Some Like It Scot (30 page)

“Perhaps they can explain it to you. I suppose it makes sense, if you look at it through their filter. It just doesnae happen to be the way I think. I'm no' sure if a compromise, in this case, is what I should do. I feel that I would be cheating us both.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“I had Shay post the banns for a clan council meeting. Two days hence.”

“You'll put it to a vote? So soon?”

“No. I just want the opportunity to tell them why I feel as I do, and listen to what they have to say. I'm hoping that will guide me in what I should do next.”

“Would you really walk away? End your work here?”

“If they decide that fate is the ultimate decider, and Iain ends up the victor, then I dinnae see how I could stay on. If they truly believe that life and their future is best left to the whims of fate, then they'll embrace the path that doesnae have me on it. They can't have it both ways.”

“What about you then? I mean, where would you go? What would you do?”

He smiled then, and it surprised her. “Asks the woman on the brink of making the same journey. It's no' like this is all I can be, Katie. It's just what I want to be. But perhaps my fate is to take a new direction as well.”

She curled back beside him, her mind racing in all new directions. She hadn't expected the reaction to his desire to end the Pact to be a positive one, certainly not initially anyway. But it was all rapidly growing far more complicated than she would have expected.

So she pushed, when she otherwise would have counseled herself not to. She had a feeling once the two of them essentially reentered Kinloch society, things were going to move swiftly toward one conclusion or another. She didn't trust they'd have much of a chance to control things once everybody else began to have a say. So she had her say, while she still had his complete and focused attention.

She scooted up, until their faces were level, and cupped his face until he turned to look fully into her eyes. “I know it is with the best of intentions you want to move your people past an ancient restriction you feel would serve not only the current generation, but generations to come—in a better, more freely adaptable way. It also honors your own feelings.”

“Aye, you've just stated it far more clearly than I could. Perhaps I should have had you with me at the meeting.”

She smiled at that. “I'm a hell of a negotiator.”

“I'll tuck that fact away,” he said, smiling too, but she saw the strain around the edges.

“But there is a third option.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want the Pact abolished. Your friends seem to think not only will that not happen, but that the law, as it stands is still more benefit than detriment to the people of Kinloch.”

“That is the crux of it, aye.”

“If the time constraint elapses, what are the chances that Iain will make good on his threat?”

“According to Roan, high to near on a certainty.”

“So let me propose to you a third option.”

“Please do,” he said, pulling her hand presently cupping his cheek around to his mouth, where he pressed a rather hot and bothersome little kiss to the palm of her hand, which she then snatched away.

“No distracting the negotiator.”

He grinned unrepentantly. “I'm merely trying to gauge just how finely honed those skills of yours are. If I'm going to take you into battle, a clan leader needs to know these things.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at him, but when she spoke, she'd never been more serious. “That is exactly my proposition. Take me into battle with you.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning you give your people what they want.” She took his hand then, and pressed a hot, sweet kiss of her own to the center of his palm. He didn't jerk it away, but his expression definitely changed to one not so confident as before.

“What are you plotting inside that lovely blond head of yours?”

“I'm just saying we're not exactly repulsed by each other.”

“Ye can safely make that argument, aye.”

“Why don't we end Iain's reign of potential terror. Give your people the wedding they want. Then continue on with your quest to abolish the law, for those who come after.” She held up her hand. “Let me get it all out there, then you can shoot me down. Doing it that way you wouldn't be working under any time constraints, and you'd have me there, pitching the battle with you.”

“Why on earth would they want to repeal something they see is still working?”

That made her heart sing just a little, but she kept it under wraps. “If we talk to them, implore them to search their hearts, and free their future leaders to be allowed to follow theirs…I think together we might make a stronger case. Precisely because we did follow the law, but still want to seek freedom for those who come after. And…” What she'd said so far was the easy part. What she had to say next was the hard part, the part she really didn't want to point out, or put on the table. But it had to be said if she was to ultimately get what she wanted—Graham wanting her as freely and fully as she wanted him. “If the law is abolished, you would be free to dissolve our union, and still seek the partner of your choice. And show them for real, what that would give them, and give to you.”

She knew it was the best possible solution to the problem, but she didn't want him to actually take her up on that last part. She didn't want to see his reaction to that comment.

So, it made her heart decidedly heavier, when he seemed to take it under serious consideration. “You'd do that? We wouldn't be able to judge how long it might take.”

