“Then this is number three?”
“It could be.”
He leaned forward, then stopped. “Where’s your knife?”
She rolled her eyes, had a brief smile in return, then closed her eyes again at the feel of his lips against hers—
“Ewww, kissing!”
The chorus was deafening. She opened her eyes and looked at Oliver. He glared at the bairns, but she could tell it was merely for their benefit as they responded with laughter and noises of disgust. Oliver looked at her.
“Let’s leave them at home tomorrow.”
She smiled in spite of herself, kissed him on the cheek before she thought better of it, then walked with him to set up camp on that piece of weaving too fine for the ground.
She supposed there would still be things that were difficult to believe, but somehow having that man there next to her whilst she faced them made everything seem a bit easier.
She was starting to understand why the kitchen maid she’d admired for so long smiled so often.
Twenty-three
Oliver suspected that if PatriciaMacLeod grew up to be anything like her niece—the appropriate twistings of the family tree to accommodate that, of course—Jamie was going to be in the soup.
He looked to his right to see how that same niece was reacting to being several hundred feet off the ground, but all he could see was the back of her head since she had her face pressed against the helicopter glass. She was clutching his hand rather enthusiastically, though, which he didn’t protest.
Brave lass that she was.
“Och,” she said, pulling on his hand and pointing. “’Tis Cameron Hall!”
Indeed, it was. He watched her watch the landscape as they flew over it and was genuinely surprised that she wasn’t shrieking or fainting or having some other reaction that would have been completely understandable.
She glanced at him, then smiled. “What is it?”
“You.”
“Go on with ye, ye wee fiend,” she said, blushing a little.
“You’re fearless,” he said sincerely. He hesitated, then cast caution to the wind. “Your father would be, I imagine, very proud of you right now.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed with a smile, then she shook her head in wonder. “He would have found this much to his liking, I daresay.”
Oliver watched her turn back to press her face against the window and could only hope that at some point in the twistings and turnings and non-linear stylings of time itself, the manwould have that chance. He was simply grateful he was getting to watch Mairead MacLeod take her father’s advice to heart. The modern world would never be the same.
For himself, along with the knowledge that he would never be the same with her in his life had come the realization that he needed to make serious progress toward better presenting himself as not just a desirable dating partner, but an eminently desirable mate.
The initial plan, which he’d jotted down briefly in the self-care manual that he’d taken to carrying with him, was to introduce Mairead to those residing at Cameron Hall so she might see that he had decent adopted relatives whilst simultaneously providing her with a wider circle of friends. He suspected that having relatives with a command of the language-du-previous-jour might come in useful during his attempts to woo a woman of a different vintage.
Assuming, of course, that he could pry her out of the helicopter and get her inside the hall, which he was utterly unsurprised to find was an effort to do. He promised her another trip as soon as was polite, then walked into Cameron Hall with her fifteen minutes later, his strategy at the ready.
He would have quickly sorted the souls inside into groups based on their potential for mayhem, but the truth was, they were—with the possible exception of Ewan—just perfectly wonderful. He sent looks of promise to Derrick, Peter, and Ewan as a matter of course, but he imagined they expected that.
“Oh, Mairead,” Sunshine said, hurrying across the hall to embrace her and take her by the hand. “We’re so happy you came today. Let me make introductions, shall I?”
Oliver was fairly gratified to have Mairead look over her shoulder at him and lift an eyebrow in question, but he waved her on to what he hoped would be a lovely morning of getting to know his adopted kin. He stood on the periphery and watchedas Sunshine made those promised introductions, ones she had made just as graciously several days earlier when Mairead had been in a slightly different state of being. Mairead didn’t seem to notice and Sunshine was definitely too discreet to mention it.
He watched as she was presented to Emily and was equally unsurprised at how kind Emily was to her. They immediately launched into nattering on in a delightful mixture of modern and somewhat vintage-accented French, which he found simultaneously endearing and extremely attractive.
“I think you need a whisky,” Derrick breathed into his ear.
