my chest.”

  Her gaze was guarded, even tense. “Is it really so important, Ian? You and I have been apart twice as long as we actually knew each other, more than that actually.”

  She was right. In some ways he felt like he had lived a lifetime since he walked out of Finley’s house. In other aspects, the wound was raw.

  “Please,” he said. “I owe you an apology. I’d like a chance to explain.”

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “It is to me.” For several long agonizing heartbeats he thought she was going to kick him out. It wouldn’t have mattered. He had no plans to go anywhere else until he settled things with Bella.

  “Okay.” She surrendered gracefully, though her face gave nothing away in regard to her true emotions.

  “Thank you,” he said. Was she at all glad to see him, or had he killed whatever affection existed between them?

  “Let me get my coat,” she said, reaching for a hook on the back of the door. “I don’t know what you had in mind for dinner, but in case you aren’t aware, the forecast is nasty.”

  “Yes,” he said, helping her into her camel-colored wool jacket. “I rented a Range Rover to be on the safe side.”

  “That’ll work.”

  At last she gave him a faint smile. He felt as if he had won the lottery or climbed a challenging mountain peak. Waiting patiently while she gathered her things for the long holiday, he then took most of it from her arms and stepped into the hall as she locked the door.

  He wanted to dump everything on the floor, shove her up against the wall, and kiss her. He had given up that right, though, when he walked out of Finley’s house without saying good-bye. Had he ruined things beyond repair?

  When they made it outside, he wanted to wrap an arm around her and shelter her from the icy wind. Her body language warned him to keep his distance. Bella was proud and resourceful and strong. She didn’t need a man to play out some macho fantasy.

  He had already scoped out the route to the restaurant. After putting Bella’s things in the back of the Rover, they both climbed in, and Ian shut the doors. Now they were enclosed in a bubble of intimacy.

  Doggedly, he started the engine and backed out. This afternoon was turning out to be much more difficult than he had anticipated.

  “Are you warm enough?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want music or no music? Feel free to pick a station.”

  She was probably as eager as he was to fill the heavy silence. The touch screen on the dashboard yielded a dozen choices. When Bella chose one, the sound of a classic Christmas tune filled the air with cheer. Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays…

  That had never been the case at his house. From what he had heard of Finley and Bella’s childhood and adolescence, they had not experienced such simple holiday magic either.

  Fortunately for his plans, the restaurant he had chosen was still open, but much of the clientele had stayed away. Which meant that the maître d’ was able to give them the best seat in the house, a private cozy corner booth with a window that framed the postcard scene outside.

  “This is lovely,” Bella said, looking around with interest. “I’ve never eaten here.”

  He’d deliberately picked the kind of restaurant most people reserved for special occasions. He wanted the ambiance and the food to underscore his efforts. So far, it was working. Though Bella was far from relaxed, she at least seemed more open than she had when he first showed up in her office.

  After the sommelier stopped by the table to offer wine, their waiter handed over menus and rattled off the evening’s specials. “I recommend the prime rib, the asparagus, and the pumpkin pie,” he said. “All are excellent.”

  Ian lost his nerve when Bella spent an inordinate amount of time studying the entrée selections. He was almost certain she was trying to ignore him. That wasn’t going to happen if he had anything to say about it.

  He had treated her badly. There was no other way to describe it, but it was Christmas, damn it, and he would beg for a chance to be heard if necessary. “Is it so difficult to even look me in the eye?” he asked, his pride in ruins. “God knows, Bella, I deserve your contempt, but if you can find it in your heart to listen with an open mind, I’d like you to understand why I ran.”

  * * *

  Bella alternated between feeling faint and nauseated. She had no idea why Ian was here. It would be emotional suicide to assume a happy ending. He could be ready to say anything at all.

  Still, hope swelled in her chest.

  The man looked terrible, to be honest. He had lost at least fifteen pounds, maybe more given his height. His expression was sober. In his eyes she saw a reflection of the suffering she had endured.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, meeting his gaze directly for the first time. “I wasn’t expecting you to show up on my doorstep. It rattled me.”

  “I get that. I didn’t mean to make it some huge surprise, but when I thought about texting or calling or e-mailing you, I was afraid it would give you too many options to get rid of me.”

  “Wouldn’t that be the smart thing to do on my part?” she asked wryly.

  He flushed. “I don’t want to hurt you at all, yet even as I say that, it seems presumptuous to assume I could.”

  Bella eyed him cautiously. If there was ever a time for honesty, it was now. “You could,” she said bluntly. “You did.”

  Chapter Twenty

  As soon as she uttered the words, she wanted to snatch them back. Being vulnerable and open sucked.

  Ian winced. “I am so very sorry, Bella.”

  “Why did you do it?” she asked steadily. “Why did you leave without saying good-bye?” It was a question she had wrestled with during weeks of sleepless nights.

  He took a sip of his wine, almost casually, but the fingers of his left hand drummed restlessly on the tablecloth. “That morning at breakfast when you said the university had offered you a job, it stunned me. I couldn’t believe you hadn’t told me, but then I realized it was something you would share with family first. Even so, what you said sent me into a tailspin.”

  “Why, Ian?”

  “I had started having feelings for you, but I was so damn confused about what I wanted. I was terrified that I had inherited the
worst from both of my parents…my mother’s instability and my father’s inability to connect with people he loved.”

  “You’ve never struck me as unstable. Far from it.”

  He grimaced. “I notice that you didn’t discount the second part.”

  “Well,” she said, trying to be transparent about her feelings, “I honestly didn’t know how to read you. I was sure you enjoyed the sex, but men are wired that way. I hadn’t a clue if you thought of me as anything other than a relatively new friend with benefits.”

  Reaching across the table, he took her right hand in both of his, and rubbed the back of it with two thumbs. “I didn’t know what to think, Arabella Margaret. It was like my life had been the Wizard of Oz in black and white, and then you came, and my world burst into color.”

  “Oh, Ian.” No one had ever said such a thing to her. She could see in his eyes that he meant it. “I have something to tell you, too,” she said. “The day you left—while I was out exploring—I had made the decision to tell you I was in love with you. I had no clue what would happen after that, but I held out hope that you would be glad to hear it.”

  He released her hand and sat back in his chair, his expression tormented. “Good God, Bella. I don’t know what to say.”

  She shrugged. “It’s just as well I hadn’t already said it. That way I could go home and pretend you and I never happened.”

  “I loved you, too,” he said slowly. “But I didn’t know I loved you. Do you even believe me when I say that?”

  Loved. Past tense. That hurt. “Of course I believe you. What I don’t get is why you had to leave. I wasn’t trying to squeeze a commitment out of you. Surely you knew that.”

  “I never thought it for a minute. I was too busy running from reporters and trying to decide why the prospect of going back to my normal life in London was so unappealing. When you told us at breakfast that morning the university had offered you a job, I was shocked. I could hear in your voice that you planned to accept. I panicked.”