Santa in a Kilt Read online

  “If we can be an inspiration, I’ll no’ shy away from it,” he said. “I’ve never been happier, nor has Roan. And we’d be very happy, of course, if that were to spread to Shay. Just . . . have a care with him. And with your own heart. I canno’ think of a woman better suited to him, but I’m no’ so sure he’ll ever allow himself to be well suited in return. No matter how deserving he is, or how much he wants it.”

  Kira’s cheeks grew warm, but in a good way. Graham’s heart was truly in the right place. “Thank you. For your concern for me, and even more, for him. He has good friends. I don’t know how we’ll fare, but we’ve been open about that from the start. And . . .” She lifted her shoulders. “We’ll see what we see. Rest assured both of us have our eyes wide open.”

  “I appreciate your letting me speak so freely.”

  “That’s what friends do,” she said, happy with the idea that she’d made a new one that day.

  “Indeed. So . . . tell me about this weaving school you want to open.”

  Her eyes widened. “I thought you didn’t know about this supposed ‘secret project.’ ”

  He smiled again, and this time there was a knowing gleam there that made her pulse jump a little, as it would any living, breathing woman. Kira began to see why Katie was always glowing.

  “Tell me about the parts I don’t know. The parts I can help you with. Years back, Roan had tossed the idea around when he began converting the stables and hunting lodge into the home he now lives in, but when his own work became more demanding, the idea was lost along the way. I’m glad he thought of it again, and thought of you to run it. Because I think it’s a fine idea. A fine idea, indeed.”

  Kira opened her accordion folder and took out the heavy sheaf of papers, very excited to hear that . . . but even as she enthusiastically went over all of the plans, and learned what kinds of clan laws she’d have to contend with, their earlier conversation was never far from her mind.

  She had a lot to think about. And more questions. Questions she feared had no immediate or easy answers.

  Chapter Seven

  “We’d take this section here, clear the stone, and renovate and remodel the croft house first, then what used to be the stables and barn.” Kira scrambled around the rocks and stood where they could see the far corners of the property, each boundary marked by low, stacked stone walls. She pointed to the shambling building in the northwest corner. “The stables will house the offices, the barn the actual classrooms, and the croft house will be expanded to provide living quarters for the students during their stay. Those who don’t find accommodations in the village.”

  “What of the instructors?” Shay asked, though, in truth, he really didn’t, in that moment, give a flying fig about schoolteachers. Other than the one standing next to him. He’d been gone three days and he was like a man dying of thirst who’d just found his only well.

  “They will all be McAuley or MacLeod weavers,” she chattered on. “I already have quite a list compiled of those interested in taking a session on. Some of the names might surprise you,” she added, with that devilish smile. “They did me.”

  Och, but he was this close to putting her over his shoulder and carting her straight to her cottage. But when his stay in Edinburgh had been extended, he’d promised to meet her here, straight from the ferry.

  With more control than he thought he’d ever need, Shay stepped up on the rocks beside her and scanned the property. “I’ve gone over all the paperwork and it seems in order. With Graham’s help and support, I dinnae think you’ll come up against any real opposition at the council meeting tomorrow. Has anyone approached you directly with concerns?”

  “Just a few queries about making sure our lessons focus on the traditional weaving, and no’ my own designs. I’ve assured them that while I eventually hope to offer advanced classes to help students find their own creative and artistic voices, in general, the idea of the school is to spread Kinloch weaving traditions beyond our isle, in hopes of increasing the interest in what we do. There’s also the added benefit that the more people who know of our work, the better the chance that it will never completely die out. Not to mention it’s great for tourist trade.”

  Shay stepped down and held a hand up to assist her down as well. “Sounds like you’ve thought it all through quite thoroughly. I don’t think ye’ll be needing much counsel from me.”

  “Oh, I need counsel,” she said, tugging him closer.

