Laird of the Highlands: International Billionaires IX: The Scots (9 page)

Singing.

Someone was singing. A female someone.

Edging down the path, he crept to the one last tree obstructing his view and peered around.

The woman
was singing.

She stood behind the old well that hadn’t been used in years. The circular well was positioned about ten feet from the cottage. His mum had loved to plant flowers around the circular stone and, as a kid, he’d joined her in patting the dark earth into place around the little stems. At the time, the cottage had been empty. His da had bordered it up to stop trespassers. Lorne had once pleaded for it to be opened so he could use it as a teenage hangout for himself and the few friends he’d had. But his da had been worried he might hurt himself with the fire or the old wood timbers and he’d said no.

Her voice rose, a pure, clear soprano that made his heart shiver in delight.

Which surprised him.

Music wasn’t something he paid attention to. It seemed to drive people into a frenzy of some kind of emotion or another. He’d never been interested in any of that.

She leaned on the stone well, her hair down for once, a black fall of darkness. It looked slightly damp, as if she’d just come from the shower.

The thought made his body tense.

The woman didn’t wear her usual baggy, nondescript clothes. Instead, she had on a simple robe, the white cotton wrapping around what he could see of her. The sunlight lazily highlighted her form beneath the garment.

The sweat from his run turned into another kind of sweat in one flat second.

She trilled one more strand of lyric.

He couldn’t make out the words. They were foreign. Probably Welsh. The trills she added to the ends of the words made the song sound exotic. Erotic.

His throat went dry.

She pushed herself off the well, and before he could move back, run far from this place, she slithered into full view.

The white cotton barely contained her lushness. Her breasts shifted under the cloth, making him think of low-hanging fruit ready to be plucked. Her waist curved into rounded, ripe hips. The cotton looked slightly damp, too, as if her skin had still been wet when she put on the robe.

His fingernails dug into the rough bark.

Her voice rose again, the music weaving its way around him, into his gut, into his soul.

Into his cock.

Eyes closed, she threw her head back as she finished the song. The last lingering vibrato strummed through him like she’d placed her fingers on his spine and traced the line of his bones down.

He swallowed. And stepped away.

The crack of a branch breaking under his foot cut through the air.

The woman’s eyes flew open and she looked right at him. Pinning him to the land of his ancestors with her dark, flashing eyes. The land she’d stolen and the land he aimed to get back.

“You.” Her arm rose and she pointed at him as if she were about to throw a spell on him or aim a poisoned dart into his heart. “What do you mean by spying on me?”

H
e stood
silent in the face of her accusation.

“Well?” Ceri stepped toward him, and abruptly stopped when she realized what she wore. Or didn’t wear. No bra. No panties. Nothing but her old cotton bathrobe.

A flush ran through her, making her skin hot.

She’d decided to take a long bath after the scene in the castle to wash away her disgust at how easily the villagers had fallen for the stranger’s friendly charms. Although she still held out some hope that Hugh Brooks might drag his partner back to London, she wasn’t foolish enough to think it was a done deal. Needing to soothe herself and figuring Lorne Ross would be busy with his friend and partner, she’d come out into the soft sunlight to dry her hair.

She’d been wrong to let down her guard.

“You need to leave.” Ceri crossed her arms in front of her. “Right now.”

He moved from behind the tree into the sunlight.

Shock zipped inside her at the full sight of him.

He wasn’t a London dandy anymore. His red hair was ruthlessly pulled back as usual, yet fine strands had escaped to lay in curls along his forehead and cheek. He wore a cotton T-shirt, green with some kind of orange logo in the center. It was plastered to his body in sweaty patches. Below, he had on a pair of black, tight shorts.

Very tight.

She yanked her gaze back to his face. His gaze never wavered, and he still said nothing.

He was so odd.

But God. Those tight shorts. Even though she no longer looked, the image was burned in her brain. Lean hips. Long, long legs. Black nylon wrapped around surprisingly strong, taut thighs.

Wrapped around his masculinity, too.

He took another step toward her, and sunlight dappled onto his skin, making it glow like it had in the tower bedroom. For the first time, she noticed the soft trace of freckles dancing across his nose and cheeks, and along his hairline.

“I run.” His gentle, dangerous voice slipped across to her, like a silky river of temptation. “I was just running by.”

Shock zipped inside again. If she were naïve, she’d take his words as an olive branch. An explanation, instead of an insult or a threat.

She hadn’t been naïve in years. “You stopped. You were listening.”

He shifted and for the first time, she caught his scent. The salty smell of his clean sweat, and underlying it, a musk of the essential male. Not the ugly cologne smell he’d had on the first time she’d confronted him.

