Some Like It Scot (15 page)

She hadn't even gotten to the outer islands, as yet, he thought. Castlebay was a comparatively large, thriving village. The journey beyond that point was going to be quite a bit more rustic compared to the view in front of her. Katie came from wealth and privilege. Though she seemed quite down to earth and pleased by the elemental aspects of what lay in front of her…he wasn't quite sure that pleasure would remain once she realized there wasn't a Mayfair hotel suite waiting for her at the end of their journey. Hell, there wasn't even central heating.

“Perhaps we do share that in common,” he said, though privately he wondered if the similarity began and ended with their respective homes being waterfront bound.

“How does Port Appin here in Oban compare with Castlebay on Barra, or…what is the port town on Kinloch?

“
Aiobhneas
.” When her brow knitted, he clarified. “Gaelic. Roughly translated, it means joy.”

“It sounds beautiful when you say it. I wouldn't even try,” she said, with a self-deprecating smile he found charming. It deepened the hint of a dimple in her chin.

“Do you speak the language fluently?” she asked.

He nodded. “It's been an unfortunate victim of progress, and is dying on the mainland. Up in the western Highlands, and farther north, as well as out in the Hebrides, it's still a strong part of our culture and in many cases, especially with our older clansmen and women, the predominant language spoken. On Kinloch, you'll see, the road signs and local buildings, menus, and the like, will have either Gaelic only, or both Gaelic and English. Our local news and the paper are in Gaelic as well.”

Katie sighed, but she was still smiling. “Great, something else to worry about.”

“Dinnae worry,” he said, with a laugh, “they all speak English as well. Though, perhaps, a very heavily accented version to your ears. You'll be able to make yourself understood.”

She smiled, then turned back to look at the view outward toward the sea, her body shifting ever so slightly closer to his. “So, compare Oban to Castlebay, and to…Port Joy,” she finished with a laugh.

He laughed with her. “'Tis a lovely ring to it. Oban is far bigger, with residents numbering in the thousands. Eight or more thousand, at least. Castlebay is the largest village on Barra, and the main port of call, but the island, along with its sister island, Vatarsay, totals little over a thousand people.”

“Wow,” she said. “Like I said, Annapolis alone is something like thirty thousand or so, and it's not considered a big city. It's hard to imagine even the eight or ten thousand in Oban. But the islands are really quite, well, I'm guessing rural isn't really the right word, but—what about Kinloch? It's smaller, I take it, than Barra?”

He smiled and nodded, even while inwardly wincing. What would she think when she discovered just how “rural” her new home would be? Temporary though it may be, he didn't want it to be any more temporary than necessary. Meaning he needed her to stay at least as long as it took for her to make up her mind about him. About his proposal, he mentally added. It wasn't him she was judging, but what he was offering her.

He was actually glad their manner of exiting the chapel had prevented her from retrieving her purse and any real access she had to other people or to personal funds. Not that he considered her imprisoned by any stretch, but, at the moment, he wasn't unhappy with the reality that she was somewhat beholden to him.

He was well aware, however, how much she loathed being beholden to anyone at that particular juncture of her life, so he wasn't going to take too much comfort in the setup the fates had so kindly handed him. But he did plan to take as full advantage of them as he could.

As the ferry moved out into the sea, and he could barely see home on the horizon, he felt that primal tug toward his singular place on earth. He was reminded anew of what was at stake, and what his priorities were.

His hands tightened on her shoulders, and she lifted one of her own from the rail, covered his, and squeezed. “You haven't been gone all that long, but you miss it, don't you?” she asked, looking ahead, not at him. But leaving her hand covering his.

He nodded, then realized she couldn't see the gesture. “Aye,” he said, his voice a bit more guttural than he'd expected. It had been an emotional couple of days. Months, actually, if he factored in the turmoil since Ualraig's death.

