The last time she saw him they met at the standing stones and he'd brought her flowers. They'd made love beneath a brilliant blue sky and spoken aloud their dreams of the future.
Six weeks later, he married his American bride.
Scooter fixed somber brown eyes on David and gave a low, menacing growl. Scratching the dog behind the ears, Gillian moved to stand before the window. She pushed aside the drapery, and gazed outside. "Why have you come?"
"A number of reasons. Mainly, I can no longer stay away. I've wanted to see you every day for the past sixteen months, two weeks and a day."
She knew without counting that he referred to the last time they'd been together. Her hold on Scooter tightened, and when the dog yipped, she set her down.
I wonder if she'd nip at his ankles if I told her to?
"Ah, Gilly. Robbie and I met up on the moors. She told me of Angus's illness and all the troubles you have faced. I've come now because I am finally in the position to help you instead of hurt you."
Turning to face him, she slowly studied him. David was still a handsome man. Blond with angel blue eyes and aquiline features, he was tall and broad and fine enough to catch the fancy of any lass. Sincerity shimmered like sunset on Loch Rowanclere from his eyes. That and more. Sorrow, compassion, chagrin, and... love?
Gillian closed her eyes. Not love. No. The man was married.
"Let me help you, Gilly. Please. I know it will not absolve me from my sins, but at least this misery I claimed for myself will do good for someone. Someone I love."
On the wall behind David a painting—the second laird, she believed—suddenly crashed to the floor. Both she and David jumped. "Guid fegs, what was that?" he asked.
Scooter barked and dragged herself across the room to investigate. Seconds later, she gave a series of excited yips.
Gillian's lips twisted. The falling painting was one of the tricks they'd rigged for Lord Harrington. Its timing made her wonder if David's appearance had stirred up an old ghost after all. Wouldn't that be just my luck, now when it's too late?
Scooters barks grew louder and more annoying. Gillian crossed the room and picked her up once more. She scratched the dog's belly and silently paced the room. Questions bubbled in her head; emotions warred in her heart. So much lay between this man and herself, she hardly knew where to start.
Yet, what good could belaboring old hurts possibly do? Better to deal with the here and now, because in truth nothing else truly mattered. "How? How can you help?"
David tore his gaze away from the walls and cleared his throat. "I sold my soul for money, Gillian. I married a fortune instead of the woman I loved, who I still love. As foolish as that was, the fact remains that now I do have funds."
Muuu... waaaaa. Muuu... waaa. David's eyes went wide as the moaning sound reverberated through the room. His gaze jerked around the room. "Gillian, did you hear that? What is happening here?"
The dog went wild in her arms and Gillian realized Robyn must have returned and taken up the role of ghost. Any other time, she'd have stopped to investigate, but right now she wanted to hear what David had to say. "I think Robyn is playing. Ignore it."
Woof woof woof woof.
"Oh, Robyn. Well. Yes." His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. "Between what Robyn told me and the information I was able to gather in the village, I understand Angus is anxious to rid himself of Rowanclere, I can buy it, Gilly. I can buy it and you and Robbie can stay here in your home."
"You want to buy Rowanclere?" Scooter scratched the back of Gillian's arm during her scrambling around. Taking the hint, Gillian returned her to the floor.
"I want to help you," he replied. Scooter came at him. She paused just long enough to snap once at his ankles, then barreled on toward the far wall. There, she skidded to a halt and started whimpering.
Gillian watched the dog, but didn't truly see her, so busy was she trying to make sense of what he'd said. David wanted to help her? David wanted to save her home? Now her knees went a little weak, and a lump the size of an orange grew in her throat.
More than anything she wanted to snatch the treat he dangled before her, but common sense and prior experience with this man urged her to step cautiously. "Why?"
"Because I can. Because I should." He stood directly beneath the chandelier. When it began to shake, he scrambled to one side.
David's response to the hauntings made him look exceedingly childish to Gillian's eyes. He wasn't at all like Jake when she'd played the breadbasket trick on him. Jake had talked back to the ghost.
