Chapter 9
NINE
INDECENT PROPOSAL
Wasp
The crofthouse had been my passion forever. Completing the roof and making it watertight, working alongside my brothers plus the glazers who’d already installed the skylights and were now at the other end of the building putting in huge folding doors, should’ve been a dream.
In the winter, I’d be able to watch the Cairngorms wildlife from the snug lounge. Golden eagles soaring over the glen. Pine martens and grouse stepping over the snow drifts. I’d underplayed the importance of quiet and isolation when I’d spoken to Ally. My brain didn’t work well without it.
But right now, my mind was otherwise engaged.
Off down the rutted track, over heather-strewn Glen Durie, following the loch’s river all the way to Braithar. Right to the feet of a yellow-haired lass.
Lord, I was fucked.
It was the words Taylor had muttered while we’d kissed that had me distracted.
“If I could love…”
Why couldn’t she love? What was stopping her?
Down the roof, Callum handed off a stack of tiles to Gordain, my two older, married brothers working in comfortable silence. Ally had gone to fetch lunch. Gordain turned and descended the ladder once more, and I moved over to squat on the roof ridge, adjacent to Callum.
The man, ten years older than me, had practically raised me. He knew all my secrets, and I’d never hidden a thing from him. I found the question coming out of my mouth before I realised I wanted to ask it.
“When did ye know that ye wanted to be married?”
Callum raised his head, his forehead lined in consternation. To strangers, he looked fearsome, but we were used to his stern expression. “About the first moment I saw Mathilda across a crowded hall. Why?”
Callum’s wife had been engaged to someone else when they’d met.
Or that someone else had announced their engagement before Mathilda had actually agreed to it.
I’d been with her when it had happened. My brother was fiercely protective of his wife, so I wasn’t about to raise that fact, but the parallels were there.
I placed a hand on a tile, securely fixed. “Because in my head, this place is my family home, but the only woman I ever pictured marrying is Taylor. A woman I’ve barely spent a day with at any one time. One who once told me she didn’t like the outdoors or hiking. Who couldnae be less suited to me.”
Callum tilted his head. Concern filled his expression. “Gordain said that your lass is getting engaged next month. She asked Ella if the two of them would go to the engagement party. She said she’d need the moral support.”
Well, fuck. “Aye. She might. It’s a political match. An arrangement.”
Marriage and fatherhood had mellowed Callum. He used to shout before he thought. Now, he pondered for a minute, setting a neatly cut tile in place around a skylight before answering. “What does she get out of it?”
This was the bit I wasn’t clear about. I shrugged, fixing my gaze down the glen to the loch. “I’m not sure.”
Callum rose, carefully easing over the roof to sit next to me on the apex. The man was huge, several inches taller than my six-three height. “The lass showed up here last night, looking for ye.”
“Aye. For sex.”
Callum winced. I did, too, because it sounded so tawdry. Plus, in his eyes, I was no doubt still a wee lad needing his care and protection.
I continued, “I think seeing her again is why marriage is on my mind. It’s not like I’m ready.
I don’t have a steady income or even savings now.
I’ve blown all the money I made in New York on tiles and windows.
” Until I got my first pay cheque from Reportage One, I was broke, using the remainders of my cash to cover the expenses of my next job.
“And then there’s the other issue. With me.”
My brother drew back, a silent question in his quizzical look.
“I mean how I get.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“That’s not true.” Our father had been the first to call me on my weird behaviour, masked though it was by Ally’s more exuberant, attention-seeking ways.
I had times where my brain maxed out and couldn’t take any more.
An extreme form of introversion caused by overwhelm.
My career would strip me to the bone but, if I was careful, I hoped I could manage it.
Maybe I could do the same with Taylor. Have the sex-fuelled fling she wanted then return home.
Callum shook his head. “So you need quiet sometimes? Everyone does to a greater or lesser extent.”
“Not everyone. Not Taylor. She’s like Ally, happy to be in the middle of things. Even if she wasn’t getting engaged, she couldn’t be happy living here with me.”
“I thought you weren’t ready to settle down?” My brother threw my own words back at me.
That was the true issue at stake. No matter how much fun Taylor and I had, we just weren’t compatible. The fling was really my only option.
I gave a frustrated laugh. “I’m not. If all this goes wrong, if I crash and burn, at least I can come back here and hide in my cave. I want to do well at my job. I want to be a friend to Taylor but I know we’ll end up sleeping together. Should I save myself the heartache and walk away now?”