“I want time here, to sort through my future options. I've nowhere I have to be. If the situation becomes untenable, then you can simply divorce me, and move on in whatever manner you wish, Pact or no Pact.”

“Not one union has ever been dissolved. Four hundred years.”

“You want to dissolve it all, so ending the lengthy streak is hardly a sin by comparison.”

His expression shuttered a bit, but she didn't call him out on it. She wasn't feeling quite as generous as she'd been feeling minutes ago, when she thought he'd balk at the idea of letting her go. Or had certainly hoped he would.

Surely they were on the path to that destination—marriage—already. But, her confidence a bit shaken, she wasn't as happily ready to skip down the aisle. Yet she either had conviction in her own plans, or she did not. She could hardly ask that of him, and not be willing to trust in her own vision. There were no guarantees in any event.

“Ye've given me a lot to think on,” he said.

She nodded, wishing she had a bit less on her mind at the moment. But it was all part of the same thing. She needed him to be as sure of her, as she felt she was about him. It was just the beginning…she needed to keep the faith.

“You know,” she told him, “I am suddenly ravenous. Why don't you show me the mysteries of your shower and I'll clean up while you put together whatever goodies you brought back with you from…”

“Port Joy?” he offered when she didn't attempt to mangle the village name. A glimpse of the teasing smile curved his lips. Clearly his thoughts were on other things. Like whether or not he was game to marry and divorce her to make a point with his people.

Oh, Katherine Elizabeth, what have you gone and done now?

“T
hey are truly works of art,” Katie breathed, as she looked from one basket to the next, lining the showcases in Roan's office. “My God, I had no idea.” She turned to face him. “These are made right here on the island? All of them? How many do you ship, say, in a month?”

He pulled out a spread sheet and handed it to her. She looked over the numbers and her mouth fell open. “Oh, my word.” She looked up to find Roan smiling quite proudly.

“We're only back up to sixty-seven percent consistent crop production. We could push the market further, but we have to be confident we could continuously fulfill the demand.”

Katie laid the spreadsheet back on the desk and picked up the small catalog that showcased their work. “How often do the pieces change?”

“Continuously. Mostly the catalog is a means of showing what our range is. Many of our customers want the unique, the one-of-a-kind.”

“You do that? Custom baskets?”

“In a sense. We can take recommendations of color schemes and quote a price range, but the weaver has the freedom to create whatever she wants, so long as it meets the criterion of the agreed upon price.”

“What is the percentage of customer dissatisfaction?”

Roan handed her another spreadsheet. “Third column is the rate of return or refusal for the past corporate year.”

“Wow,” she said, seriously impressed. “I guess your reputation helps in that regard a lot. With such a subjective product, that's really an amazingly low figure.”

“We're proud of it, aye.”

“Still, the marketing challenges you face with that kind of stock fluctuation—”

“Are indeed challenging. It's my job to come up with solutions.” He cocked his head and studied her as she handed the folder back to him. “Would it be presumptuous of me to assume your role in McAuley-Sheffield was in some way parallel to my, admittedly, much smaller role here?”

“You may assume that, yes,” she said with a smile. “I don't know that I can honestly say I had the same honest passion for it that you do for yours, but I can say with a fair amount of confidence that I was pretty damn good at it.”

“Good,” Roan said, clapping the folder shut in increased excitement. Considering he'd been pretty much a zero-to-sixty sort whenever they'd spent time together, that was saying a lot. “Would you be remotely receptive to seeing some ideas I've been playing around with, for the fall and winter campaigns?”

“Sure,” she said, surprised to realize she meant it. It was entirely different than back at home. She truly was free to do what she wanted. The knowledge that she might contribute something made her feel energized about trying. No one was more surprised than she was. She'd thought she hated her job.

Maybe it was just her employer.

He handed her another file. “Look these over. If you can pry Graham out of his lab, hijack his computer and go to the website listed on the front sheet. That's us. Look and see what's going on now, to understand better where I'd like us to be.”

“I can do that,” she said, slowly flipping through the pages, already excited about having something to sink her teeth into. She'd been on Kinloch for a week, and it was her first time going solo.

For the first couple days, she'd stayed at Graham's, initially waiting until after his clan council meeting, which had gone about as well as Roan and Shay had predicted it would. Then he'd taken her into the village to meet everyone, and that part had actually gone quite well. She knew she was like the oddity at the circus, but they certainly hadn't made her feel that way. In fact, to a man, or woman, they'd been nothing but cordial and kind.

