Chapter 1 #2
And surely he had a fabulous personality to match that incredible face and impressive physique. Charming, strong-willed but chivalrous. She could only imagine what sort of gallant reply he would give to the offer of aid she couldn’t not give. Really. It was the right thing to do.
“Need help?” she asked in her most helpful tone of voice.
He stopped his swearing and turned to look at her.
So it was more of a glare than a look. Maybe he’d had a bad day.
“Help me?” he snarled. “Help me? Nay, you cannot help me, unless you’d care to go along before me and sweep the sheep from the bloody road where they don’t belong!”
She blinked. Okay, maybe his chivalry had been buried under all the paint he’d scraped off the side of his car.
She couldn’t blame him. But as far as sweeping sheep went, she doubted it would do all that much good.
His car didn’t look as if it was going to go far enough for sweeping to become an issue.
She turned her mind to more practical matters.
“Need a ride?”
He swore at her—she was quite certain he had—then stomped over to his exceedingly scratched door, opened it, threw himself inside. He managed to get the door shut with only a minor struggle. He whipped a U-turn, then flung his damaged car down the road with rather unwise abandon, to her mind.
Well, looks were deceiving, it seemed. His car was fully functional, but his manners were definitely not.
She sighed. So her first contact with indigenous culture had been a bust—her father would have been appalled at her inability to ascertain the man’s linguistic origins in ten words or less—but in spite of all that, maybe things would look up soon.
After all, no sheep were lying dead on the road, she still had her car intact, and she’d been witness to a helping of just desserts.
Not bad, considering the alternatives.
She put her car back in gear and continued on her way, happily humming a tune and looking forward with eagerness to a decent dinner and a good night’s rest. The sooner she was acclimated to her new time zone, the better use of her time she would be able to make.
It was rather late in the day when she finally reached the village of Benmore. She didn’t bother consulting her map of the village because she’d already memorized it. She wound her way up to Roddy MacLeod’s small inn.
She parked next to a very expensive-looking Jaguar, then turned her car off and sighed deeply. Safe and sound with a bed in her immediate future. Miraculous.
She dragged herself from the car, grabbed her purse from the front seat and her violin from the trunk, then made tracks for the front door. The entryway was neat and clean, but humble. She loved it on sight. But she hadn’t taken but a handful of steps inside before she came to a screeching halt.
She sniffed.
A feeling of horror washed over her.
Not Eternal Riches cologne.
She rubbed her nose vigorously on the off chance that she was imagining things. But no, she wasn’t. After all, who could mistake that for anything but what it was, especially given the permeation ratio she was currently experiencing?
Before she could decide between swearing and screaming, a middle-aged, ruddy-haired, ruddy-complected man came out, wiping his hands on a towel. He looked at her with a smile.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“I’m Madelyn Phillips. I have a reservation.”
The man stared at her in surprise. “Miss Phillips,” he said, blinking in surprise. “Aye, you did have a reservation, but . . .”
Did? Did he say did? Madelyn ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach—and the fierce itching in her nose.
“I called before I left the States,” she said. “To confirm. You are Roddy MacLeod, aren’t you?”
“Aye, I am,” he said, beginning to look very unsettled. “But Mr. Taylor said you’d made other arrangements at the last moment.”
Madelyn gritted her teeth. “He didn’t. He couldn’t have.”
“Ah, but I could and I did.”
Madelyn looked to her right to see a man emerging from the darkness of the hallway like a damned vampire come to look over the evening’s offerings and offer his opinion on how they were lacking.
Bentley Douglas Taylor III. Her former fiancé. The man who had left her with no money, no job, and no apartment.
Was it bad to loathe another human being?
She glared at him. “You stole my reservation,” she said, putting her hand over her nose so she wasn’t quite so assaulted by his cologne.
“It was the honeymoon suite—such as it is, and it isn’t much. I didn’t think you would want it.”
“What I wouldn’t want is to share it with you.”
Bentley removed a toothpick from between his teeth—he carried them in a silver case in his shirt pocket—and sucked those teeth, probably to retrieve whatever expensive lunch he had stowed there for later inspection. “Madelyn, you aren’t being a very good sport about this.”
What in the world had ever possessed her to agree once upon a time to marry the man standing in front of her?
Obviously some sort of momentary loss of all rational thought.
Bentley Douglas Taylor III was suave; he was handsome; he was powerful.
He had also dumped her six weeks before their wedding only to turn around and become engaged to someone else approximately six minutes later.
Just what in the hell was he doing here, fouling up her vacation?
“Food’s not bad,” he said, continuing to dig around in his teeth. “Not the civilization I’m used to, of course, but it’ll do.”
Yes, she’d been blinded by perfect teeth, lovely hazel eyes, and unassuming freckles across his nose. The fact that he was the über-lawyer at her firm with the accompanying stench of power that clung to him like perfume had likely had something to do with her fascination.
“Hey, Roddy, got a McDonald’s around here?” Bentley asked, giving their host a friendly punch in the arm.
Too late, Madelyn decided, too late had she realized that the stench that clung to Bentley wasn’t just power and Eternal Riches cologne, it was Eau de Fast Food.
Over the six months she’d dated the man, she’d learned to differentiate between McDonald’s, Burger King, and Jack-in-the-Box in three whiffs or less.
“McDonald’s?” Roddy asked, looking appropriately horrified. “Nay, I’m afraid not.”
“Why don’t you try real food, Bentley?” Madelyn asked. “You know, fruits and vegetables.”
“I prefer fries and burgers,” he said archly.
