Must Love Scotland (19 page)

How many times had guys told Megan she was too much, too intense, a ballbuster? Guys who got dressed in the morning, used her toothbrush, and were never heard from again.

“Are
you
complaining, MacPherson?” Oh, how Megan hated that uncertain note in her voice. How she loved the feel of Declan, hot, naked, and close.

“A thousand happy little pieces, you say?”

He sounded so smug, and still their bodies were joined. “A thousand ecstatic little pieces.”

“I like that better, but next time, let’s go for a million.”

“Apparently, they do things differently in America,” Declan said, setting a golf ball on a wooden tee.

“We do things differently in Scotland, too,” Niall Cromarty replied, taking a step back. This was his driving range, he’d probably sent a hundred thousand golf balls skyward here.

But not a million.

“We’re Scottish,” Declan replied, shading his eyes to take aim at a yardage marker. “Part of the reason I’m willing to lease you acreage and you’re willing to turn over the landscaping and course maintenance to me is because somewhere, way back, we’re cousins.”

“You keep harping on this. Take your damned shot, MacPherson, so I can return to my fiancée before she disowns me for missing the flower appointment.”

On general principles, Declan did
not
take his shot. “You’ve a sudden fascination with flowers?”

“I’ve a permanent fascination with Julie Leonard, soon to be Cromarty. Megan won’t be here that long, and I’m supposed to get to know her.”

Declan switched drivers, taking out his great-grandfather’s cleek.

“You’re not going to use that thing?” Niall scoffed.

“Aye, I am.” Declan took a few practice swings, though he’d been playing with this set of clubs since he’d first stepped onto a green. “Have you noticed that Julie and Megan don’t talk?”

Niall took up a lean on his driver, an elegant, relaxed pose that had graced the cover of more than one golf magazine.

“I’ve noticed you do talk, MacPherson, and nothing but. Did you drag me out here to play golf or admire the fine weather?”

Weather so lovely a farmer ought not waste it on family politics, except this bit of family politics affected Megan, unhappily so.

“I dragged you out here, so Megan and Julie could have some privacy without you practically sitting in Julie’s lap and her purring in your damned ear. Stand back.”

Niall was in love, but he wasn’t a complete fool. He took another two steps back. “They lived in the same town. They don’t need to catch up.”

Declan moved in on his shot, taking shorter warm-up swings, from the wrist. “When was the last time you had lunch with Liam or Jeannie? The last time you met Morag or Alasdair for a drink?”

“Been a couple weeks. I’ve been busy.”

Niall had been falling in love, and about damned time. Declan opened his stance a few inches and took a swat at the ball.

For a moment, Niall said nothing as the ball soared out across the driving range. Two stations down, somebody swore.

“MacPherson, that had to be nearly 325 yards.”

“I’m not warmed up yet. Your turn.”

Niall was the pro, the guy with golf in his veins, and his course would be a success because of that. His
life
would be a success because Julie Leonard had got hold of his heart and would never let it go.

“You were trying to distract me, nattering about Julie and Megan,” Niall said, shoving a tee into the ground.

“They don’t meet for lunch,” Declan said, reporting what he’d learned over breakfast. “They don’t meet for dinner. They don’t go for a jog together, or whatever it is Americans do. They live in the same town, and they’re strangers.”

Niall aimed a look over his shoulder. “You know this how?”

“Take your shot, Cromarty. I know this because I asked. You should ask too. This is why God invented the refractory period, so a man learns some conversational skills.”

That had been Granny’s theory, in any case.

Niall’s golf was all easy grace and natural physics. He didn’t have to power a ball. He simply lined up the forces of nature in such a way as to kiss the ball sweetly into the sky with his fancy persimmon-wood-alloy-whatever driver.

“How do you do it?” Niall asked, as his ball bounced onto the turf at about 290 yards. “How do you hit the ball so damned far without trying? You’re a farmer, and you don’t play to speak of.”

“I’m just having
fun
,” Declan said, “and trying to pound some sense into your lust-clouded brain. You, on the other hand, are
playing golf
, aware of every other group on this driving range, the wind, the turf conditions, your tendency to pull to the left like a complete beginner. Think about Julie the next time you hit the ball.”

