Unwrapped (11 page)

Graham merely cocked a brow. “But?”

“But, I have work to do. I can’t help that it happens to be what it is. It’s what I do. Everyone deserves to have their needs well-represented, no matter the situation involved.”

“And you do it quite well, solicitor.”

Shay merely held his gaze evenly, said nothing.

“Is there some rule,” Graham went on, his gaze still as intent as ever, “against enjoying oneself, simply for the moment? Not every quest for pleasure has to end in a lifelong commitment.”

Shay stifled a sigh. This wasn’t new territory. “In the city, I’d agree. Which is why, as you well know, I conduct that part of my life there. Here on Kinloch, however, we both know the truth of it,” Shay said, and knew Graham understood his meaning. It was, in fact, the irony of all ironies, to his mind. While Shay spent at least half of his time in Edinburgh devoting himself to tearing asunder the unions made in holy matrimony . . . here on Kinloch, nary a single soul had ever divorced. Not ever. Not once. For all of the four hundred recorded years in the history of the isle. “I’ll meet you all later, and raise my glass then. Several in fact, to be sure.”

He moved past Graham, expecting his friend to shrug off the exchange and let him go. Graham and Roan both ribbed him on many an occasion about his mysterious paramours in the city, waxing ridiculously rhapsodic about the life of debauchery and decadence they were certain he must live there, to counterbalance the life of a monk he lived on Kinloch. He let them have their ribald fun, knowing he’d have his own opportunities for giving back as good as he got. Which he did, in his own dryly acerbic way. It was the way of old friends, and he normally didn’t mind it in the least. But he was thankful, on this day, to have it over with.

So, it surprised him when Graham spoke again, earnestly this time, without a hint of humor in his tone. “Shay, I know you spend a goodly amount of time as an intimate witness to the worst of what a man and woman can do to one another. But you were raised, for most of your life, here, an equally intimate witness to the glorious best of it. And though I’ve not been long in their ranks, I can tell you, you cannot even imagine the true gloriousness—”

“Graham,” Shay said, a surprising note of warning creeping into what was normally his smooth, some would say relentlessly even tone. “Please don’t proselytize the sanctity of the glorious union to me of all people.”

Now it was Shay’s turn to be surprised, as a very rare, hard light came into his friend’s eyes . . . and a warning note echoed in his words. “Oh, I’m no’ preaching for you to join us, mate. That is a decision each man makes for himself. I’m merely reminding you there’s a balance of good to evil. And, perhaps, a bit of cautioning as well. Kira might share your desire for a brief crossing of paths, I’m no’ to say. But given her heart has already been trod heavily upon once, you wouldn’t want to be the man to do that to her again.”

“I beg your pardon?” Shay felt his fingers curl into his palms. “What kind of man do you take me for? Why do you think I don’t start things here, with any woman?”

“Kira is no’ ‘any woman,’ ” Graham replied.

“My point exactly.” Shay was stunned, actually, at the force of anger that rose inside him and he fought to control his tone. “I’m afraid, however, I’ve missed yours entirely.”

“I’ve been observing the way you look at her, mate. And I’m well aware of that look and the feelings that accompany it. I daresay our friend Roan could weigh in on the topic as well. At great length.” His tone eased along with the hard lines around his jaw. “And I know ye’ve no reason now, with Roan wedded, to satisfy yourself with looks alone.”

“I—”

“What I’m sayin’ to ye is that I’m the first one to applaud a man following his heart and going after what he wants. But you’ve made it more than clear that ye dinnae believe a lifetime spent with one woman is possible.”

“I’ve made it clear that I see how it’s more often impossible than not for two people to forge a lifelong commitment to one another, no’ that I personally disapprove of it. Big difference.”

“And yet, the tie that binds those two ideas together is that ye dinnae personally believe it to be possible. For you. And, given her past, I’d say that she deserves a man who not only knows his intent, but fully believes he can back it up, with all that is in his heart.”

“And I believe I told you that I’ve no plans to conduct myself otherwise. No’ here.”

“As I said, I’ve seen the way ye look at her. The fact that you’ve been at all obvious in your interest says a great deal.”