Will had told her she had a nose. A nose for the oils and soaps and lotions that were part of their plans. She liked the sweet smells of lavender and vanilla. She liked the quiet, light fragrances which spoke of female and woman. But something about Lorne Ross’s scent caught her attention like no other smell had. Something forceful and compelling. She had the absurd desire to press her nose right into the crook of his neck and shoulder and breathe him in.

She took a step back.

He paused, a slight frown crossing his face. “Ye sing well. I stopped and listened. That’s all.”

“I thought you might go. With your friend.”

“Go?” His frown went fierce. “I’m not going anywhere. Ye are.”

Just like that, she was on solid footing once more. Every thought of tight black shorts, red curls, and male scents whisked away, replaced with her intense dislike for this man. “You’ll be waiting—”

“And listen here.” He took two quick steps and was right into her personal space. The action stunned her, because every time she’d seen Lorne Ross, he’d shied away from any close contact with another person.

She’d noticed that.

Along with too many other things.

“Ye stay away from Doc, got it?” He loomed over her, and she took in the sudden awareness he was larger than she’d assumed. He was built like his father, but he had a good four inches on Will in height. “Do ye hear me?”

Ceri braced herself, unwilling to let this man intimidate her. Everything inside her shivered with the impact he made, though.

The bewildering impact.

His scent swirled around her, strong and virile. The fire of his hair in the sun made her dizzy. She centered her gaze on his eyes, hoping she’d find something to make her come to her senses, except she found only more shock, more surprise.

Will’s eyes had been a sunny, friendly brown. His wife’s portrait showed a woman with hazel eyes that laughed. Their son’s eyes were startlingly different from either.

Blue. A stony, hard blue that reminded her of the slate covering the roofs of the homes in Wales.

Her eyes widened and her mouth gaped open.

He jerked back as if he couldn’t be close to her any longer. Ceri tried to take courage from his withdrawal, yet all she felt was relief from his overwhelming presence.

She took a step back, too.

“Did ye hear me?” His voice returned to the gentle, lulling tone she knew only hid his menace.

Her confidence shook like a willow tree in a storm. The fact made her instantly angry. At herself and him. With an instinct she’d honed over the years, she pulled out her weapons. Her eyelids went sultry. Dropping her hands, she let the cotton robe do its best to hide nothing in the sunlight. Arching her back slightly, she smiled.

Lorne Ross didn’t respond, other than to look straight into her eyes with his own blank gaze. “Don’t go near Doc, or you’ll be sorry.”

“Sorry?” She let her smile grow wicked. “He’s a fine-looking man. And if he’s a doctor as well—”

A fierce frown crossed his brow. “He’s not a real doctor. That’s a nickname he got in college.”

Flipping her damp hair over her shoulder, she let her smile deepen into a clear female threat. “What does it matter? If he’s your partner, he’s got quite a lot of money. I don’t think being with him would make a girl sorry at all.”

The slate-blue went ugly, a dark, roiling tempest. “He’s leaving soon.”

“Mmm.” She put one hand on her hip, drawing the cotton up past her knees. “Really?”

He retreated to the path leading towards the castle. “We’re going to Pictloch to talk with the villagers.”

“So your friend isn’t going anywhere right now, is he?”

Swinging his gaze from her, he focused on the castle. “Once we’ve figured out what to give the town that will make them happy, then Doc is gone for good.”

“Happy?” She dropped her hand.

“Happy and not caring that the castle tours are canceled.” He shot her a glance, the tempest still brewing in the depths. It told her he wasn’t quite sure this would work.

Worry crept into her gut, though. Pictloch wasn’t a rich town with a varied economy. Only the castle tours had saved many of the businesses. If Lorne Ross and his partner started throwing their billions around, she couldn’t predict what would happen. The villagers had their pride, but there were a dozen ways to overcome that.

His gaze went from her to the cottage standing only feet from where they stood. “I’m telling ye the best thing ye can do is leave.”

“Your father wanted me to have the castle. He trusted me to run this estate. So I’m not leaving.”

His gaze didn’t shift. “There’re going to be no castle tours, Ceri.”

He said her name correctly for the first time. With a K, rather than a soft C. She didn’t know why that hit her with a punch, yet it did. Perhaps it was the gentle way he ran over the last vowel, as if he lingered on the end, unwilling to let it go.

“The tours will go on.” She folded her shaking arms in front of her again. “Exactly like they have the last four years.”

“No.” He turned back to the castle and walked down the path. “No, they won’t.”

The certainty in his voice made her heart tremble with unwanted fear.

* * *

“
I
think
we did some good work in town during the last four days.” Doc stuffed his one suitcase into the limo’s trunk, while Lorne looked on with vague disinterest.

