Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
B ecause the sun never quite went down in Barra , Grace had no concept of time when she awoke to an almighty ruckus directly overhead, jumpstarting her heart like an unexpected third-period fire drill. Immediately nauseated, she ran a hand over her face and then Wesley’s side of the bed. Cool . Knowing Wes , she’d been off to traipse the beaches and hills at some ungodly hour.
For a moment, Grace thought the clamor was a thunderstorm. Her whole life she’d been landlocked. Who knew what kind of storms sprang up in the middle of the ocean? But then the noise differentiated itself into metal hammering against metal and the whir of an electric screwdriver, a man-made not nature-made clangor.
Burrowing under the covers, she pressed a feather pillow to her ears to muffle the din. She was groggy, like she’d slept deeply and medicated, instead of just staying up ridiculously late to watch her brother play ball.
Only three years older, Diego had been her hero since she was a little girl, no less so when he moved to Florida all by himself as a young teen for the US Soccer residency program. She’d almost forgotten about the years he spent in Glasgow in his early twenties.
After three World Cups , it wasn’t unusual to meet people who knew of him, but people who actually knew him? Well enough to call him Diego instead of the annoying press-sanitized, Mathilda -sanctioned Sandy ? That was unexpected.
She’d recognized Teàrlach almost immediately. His hair hadn’t been bleach-blond when she met him at the wedding, but his eyes were the same piercing blue, and there was something enticing about the delicate shape of his lips—a feature she now realized bore a striking resemblance to their host. Was it a Celtic thing?
Grace rubbed her face beneath the pillow, trying to clear the fog of jet lag and too little sleep. The way Mr . Bare - Chested Bee Tattoo had looked at her before turning on the game… Like he wanted to—she didn’t know what.
How did he even have access to an American soccer stream? Surely he paid an arm and a leg for that. Was it to follow Diego’s career?
And why on God’s earth was he making so much noise at—if her phone could be believed—a quarter past eight? Like , thanks for the wakeup call because she was already hours behind schedule, but come on, Mr . Bee .
This morning, she didn’t have the energy to do time-zone gymnastics before texting her brother.
Charlie (sp?) Buchanan says hello
Also your MacNeil buddy
Was he always an absolute ass?
Diego texted back immediately.
Teàrlach? Where the hell are you manita?
Now she did the math. Just past midnight LA time.
Scotland. Why are you up?
Shouldn’t you be sleeping off that 3-0 victory?
Were you hurt on the tackle? That pendejo should’ve been thrown off the pitch!
I’m fine. It always takes a while to come down from the adrenaline
Hell of an assist, Man of the Match
Wait did you watch from Scotland ?!
Of course
Then why aren’t YOU asleep?
Loud hotel. And jet lag
Why not tell him she was staying at his friend’s house and his friend was a terrible, noise-monster of a host? He’d either think it was hilarious, or be on the first flight out to kick some Scottish ass.
A surge of affection tightened her chest.
I miss you
Come visit when you’re back
She smiled.
Or you could come home…
A bubble appeared indicating he was typing, then went away again. Finally , he sent another message.
We play in Nashville at the end of August
Meet me halfway?
Grace laughed. As if Nashville were anything close to halfway between Knoxville and LA .
Deal
So Scotland ? And you just happened to run into the guys?
One of those crazy, random It’s such a Small World you wouldn’t believe it things, I guess
The earsplitting din grew louder, metal on metal. The world was maybe a little too small sometimes.
brB, gotta kill a guy.
Grumpy Gracie :(
No killing. I can’t afford international bail
Imagine the press!
My life flashed before my eyes
See you in Nashville
Grace tossed her phone on the dressing table and tiptoed out into the kitchen to investigate the noise and wrangle up a cup of tea. Cait had left an assortment next to the kettle, along with something called tablet that looked a lot like fudge. It would make a nice little treat for writing a couple thousand words before lunch—if she was able to silence whatever the hell was going on outside with her headphones. Two thousand words wouldn’t put much of dent in her manuscript, like three percent, but baby steps, right?
While she waited for her water to boil, Grace wandered around the small kitchen, which opened into the living room. She stood on tiptoe to peek through the patio door’s small window at a disgustingly perfect view of the beach. It was a shame the whole room didn’t share that view, but the stone and plaster walls closed it off like a cave against the elements. It wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing, but probably very snug in winter.
Maybe there was an outlet she could use on the porch to soak in some island air while she worked—once the hammering stopped, of course. If she couldn’t write with a view like this, she might as well hang up her keyboard, because she wouldn’t find a more perfect spot anywhere in the world. Stupid NPR , honoring her stupid request to turn the prize into her own stupid writing retreat. Better get to work.
