He returned. “What are you smiling about?”
“I’m beginning to develop a sense of humor about myself.”
“Oh?” He set her glass in front of her and pulled up a chair across the table. “Your pie will be out in a moment.”
“Did you eat already?”
“Yes.”
She took a sip, then set her glass down. “Fire away, Duncan.”
“Well, I just wondered how things are going.”
She thought about that. “Fine. Are we finished?”
His smile was reluctant. “I’m coming on too strong, aren’t I?”
“I think I’d rather be your friend than your heavenly assignment.”
“Heavenly assignment?”
“You’ve always felt like you had to take care of me. You know, Duncan, the fire wasn’t your fault, and even if you’d been at home that night, you might not have been able to do anything to help me. You might have been burned, even killed, yourself.”
His eyes widened. Had he not been such a restrained man, she thought his jaw might have dropped. “What are you talking about?”
“You know darn well.” She lifted her glass to him.
“So, have we reduced all my feelings for you to guilt?”
“I know you love me.”
“I’m glad you haven’t lost sight of it.”
“But you can love me and still not feel that I’m your responsibility. I have to learn to be responsible for myself. I should have started years ago.”
He sat back, but his fingers tapped a steady rhythm on the table. “You’ve had a lot to cope with.”
“Very little of which I was allowed to cope with. Mother coped for me. You know she did, even when I wanted desperately to try coping myself. Eventually I just let her have her way. She was one obstacle I just couldn’t seem to find the energy to overcome.”
“How did you find the energy to come here and get away from her?”
“I’m not sure. But at least some of it was cowardice.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Brian, the barman, came to their table and set a bowl in front of her. The inevitable chips joined it. She thanked him, and he smiled a gap-toothed salute before heading back to the bar.
“What did you mean about cowardice?” Duncan asked.
She cut open the puff pastry that sealed the bowl, and steam poured out. For the second time that day her mouth watered. “Do you know how popular the Stardust books have become?”
“I know they’re selling well. I’m thrilled for you.”
“My agent’s been busy with subsidiary rights. Now there’s a Saturday morning cartoon show in the works. Then come commercial tie-ins. They’re talking about vitamins, lunch boxes, notebooks and pencils. You’re the one who’s a whiz in advertising, and I’m the one who’s going to make a million off of it.”
“That’s incredible, Fiona! Why haven’t you said anything before this?”
“Because that’s what drove me here.” She looked up from the pie. “That’s what finally got me on the plane. Success. Because publicity comes with it, Duncan, and I don’t want it.”
“Publicity?”
“My publisher released a story about me, telling all about how I was burned as a child in Scotland and how I made up these stories during the years I was recovering. It was great press. I got so many offers for interviews.” She shook her head. “Can you imagine that?”
He didn’t respond. She suspected he could imagine her reaction only too well. He knew her better than anyone.
“I tried saying no. I explained that I valued my privacy above everything else, but that’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull. I got more calls. Finally I just panicked. And here I am.”
“Well.”
“Right. Well.” She started on her pie. It tasted even better than it looked.
“I’m glad you came, no matter what the reason.”
“So am I.” She looked up. “I really am. I was so scared. Getting on that plane was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it was the right thing to do.”
“Are you still scared?”
“Sometimes. I’m so used to having other people make my decisions, the smallest thing can throw me. But I’m learning. Do you mind having me here?”
“Are you kidding?”
“You’re a newlywed.”
“And you’re tactful to a fault. We hardly know you’re around.”
“Good.”
“The hotel is half yours.”
“I never wanted it. It was a reminder…”
“And now?”
“I wish I’d come back sooner. While our father was still alive.”
“He wasn’t an easy man.”
Fiona knew that Duncan and their father Donald Sinclair had never gotten along. Duncan had been forced to visit him each summer, but the visits had never brought them closer. “I wouldn’t know what kind of man he was,” she said. “I wasn’t invited here, and he never came to see me in New York.”
“I think Mother discouraged him.”
“Maybe.” But Fiona knew the bitter truth. There was just no point in telling Duncan.
She was halfway through her pie when Duncan spoke again. “Look, I want to bring up something else.”
“I figured you did.”
“I want to talk about Andrew.”
She had suspected as much, but she still felt an unpleasant shock. “Go on.”
“Fiona, you don’t know Andrew as well as I do.”
“That’s certainly true. I’ve hardly had the chance to know him at all.”
“He and Iain are my closest friends. I’d go to hell and back for either of them.”
“I doubt that will ever be required.” She looked up from her dinner, which had suddenly lost its appeal. “What are you trying to say?”
“Andrew likes women.”
“That’s hardly an indictment.”
“He and Iain both have reputations—at least, Iain used to have one before Billie. His is a thing of the past now. But Andrew’s reputation isn’t. I don’t think there’s a single woman in the Highlands whose heart doesn’t beat a little faster when Andrew comes around.”
She laid her fork carefully on her place mat. “Oh?”