  It was the end of the first week of December. They’d been involved now for a little more than a fortnight. When he was at work, and she was in her studio, their lives continuing around them as before, he wondered and worried about the choice he’d made, and all he was risking.

  But when he was with her, it seemed the most natural, right thing in the world. The ease with which their lives had begun to mesh would seem to make a mockery of his fears. In fact, he didn’t want to imagine getting up in the morning and not having her be part of his day.

  He’d done his best to do as she’d asked, to focus on the good and leave the worrying to fate. With her, it was easier than he’d thought it would be. But on his own . . . or worse, when standing in a courtroom, or sitting at a deposition table, he’d be lying if he said all the doubts and fears didn’t creep in and grab his gut in a cold fist.

  But he wasn’t in Edinburgh today. “Good,” he said, “because there is perhaps some of my more . . . personal counsel you might benefit from.”

  “Oh?” She tried to maintain a serious expression, and failed spectacularly. “And on what topic would you like me to receive your . . . counseling, counselor?”

  He made her squeal a happy, joyous sound when he abruptly pulled her hard against him and cupped the back of her head with his hand, slightly knocking askew the cap she’d tucked her hair beneath to keep the wind from whipping it about.

  “First,” he said, as he settled her snugly in his arms, “this must go.” He flicked off the knitted wool cap and her hair came cascading down.

  She lunged for it with a free hand, but the wind caught it and danced it over the rocks. “The wind will snatch my hair into a nest of knots before we make it back to the jitney.”

  “Oh, you won’t have the wind to blame that on.” He wove his hands into her hair, and tightened his fist just enough to bend her head back, and push her mouth up toward his. “I’ll gladly sort out every knot. Later,” he breathed across her lips.

  “Promise?”

  “Oh, aye. I’ve many things I can promise you this night.”

  Her eyes sparkled as she immediately slid her arms over his shoulders and around his neck. “Do tell.”

  “I’m much better at demonstrating.”

  “I thought solicitors prided themselves on their . . . oral skills.”

  He smiled then, and was dazzled anew by the way desire widened her pupils whenever he did. In fact, it was likely the reason he found himself doing that far more often these days. “Oh and aye, that we do. Allow me to show you, milady.” He dipped his head so his lips brushed hers. Her eyes fluttered shut and she sighed, instantly softening under his repeated brushed kisses.

  “More,” she whispered with a whimper, when he lifted his head. She urged his mouth back to hers with pressure on the nape of his neck. “I’ve missed you.”

  Och, but he’d missed her as well. Like the very devil he had. And they’d spoken every night, and sent notes via e-mail each day. It should have been pathetic, their complete inability to be truly apart from one another. And if it hadn’t made him feel so bloody fantastic every time that little white envelope had popped up in his inbox, he’d have worried about that, too. “If I start in here, we’re going to be uncomfortably naked on some very hard ground. And quite chilled by the time I’m through.”

  “Will we now? My, my, solicitor, sir. I don’t know that I’ve ever been counseled so . . . ardently.” She batted her eyelashes at him, making him laugh. She joined him. “Oh, I should confess it’s my mission in life to make you do
that more often, ye know.”

  “If anyone could, ’tis you,” he said, quite honestly, not as surprised by it as he once was. He started to carefully pick his way across the field.

  “You could put me down rather than risk life and limb on these rocks.”

  “I could,” he said simply, and kept walking.

  She said nothing more, but rather tightened her hold on his neck . . . and began to do rather delectable things to the side of his neck, just above the starched collar of his shirt. “Mmm. I miss the smell of you,” she said. “Oh, while I remember, I had your shirts cleaned and pressed.”

  He paused before skirting a particularly large outcropping and glanced down at her. “Did you now?”

  She smiled up at him, a wholly unrepentant gleam in her eye. “Aye. Raised quite a few eyebrows in the village, both when I dropped them off, and again when I picked them up for you.”

