A Garden In The Rain (MacLeod #8)

Chapter 1

Scotland in the Fall.

Were there any other words in the Mother Tongue that could possibly conjure up more romantic thoughts and feelings than those?

Madelyn Phillips let her luggage slip to the ground, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply.

No, those were the words, this was the country, and she had two weeks stretching out in front of her with nothing to do but enjoy.

That she was poised to visit the Highlands when the air was full of the briskness of fall was simply the stuff of dreams.

“Get a move on, ducky.”

Madelyn moved, thanks to a friendly shove on her backside by the man standing behind her. Thank heavens he had used his suitcase. At least she hoped he had used his suitcase.

She looked around her and realized belatedly that she was blocking the exit from the train station. In her defense it had been a very long day. Or maybe it had been two days. At this point she just wasn’t really sure anymore. It felt like weeks since she’d slept in a horizontal position.

She moved out of Mr. Ducky’s way, pulling her suitcase along behind her and trying to ignore the fact that one of the wheels had somehow become fused to something else during a too-lengthy stay near her radiator on the night before she’d left the States.

She paused at the station’s entrance, looked, then smiled at the sight of people driving on the wrong side of the street.

She listened to the conversations wafting past her and sighed in pleasure at the lilting sounds that cascaded over her.

It was better than she’d dared hope, and she’d dared hope a lot.

She yawned suddenly, then rubbed her eyes and gave herself a shake.

She didn’t have time to sleep. She had much to see, much to do.

Sleep could wait. She pushed away from the wall, hauled her carry-on and violin case farther up over her shoulder, took a firm grip on the handle of her no-longer-rolling roll-along suitcase, and made tracks for the local rental agency.

Half an hour and several dubious looks later—it was possible she’d yawned one too many times—she was the possessor of keys and a very unsatisfactory map of the Highlands.

She put it into her notebook with great reluctance, though she supposed she didn’t have to look at it.

After all, she had directions to the inn where she was staying from the proprietor himself.

He could no doubt tell her where to find a map that had more roads drawn on it than this.

Unless these were all the roads there were.

Then again, fewer roads, fewer people. Less things to run over on her first day. Maybe that was a good thing.

She hauled her gear to the car, put it in the trunk, and managed to get herself behind the steering wheel on the correct side of the car without any undue stress or confusion.

“Drive on the left,” she reminded herself as she negotiated her way through the parking lot.

That was a little unsettling in and of itself, but it was nothing compared to trying to blend in with the local traffic.

She wondered why rental agencies didn’t grill potential renters about their level of jetlag before handing over any keys.

She took a deep breath and put her foot on the gas.

She had a few hair-raising near misses with pedestrians, cars, and other bits of unyielding curb material, then she was quite suddenly on the road out of town.

The road narrowed and the accompanying traffic eased up as well.

She relaxed her death grip on the steering wheel and let herself smile.

She was in Scotland. It was almost too good to be true.

She could pinpoint the precise moment when her fascination with the country had begun.

Her father had come home from a conference in Edinburgh and brought her a little statue of a Highlander playing the bagpipes.

And for some reason, that had set fire to her ten-year-old’s imagination.

Her father had never traveled to the UK without bringing her back something Scottish, even if he’d purchased it at Heathrow.

Child-sized bagpipes, kilts, books: All had served to deepen her fascination with a land that boasted so many lochs, such a rich history, and such a fiercely independent people.

Of course, an elaborate teenage fantasy about an ultra-buff Highland lord who would fall madly in love with her the moment he saw her hadn’t done anything to blunt her enthusiasm, either.

She’d wanted to come to the Highlands for years.

She’d wanted to touch the stones with her own hands, to roam the land on her own two feet and imagine who might have walked there before her, see the lochs and mountains with her own eyes and envy those who called them home.

Even when school and career had taken the lion’s share of her time and money, she’d always kept Scotland in the back of her mind.

And, she had to admit with a good bit of chagrin, she’d always kept that daydream of that handsome Highland lad in the back of her mind as well.

It was a good thing she’d just recently sworn off men, or she might have been distracted on her trip.

After her last relationship, she’d decided to give them up for at least a decade or so.

She just couldn’t imagine anyone changing her mind.

Besides, she was in Scotland to see the country, not find a man.

That Highland lord could just look elsewhere.

She put all thoughts of impossible fantasies behind her and concentrated on the fields and forests that were full of autumn color.

She rolled down the window and savored the chill in the air.

Fall was by far her favorite season. It was full of promise for mornings spent lingering over a hearty breakfast before going outside to shovel leaves, afternoons spent watching the leaves wearing their autumn colors, evenings spent reading next to a roaring fire.

Sweaters, boots, scarves: even the clothing worked for her.

Of course, she didn’t have any of that really great fall-type clothing.

What she had was a suitcase full of business attire, very expensive business attire, but that was a different story entirely.

At least the obscenely expensive black shoes she was wearing were comfortable.

It almost made up for the nylons that had slouched their way down her thighs and seemed determined to slide even farther.

She didn’t dare tug. They were her last pair, and she didn’t have any money for others.

So to take her mind off her migrating legwear, she forced herself to admire charming stone houses separated by equally charming stone fences and pay attention to the delightfully winding road leading past them.

After a while, though, the road began to feel like one endless ribbon that wove its way in a rather haphazard fashion through the countryside, and she began to feel a little disconnected. Soon she wondered if she’d slipped into a trance. Things were becoming very peaceful.

Or at least they were until she glanced in her rearview mirror and found a black car of indeterminate origin suddenly crawling up her tail as if it had every intention of taking up residence in her trunk. She was invited to pull over with a series of friendly toots on the horn.

All right, so the guy was actually leaning on the horn as if he’d collapsed there.

Not even being passed, seeing a ferocious scowl tossed her way as the man slowed in his passing to make sure she knew he was irritated, followed immediately by an acceleration so rapid she had to roll up the window to avoid road dust blinding her, was enough to sour her determinedly cheerful mood.

She happily flipped the rapidly disappearing sportscar the bird and continued on her way.

The road continued northward and soon it began to wind with more enthusiasm.

Her driving skills were definitely improving because she found herself growing used to driving on the wrong side of the road.

She even managed to avoid various and sundry bits of animal husbandry that seemed to find warm, fallish tarmac to be to their liking.

She’d never thought of sheep as a road hazard, but there you had it.

When in Scotland, look out for white, fuzzy impediments to your journey.

If only the natives would take that advice, they would probably get a lot farther in their travels.

This was something she decided as she rounded yet another corner and found herself facing a traffic tableau that brought her foot into forceful and sudden contact with her brakes.

Mr. Black Sportscar was standing by the side of the road, looking at his beautiful car, which was now facing the wrong direction and sporting an enormous scrape down one side.

Madelyn pulled over. No sense in adding to the tragedy by becoming a road hazard herself.

She rolled down her window and poked her head out to look at the man who was speaking quite enthusiastically in a language she supposed had to be Gaelic.

He was coming close to tearing his hair out.

Then he stopped and turned to look at her.

And she felt her mouth go dry.

All right, so she was sleep-deprived. She was also probably overloaded with too many expectations and too much airline food. And it was also possible that her social life was so far in the toilet that anything that looked passable in jeans and a black sweater seemed like a dream come true.

It was possible.

Or not.

Nope, there was just no denying that the man before her was simply, undeniably stunning. Tall, dark, unbelievably handsome. She tried valiantly to remember why it was she’d sworn off men. Not that it would have mattered. This guy was reason enough to deep-six that resolution.