“I have no’ been obvious. I’m the least obvious man on this island.”

“Not to those who know you best. And I’m only speaking from personal experience. I know what it is to try to deny that interest. You’ll tell yourself you can walk away, keep a distance, no’ act on it. But the last barrier you had to hide behind just walked out those abbey doors.”

Shay didn’t bother to argue that point, because he couldn’t. “So what was all that about not all pleasures have to lead to lifelong commitments? One minute you’re encouraging me to go after a quick roll, the next—”

“I was testing the waters. I wanted to see your response.” His gaze took on even greater directness. “And now I have. I canno’ speak for Kira. As I said, perhaps that’s all she’ll be wantin’ from ye. But I’m no’ just concerned for her welfare here . . . I’m concerned for yours.”

“I can take care of myself, Laird MacLeod,” he said, adding a pointed note to that last part.

Graham ignored it. “All I’m trying to say is, even if she’s on for a simple roll, no matter what ye tell yerself you’d settle for, I think you’ll end up wanting more. Perhaps more than ye bargained for. I know the look,” he repeated, then smiled. “Intimately. I’m saying this because I know you to be an honorable man, Shay Callaghan. One of the finest I’ve ever had the privilege to know and it’s with pride I call you my friend. And ’tis only because I’ve been where you stand right now that I felt duty bound to make sure ye were thinking with all you have up here”—he knocked Shay on the forehead with his knuckle—“before you act on what’s pounding in here.” He aimed his knuckle at Shay’s chest, but backed up a step and let his hand drop to his side. “Because you’re going to act on it, my friend. Today, a fortnight from today, I canno’ say. But as long as the two of you are on this isle together, you will.”

Shay said nothing.

Graham grinned then, and any remaining tension eased completely. “I know the look.”

Shay watched his oldest and dearest friend walk away, then catch up to his wife, whom he promptly swept up into his arms, eliciting a delighted laugh from Katie and good natured whistles and hoots from the merry band around them.

Shay slowly crossed the field, well behind the ebbing throng, rubbing at the increasingly annoying twinge in his chest. He tried not to think too closely about Graham’s words of wisdom, but it was a challenge. He knew Graham to be honorable and as dedicated to the islanders in his role as clan laird and island chief, as he was to those closest and dearest to him. Just as he knew Katie would benefit from that honest dedication, and that if any couple was going to go the distance, Shay believed they would.

Roan was an equally dedicated sort, who wore his heart on his sleeve and saw the best in everyone. And Shay hadn’t seen anything to indicate he’d be any less of a devoted husband to Tessa, despite their short courtship, than Graham was to Katie.

He wished he had that same kind of faith. Graham had been right in saying that Shay had surely been exposed to a lot of what could be right between a man and a woman. The difference was, except for university, Graham and Roan had spent all their lives on Kinloch. So that was all they knew. It was easier to believe the best of people when you were never exposed to their worst.

And Shay had not only been exposed to it, he was a constant active participant in the dismantling of it.

He stopped beside his car and fished his keys out of the sporran that hung at his waist. A hint of a smile curved his lips, as it often did when he looked at the old jitney. He’d bought it at the age of seventeen, with money earned sheep tending and hauling in nets full of fish. He’d never been so proud as he had the day he’d towed the auld girl home behind Magnus MacLeod’s tractor. His father had been far less than impressed with the idea of his son driving about in what amounted to a taxicab, but then that was his typical reaction to just about anything Shay did, and by seventeen, Shay had gotten very good at shrugging the disappointment aside.

Shay had spent a long, happy summer putting the jitney to rights, prouder still the first time he’d driven her into the village under her own power. That was almost as many years ago now as the tender age he’d been at the time, and yet, she was still by his side. He ran a palm over the bonnet, the paint gritty and pocked from a lifetime of residing in salty air and unpaved roads.

His smile grew rueful, as he realized that the longest relationship he’d ever sustained, outside of his friendship with Roan and Graham, was with his car. “Aye, but a leap of faith I took fifteen years back, and look where it’s brought us,” he said under his breath. Perhaps it wasn’t the kind of faith most folks needed to commit their hearts to another person, but it was something.

