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“At least give me a Coke to wash it down,” I whispered to Duncan.
“Blasphemy. You’d be drummed out of the distillery if you said that out loud.”
“And drawn and quartered, I suppose.”
“All manner of things.”
His voice went sinfully low, and my belly tumbled as I wondered what other punishments he had in mind for me.
The last whisky on offer was at least sweeter than the others but still retained the heavy, smoky flavor that made them all too strong for me to do anything more than take a sip and try not to flinch. No offense to the dedicated whisky distillers, but I’d rather set it on fire than drink this stuff.
Andrew came by to get my opinion on their single malts.
Yeah…I would need a minute to come up with something believable.
I couldn’t flat out lie to him—my tongue still tingled from the whiskies’ burn, and my throat constricted, desperate for me to cough out the last of the offending liquid. At least I hadn’t choked on them in front of the whisky expert, but I couldn’t be sure he hadn’t caught my grimaces.
“They may be a little too bold for my taste.” I’d barely sipped at each glass and I wanted to rip my tongue out. I couldn’t imagine actually drinking the stuff.
“You’re not the first to say so.” Andrew’s gracious smile let me know he’d taken no offense. “Our flavors here are particularly peaty and smoky, heavy notes that aren’t for the faint of heart.”
“Oh, I’m certainly faint of heart. Very timid and unadventurous.”
Duncan kept his eyes on me as he drank another sip of that godawful whisky.
Okay. Maybe notcompletelyunadventurous.
* * *
Dressing for dinner had always sounded like such an old-fashioned habit, but on an active tour that had us sweating through our clothes every day, it was the only way to ensure we could bear sitting next to each other at the table at night.
I’d just changed into fresh clothes and re-braided my hair when my phone buzzed inside my travel bag. It wasn’t likely Jill—she had already texted her Shatner pic of the day, a shot of him mauling a chewy treat. My mother had left another cheery voicemail and a picture of her belly dancing friends.
One guess who was calling.
How could business be this crazy while I was out of town? I considered ignoring it. Just leave Lincoln’s demands until after dinner when I could devote myself to it. But it’d be better to get this out of the way now, rather than let dread spoil my whole evening.
“Lincoln.” The false cheer in my voice grated on my ears, and I hated it had already become my default Head of Design persona.
“Molly.” He said my name like a lifeline. “Good, I caught you. I need your help.”
The promise I’d made myself at the Fairy Pools echoed in my mind.No more work.
“We’re finalizing the Bradbury site, and I need all hands on deck.”
“I turned those storyboards in before I left.”
“I know, but the dev team is busy with another account, so we really need you to do some of the front-end coding to help us keep on schedule.”
“Coding?” Even on a regular day, I much preferred the design side of my job to the development side. Not that he didn’t ask me to code anyway, but here and now it felt crazy to even consider it.
“Molly, you know how it is.” He typed away in the background, probably working up code while we talked. “It’s a fast-paced business.”
I did know. Deadlines shifted as clients changed their minds on layout or page specifics. Some demanded short timeframes and early site completion, shaving weeks off of schedules. Even with all hands on deck, something could always go wrong. None of that had anything to do with one important point.
“I’m on vacation.” Even as I said it, the glimmer of my plans for the evening faded away, replaced by rounds of mind-numbing code. Coding wasn’t strictly part of my job description, but I could do enough that Lincoln had come to rely on me in a pinch.
I just hadn’t expected to get pinched in Scotland.