“How do you survive on that junk?” she asked, but her incredulity was gone. She’d seen him throw back a triple-patty, slathered-in-sauce death sentence followed by fat-saturated fries and lard-soaked dessert and have not so much as a discreet burp to hide in his monogrammed hankie afterward.
“Superior physique,” he said. “Teflon arteries. I eat whatever I want, in whatever quantities I want, and never do anything but flourish.” He looked at her critically. “You’ve packed on several pounds, I see. I thought you would bear up under my rejection much better than this.”
“I am bearing up very well,” she shot back. And she was. Getting dumped by him was the best thing that had ever happened to her. But to have him potentially turning Scotland in the Fall into Vacation in the Toilet?
Not a chance in hell.
She’d figure out just why he was standing in Roddy MacLeod’s unassuming foyer later. For now, she had more pressing matters to attend to. She looked at Roddy MacLeod.
“I need a place to stay since my room has been illegally and immorally purloined by the scumbag here.”
Roddy clasped his hands together and began to wring them. “Ach, but all I have is a very small room—”
“I’ll take it,” she said quickly. “If it has a bed and I can become horizontal very soon, I’ll be happy.”
“Of course,” Roddy said. “And I’ll not charge you—”
“I’ll pay a fair price,” Madelyn said. “I won’t stay for free.”
“Take him up on the free thing,” Bentley advised. “You don’t have a job.”
“Thanks to you,” she reminded him.
“I did you a favor by taking you out of the partner’s race.
You never would have made a good one anyway. Look at you. A little stress and you eat your way out of your business suits and into matronly muumuus.”
“I am still wearing my business suits, thank you very much, and you did more than just take me out of the partner’s race. If memory serves, you had me fired as well.”
“Did not.”
“Did, too.”
“Did not.”
“You did, too!” Good grief, how could he stand there and deny it? He’d signed her termination notice! And the events leading up to it had come so quickly and so efficiently, she’d known it had to have been him, ruthlessly following a hastily jotted down list.
First had come the termination of their engagement.
Then, in the order of appearance, had come the cessation of invitations to the partners’ dining room, losing her best clients, being ignored by paralegals who had once quivered in fear before her, losing her crappy clients, losing her secretary, and finally, and by far the most humiliating, having her parking pass shredded by the lot attendant.
She’d been forced to shell out ten bucks in advance to get into the garage.
Her pink slip had been taped to her door.
Of course, Bentley had been behind it all.
With one stroke of his foul pen he had crushed any and all dreams she might have had of continuing her meteoric rise at DiLoretto, Delaney, and Pugh.
Too bad it couldn’t have ended there. Unfortunately, with all the people he knew in Seattle—and all the names she’d called him as she’d taken his pink slip to his office and thrown it into the ketchup on his china plate—she’d be lucky to get a job slinging burgers.
Would Roddy MacLeod call the police, she wondered, if she were to just reach out and plant her fist in Bentley’s nose?
“Barbie Patterson was a better choice all the way around,” Bentley said, chewing on his toothpick. “Less likely to cave under pressure. Less argumentative.”
“I’m a lawyer. I’m supposed to be argumentative. And in case you didn’t notice, Barbie is a lawyer, too.”
“But she’s a lousy one,” he said pleasantly. “Couldn’t argue her way out of a preschool dispute. But she’ll look damn good in the annual report. Now, let’s get down to business. Are you planning to stick to our itinerary?”
“Go to hell.”
“Hell is where we are,” he said, removing his toothpick and examining it. “I cannot believe I let you talk me into Scotland for a honeymoon. Scotland, a country where perfectly reasonable men dress in skirts.”
“Kilts,” Madelyn corrected.
“Plaids,” Roddy MacLeod said, his nose beginning to quiver.
Bentley, unsurprisingly, was oblivious to the undercurrents of irritation flowing around him. “I suppose if I stay next to you, I will avoid any unwanted advances from light-steps in skirts.”
“You’re not going to be near me,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to sightsee with you. Sniff your way on your own to fries and unidentifiable burger material.”
“You’ll be much happier with me at your side.”
What was he, nuts? The man was engaged! She might have suspected jetlag to be the cause of his lunacy, but he’d no doubt flown first class and she was sure they didn’t have jetlag in first class. She could see she had only one choice.
She’d have to ditch him at first light.
Madelyn looked at Roddy. “May I have my key?”
Roddy retrieved one from his reception desk. “Here it is, lass. Fresh sheets, bathroom down the hallway. You don’t think twice about asking for whatever else you need from me. Happy to provide it, happy indeed.”
Madelyn hoisted her gear, then made her way down the hall and decided, as Bentley began to engage their host in a conversation regarding pubs and what kinds of unhealthy substances might be found therein, that the rest of her luggage would keep.
She could wash her face tomorrow. Her teeth would survive a night without being brushed or flossed.
She suspected that even her bladder might leave her alone if she asked, but there was no sense in overdoing things.
After a quick trip to the bathroom, she eased her way into her minuscule room and cast herself gratefully upon Roddy MacLeod’s second finest mattress.
She could deal with the wreckage that was her life tomorrow.
For now she had a comfortable bed beneath her, and she was no longer trapped by any kind of moving mode of transportation.
Scotland in the Fall.
Despite everything, it was almost as fabulous as she’d dared hope.
With her last few thoughts, she wondered how the man who’d done serious damage to his black sportscar was sleeping. Not well, probably. Who would be, when contemplating that kind of repair bill?
At least she’d managed to avoid his fate. Her car was sitting undamaged in front of Roddy MacLeod’s safe, pleasant inn.
She fell asleep with a smile on her face.