“Will ye miss your own place in the world, Katie McAuley?” he heard himself ask. It was an unwise thing, to plant any seed of homesickness in her head, or in her heart. But they'd be there regardless. At the moment, he was feeling a particular kinship with her that was hard to ignore, so the question just came out.

She nodded, and squeezed his hand harder.

Quite instinctively, he stepped up and pulled her more fully into the shelter of his body. “I understand. And I'm sorry.”

He thought she might have sniffled, but she merely nodded, her head bobbing beneath his chin. “Thanks,” she said, her voice barely carrying above the thrumming engines of the ferry.

He nestled her against his chest, and slid their joined hands around her waist, matching it with his other arm, until she was ensconced inside them. He felt, rather than heard the sigh that preceded her relaxing back against him, taking his comfort, and perhaps, borrowing from his strength as well.

She wanted independence and autonomy, he thought, and understood the desire. But, at the moment, she fit quite perfectly where she stood. As he found comfort and strength in their joined embrace, he didn't think she'd given up so much of either, as it was more like they shared them with each other.

He thought of the things he wanted to say to her. Tell her about Kinloch. His friends there. The islanders who were both his extended family and his responsibility. He had a sense she would understand him, understand the dual pressures, possibly better than anyone he'd met. Not because she understood his culture, as their differences were vast. But because she had faced that same duality of purpose and expectation in her own life. Though, for him, it was more welcome task than unwanted burden.

She leaned a bit more heavily into his arms as they entered the open waters, heading toward Castlebay. The sun was setting, the air was warm, but the wind crossing the bow of the ship made it feel a bit more brisk than it actually was.

“I wish I could paint,” she said.

“Paint?” he asked, confused momentarily as he was pulled from his ruminations about her, his future…and what role she was going to play.

“You know. Oil on canvas kind of paint. That is a pretty stunning view, with the sun setting, all the colors and hues. I don't think a photograph alone could do it justice. I'm not bad with pen and ink, but that…needs to be painted.” She laughed shortly. “My skills run more toward using rulers and T-squares. Not exactly the most elegant art.”

“Did you help design your family's sailing boats?”

“When I was young, before I went off to college, I fancied myself as a future designer of high-end racing sloops and fancy yachts. Not so much the engineering aspect of how it sat in the water, but the look of it, the style.”

“Sounds like a perfect fit with the family business.”

She sighed and he tucked her more fully against him. He'd have said it was to keep the wind from tossing her hair about and into her face as she spoke. But he knew it was every bit as self-serving as it was to afford protection from the elements.

He was feeling very…elemental at the moment. But the wind, the deepening colors of the sky, the churning waters, and the beautiful vista ahead of the peaks of Barra had little to do with it.

“I'd have thought so, too. But my father made it very clear that my talents were to be focused on the pragmatic and practical, not the whimsical. After that I tried to win him over to the idea of letting me get into the marketing end of things. I thought I would simply move toward a graphic artist approach and help advertise our business, direct my focus to something that combined the art with the industry.”

“And?”

“Shot down. My mother, actually, was the dream crusher in that instance. She had these kind of dueling desires for me. On the one hand, she pushed every bit as hard as my father did for me to be part of the business. I am their only child, much to my father's dismay, as he'd wanted a son to mold into a new version of himself.”

“A daughter couldn't do the same?”

“Oh, he molded me all right. Eventually—when he accepted that I was his only chance at industrial immortality. That was precisely why my mother was so torn. She was happy that he'd finally given up the idea that he'd have a male offspring to carry on his name and take over his share of the company. My mother was happy, I think, to have his disapproval over her inadequacy in childbearing off her shoulders. So she pushed the father-daughter bond every chance she got. No matter if she agreed with his plans for me, or not.”

“Did she work for the company, too?”

Katie laughed, but there was little humor in it. “In her own way, I think she contributes every bit as much, if not more, to the success of the company than my father does. Only she's not on their payroll, no.”