  “I can well imagine,” was all he said. Mostly because rather than providing an opening for his fears and concerns to come creeping in . . . he found he rather liked the idea of her public claiming of him. He angled his head so he could catch her gaze. “No one said anything . . . untoward to you, did they?”

  “Untoward?” she repeated, the teasing twinkle in her eye, even as she quite seriously pretended to give it some thought. “No, no I can’t say anyone did. At least not to my face. In fact, I’m no’ so certain we’re going to find any opposition to our burgeoning relationship. If anything, I should warn you before you head back to the village, or to your office.”

  “Warn me?” He’d reached the road and let her slide her feet to the ground. “What of?”

  “Well, I met with Katie yesterday, to go over the marketing and separate site ideas, to tie the school in to our official marketing Web site, and she warned me that there was quite a buzz about us, perhaps even a bet or two being made over pints of ale.”

  “Bets?” he asked, truly flummoxed by the idea. “Whatever on?”

  Kira rolled her eyes. “What do you think? Christmas is coming, everyone is in a festive mood what with all the lights being strung and the decorations and gifties starting to fill up all the shop windows.”

  “And?”

  She cupped his cheek and bussed his mouth. “And we’ve had two weddings in three months, with your best mates as the grooms. What do you think they’re betting on?”

  And that’s when the door not only creaked open, but flung itself wide. “Ah,” he managed, though he couldn’t have rightly said how. His throat had closed over and his heart had clutched.

  Kira was, as always, intimately tuned into him, but rather than pull back herself, or take offense, she smiled and kissed him, noisily, instead. “I’m no’ the one placing any bets, okay? And I’m the only one ye have to worry about. They’ll rib you and give you a hard time, aye. I say we torment them with ardent displays of public affection and keep them guessing.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “It will be a burden, of course, but I’ll bear up under the scrutiny somehow.”

  And, just like that, his heart clicked right back into gear . . . though he couldn’t have said the door made much progress in closing again. “You’re a wonder, you do know that?” he asked, amazed by how resilient she was, and had been, throughout their time together. It was true that, after their first almost overwrought day spent in bed, they hadn’t spoken of the future . . . or potential lack thereof. They’d talked of his work on the island, and, to a lesser extent, in Edinburgh, about the school, about the positive reports Tessa and Roan had been sending back from their working honeymoon in Malaysia, where she was working on a new story and he was setting up another outlet for their basket sales.

  Kira made it so easy to be with her, to be in a relationship with her. It was more than he could have hoped for . . . and everything he’d never allowed himself to want for himself. As long as he kept his thoughts on the moment, he was quite content. Happier than he’d ever been or knew he could be.

  When he could keep his thoughts in the moment.

  But an adulthood spent dissolving marriages wasn’t something he could overcome in a fortnight, especially since he was still doing it. No matter how delightful a companion Kira had already become to him, there was still this unavoidable sense, in the back of his mind, that he was being drawn inexorably closer to the edge of a cliff. And the ledge was becoming higher and higher every day.

  Then her palms were on his cheeks and she was drawing his mouth down to hers. She kissed him, this time there wasn’t anything teasing about it. And when he lifted his head, she looked quite serious.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “You’re a wonder, too, Shay Callaghan. Don’t forget that part.”

  “I—”

  But she’d already slid from his arms. “We can come back for my car later on,” she said, and walked to the other side of the jitney and climbed in. There was nothing to do but get in himself.

  Once settled in the driver’s seat, but before he could say anything, she said, “I thought if it was okay with you, we’d stop in town and pick a few things up at market . . . before going to your place.”

  “Aye, I’d planned to feed you before I ravish you. We’ll need our stamina—wait, at my place did you say?”

  She leveled an easy look at him, but that seriousness lingered in her eyes. “Aye. We’re always at my place and I thought it was maybe time for you to have to launder the sheets and clean up the dishes.”

  She’d said it that way to keep it light, and he knew he should strive to do the same. After all, even if he knew she didn’t mind in the least having him at her cottage, as she had said on more than one occasion, she had every right to think she’d be invited into his home with equal enthusiasm.

