Iain leaned back in his chair and narrowed his lovely peaty brown eyes at her.
“You said earlier you were against grazing. You wanted the cash inflow. Why is it you’re changing your mind now?”
She bared her teeth at him in yet another sharp, pointy smile. “Darling, I’m a woman! I’m allowed to change my mind!”
“Oh, for the love of—” I bit off the oath and stuffed a cookie into my mouth.
Bridget never missed a beat.
“And as you were so kind as to offer to let me graze the land for the first three years, then I will do so. I’ll have my flock moved into the parks next week.” Iain pursed his lips in thought for a few moments, then nodded his head. “Aye, that’ll be fine.”
Her eyelids dropped to give him a sultry, knowing gaze. “Ever the gentleman, darling?”
Worry shimmered through me at the emotion hidden behind those grey eyes.
Something was wrong here, something was very wrong, but I didn’t know what it was or how to stop it.
Iain nodded his head and stood up to see her out the door.
I stayed put. Bridget allowed him to help her on with her midnight blue wool cape, then paused dramatically by the door. Her gaze scorched me for a moment before turning back to him. “I have always found chivalry to be grossly overrated.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t been aware I was holding as she left, reaching for another cookie while Iain walked her out to her car. She was taking unfair advantage of Iain by demanding the first three years of grazing rights on Kin Aird, an offer he had made in a generous—and desperate—attempt to appease her after he nixed the slaughterhouse plan, but that wasn’t what bothered me.
What worried me, what made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up in warning, was how lightly we had escaped her wrath.
“She’s up to something,” I warned Iain when he returned. “It can’t be as easy as this. She’s not the sort of person to turn the other cheek, and she’s certainly not going to settle for the minor dribble of income grazing the land will bring when she could have much more. Iain, I have a bad feeling she’s going to try to put something over on you.”
“There’s naught she can do, love,” he shrugged. “She’ll have, the profits from grazing for three years while I have none—if she’s after revenge, the thought of making a profit against me will satisfy her.”
“In your dreams! Iain, she’s a malicious, vindictive, nasty woman! She’s not going to be happy until she has you ground into the mud, with me beneath you.”
He smiled a warm, slightly smug male smile. I pointed a finger at it. “Oh, don’t you even think of telling me I’m just jealous of her!” He laughed, but didn’t deny it. Which was good, because I was jealous, but as that had no bearing on this particular situation, I figured it was better left alone. It occurred to me that the time had come to tell Iain just what exactly was lurking under his bed.
“Sweetie, I have a little something to tell you.” I patted the chair next to me and waited for him to sit down. “It’s about Bridget’s gift to you.” He looked down at his jumper. “You’re wanting me to not wear it now?”
“No, I think it looks lovely on you. I thought that”—I took a deep breath—
“when I bought it.”
He looked confused. “What are you saying, love?”
“We—Joanna and Bev and Susan and I—switched presents. This is one I had originally given you, not Bridget.”
Iain stood up again. “Why?”
“Because we thought Bridget’s present was unacceptable.” He looked a bit peeved. “How would you be knowing what her present was?”
“Joanna opened it and looked ahead of time, on my authority, I should add.
And I’m glad she did.”
He went still. Iain was no fool. He might not approve of us pulling a bit of jumper over his eyes, but he had a long experience with Bridget. “What was it?” Another deep breath. “A… um… marital aid. A really big one.” He digested all of the ramifications of opening such an item on Christmas in front of his family, and his jaw tightened. “Where is it?”
“In a box under our bed. Iain, I should warn you—oh, too late.” I heard him leap up the stairs, thump around in our room, then there was a moment of silence, followed quickly by some of the profanest language I’d ever heard.
He stomped back down the stairs, his eyes furious, the box tucked beneath his arm.
I intercepted him on the way to the door. “Where do you think you’re taking that?”
“Stand out of my way, love. I’m going to give Bridget my thanks.” I winced at the way he said thanks . “No, Iain, you can’t!” He stopped to look at me. “And why can’t I?” he bellowed. “Do ye think I’ll be lettin‘ her insult us in this manner?”