“So, in what way—”

“Our business relies heavily on perception. People with lots of money want to buy a product they see as top of the line, which ours is. But it can't just be well made, it also needs to be prestigious. My mother was nothing if not the best hostess, best corporate wife, best charity organizer, in terms of schmoozing the clientele. She dedicated herself to building McAuley-Sheffield into a very prestigious business, from the social end of things. It was no small feat, and led to her internal battle—let my father mold me, or groom me herself to be, well…her.”

Graham nodded, stroked her arms with his thumbs, and let her keep talking.

“You see, there was a lot of pressure for McAuley-Sheffield to go public, not remain privately owned.”

“Pressure from?”

“Blaine's father. He believed the time had come to take it in that direction, in order to keep the company thriving. My father disagreed.”

“I'm assuming this dissension was part of why you and Blaine were pushed together?”

“Exactly. Finally, they had an opportunity to unite the company in a way they never had before. My dad was pushing me to learn the business so I could be strong enough to keep it private, as he wished. He knew Blaine wouldn't be a match for me in that regard, down the line. My mother, on the other hand, wanted me to marry Blaine and take over her duties, keeping the flames burning from the outside, the social angle. She couldn't do it forever, and she feared without that combination—”

“The business was equally doomed,” Graham finished.

Katie simply nodded.

He leaned down to kiss the top of her head, as if that was something he did—often—and checked himself mid motion.

An odd sensation shot through him when he pulled back. As if he'd altered things in some way. Some wrong way.

“Anyway, that was more than you probably needed to know.”

On the contrary, he wanted to tell her. It was exactly the kind of thing he wanted to know. She'd claimed the need to break free and stand on her own, be her own person, with her own mind. Only she hadn't once struck him as the kind of woman who'd tolerate anything less of herself.

He better understood why she'd been trapped as she had. It was rather astounding, actually, that on her wedding of all days, she'd finally taken that stand. He realized he might have played a small role, but she'd already been well pushed to the breaking point before he arrived, given the state he'd found her in.

“No,” he said. “Thank you for telling me. I appreciate the trust.”

“It's probably best you know, anyway. So you know what you're getting with me. And the potential for future, potentially ugly entanglements with my family, if we…you know.”

His arms tightened around her in an instinctive need to protect. As if the very idea that someone would threaten her in any way was his sole and absolute duty to defend. So strong was the notion that he shook his head, as if he could so easily shake off the feeling.

It was merely her discussing their legal union, which was naturally fraught with all kinds of anxiety and concerns, some of them he'd surely not contemplated as yet. The reaction was purely a subconscious reaction to everything that was roiling about inside his head.

Except the ache he felt was centered in his chest.

It wasn't the sort of ache one would mistake for a heart attack. Not that his heart wasn't under attack, just that the war being waged was one he didn't fully understand. She wasn't clinging, though, and she most certainly wasn't pushing for, well, anything. In fact, she was one step away from turning tail and running. Or would be if she had her hands on her wallet.

Step back. That's what he needed to do. Take a giant step back. Both figuratively…and literally.

To that end, he loosened his hold on her, and was moving away when she gasped and pointed.

“Is that it? Is that Kinloch?”

He glanced outward, surprised to see they were closing in on Castlebay. The ferry had moved far enough leeward in preparation to enter the harbor via the deepest channel, which provided a glimpse of the island just beyond and to the west of Barra.

His island.

“Aye,” he said, feeling the ache bloom anew in his chest, but the cause was entirely different. The source was not at all foreign or confusing. “That is home, Katie.”

My home
, he added silently, with intent. Because what he'd thought, in that instant, was
our home
.

He realized he'd not only not stepped back, he'd actually stepped up and tucked her into the shelter of his body once again. She turned just then, and even though it was nigh on to midnight, the glow of the setting sun, barely apparent over the horizon of Barra, appeared to set the tips of her curls afire. There was a light in her blue eyes, one he couldn't recall seeing before that moment.