“Andrew genuinely likes women. He enjoys their company, admires their best qualities. He knows how to make a woman like herself in return, and I think that’s a huge part of his appeal.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“And how could he hurt me? You’ve just told me that Andrew likes women, and that he’s good to them and for them. He doesn’t sound dangerous to my safety or well-being.”
“Are you trying to misunderstand?”
She rested her forearms on the table and leaned forward. Her gaze locked with his. “Are you trying to pussyfoot around what you really want to say?”
“All right. Andrew’s almost thirty, and he’s never been married. He likes women, but he likes them too much to settle down with one. There, is that blunt enough?”
“No. Because I think you’re trying to tell me something else. Two things, actually.”
“And what are they?”
“One, that I could never hold Andrew’s interest because I’m not enough of a woman for him. And two, you think I’m too immature and innocent to be able to draw my own conclusions and make my own decisions. You’re taking up where Mother left off. You’ve appointed yourself my guardian!”
Duncan sat back. It was so unlike him to withdraw from any conflict that she knew immediately that she’d scored a point. “It never occurred to me that you weren’t enough of a woman for any man,” he said.
“I’m your baby sister. You still think of me that way. And when you look at me, you remember the little girl who lay in a hospital bed for months and months trying to grow new skin.”
He winced, but she pushed on. “That’s only a small part of who I am
. I’m a lot more than that. And I’m old enough to find out about the rest of me.” They were brave words. She wasn’t even sure just how true they were. She just knew that they had to be said.
“Is there something wrong with my not wanting you to get hurt?”
“Yes.”
Her brother was a stubborn man. Stubbornness had gotten Duncan through a difficult childhood as well as a difficult first marriage. Fiona was surprised to learn that she had a streak of stubbornness herself, but the discovery was gratifying.
“Back off,” she said. “I have no reason to think that Andrew and I will ever be anything except friends. But if something else develops with any man, I’ll be the one to judge how far it goes. I’m a consenting adult. And you’re my brother, not my keeper.”
Her courage played out, she sat quietly and watched him think, because that was the only brave thing that she could still manage.
He sighed. “Damn.”
“Damn Andrew? Damn me?” Her voice cracked on the latter.
“No, damn myself. I’m sorry, Fiona.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s it? You’re sorry?”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“No! I mean, that’s plenty. Great, in fact.” Her smile was high-voltage. She had steeled herself for his anger, and instead she had gotten an apology. The aftermath was heady.
“Andrew told me as much.”
She sobered. “You spoke to Andrew about me? I can’t believe you did that.”
“I didn’t want to talk to you. I guess I thought I could avoid it that way.”
“What did you say to him? That your sister was so innocent, so foolish, she might fall at his feet if he smiled at her?”
“Give me credit for a little sense.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
This time he smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, Andrew essentially gave me the same lecture you did.”
“It takes you a while to catch on, doesn’t it?”
His smile tightened into something more serious. “Just be careful, Fiona. I know it’s past time you made your own mistakes—” he held up his hand before she could interrupt “—and your own successes. Just be careful. I don’t think I can stand to watch you suffer again.”
“That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”
“I can probably be forgiven for that, can’t I?”
She reached for his hand. “Probably.”
* * *
Duncan could be forgiven for not wanting her to suffer. But despite his denial, Fiona wondered if he was worried because he didn’t believe she could hold any man’s interest. She completely lacked a repertoire of feminine wiles. Her fund of small talk teetered on the verge of bankruptcy, and her life experience could be summed up in an incomplete phrase. And she certainly didn’t have a perfect body to throw into the equation.
Long after her discussion with Duncan, she stood at the window of her suite and watched the last raindrops falling on High Street. With true Highland courtesy, an eerie mist seemed to rise from the earth to meet the rain halfway. She was exhausted, but too morose to do anything about it. She imagined Andrew’s reaction to Duncan’s brotherly chat, and she wondered how she could face him again.
“Fiona, are you still up?” A light knock preceded the softly spoken question.
Fiona recognized Andrew’s voice, even at a whisper. It looked as if she were going to face him again immediately. She cracked the door and stared out into the hallway. “I thought you were going home to get some sleep.”
“I went home. May I come in, or is it too late?”
“I haven’t even changed for bed.” She opened the door wider to let him through. His hair was plastered to his head, and his clothes were soaked. “Have you been out in the rain ever since you left?”
“Aye. I have. That’s what I’ve come about.”
“You don’t have towels at home?”
He laughed. “I’ve towels aplenty. I just have no’ had the opportunity to use them.”
“Where have you been?”
His hazel eyes were dancing. “Rescuing a pair of yobs from the loch.”
“Yobs?”
“Two good-for-nowt lads. Brothers. Peter and Jamie Gordon. Have you met our Peter and Jamie, yet?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Just as well. Between them they’ve caused more trouble in the village than the rest of our lads put together.”