Niall used a cloth on the head of his driver. “I can’t believe I’m taking golfing advice from a farmer. Has it occurred to you that Julie and Megan might talk on the phone, text, e-mail, and otherwise keep in touch that way?”

“They don’t. Ask you your fiancée, Cromarty, and step aside. It’s my turn.” Declan knew better than to think about the shot, to inventory body parts, reassess angles, and double-check position. In golf as in making love as in farming—or meddling in family business—instinct deserved respect.

“Ask her if she’s estranged from the only sister she has?” Niall said. “Did you know you have a slight chicken wing?”

Declan watched his ball soar, then land outside the 325-yard marker. “I’ll thank you to shut up when I’m taking my next shot. Megan is the older sister, and when the mother fell ill, Megan stayed home to look after Mum, while Julie went off to school. Julie was closer to her dad, and Megan’s not the academic type.”

“Megan strikes me as more wound up than Julie,” Niall said. “More of a doer, less of a thinker.”

So there was intelligent life left between Cromarty’s ears. “Megan is her own woman, and I gather she’s had to be. Are you going to play golf or stand around scratching your arse all day?”

Niall swished up to the tee. “Julie likes my arse.”

Niall’s arse was looking quite fetching in his plaid plus fours. Megan had called Declan’s plus fours golf knickers, and Declan had explained the inappropriateness of that nomenclature while she’d snickered and patted his bum.

“You have never lost a sibling,” Declan said. “You don’t want to be the reason Julie loses hers.”

Unfair, to lob that grenade when Niall was lining up his shot, but he swung anyway, this one making it past 300 yards.

“You’ve lost a sister,” Niall said, dropping his club back in the bag. “I suppose you never quite lose sight of that.”

“Not only a sister,” Declan said. “Lindy was all the family I had left, and Megan and Julie are in the same boat. They’ve lost both parents, no cousins on hand, no aunties or uncles. Megan was the one who dealt with the mum’s death, so she knew what to do when the father fell ill. When Megan decides something must be done, there’s no stopping her, so Julie can’t be faulted for stepping aside.”

“But Julie stepped aside from being a sister, too. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Or they both did. I’m warmed up now. You will please keep your asinine comments regarding chickens to yourself, you who’ve never plucked a single egg from beneath a roosting biddy. You might learn a thing or two.”

Declan took a few easy swings, and then he focused on the feel of Megan Leonard in his arms, the vitality and energy of her, the sweetness and determination.

“Jaysus in the manger,” came from the next group over as Declan’s ball flew high, then higher, and landed beyond the 350-yard marker, the very last distance posted before the rough.

“So you like Scotland?” Megan asked, because Julie was her sister, and pulling out the catalogs first thing seemed a bit brusque, even for them.

“I like Niall,” Julie said. “I like him a lot.”

Megan set a catalog on the kitchen table. Niall’s house was gray stone set back along a tree line at the side of his golf course, and the place ought to have looked forbidding, a mini-castle soon to be consumed by the forest primeval.

Bright red geraniums, potted pansies, and climbing morning glories all over the porch turned it instead into a cheerful, welcoming home.

“Niall likes you, too,” Megan said. “It shows. Declan says you’ll be happy together.”

Julie was at the sink, looking casually elegant in black yoga pants and a fuzzy blue V-necked sweater.

“Declan is a smart guy. I trust you two are getting along?”

If they got along any better, Megan would be unable to walk. “He’s a good guy. Come look at the flowers, Julie, or we’ll be here all day.”

Julie brought two cups of peppermint tea to the table and dropped two lumps of white sugar into each one.

“Would that be so bad, Megan? To spend a day together?”

What the hell?
“Do you have any honey?” Megan asked, rising.

“Honey and agave nectar are on the quarter shelves above the sink,” Julie said, pulling the catalog closer.

Megan dumped out her tea, poured more hot water from the kettle onto a fresh tea bag, and squirted in some organic honey—from Declan’s bees, based on the label.

Julie opened the catalog, a basic sampler of bridal bouquets. “Why did you do that?”

Megan knew that tone of voice. Half the convicted felons Julie had sent away probably knew it too. Casual, and hard as the diamond winking on Julie’s finger.

“Do what?”