“But we’ve yanked the rug out from under her already,” I reasoned. “See, that’s why we substituted the jumper for it. Now everyone but her believes she’s given you a perfectly lovely, and extremely good looking if I do say so myself, jumper, while she believes…”
I couldn't help myself, I kept seeing the expression on her face. I started giggling. “While she believes you’re happy with the fit of… of…” I waved my hand at the box. “Of that!”
It was a test, this. Would he see the humor in the situation, or would he go off and be pissed about the entire thing?
I waited. For a whole minute. One of the longest minutes of my life. Things didn’t look good there for most of it. I was preparing my apology for interfering when the corner of his mouth twitched. Time for me to move in for the kill. “You see, Iain, it’s perfect this way! Everyone admires the gift she gave you, while she thinks we’re all depraved, sex-starved maniacs with utterly appalling taste.”
He chuckled. Finally!
He started toward the door again.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“You don’t think I’ll be keeping this?” He looked scandalized.
“No, of course not, although…” I nibbled on my lip. “Iain, those things are expensive. Or so I’ve been told,” I added hurriedly. “And this one seems to be a super deluxe model. It has some sort of pump system or hydraulics or something attached. Look, I’ll show you.”
I started to raise the lid off the box but he slammed it back down.
“I’ve no need to be seeing that again.”
“Fine, we won’t gaze upon its rubbery glory, but I think we can squeeze a wee tad bit more revenge out of this whole fiasco.”
He liked the thought of more revenge, I could see that. Those Highland warriors didn’t hang on to their grudges for centuries without some of it filtering down to their modern-day descendants.
“How?”
“We can sell it. It’s probably worth at least forty pounds!” He looked at me as if he saw bats flying out my ears. “Do you think I’ll be putting an advert in the paper for this monstrosity, then?”
“No, of course not.”
“Good.” He started back for the door.
“Iain, forty pounds is forty pounds! We could sell it and buy something nice with that money.”
Iain may not be the stereotypical thrifty Scot, but he’s no fool with money. He stopped and turned around to look at me. “Where would we be selling it, then?”
I smiled. I knew those long hours of online shopping would pay off some day.
“I’ll sell it on eBay!”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Someone we know will find out you’re selling it.”
“I don’t see how…” The look on his face was immovable. I quickly decided on an easy solution. “OK, how about this. We’ll sell it on the U.S. eBay only. No one will know it’s me. It’s the perfect plan, eh?”
He hesitated.
“Forty pounds, Iain. We can buy a couple more James Bond tapes or have a really nice dinner out.” He looked unconvinced. “Or you could buy that drenching gun attachment you’ve been mooning over.” That did the trick. Nothing
says happiness quite so well as something to worm sheep.
Our trip to my home a week later was not without its moments of Bergman-esque absurdities. Mark had been prevailed upon to keep an eye on things and handle the chores during Iain’s absence. Despite my daily nail-biting session, Iain’s passport did arrive on time, I did manage to get us booked on the flight I had wanted, and we did make it to Heathrow all in one piece: Iain, his luggage (which was made up mostly of books, the States being, in Iain’s mind, sadly lacking in book availability), my luggage (made up of clothes and my laptop), a bag of presents for my family, and one extra box containing The Gift . Bridget’s gift to Iain.
Why would I bring that along with us? Well, it wasn’t that I had grown attached to the thing, as Cait accused me once she heard I was bringing it with me. The truth was that I had sold it on eBay just as I had promised Iain, and since the person purchasing it wanted to keep the shipping down as low as possible, I figured I would just ship it when we were in Seattle rather than having it go out airmail from Scotland. In addition to which, the thought of what I’d have to write on the customs form was giving me nightmares.
Iain disavowed knowledge of the package and me once he spotted it. I had quite a time keeping him in his seat after I stuffed The Gift into the overhead storage. He wanted to sit elsewhere.