"Because I love you and I've never stopped loving you and I never will."
Oh, please. She barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "You married another woman."
Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff.
He approached her, his hands outstretched. "Out of duty, not desire. It was a sorry plicht. I had no choice, Gillian. I faced the same thing then as you do now. The Macleans would have lost everything had I not married an heiress."
The rattle of chains from the inner wall had him scowling.
"Robyn needs to find something else to occupy her time," he grumbled. But back to the matter at hand. "Apardon, Gilly. I am sorry for hurting you. I am sorry age has finally caught up with Angus and that it has brought you to this pass. But I can help you. I need to help you. It has been a misery living so close but never laying eyes upon your beautiful face."
At that, Gillian wished she had some chains of her own to shake in his face. Or maybe she should bite at his ankles, herself. "Your duty was to me."
He shut his eyes and absorbed the blow. "With my brother's death, I became the eldest son. You would have me turn my back on five hundred years of family history?"
"Aye." She folded her arms.
"No, love, of course you would not," he said. "You understand what Culbin House means to the Macleans. You understand ties to the ancestral home."
Angry now, she snapped. "What I understand is when the time had come to cut those ties."
The rattle of chains grew louder and he glanced uneasily over his shoulder. Grrrr.... growled Scooter, looking his way.
With a flash of bravery, he reached for her and pulled her into his arms. Gillian tried to pull away, but his hold on her tightened. Softly, he spoke against her ear. "Let go of your anger now, lass. Nae need for that. We can be together again. Will it nae be grand?"
Though she heard him, she didn't at first comprehend what he was saying. She was too busy staring into a pair of angry green eyes that glared out from the portrait on the opposite wall. A portrait whose subject had brown eyes, if she remembered right, which she did.
David pressed little kisses against her hair, and when she didn't respond, continued, "It will be just like the old days. I'll steal away and meet you, at the standing stones or even here, because Rowanclere will be ours. We will have a fairy-tale life here, Gilly. We will be so happy."
His lips trailed downward, finding that spot on her neck that had always made her shudder with pleasure. Now, she shuddered in a different way. Together again. Steal away.
He is married.
Shocked, she said, "Are you asking me to be your mistress?"
"Aye," he breathed.
She drew a breath to voice her outrage just as he took her mouth in a hot, searing kiss. Gillian struggled against him, wrenching her mouth away. "David, no!"
"Gillian, my life is horrible now. I've missed you. I need—ow! That dampt dog bit me!"
"Smart dog."
Gillian heard the slow, familiar drawl as she watched the barrel of a pistol come to rest against David's temple. "Turn loose of her, you ass. I like the rug in this room, and I'd hate to see it all bloody and soiled from the likes of you."
David's hands dropped to his sides as he stepped away from Gillian. "Who are you?"
Jake lowered the aim of his gun from Maclean's head to below his belt. "I'm your worst nightmare, son. You can call me the pecker poltergeist. It's my job to make certain all the peckers in the c
astle stay where they belong. Of course, I figure yours is so small that it's not much of a threat. However, it's best that you keep it off Rowanclere land. In other words, bring it over here again, and you'll be leaving without it."
He paused long enough to give Gillian a significant glance, then said, "I promise."
Chapter 12
"Pecker poltergeist?" Gillian murmured.
Jake's finger itched to pull the trigger. He really wanted to shoot this sonofabitch.
Glancing at Gillian, he observed, "Why is it that every time I turn around, I find one of the females in my life kissing someone?"
She didn't reply. She was too busy gaping at him. She backed away from both men, her mouth working, but failing to utter a word. Jake might have laughed had he not been so all-fired angry. When Maclean dared to take her in his arms, Jake had seen so much red he almost mistook the library for the crimson drawing room.
He leveled a hard, narrow-eyed stare on Maclean. With his finger in the trigger guard, he gave his revolver a quick theatrical twirl before stowing the gun in the holster of the gunbelt strapped around his hips. "You need to skedaddle on home, Maclean. Back to your wife. You are not welcome at Rowanclere."
