Oliver watched the three MacLeod spawn gather up the woman he’d had every intention of spending the day dating and lead her off to the front door. Elizabeth came to stand next to him.
“I think you’re in trouble.”
He looked at her in alarm. “What do I do?”
“Get up earlier tomorrow?”
“Fair enough,” he said, vowing to be rapping on their front door before sunrise. He made her a low bow, had a laugh in return, and hurried off to see what he could do to salvage the day.
He paused on the front stoop to assess the situation. His lady was also there, standing next to Jamie and looking with undisguised admiration at the dusty, well-used Range Rover parked there in front of her.
“Does it go very fast?” Mairead asked breathlessly.
Jamie smothered a smile with his hand. “Perhaps not this first trip, lass. We have other automobiles that might be more to your taste in a few days.”
Oliver suspected he’d missed a critical part of their conversation about conveyances and exactly what sorts of ponies pulled them, but there was nothing to do about that at the moment. He accepted keys from the lord of the hall and made him a slight bow.
“I’m an excellent driver,” he said. “No points on my license.”
“Which young Hamish complains about endlessly,” Jamie said pleasantly, “which I’m guessing means you at least keep to the posted speed when there might be children or sheep in the area.”
Oliver nodded and attempted to look as trustworthy as possible. He accepted a hearty clap on the shoulder and found himself summarily abandoned to his fate. He walked down the steps with a confident air, reminded the children to buckle their safety belts, and opened the passenger side door for a woman who was still peering into the headlamps and making sounds of disbelief. She straightened and looked at him in surprise.
“Beautiful,” she managed.
As was she. He wasn’t entirely certain when she had gone from—if he were to be brutally honest—a fairly plain woman with a pretty smile to a luminous woman with a gorgeous smile that when she turned it on him left him feeling as if he’d stared at the sun too long. Quite a bit too long. It was all he could do to nod, then tuck her into the car and show her how to buckle herself in without then proposing that they deposit the children back inside and run off to some deserted tropical isle and never return. They could have handfasted in the doorway of a very lovely beachside dwelling he would have happily built with his own two hands. Problem solved, perfect life begun.
He pulled himself back to more reasonable thoughts with an effort. Mairead touched his hand before he shut the door and that almost sent him arse over teakettle backwards.
He was in deep trouble.
“Are you unwell?” she asked, sounding worried.
“I’m fine,” Oliver said with as much confidence as he could muster.
“I could drive, you know,” Young Ian said from the backseat. “In an emergency.”
Oliver shot him a look, had a bland look in return that was so reminiscent of his father that Oliver almost smiled, then shut thedoor and walked around the boot of the car to give himself time to regroup and reassess his strategy.
Perhaps the children could be distracted by free rein in the local grocery long enough for him to ask Mairead if she might want to, first, allow him to kiss her, then second, grace him with her luminous, delightful, perfect self for the rest of their days.
It was worth a try.
He looked around himself one last time out of habit, then froze. There was something… off… He realized with a bit of a start that that something was nothing more nefarious than Peter Wright, leaning casually against the corner of the castle and looking slightly dangerous. He would have bet his favorite pair of green trainers on the lad having a motorbike tucked behind the keep for immediate use. Not necessarily subtle, but effective.
He nodded to his mate, then pulled Patrick MacLeod’s phone out of his pocket. He suspected he might have to do a fair amount of foot-stomping to have his own back, but at the moment the one in his hands would do. He considered, then texted Derrick.
Why?
The response was immediate.Because we luv u!
He took a deep breath and reminded himself of all the reasons he wanted his boss alive. For Sam’s sake, if nothing else.
Truth?
Jamie said to.
Oliver considered all the reasons Jamie might request such a thing and landed on only two that sounded reasonable. Either he was worried about Patricia and thought Oliver would be too distracted to properly watch her, which was less insulting than it was unsettlingly accurate, or he was worried about Mairead, which was definitely both insulting and unsettling.