“You can’t!” I punched him in the arm. “I’m wounded. I need help. I can’t even open up my complimentary bag of salted nuts!”
“I’ll not be seen entering the country with that thing!”
“You don’t have to, I’ll carry it with my luggage. I don’t care what customs thinks of me, I just want to send it off to its new home.” Iain muttered what he’d like to do with it, but as it involved Bridget, I thought it best to pretend deafness.
There’s just nothing quite so fun as traveling with your arm in a cast. For some reason, and Iain claimed it was because The Gift was cursed, I managed to set off the alarm at every security checkpoint I went through. That meant the security people had to bring out the wand and go up and down me checking for bombs, nuclear missile heads, and what have you. All of them viewed my cast as a suspicious object, clearly a cleverly contrived false one whose sole purpose was to smuggle contraband substances. By the time I made it through the Inverness, London, and Seattle airports, I was ready to rip my cast off.
Iain was ready to toss out The Gift . He made me mail it that afternoon, despite the fact that I was suffering from severe jet lag and arm rot from where an itch had set in beneath the cast.
“And here we are,” I announced as we arrived at my apartment, throwing open the door with a flourish. “Home sweet home. Mind your head, this doorway is a bit low.”
Iain ducked as he entered the apartment—it was part of an attic in an old house that had been converted to an upscale flower shop—and looked around.
“Ah. It’s a wee bit small.”
I looked around my apartment. Although I knew full well it was small, it hadn’t seemed quite so claustrophobic before I moved into the Highlands.
“Um… yes, well, there was just me and the birds. I’ll just set The Gift here and you can put that bag over there. Can you bring in the others all right? Be sure to watch—oh I’m so sorry, Iain. Let me look. Did you break the skin?” Eventually he hauled all of our luggage in without further concussing himself on my door. I called my mother to let her know we had arrived, and would have given in to the jet lag and crashed, but Iain drove me out to the nearest post office so I could mail The Gift .
We spent the afternoon and evening going through the apartment, making lists of what I wanted to take with me (books), what I’d give away (furniture not worth selling), and what I’d leave with my mother to sell (most of my electronic stuff).
The following day was D-Day, the day we drove out to see my mother and whatever family members she had rounded up for the formal Viewing of the Scot. My mother lived in a rural community within a few hours’ drive of Seattle. I hadn’t thought anything about that, but immediately upon setting out the drawbacks became apparent.
“Hmmm,” Iain would say as we passed a big farm. I could see he was scanning the distant fields for little white blobs. Uh oh. Trouble ahead. Sheep farmer in his native element.
“Um, Iain, we are on a bit of a schedule. I know you’re finding this all fascinating—heaven knows I gawked plenty when you drove me up to your farm—but I’m afraid all of that noise of honking behind us is indicative of a line of four… no wait, there’s two more… six cars that want you to continue driving.”
Iain tch ed and waved my nudge away. “They can wait for a few more minutes.
I’d like to take a look at that cradle up close.”
I looked to where he was pointing. Standing next to a barn was a drafting race with a sheep cradle parked next to it. A race is a long narrow pen with a variety of gates that is used to sort the sheep, one at a time, into holding pens. The cradle is used to flip sheep onto their backs so you can tickle their tummies.
“Yes, but Iain, you’re holding up traffic. Maybe we can stop and see the sheep cradle on the way home.” I had to promise him we’d make time to stop and see if the fanner was willing to talk shop with him just to get him moving again.
We made it to my mother’s house just in time to be greeted by my sister Mo, a woman who had no inhibitions whatsoever.
“Where’s the kilt?” she queried Iain as she opened the door of my mother’s house. Her question took him by surprise. He looked at me. I looked back at him and shrugged. I had warned him how women were about a man in a kilt.
“It’s at home,” he replied. “Along with my sporran and bagpipes. You’d be Maureen, then?”
No wonder I love the man. Anyone who can take Mo down a peg is a right Joe in my book.