Julie glowered at an elegant white Victorian bouquet, one no traditional bride should ever choose because it was
too
white.

“I fix you a cup of tea, peppermint because I know you like it. I put sugar in it because I know you like yours sweet, and I bring it to you, because you’re my guest. You get up, dump it out, and fix your own. What did I do wrong, Megs?”

Julie rattled off the sequence of events like the elements of a crime, and yet…

“I stopped using white sugar when Dad died,” Megan said. “Stupid, I know. A single change of diet doesn’t have much impact, and there’s sugar in nearly everything you buy at the store. It’s not like I’ve eradicated sugar from my personal planet, but it’s something I could do.”

Julie pushed the Victorians aside. “You’re healthy as a horse, Megs. You’re not addicted to sweets.”

“Refined sugar isn’t good nutrition.”

The corners of Julie’s lips quirked up. “We’ll be in our eighties, and you’ll still be playing the older-sister card, unless we’ve both died of heart attacks.”

Congestive heart failure was more likely, given their dad’s medical history. An older sister might point that out.

“Julie, I’m sorry I dumped the tea. You were being considerate, and I was focused on the flowers. If you want to spend a day together, I’d love to, but after about two p.m., my phone starts ringing and my e-mail gets busy.”

“This is tablet,” Julie said, passing over a lump that looked like brown sugar. “It’s bad for you, and I love it. Can’t your people at the shop handle anything without you?”

Megan took a nibble of the tablet and her teeth nearly screamed: pure sugar, with some butter and whisky thrown in to make the damnation complete.

Blissful damnation. Tablet and caffeine would be a recipe for world domination.

“My people are good at what they do,” Megan said, “but it’s my business, and I’ve applied for a loan that will allow me to open another shop. The loan was approved, but getting ready for closing takes some doing.”

“You’ve never mentioned this. I’m a lawyer. I might have had something useful to add.”

Julie had been a prosecutor, not a business lawyer. Declan was a farmer—he grew stuff—but he’d have little grasp of ornamental horticulture. How to gently point out that kind of distinction without offending?

“I started off using James Knightley for my business work shortly after you passed the bar,” Megan said, and then, as a sincere attempt at reparation for the tea faux pas: “I didn’t want to bother you.”

Julie blew on her tea, then took a sip. She’d been doing that—blowing on a hot drink before sipping—since she’d been a kid.

“That was honest,” Julie said. “James is the best for business law. Did he hit on you?”

“Nah, he flirted. Nobody hits on me.”

And abruptly, they’d arrived at the sister talk.

“Declan was hitting on you at dinner,” Julie said. “Declan’s salt of the earth.”

Declan was… Declan was lovely memories in the making. A good man.

“Weddings do that,” Megan said, shoving the catalog in front of Julie. “They put fairy tales in the air, and all of a sudden, everybody’s loving everybody, and the old people are dancing even though their hips are killing them, and the little kids don’t mind that they had to dress up. That’s what all the money is for, to make people believe for a day in happily ever afters.”

A florist should not be that cold-hearted about weddings. A florist depended on weddings for her livelihood. Megan crunched a piece of tablet to oblivion and washed it down with half her tea.

“Megs, I wish Mom and Dad could be at this wedding, too. For all their differences when it came to style and interests, they were very much in love. Can I be honest?”

“Any more honest than that, and we’ll both be bawling,” Megan said, blinking at her tea.

“I don’t give a crap about the flowers,” Julie said, “or only half a crap, but it’s the only thing I could think of to make sure you’d come. My engagement has been sudden and short, and I know you’re busy, but I wanted you here. For my wedding, I wanted my sister here.”

And then they were crying, in a tight, fierce embrace that solved nothing, but acknowledged much. To know Julie missed their parents, to know she still ached at the loss of them, answered a question Megan hadn’t known how to ask.

“Do you recall when you and Mom had that flower fight?” Julie asked.

“Doing the altar flowers? I was seventeen, and I knew everything, and altar flowers were stupid.”

“I was thirteen, and I’d never seen Mom lose her cool that way. It was wonderful.”

They’d hurled half a garden worth of yard flowers at each other on a bright Sunday morning. Daisies, hollyhocks, sprigs of lavender, the occasional thorny rose, a half-dozen late tulips, all over the front of the church.