"And just who are you to say such a thing to me?"
"Who am I?" Jake reached into his pocket and withdrew a document creased into thirds. This wasn't the way he'd intended to go about this, and even now in the midst of it, he realized he was probably making a mistake. For one thing, the paper wasn't signed yet, since he'd walked into the middle of this David crisis and hadn't had the chance to get Angus Brodie's John Hancock on the page. But right now, Jake was riled, and sometimes a man had to do what a man had to do. He had to stake a claim, to mark his territory. Better this than peeing on the rug. Jake shook the paper until it unfolded. "This says it all, boy."
"What is that?" Gillian demanded.
"Back home we call it a deed of sale."
David Maclean went stiff as a bois d'arc fence post. "For Rowanclere!"
"And all its contents." Without glancing at Gillian to judge her reaction—he couldn't quite force himself to do that—Jake snagged the paper from the Scotsman's hand. "Of course I intend for Angus to run this past his own lawyer, but for the most part, the deal is done. So you see, sir, it's within my prerogative to throw you out of here, and that's precisely what I'm doing. Here's your hat, what's your hurry."
The scoundrel rocked back on his heels, swaying just as if Jake had cold-cocked him. Jake wanted to crow, but instead he jerked his thumb toward the door. "Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out."
"Gillian?" Maclean asked. Begged.
She nudged Jake's arm. "May I borrow your handkerchief?"
While handing it over, he finally braved a glance. She looked... beautiful, of course. Weepy, but in a good sense. Still, she did have a bit of perk to her, a glow in her eyes.
Something deep inside of Jake—a part of him he'd failed to realize was strung tighter than a hoedown fiddle—relaxed. She's glad. She's happy I'm buying her castle.
Of course, she didn't know the rest of it yet.
Jake sauntered over to the window and gazed outside while Gillian finished wiping her eyes. "David, I think it is best you leave now. I appreciate your... offer, but you must know I never would have accepted it. Jake was right. You need to return home and see to your wife."
"Gillian, please. I'm not happy with her."
"You made your choice, David. Now you must live with it."
To Jake, she said, "I would like to discuss this situation with you, but first I must check on my grand-uncle. You will be here when I return, I trust?"
Jake tugged his gaze from the gray stone ruins of the old watchtower built atop a hill within signaling distance of Rowanclere. "Sure. I'll come right back once I show your... guest... to the door."
Into the silence left behind in the library in Gillian's wake, David Maclean said, "This is not over. She still cares for me. I know Gilly and I can tell. I'll not give her up without a fight."
"Son, it is so over that the carcass has been picked clean and fed to the dogs. And just in case you didn't understand it the first few times, let me say it again. You are not welcome at Rowanclere. Don't even think about trying to see Gillian again."
"Gillian will need somewhere to live. I'll provide her with a cottage." He shot Jake a scathing look. "You might be buying the castle, Delaney, but you are not buying the woman."
"Hell no, I'm not buying her." Jake slapped Maclean on the back and pointed him toward the door. "I'm marrying her."
* * *
While standing in the corridor outside the library, Gillian's foot started tapping. She couldn't seem to make it stop. Uncle Angus didn't know about Jake Delaney's proposition to purchase Rowanclere.
What is going on here?
Did she truly wish to know?
Guid fegs, she was nervous. She lifted her fidgeting foot and gave it a shake, hoping to rid herself of the twitch. She shut her eyes and drew deep, calming breaths, then touched her toes ten times. Finally, having gained a modicum of control, she entered the library.
The empty library. The Texan had disappeared.
Anger surged, burning away her nervousness. "He's had plenty of time to show David the door," she grumbled, stalking around the room. "He'd said he'd be here. Why was he—"
Gillian spotted the note lying on the library desk. Picking it up, she scanned the paper, then balled it up and threw it down in frustration. "The watchtower ruins. Why would he want to discuss this there? It is outside, for heaven's sake. Jake Delaney hates being outside in the Scottish weather."