Mo knows when she’s been bested. “Well, as long as you plan on trotting them out when we come for the wedding, we’ll let you off the hook this once. Yes, I’m Mo.” She leaned around him to peer at me. “You’re right, Kathie. That accent could drop a cow.”
Elder sisters. They live to embarrass.
My mother was lying in wait for us in the kitchen, making me wonder once again why so much of life seems to take place in kitchens. “Kathie! Iain! There you are!”
She hustled toward us, got a good look at Iain, and stopped dead. “Oh, but you’re not wearing your kilt?”
I sniggered. Iain managed not to roll his eyes and greeted her politely. We chatted for a few minutes while my sister made a hurried call to her husband, instructing him to pack up the kids and come over immediately, as well as warning him that Iain was kiltless. We were having dinner with my family, and my mother had pulled out all of the stops, inviting all three of my siblings and their families, my Aunt Grace, Grandpa Lewis (Mom’s stepfather), and assorted cousins. Mo had arrived early to help with the dinner.
“Won’t you sit down over here next to me, Iain,” my mother yelled from ten feet away.
I made an oh my god, my mother is so embarrassing face. “Mom, he’s Scottish, not deaf.”
She dropped the volume of her voice a smidgen. “I just thought it would be nice if I enunciated very clearly so he can understand my foreign accent.”
“Och,” Iain said with a wicked smile, sitting on the loveseat next to my mother. “Ye need’na be worryin‘ yer haid aboot that, CarrrriTrol. Kathie’s been whisperin’ those sweet nothin’s in man air so lang, ah’ve lairned t’understand the lass.”
Mother leaned forward, her brow wrinkled with concentration as she tried to follow what he was saying.
“You big oatcake,” I poked at his shoulder, and sat on the arm of the loveseat next to him. “Mother, Iain does not talk like Groundskeeper Willie. Don’t encourage him, or he’ll just continue to gargle those Rs.”
“Kathie!” my mother scolded. “I’m sure she meant no ethnic slurs, Iain. You wouldn’t know it to listen to her, but I did raise her properly.” Ethnic slurs? Where did she get this stuff?
“Hello?
Is Kathie here?” My brother Max and his wife Denise had evidently arrived. Denise’s voice was clearly audible all the way across the house. “Max, you take the baby. Hi Mo. Is Kathie’s fiancé here? Is he as gorgeous as she described?”
No one in my family, even those members related only by marriage, had ever mastered the skill of speaking in a conversational tone.
“He’s more gorgeous, and he can hear every word, so don’t be saying bad things about haggis,” I yelled back. Iain shot me a look. I shrugged again. No use in trying to be polite around my family.
Denise burst into the living room, a casserole dish in hand, eyes wide and excited. Her face fell when she saw lain “No kilt?” Chapter Sixteen
My family is a little over the top. They’re nice people individually, it’s just when you get them in a herd that they can be ever so slightly overwhelming, which is why I was concerned about Iain taking one look at them and calling off the wedding. He wouldn’t, of course, but I knew in my heart that was only because he realized we would be living half a world away.
I mulled this over while my Aunt Grace was saying grace. No one in my family is particularly religious, but Aunt Grace, feeling it a personal responsibility that she live up to the name her parents gave her, insisted on saying a blessing every time there’s a family gathering. Unfortunately, she’s an agnostic, and has no real idea of what makes up a grace. Hers are always an embarrassing combination of family scuttlebutt, her hopes, and one or two pointed reprimands. The prayer, such as it was, formed an address to a mysterious collection of graces whom my aunt wouldn’t define, but insisted had to be better than just one god.
“And we’d like to thank the graces that our niece Kathie has returned to our familial arms once again after living in a matrimonial state with a man who was not lawfully her husband. We are particularly happy that our family is grown by one more in the form of Iain MacLaren, who we think is a fine man despite the fact that he disappointed us by not wearing his kilt. We’d like to ask the graces for kind thoughts and good wishes for Bradley as he takes his driver’s license test for the fifth time, especially since he’s taken the written test so many times he should have it memorized by now.”