Callum pulled an unamused expression. “That’s the sort of question only you can answer, and ye most likely already have. You’re leaving together tonight, aye?”
I nodded, needing him to give me the modicum of hope in what felt like a hopeless situation. Callum stretched out a long arm and hauled me into a side hug. We braced ourselves against the tiles, and I braced my heart for what was to come.
“I want ye to put yourself first. I also want ye to be a good friend to those you care about. The best plan is to find out what exactly her problem is and why she feels she needs to fix it with a wedding. There’s always more than one way to a solution.
That might not be easy for her to see, so help her, if ye can. ”
He’d said what I needed to hear. But he wasn’t done.
“And at the end of it, we’ll be here regardless. If ye come home and don’t want to talk? Just tell us what work needs doing, and we’ll follow your lead. We’re here for ye, aye?”
I wanted to work out my head. One way or another, I’d get Taylor—the woman who couldn’t love—out of my system. Even if it cost me my precious peace of mind.
Acouple of hours later, with all four of us brothers toasting another completed job, rows of shining dark grey tiles at our feet, my oldest brother called our attention.
“I have news for ye.” He stood on the scaffold and made eye contact with us each in turn, telling me that this was important. “Before ye all disappear off on travels and with work, I’m glad to tell ye that Mathilda and I are expecting again.”
“Ah!” Gordain yelped and slid down the roof to embrace Callum. “Congratulations! Ye always wanted a big family.”
Ally and I joined them, taking care at the edge of the roof but hugging our brother with rough thumps to his back.
Callum beamed. “Aye, well, it took a few years, but we’re finally there. A single bairn this time, due in the autumn.”
We celebrated with another beer, and I was so thrilled for them. Psyched that I’d get to be an uncle again.
But deep down, a wee unexpected hurt made itself known. Here we all were, working on my family home, but what plans did I have for a family?
Maybe I was more ready than I thought.
“Ihave a proposal for you,” Taylor announced.
She sat on her hands on the airport seat, her knees jiggling under a flowing skirt.
I’d never seen her in trousers, or anything very casual.
“A couple of days of doing what we do best. Sex. My schedule is flexible, so after Paris, I’ll go where you go and be waiting when you finish work. ”
Despite the area around us being mostly vacant, my cheeks still heated with the idea of being overheard. “You’re making me an indecent proposal?”
“I am. But not indecent. Very, very decent. Satisfying for both of us.”
She didn’t need to add the end to the sentence. Unlike last night. If anything, our clinch had only made me hornier for her. All day, through the repetitive hard work of carrying tile stacks up ladders, scratching my hands to hell even with heavy-duty gloves, I’d pictured her body.
Those gorgeous weighty breasts in my hands.
That wet, sweet centre waiting for me to bury myself.
Her smile, her lips, the way she made me fucking happy.
“Last night could’ve been better,” I admitted.
“It was perfect.”
“Nah. It wasn’t.”
“Then take my proposal. When you get bored of me, I’ll go, but until then, we’ll have a good time.”
I gaped at her. “Bored of you? How could that ever happen?”
Her smile fixed, and she glanced away, her gaze skirting the line of passengers boarding another flight. “It’s okay. I know what I am and what I’m not. Plus, you’ll be working, so I’ll take what I can get.”
“No,” I barked, annoyed, and annoyed at myself for letting it show. “I happen to be a great fan of spending time with ye. And I don’t want ye travelling alone. Tell me your plans, and we’ll see how we can go on after tonight.”
She bit her glossy bottom lip. “I’m following a diary. Visiting the places in it.”
“Whose?”
“A relative of mine.” Taylor curled up in the chair. “When I was at boarding school, she came to England and visited me. That was kind of a big deal. I didn’t get many visitors.”
I leaned in, listening closely. I knew from Ella a little about their horrible time at school but never from Taylor.
“After that, she went on and did all of these exciting things, and I want to follow in her footsteps.”
I raised my chin, fishing for more details. “Maybe I can document some of it for ye. It’ll be fun for her to see how ye get on. Is visiting her on your list?”
“I just saw her before coming here. I’ll go visit her again when I get back to the States.” Her gaze clouded, but she drew a breath and squared her shoulders. “Now, tell me where your work is going to take you.”
“On tour with a rock band. First, a few cities in Europe, then over to the US.” I read out the places and dates.