He started to open the door when a clearing of a throat caused him to go utterly still. Just a clearing of a throat, but he knew . . .

“Would ye have a minute for me, Shay?”

He took the briefest of moments to gather himself, or at least find his breath, then turned his head . . . and looked straight into teasing hazel eyes and the sweetest of smiling faces. Kira MacLeod stood just behind him on the tiny strip of flat land between the rocky edge to the meadow, and the track road just beyond the cars. She stood so close that the light citrus fragrance she wore teased his senses. So close that all he had to do was shift the rest of his body fully around and she’d be half in his arms. The steady island breeze had caused wispy tendrils to come loose from her swept up hairstyle, and it took every ounce of strength he had not to reach out and smooth away a stray strand clinging to her lips.

His gaze lingered there. And his fingers curled more tightly into his palms.

And he knew, right then, his heart thudding loudly, while a thunderstorm of want pounded through his veins . . . that Graham was right.

As long as they were both on the same island . . . he was going to act.

Heaven help them both.

Chapter Two

F
or a moment, Kira thought he wasn’t going to respond. He was simply staring at her. Well, there was nothing simple about it, actually. There was a certain light in his eyes, eyes that were a unique shade of ochre, like that of a finely aged whisky, which leant a singular intensity to his gaze, and made her feel quite as if she were the only woman left in the entire universe.

Which was saying something given all the noise and clamor of the wedding celebration, everyone shouting and hollering as they got into their cars and began to make their way, like a merry holiday caravan, into the village, horns tooting, song bursting forth from several who had piled into the back of Maddaug’s open lorry. She’d just been thinking, smiling to herself as she walked down the row of vehicles, that a person would have thought it was middle of summer, and not nigh on winter, the way everyone was carrying on. The sun was rapidly setting and it would be full dark before it reached half past four.

The days were short in winter, aye, but oh, she’d loved every second of this one, from the preparation, to the ceremony, to . . . well, just every last bit of pomp and circumstance of it. The boisterous celebration was simply the proverbial icing on the cake. Everything was as it should be and she couldn’t be happier.

For which she was eternally grateful on more levels than would be obvious to anyone else. As excited and thrilled as she’d been for her closest and dearest friend, Tessa, on this most special day of her life . . . Kira had privately wondered how she’d feel as she watched Tessa and Roan pledge their vows. Would it bring back hard memories? Would the day turn out to be a harsher test for her than she’d thought she was ready to endure?

“Aye, of course,” Shay responded, at last, pulling her from her thoughts. His normally low voice sounded even deeper to her ears, more intimate, with a bit of grit making it even more gravelly than usual. “What is it ye need?” he asked.

You
, she thought, feeling suddenly a little helpless. She’d been attracted, aye, but she hadn’t expected to feel all shivery and goose-pimply and incredibly aware of his every breath and pore. It was only when he finally lifted a questioning brow that she realized she was standing there, essentially gawking.

“I—I, well . . . I . . .” She stammered, suddenly tonguetied now that the moment was finally upon her.
For goodness sake, you’re behaving like an addled schoolgirl in the midst of her first crush. String a decent sentence together, why don’t you?
Kira smiled, widely, hoping it made her seem more her normal self, but afraid from the way his eyes widened slightly that the effect was more that of a swanning loon.
Oh dear.

“Yes?” he prompted.

She took a short, steadying breath. This wasn’t supposed to be the hard part. “Would it be possible for me to, that is to say, for us—do ye think we could manage some time together—what I mean is . . . I need you.”
Dear lord, a swanning loon would be sane compared to this babbling.
She’d known the man since she was a child. Granted, it had been only in recent months that she’d begun to look at him . . . well, the way she’d begun to look at him, but you’d think the way her tongue had tied itself into knots she was introducing herself to the King of England. Had England a king, of course.

It was just . . . he drew her. His quiet, easy confidence. The way he always seemed in command of any situation, without saying a single word. The way he carried himself, the alertness she saw in his eyes despite his otherwise inconspicuous demeanor. There was an aura of intense awareness with him . . . of tightly leashed power. It had been the stuff of many a fevered dream and fantasy, in fact.