Page 59 of Not Quite a Scot


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Finley didn’t take much persuading. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said.

He closed up the workshop, and we went back to my room. I’d left things a mess, so I scrambled to pick up the items I had thrown on the bed. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I was in a hurry.” I felt especially bad now that I had seen his pristine work quarters. The man could do surgery in that room it was so clean.

While I put things away, he picked up a book I had bought at the castle. “Did you enjoy yourself today?” he asked.

I nodded. “I did. Several times in the last two weeks I’ve second-guessed the idea for Hayley and Willow and I to split up here in Scotland. I think it was the right thing to do, though. We’re all three at points in our lives when we’re feeling the need to make some kind of change…or at least to spread our wings.”

“Haven’t you already done that far more than the two of them?”

I’d told him a great deal about my friends, so the question made sense. “Yes. In some ways. Willow is tied to her shop, and Hayley to her classroom. I’ve had more freedom and more opportunities to travel.”

“Then why was it so important to you to strike out on your own in Skye?”

That was a very good question. I was still working on the answer. In the meantime, I could give him a snippet of what I was slowly coming to understand.

“Hayley and Willow have been in my life for a very long time. We’ve been very close as adult women for the last seven or eight years. The problem is, when they look at me, I think they see only one version of me. Does that make sense?”

He flicked the pages of the guidebook, staring at me with that sapphire x-ray vision that made me want to squirm. “If I had to guess, I’d say they were intimidated by you.”

My chin dropped. Hurt coiled in my stomach. “Why would you say that?”

“You’ve got it all, Duchess. You’re smart and incredibly beautiful and charming to anyone and everyone. It must be hard for your friends not to be envious.”

“That’s absurd.”

“It’s true. And yes, I agree with you. Though I’ve never met them, I’ll bet they look at you and see a woman who is kind and generous and passionate about standing up for the causes and the people she cares about. What you’re trying to tell me is that they don’t see your insecurities.”

I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.

Finley took my hand and tugged me down on the bed beside him. We sat hip to hip on the edge of the mattress. I watched as he played with the emerald and diamond ring on my right hand.

At last, he sighed. “You were looking for something when you came here, weren’t you?”

It must have been a rhetorical question, because he didn’t wait for an answer. He kept right on going. “It wasn’t Jamie Fraser you were hoping to find. It was McKenzie Taylor—right?”

I swallowed hard. “For a motorcycle jockey, you’re awfully damned perceptive.”

“Maybe because I struggled with the same thing. Not for the same reasons, of course, but still…” He turned sideways on the bed, taking my face between his hands and looking deep into my eyes. I felt more naked at this moment than at any time I had spent with him in my rental cottage.

“You’re making me nervous,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

He kissed me softly on the lips, his mouth moving over mine so sweetly and gently I wanted to burst into tears. When he pulled back, his gaze was no less intent. “You’re an amazing woman, Duchess. Whether you’re hanging over the edge of a cliff to get a perfect photograph or chasing my crazy dog through the woods or turning me inside out with your enthusiasm for sex, I think you’re one of a kind. I hope you find what you’re looking for. At the risk of sounding like a cliché, you might discover it was in your own backyard all along.”

Some of my warm, fuzzy feelings winnowed away. That wasn’t the speech of a man who was toying with any future plans that included me. “Can we talk about something else now?” I begged.

“Like what?”

“Well, how about the fact that you’re crazy homesick for the North Carolina mountains. And that you’ve been in exile for far too long.” The only way to deflect his attention from my problems was to focus on his. I could tell from his face that he didn’t appreciate the change of subject.

“I love Scotland,” he said. “I belong here.”

“Maybe you do and maybe you don’t. At least I know I’m looking for something. You won’t even admit that you need to mend fences with your father.”

Wow.I had stepped in it big time.

Finley stood up and walked to the window, his back to me. “I’ve had my fill of people thinking they know what’s best for me. It’s my life, McKenzie. My choices. You can either accept that, or I’ll leave. You have less than two minutes to let me know, because I really, really want to see what’s under that sweater.”

The man offered a fair point. I tended to be a fixer, dealing with other people’s lives and situations in order to skirt my own issues.

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