With absolutely no enthusiasm to open her laptop and stare down the blinking cursor, Grace returned to the bedroom with a steaming mug of Scottish breakfast tea. Two thousand words should be easy. In undergrad, it might have taken an entire Saturday of pulling teeth, but she was a professional now. She’d drafted her first novel in stolen snatches between grad school classes and student teaching. Two thousand words shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.
Shouldn’t.
She opened her laptop, freshly charged the night before they left Knoxville . It was dead, because of course it was. She’d intended to replace it with money from her advance, but a new-to-her six-year-old Subaru had taken priority.
After fishing out the plug adapter, she nibbled a piece of tablet as a consolation while waiting for the beast to boot up, and holy hell it was delicious—sweet, creamy, dangerous heaven in edible form! The whole piece was gone before the laptop agreed to cooperate.
As she waited, the rooftop pandemonium seemed to grow louder, ratcheting up Grace’s anxiety until she couldn’t take it anymore. She switched on her noise-cancelling headphones—thankfully they still had some charge—and the discordant chaos was instantly replaced by rhythmic, atmospheric tones. Now the only giveaway that Mr . Bee was attacking his roof was the thrumming in her bones.
Not that it mattered.
She stared at the blinking cursor, her mind as blank as the page, and all she could think about was the stern crease between his decidedly perturbed eyebrows, just begging to be smoothed. What did he have to look so cross about anyway? He lived in actual paradise, in a nice enough cottage, with an annoying sister close by who brought heavenly treats. Grace hadn’t lived in the same state as her brother since she was thirteen years old.
But that had nothing to do with her book. It was time to focus .
BLINK. BLINK . BLINK .
Was the cursor blinking too fast? Almost flickering? Did that mean her computer was about to die for good? Or was she just fixating on the cursor to keep from fixating on another straight line, up and down, a chasm between deep-set green eyes?
Except her hero didn’t have ginger hair or green eyes. He had black hair and grey eyes and sixteen-year-old Maya had been in love with him since sixth grade, only she didn’t know it back then.
Grace rubbed in between her own brows. Just start writing. The words will come.
Eventually.
Right?
Her headphones beeped twice and shut off, letting the muffled sound of screwdrivers and hammers infiltrate her peace once more.
Slamming her laptop shut, she threw her headphones on the bed and stormed out of the room, the cacophony growing louder as she crossed the kitchen. Grace yanked open the back door and strode out—right into a ladder, which sailed down onto the sandy grass with surprising elegance considering how inelegantly she’d knocked into it.
The noise stopped immediately as she stood under the porch roof, rubbing her forearm and shin. She’d have bruises later.
“Was that the ladder?” a young male brogue asked.
“Aye,” her host answered on a long sigh. “ I’ll get it.”
“Don’t break anything, old timer.”
“Careful I don’t throw you off after it,” he growled in reply.
And then he landed on his feet just in front of her, the disgustingly sculpted muscles in his back rippling in the sunshine. Like last night, he was shirtless. His pale, freckled skin was beginning to pink like someone not quite used to working out in the sunshine, skin that looked velvety soft to touch.
Seeming to sense her stare, he turned around and his eyes grew large, his mouth opening to form soundless words as she took in the dusting of auburn hair that glistened in the sun, trailing down his chest and disappearing into the waistband of his jeans.
“Lose your shirt?” Grace bellowed.
“What?” he asked, before looking down at himself as though he’d forgotten he was half-naked. Upon realizing it, he wiped his sweaty face on his forearm and placed both hands on his hips in a way that he must know was showing off his massive biceps as well as his abs.
“Don’t what me. What the hell are you doing out here?” she demanded, locking her gaze on the bee tattoo rather than his sweaty face or naked chest or the tantalizing trail of hair.
“Working. Told you last night it may get loud.”
Had he? Was that while he’d stood too close in the too-small bathroom, helping with his ridiculously complicated shower faucet? Or while he as much as admitted to paying for a Major League Soccer stream to keep tabs on her brother?
“But I have a deadline!” she protested.
He frowned at her and then shrugged. “ Apologies . It can’t be helped.”
Grace stormed towards him, but he turned away from her and squatted down, filling out his jeans in an obscene sort of way.
“Did you kick over my ladder?” he demanded, lifting the object in question and placing it adjacent to the roofline once more.
“You don’t understand,” she moaned. “ If I don’t hit this deadline, I’m going to lose my book deal, my advance—my car. I’ll probably never publish again.”
His frown deepened, the vertical line between his eyebrows practically a chasm now, which Grace would never be able to climb out of. “ When’s it due?”
She sighed in relief. Finally , he was beginning to understand her predicament. “ Four weeks.” Laughable to think she could accomplish anything in such a short amount of time.