He wanted them to leave so he could get back to his code.

“Work and money that was wasted.” Reid stood by the open limo door, the usual distressed expression on his face. “You promised millions of dollars, Mr. Ross. So unnecessary.”

“This is your client’s hometown, you idiot.” Doc looked at the man in disgust for the thousandth time in the last few days. “Of course he wants to help where he can.”

“Millions is not helping,” the solicitor protested. “It’s charity.”

Lorne ignored them both. Walking over to James, his driver, he slipped a crisp bundle of fifty-pound notes into his hand. He’d been forced to put the man up in a dinky bed-and-breakfast down the road for the last few days, because the castle didn’t have enough livable bedrooms once Hugh had arrived. It certainly wasn’t what his driver was used to.

“Thank you, sir.” James bobbed his head. “Appreciate it.”

“I’ll be back in London in a month.”

James gave him a look he couldn’t decipher, which didn’t bother him. He rarely tried to analyze people’s faces.

“Well, old chap.” Doc came beside him and slapped him on the shoulder. He’d ceased arguing with Reid apparently, or maybe he decided he had the entire drive to London to fight with the man. “It was good to see you and your new home.”

“Castle Ross is not my home.”

His friend chuckled. “Right. In any event, we’ve found a place to set up our new call center.”

“True.” When they’d driven into Pictloch the first day, it had been Hugh who’d spotted the deserted warehouse right outside of town. The place had stood empty since Lorne had been a young lad. He’d never thought of it as anything other than the McNaughton’s old storehouse. But his partner had seen the possibilities, and within a few hours, he had seen them too. The land was dirt cheap, the building still useable, and the labor costs would be much less than in London.

“Once we get that center running, this area is going to boom with new people coming in for the jobs.” Hugh gazed at him with great satisfaction. “You’re not going to need my charm to win the villagers over after that, Skiff. You’re going to be a hero.”

Danny Murray, Pictloch’s mayor and one of his da’s good friends, had been delighted with the idea. The castle tours were all fine and well, he’d said, yet they only ran during the summer. This would provide year-round employment.

The mayor was now in his pocket. As well as Mr. Stevenson, the grocer, who’d been assured he’d get the financing for his new roof with Ross backing. The Calhoun brothers, who did odd jobs when construction business was slow, had been outright ecstatic at the thought of building a residential area on a small part of the Ross estate Lorne was willing to sell to stimulate the economy. Rose Roy had even bent her loyalty to the Llewellyn woman enough to offer them a free meal at her pub.

“The only problem,” Hugh’s expression turned concerned. “Is this is going to take a while to put together.”

“Not long.” According to the projections he’d put together last night, Pictloch should be thriving soon. “Two years.”

“That’s what you said.” His friend’s concerned look didn’t lessen. “Many people can’t wait two years, though.”

Lorne stared at him.

“They aren’t going to take your money, either.” His partner scowled. “I’ve seen enough Scottish pride during the last two days to understand where you get it from. They won’t budge.”

He hadn’t thought of this. It wasn’t part of his job to worry about morale or short-term issues. That was Hugh’s role. “What should I do?”

Doc glanced behind him at the castle. “I’m thinking the tours are going to have to run for this year and perhaps the next.”

“No.”

His friend gave him a gusty sigh. “That’s what I thought you’d say. But you might want to rethink this.”

“No.”

“Is it because of Ceri?” Doc narrowed his eyes. “Is it personal?”

He didn’t like this line of questions. He didn’t like to think of her with her fall of dark hair and her see-through cotton robe. He’d shut his mind down to her since he’d last seen her four days ago and he didn’t want to open it back up. He ran early in the morning now, to make sure he didn’t run into any singing females with their swinging breasts and ripe hips.

“No.”

“Then it should be a simple decision. You don’t have to be here to supervise the overhaul of the center,” Hugh said. “Let the tours go on this summer to keep the town alive. By this time next year, the courts will have ruled, and you can do whatever you want with the estate.”

Everything rebelled inside him. The thought of packing his things and leaving Castle Ross, leaving it to her…“No.”

“You can get in the limo and I’ll drive the Rover down to London, instead of leaving it here for your use.”

Lorne took several steps towards the castle. “She’s the one who needs to leave.”

His friend’s blue gaze narrowed further. “It is personal.”

“It’s not.” He took another step away. “You can leave now.”

“Here’s the thing, Skiff.” Doc marched right back to his side. “If you’re not willing to leave—”

“I’m not.”

“Then you’re going to have to make peace with Ceri until the court rules in your favor.”

“No.” He didn’t like this conversation. Turning, he made for the castle’s front doors.