She'd found them to be exactly as Graham had said they'd be, the nicest people to know. However, she wasn't fool enough, to think for one second, there wasn't gossip raging like wildfire behind her back. She didn't take offense at it. After all, in their position, she'd surely be doing the same thing.

But she didn't go off and hide. Graham had taken her on extensive tours of the fields. He'd shown her how they converted the plants she saw into the thread they wove into the baskets. It wasn't until this morning, though, that she'd seen the end results, firsthand. Roan was going to take her to meet some of the weavers so she could see up close what they were all so deeply connected to. So far, she'd found each part of the process absolutely fascinating. She was equally intrigued by the contents of the folder she held in her hand.

Roan stood. “Are ye ready to go check out some of the weaver's studios?”

“You're sure they won't mind?”

Roan barked one of his infectious laughs. “You are joking, right? You are the hot commodity on the island right now. There were actual arguments over who would hostess you and who would have to wait.”

“You're putting me on.”

“I'm doing nothing of the sort.”

“Be honest, it's because I'm a curiosity, right? I'm the McAuley that The MacLeod is keeping in his castle, but won't make an honest woman of, isn't that the draw?”

Roan rubbed his hands together. “Absolutely, darlin'. That's what makes this so delicious.”

She laughed. He was so outrageous and yet so completely harmless she could hardly call him on it.

“So,” he said, putting a friendly arm about her shoulder as he guided her through the front office and out to his truck, parked in front. “How is your personal campaign coming along?”

She nudged him in the ribs. “Honestly, not here, where God and everyone are listening in.”

He laughed. “In the getaway car then, Mrs. Peel, and quickly.”

She rolled her eyes and climbed in the opposite side. She'd yet to drive herself anywhere, but she was slowly acclimating herself to the whole wrong side of the road concept. She looked over at her cohort in crime, and felt that little pang of homesickness she felt each time they set off on a new adventure. Actually, it wasn't so much homesickness as it was Blaine-sickness. She missed her best friend. There had been no word, no contact made. She was starting to wonder how long was long enough, to risk checking in with her very best friend. Mostly to see how he was doing, but also, if she were honest, to find out what all had transpired since she'd left Annapolis. She'd been tempted on more than one occasion to get on Graham's computer or Roan's laptop and see what news stories had leaked out after her aborted wedding fiasco, but she'd chickened out each time, feeling what she didn't know, couldn't hurt her.

She was well aware that the friendship she'd instantly struck up with Roan had very much become a bit of a placebo for what she was missing with Blaine. Other than the very obvious difference that Roan was quite emphatically heterosexual, he really was the closest thing she had to a gay best friend. To her, Roan was like the big brother she'd never had. Or maybe the big cousin he truly was. Playful, and at times flirtatious, but always with the understanding that she didn't regard him the least bit a contender for her affections.

It made him behave that much more outrageously around her, which she found pretty adorable. Making that fact clear to him was her amusement. It drove him crazy that he couldn't get a rise out of her.

That was Graham's exclusive domain. She was quite secure in the fact, and, thankfully, so was he. Graham might find his friend's barrage of playful sexual innuendo around Katie tiresome and juvenile, two words he'd used often in Roan's presence, but what it didn't make him was jealous.

Katie found that immensely refreshing. He trusted Roan and her implicitly. She liked knowing she'd gained that level of trust with Graham. It meant a great deal. Between the crops, industry business, island business, and the general demands on Graham's time, having Roan around to keep her distracted had also kept her sane.

It had been five days since the epic failure of the clan council meeting, and Graham still hadn't given her an answer to her offer.

“Okay,” Roan said, as he pulled out on the narrow village track. “You share first. Is he cracking at all?”

Katie lifted a shoulder. “I don't know. We spent the couple days it took us to get here, and my first full day here, pretty much joined at the hip.”
And a few other places,
she thought, but despite Roan's sense of humor, she didn't say it out loud. “He's been understandably busy and distracted the past few days, but we've spent meals together, supper, at least, and there has been time to talk.”

“He's said nothing about your Marriage Pact proposal?”

She shook her head. She hadn't told Roan about the other proposal she'd made. Given that the Pact proposal she'd made had come after, she assumed Graham thought it was something she'd said in the heat of the moment. She'd never been more clear thinking, but she'd been willing to leave that aside for the time being, in favor of getting him to say something, anything, about his plans for the deadline, which was four short weeks away.

Odd how the time she'd known him felt like a lifetime, yet since arriving there, time felt as if it were flying by.

“Has he said anything more to you about what his plans are? Has he talked to you or Shay since the council?”