  “I—I’ve been gone for days, and was with you for the two before that, so I canno’ vouch for—”

  She placed a hand on his thigh as he maneuvered the stick shift and changed gears. “You know I dinnae care about the state of your place. Any more than you cared about the state of mine.”

  “I know,” he said, quite well aware how badly he was mucking this up. She’d caught him off guard.

  They drove on as a full minute passed; then she said, “If you’d rather no’, just tell me so. We can plan it for another time, then.”

  He pulled the car over and let it idle.

  “Shay,” she said, after another moment passed in silence, “ ’tis okay. Truly. I shouldn’t have been so clumsy in inviting myself over. We’ve just gotten in a bit of a routine about you coming to see me and I—”

  “You wanted to feel equally welcome in my home,” he finished. “And of course you are.”

  “But?”

  “But nothing. I’m no’ ashamed of where I live, it’s quite a nice little cottage.”

  “Except that’s no’ the actual issue, is it?”

  He swallowed a sigh then, knowing she wasn’t going to just let this pass, nor, in truth, should she, when he’d made such an awkward moment out of it. “I’ve made too much of it, and I’m sorry. You’ve nothing to apologize for and I should have invited you myself. Long since.”

  “But you haven’t.” And she said it in such a way as to make it clear she knew it wasn’t just an oversight or thoughtlessness on his part.

  “No,” he agreed. “I haven’t.” He turned to look at her then. The least he owed her was to be direct, as she’d been with him. “I’ve done well with this change in my life. I’ve embraced it as fully as I know how to. And I’ve enjoyed it, more even than I thought myself capable.”

  “But if you let me into your personal world, then I’ll make a permanent impression on it. And you’re no’ willing to risk that, if I’m suddenly no longer a part of your personal world.” Her expression softened a little. “I do understand that. It’s why I sold my flat in London even before my divorce papers were signed. In fact, it’s why I left London altogether. I shouldn’t have pushed. You’d have invited me when you were ready.”

  “And what if that
time was . . . distant from now?”

  “There’s no deadline, Shay. When and if it truly bothered me, I’d say something.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing now?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. After a beat, she said, “Maybe you’re right. I didn’t mean it as a test, not consciously, but clearly it was. I am sorry. I’m usually more direct when something is bothering me. That wasn’t fair. I know your doubts are still there,” she said, “and I didn’t mean to push you. Not now. And please know, I didn’t bring up the village part as some underlying scheme to pressure you—”

  “I know that. I do know you, and you wouldn’t do that. It’s simply part and parcel of the two of us forming a relationship. It doesn’t happen in a cocoon.”

  “Much as you might like it to,” she said, not unkindly.

  He paused then, but he owed her the truth, if nothing else. “Perhaps. Yes. Would be simpler to navigate if the only concern I had were my own feelings, and yours.”

  “Nothing is ever that simple or uncomplicated.”

  He laughed then, but there was little humor in it. “That is the biggest twist of this. It is both the most uncomplicated, easiest thing I’ve ever done . . . and the very most complicated and tangled relationship I’ve ever allowed myself to have.”

  She nodded, but it was a moment longer before she said, “When you think on it, when you’re alone, how do you feel?”

  “Mostly I try not to.” He flinched when he saw pain flicker across her face. He immediately reached for her, touching her cheek, then taking her hand. “I didnae say that to hurt you, and yet I did just that. I’m sorry, I am. What I meant was, if I don’t think about the bigger picture, it’s easier to just be. I do think of you. Endlessly. I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t. You’re like part of my atmosphere now, critical to my every breath.”

  “Shay,” she breathed, clearly awed by his blurted confession.

  “And, I suppose I think that, the longer I’m in this relationship, the more normal it will become, to where it simply becomes the bigger picture. Does that make any sense to ye? It’s no’ because I see no future with you.”