He shook his head. “ I only have three.”
“Three is good. Three what?”
“Weeks,” called the teenager who’d sung Taylor Swift at the pub last night. He climbed down, jumping the last foot or so off the ladder.
“Lùcas, meet part one of the American Invasion . Rios , my cousin Lùcas .”
“You were at karaoke?” the boy asked, shaking Grace’s hand eagerly.
“Guilty. Sorry .”
“Nah, you were grand.” He turned back to his older cousin with a huge grin. “ People weren’t kidding, you do work fast.”
Grace watched the color drain from her host’s face as he shook his head a fraction, but the boy had already turned back to her.
“Was it his accent? Or his winning personality?”
“If you value your life…” he threatened the boy.
“Oh, no, we didn’t—” She shook her own head emphatically, but of course to an outsider it might look like she and Wes had picked the guy up at the bar and gone home with him. Could this get any more humiliating?
“Caitriona rented the house to Rios and her friend.” When the boy’s face clouded over, he quickly added, “ You’ll get your room the minute they leave.”
Lùcas shot Grace a look like he now saw her as just as much of an interloper as his cousin did. “ Best get back to those then,” he said, nodding towards a pile of?—
“It’s going to take three weeks to put solar panels on your roof?”
Mr. Bee Tattoo shook his head. “ This is only phase one.”
“Phase one? You’re going to renovate your entire house? In three weeks? While I’m on a deadline?”
“I didn’t invite you here.”
“You said there’s nowhere else to go!”
“There isn’t.”
“You could always camp,” the boy suggested.
Grace’s breaths were coming short and shallow as she fought back tears for the second time in as many days. This was fine. It would be fine. She might lose some time this morning, but if she kept her headphones charged, surely it wouldn’t matter if an entire house came down around her.
“I knew this was a mistake,” she whispered to herself, pushing her hair back from her face with both hands and—oh god, she also hadn’t put on a bra under the ridiculous Librarians do it in the stacks t-shirt she’d slept in.
She crossed her arms over her chest and forced herself to make eye contact, though he seemed determined to stare out at the ocean.
“Look,” he finally said, and she did look, across the sparkling blue vista like he was doing, wishing she had her worry stone in hand. “ My investor? Jules ? They’ll be here in three weeks to review my work. As a… proof of concept. Just give me three weeks and then I’ll clear out. It’ll be all yours.”
It was a generous offer, but Grace was drowning. “ That leaves me one week to write. I can’t write a book in one week!”
“Can you write one in four?” he hissed.
Of course not, but she wasn’t about to tell him so because it was hardly the point. “ I came here to write.”
“Then find an abandoned kirk or go to the library. Or back to s-s-s”—he stopped himself from what she was pretty sure was going to be sodding— “ Tennessee .” He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, there was pleading in their mossy depths. “ I just need three weeks.”
There was something about his desperation, something familiar and lonely that tugged at Grace . His throat was clogged with the same hopeless need she’d heard in her own when she begged NPR to alter her itinerary because maybe a change of scenery would help her get the job done.
The mix-up with her accommodation hadn’t been Grace’s fault, but it wasn’t his either. Nor was her inability to meet her precious deadline extension.
“I suppose it’s your house,” she conceded uncharitably.
“It felt ungentlemanly to mention,” he replied, tilting his head to frown at her, and damn it, he was almost cute doing some kind of stern-puppy impression. “ If you’re having trouble, maybe a…” he paused. “ Maybe a vacation, a real one, is what you need.”
Grace hated to agree with him, but banging her head against her computer certainly hadn’t helped the words flow yet. “ Would your work go faster if I help?” she asked.
His eyes widened in something like alarm, and he studied her skeptically, his gaze making her hot despite the brisk sea air. “ You don’t have to.”
“Maybe I want to. I don’t… vacation. I don’t rest.”
“Houston, I think we found the issue…”
She bristled. “ I don’t have an issue?—”
“Except a looming deadline.”
“Don’t talk about my deadline!”
He raised his eyebrows at her ridiculous childishness.
“I don’t have an issue except dead noise-cancelling headphones and this.” She gestured to the roof, the beach, and him.
“You came halfway around the world for this. If you’re going to be here, then be here.”
Now it was Grace’s turn to glower. “ Do you want my help or not?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “ Know which end of a hammer to hold?”
Grace rolled her eyes. “ The shiny end? As I shove it up your?—”
“Welcome to the crew,” he said, cutting her off with a pacifying air as he took a step back from her.
“Should I leave you two alone?” the boy teased.
Grace had forgotten he was there. “ No !” she and her host both thundered, and it fairly crackled in the air.
“Okey doke,” the kid replied, turning his back on them to climb the ladder once more.