Roan shook his head. “Shay is still in Edinburgh and likely won't be back until sometime next week, if then.”

Katie hadn't had the chance to meet Graham's other close friend, as he'd been gone by the time she'd gone into the village. In addition to seeing to everyone's legal needs on Kinloch, he also ran the small firm his father had started on the mainland. From time to time, he had to go there to work on or oversee a particularly difficult case. “It's kind of ironic,” she said, “that Graham is here trying to figure out how to make the Marriage Pact functional, and Shay is in Edinburgh, trying to find a way to conclude the divorce case for two very dysfunctional people.” She looked over at Roan. “What are his views on the Marriage Pact?”

“Shay is a good mediator, because he can see both the merits of and the detractions of any kind of union. He happens to be very good at disassembling the marital kind, but he believes the Marriage Pact should stay.”

“Really?”

Roan nodded. I think he likes the continuity of it, of what it's stood for. He likes to have faith where he can. Don't fix what's not broken is his motto. There are already enough broken things.”

“And you?”

“Maybe not for the same reasons, but pretty much the same outcome.”

“Do you think we should marry and leave the Pact be?”

“I think Graham should follow his heart in both matters. I'm just no' certain he knows his own heart.” He glanced over to her, a kind smile on his face. “He hasn't had to use it much. He's a thinker by nature, a researcher and an investigator. He accumulates data and extrapolates theories. He's not much for leap of faith moments. Except, perhaps where you were concerned. Very unlike him, that. So you'll probably have to give him time to do it his way.”

“Which is?”

Roan's smile spread to a grin. “Accumulate data and extrapolate theories.”

“About marriage?”

“About you.”

Katie folded her arms over her suddenly knotted stomach. “Lovely.” She had to pray that when Graham added up all his data and came up with an equation, she was the sum of all the various parts.

“I'm taking you around the east end of the island. You'll get to see the tower, and the abbey. Most of the weavers are on the MacLeod end of the island, but we have one artist in particular whose work I think you'll find fascinating.”

“Has she been weaving a long time?”

Roan shook his head. “No, in fact, she's new here.”

Katie hadn't known Roan for very long, but she'd known Blaine her whole life. When Tag's name had first started to enter their conversations, ever so casually, she'd come to recognize a certain look on Blaine's face when he spoke about him. Right from the start, Katie knew, even before Blaine did, that Tag was The One. Roan had a very similar look on his face at the moment. She smiled. “So, what is her name?”

“There's the tower, there,” Roan pointed, drawing her attention away from uncovering Roan's possible secret love, and directing it to the dark, imposing tower built from the same stone, it appeared, as Graham's stronghold castle.

“It's held up as well as the castle has, it appears.”

“Aye, it's rather defied the odds. The castle is somewhat protected, wedged in the high valley between the two mountains as it is. The weather on this end of the island is much fiercer and there's less protection as a good part of the east end extends well past the mountain itself.”

“Oh,” Katie exclaimed. “Look at all the flowers.”

“That's the machair. It's a very unique, natural formation that runs just above a beach line, but below the actual strip of solid land.”

“It's stunning and those flowers look so exotic.” There was a tickle at the edge of her mind, but it was easily ignored as they drove past the tower and along the machair, heading toward the bend in the road where the mountain eased out again and butted up against the track. It wasn't until they'd gone past the tower and she'd turned her attention from the startling wall of mountain to her left, back to the flowery machair to her right, that she gasped, then said, “Stop the car.”

“What? Why? What's wrong?”

“Nothing, just—” She didn't finish. The moment he'd coasted to a stop, she'd hopped out of the cab of the truck.

“Wait, where are you—”

“That building,” she shouted back over the wind, as Roan climbed out his side of the car, “out there on that spit of land. That's the abbey?”

“Aye, 'tis. Why do ye ask?”

“Nothing, it's just…” She walked away from him, her gaze fixed on the spot beyond the end of the machair, where the grass tufted up brilliant and green, a rocky tumble just beyond…and in the distance, what had been at one time, she knew for a fact, a stone abbey. She could have drawn it from memory. “It wasn't always out in the water, was it? The abbey?” She turned to find that Roan was still back by the truck, and couldn't hear her. Didn't matter. She knew the answer. She was staring at the place where Graham had first made love to her. Or to some past version of her. “Right over there.” She wandered into the grass, tentative at first, then more boldly. Since the time she and Graham had consummated their relationship, neither of them had had a vision, not even a feeling of one.