“Maybe you should have thought twice about rescuing them.” She went into her bathroom and retrieved a fluffy white towel. She handed it to Andrew. “I’m going to make you some tea. I’d offer you whisky if I had any up here, but I’m afraid tea will have to do. Have a seat.”
“I’m too wet.”
“Sit on the towel, then, and I’ll get you another as soon as I put the kettle on.” She did just that. When she returned with another towel in tow, he was already drying himself. She watched him ruffle his hair, then stretch his head back to rub his neck. Such a simple act, but it spoke of intimacy. He passed the towel over his skin roughly but with obvious enjoyment. She had already guessed he was a man who enjoyed sensations of all kind, the feel of wind and water on his skin, the ache of tired muscles after a hard day at work, the pumping of his heart and the tingling of his flesh after a long run or the ascent of a mountain.
Her flesh tingled as she watched him.
He rubbed his shoulders, and the fabric of his shirt slid along his muscular arms. “I can only get the worst of it. I should get home, but I just had to tell you something first.”
She perched in a chair. Andrew was still standing, and now he was dabbing at his chest. The square, well-defined muscles were clearly outlined by the clinging fabric, and she was hopelessly mesmerized as he pulled the shirt even tighter with each stroke of the towel. As she continued to stare, he unfastened the top three buttons to expose his skin to the towel. Rain-darkened hair gleamed with drops of moisture. She couldn’t seem to turn her head or speak.
He stopped and stared pointedly at her. “Have you no curiosity?”
She found words somewhere. Her mouth had gone dry. “Was the rescue successful? Did you find your yobs?”
He grinned triumphantly. “Aye, that we did! And a blethering pair of idiots they were. They had taken their launch out to the middle of the loch to do some fishing, but they took half a bottle of whisky and twice as much beer. From what I can tell, Jamie fished and drank, and Peter drank. If they caught any fish, they had disappeared by the time we arrived.”
“Were they too drunk to come in out of the rain?”
“In a manner of speaking. They could no’ start their motor. All they could think to do was ride out the storm. I suppose they knew that eventually their mum would send someone to look for them. Which is what happened, of course. When I drove up to my house, there were men launching a rescue boat, and they asked me to come.” He was drying his arms now, but his mind was definitely on the events of the evening.
She forced her mind to those events, too. “And the Gordons were all right when you found them?”
“Now, that’s relative, Fiona. They were unharmed, it’s true. But were they all right?” He shrugged and tried to look serious, but his eyes were dancing again.
“You’re such a born storyteller. You know how to drag out a good thing, then drag it out some more.”
“They saw my darling.”
“What?” She got to her feet.
“They saw my darling! In the worst part of the storm she came up right next to their boat. Shilpit laddies that they are, they nearly perished from fear on the spot.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No’ a bit of it. They saw her. Jamie even told us what color her eyes were. Amber, like yours, Fiona.”
No one had ever told her that her eyes were amber. Andrew’s assessment left a warm place inside her. “What else did they see?”
“A long neck, and a long body, too. Jamie says that her tail slapped the wa
ter several boat lengths behind. He was fair certain she would turn over their boat, but of course, she did no’.”
“Of course?”
“She’s a shy lassie, and she does no’ often show herself, but when she does, she means no harm.”
“I’m not so sure I’d count on that to protect me if I were in their shoes.”
“Jamie says that she looked straight at them before she plunged back into the depths. He claims that the waves she made as she vanished nearly upset the boat. He had to restrain Peter from jumping into the water in a panic. Peter is no’ much of a thinker.”
“It doesn’t sound like Jamie’s ever going to win any prizes himself.”
“They’re good lads, if a wee bit blate. I dinna think either of them will be drinking again for a good while.”
The kettle whistled, and she crossed to pour the boiling water into a teapot. Since Andrew clearly hadn’t had dinner, she rummaged in her refrigerator. “I have the makings of a sandwich in here,” she reported. “Interested?”
“No. I’ll just have the tea and be going. I should be at home now, but I wanted you to hear the story from me.”
She closed the door and turned to face him. “Andrew, do you believe that they really saw…something?”
He stared at her. “Believe? Of course I believe. She’s there, and they saw her. What room can there be for doubt?”
“Well, you said yourself they’d been drinking. And the storm was pretty fierce for a while. They were probably scared to death to be out on the water like that, with all the lightning and thunder, and the waves getting higher and higher….”
“They saw her. I know what you’re thinking, Fiona, but they saw her. I saw the fright she gave them.” He shook his head. “Silly laddies, as if she’d try to harm them.”
She approached him slowly. He was still dripping on her carpet, but he lowered the towel to watch as she came closer.
“You really believe, don’t you?” She shook her head, amazed. “You really believe that a creature lives in Loch Ceo. It’s not just a wonderful story to you.”
“I believe she’s there. Aye. In the same way I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow—somewhere, at least, if no’ in Scotland.” He smiled, and his expression beckoned her closer.
“I didn’t know.”
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