The watchtower was a twenty-minute walk from Rowanclere. Gillian made it in fifteen. She was angry and anxious and foolish with a temper, so by the time she reached her destination, she was ready to rail at the man.
She scrambled up the pebbled path to find him standing with his hands shoved into his back pockets staring out over the flower-dotted countryside. "There you are. Ah, Texas, you make me angry enough to—"
He didn't give her the chance to finish her sentence. Before she quite knew what had happened, he whirled around, yanked her against him, and took her mouth in a hard, hungry kiss.
He tasted of mint and mayhem. His mouth assaulted hers, consumed hers, daring and demanding and devouring His hands stroked up and down her spine, his touch both savage and possessive. No one had ever wanted her this badly.
Seduced by his urgency, his intensity, Gillian's body softened. Her bones melted as she gave herself up to the heat now thrumming through her blood. She sighed into his mouth.
He tore his lips from hers and stared into her soul. "Mine, Gillian. You're mine."
Then he nipped his way down her neck. "Only mine."
He cupped her breast, kneaded her, sending arrows of wanton desire shooting to her woman's core. Gillian could hardly think, so lost was she in Jake's delicious onslaught. But even as his lips followed the path of his hand, laving her nipple through the thin sapphire silk of her dress, the echo of his words gave rise to a niggling sliver of caution in her mind.
Only mine.
But she wasn't his. She wasn't Jake's, just like she had not been David's. Not legally, nor in the eyes of God. Look where that got her. "No!" She pushed against his chest. "No! Let me go!"
He hesitated briefly before loosening his hold. She wrenched herself away and retreated to the opposite, half-crumbled wall of the watchtower. "No, Jake. This is not why we came here."
His chest rose and fell with the labored force of his breathing. Emerald eyes burned as he stared at the wet spot his mouth had left on her bodice. Gillian's breath caught. Her breasts ached to be touched.
He dragged his palm along his granite jawline, then slowly licked his lips. "Ah, princess." His hands moved to the buttons on his shirt and he yanked the top one free, saying, "Yes, princess, I think it is."
He stepped forward. She retreated and felt cool stone at her back.
Determinatio
n rumbled through his voice. "I think this is precisely why we are here. I think this is why I'm in Scotland and not on a ship headed south."
"But—"
"I want you, Gillian Ross. It's a clawing in my gut and an aching in my bones and a hunger in my blood. I'll have you, here and now."
She was a candle, slowly melting. "You can't. We can't. It is not right."
"Sure it is." He shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it aside. "It's more than right. It's perfect."
You are perfect, Gillian thought, unable to resist the sight of his broad, muscular, naked chest.
He stalked toward her, predator to prey, stopping but a foot away. Heat radiated off him in waves that called to her and warmed her from the inside out. But still, Gillian resisted. "No, you're wrong. This is wrong."
"Only if you don't want me like I want you." He traced her bottom lip with his index finger, and she shuddered. "You can't say that, can you, Gillian? You do want me. You're hot and hungry for me. Wet for me. Right?"
In that moment, she couldn't think of a single response.
Jake took it as a yes.
His arms snaked around her. He yanked her against him, taking her mouth in a kiss that was rough and ravenous. For a few moments, Gillian couldn't help but respond. She did feel the heat. She did feel the hunger.
But she also felt the danger.
She jerked herself away from him. Tried to catch her breath. "No. I won't do this. Not again."
"Again." Jake spat the word like a filthy curse, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a mean, possessive light glowing in the gaze he fixed upon her. "Did he bring you up here for your trysts?"
"No, that's not what I meant."
"Tell me, then."
She tore her gaze from the feral light glowing in his eyes and turned to stare out over the countryside. How could she put her feelings into words when she failed to understand them herself? "We were promised, David and I."
He waited for a moment, then said, "And his word wasn't worth spit."
Sizzle All Day, Bad Luck Wedding #4 (Bad Luck Abroad) Page 19
