Must Love Scotland (2 page)

“The days lengthen quickly this far north,” Niall said, slowing down. “And winter makes us keen for the sunnier weather. The flowers were probably started on the kitchen windowsill, and they’ll be magnificent in another month.”

“I want to take a picture.” Not a demand, but a wistful, wishful, longing from a woman who didn’t understand when she was hungry, and possibly, not even what she was hungry for.

“We’ll see a lot more flowers where we’re going, I promise,” Niall said, “and we can stop on the way back through if you’d like.”

She slumped against the seat. “I’d like. I could stare at the flowers all day. My mother loved flowers and they loved her too. My sister is a genius with flowers.”

Flowers figured prominently in Niall’s plans for his property. He paid attention to the coverage each year of the Masters Tournament. Some golf, but a lot of azaleas, flowering cherry trees, artfully informal beds, a dramatic white dogwood or two.

Julie Keep-to-the-Schedule-Boy-o Leonard was in raptures over a few pots of petunias.

Niall turned down a road too narrow for lane markings and pulled to the verge to accommodate oncoming traffic.

“Where are we going?” Julie asked.

She was much concerned with locations and plans, and not enough concerned with her own welfare, particularly for a woman on holiday.

“We’re going to lunch at the establishment of a friend I’ve known for years. Good food, reasonably priced, though the décor is unpretentious. I favor a quiet place to eat.”

“As long as the service is fast.”

Oh, for God’s sake. Niall said nothing, but when they arrived at the Jolly Coo, he came around to hold the door for his guest—she’d already opened it—and led her to the pub’s front door.

While she peered at exposed Tudor timbers and rioting pots of geraniums, Niall discreetly pitched her damned gum into the nearest waste bin and made plans to have a very pointed chat with Uncle Donald.

Julie had expected Scotland to be all high, craggy hills, and sea coast, with a few golf courses, a bagpiper and some crumbling castles tucked here and there. She’d expected to be able to understand the people when they spoke, and to get from the hotel straight to her first driving range for two hours’ practice.

Zero for three, Leonard.
A prosecutor got used to days like that, even a good prosecutor.

Niall led her to a table at the back of an establishment straight out of the Keebler cookie elves’ forest. Dark beams, brilliant white plaster, profusions of flowers at each window box. The interior was solid wood floors, deep set windows, and low, dark, exposed ceilings any Tudor traveler would have found welcoming.

Niall held Julie’s chair, which was both charming and annoying.

“Not very crowded,” Julie said, which could mean faster service or worse fare.

Niall passed her a worn menu on green card stock. “That means it will be quiet, and we can hear each other when we make our polite chit-chat. Why come to Scotland for golf, Julie Leonard? You can play golf all over America and spare yourself the jet lag and some expense.”

Julie needed her glasses to see the menu, and those had disappeared somewhere in the depths of her purse, buried under tissues, a spare package of the world’s saltiest peanuts, six pens, sunglasses—

“Use mine,” Niall said, holding out a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

“What will you use?”

“I don’t need my specs to order fish and chips and a decent ale.”

He was laughing at her again. Hilarious guy, Niall Cromarty. Julie ignored the proffered glasses. Derek had told her to get contacts when they’d planned the wedding, but contacts had never corrected her vision adequately.

“Fish and chips will do for me too, then.”

She’d never had fish and chips before—not exactly a Maryland restaurant staple—but the meal turned out to be melt-in-your-mouth, batter-fried white fish, and thick, perfectly cooked fries, upon which Niall sprinkled vinegar of all things. With a beer the name of which Julie couldn’t pronounce, the combination was gustatory bliss.

“Now that you’ve fended off starvation for a few hours,” Niall said, “perhaps you could answer my question—not that you were hungry, of course.”

Julie sat back, in charity with life, with Scotland, and even with arrogant dudes smirking at her from across a worn wooden table that didn’t sit square.

“For that meal, I will forgive you much,” she said. “I’m in Scotland to learn to play golf. Learn from the best, forget the rest.”

How could a man look philosophical, sexy, relaxed, and a touch sad while he ran a finger around the rim of his beer glass?

“Golf is a good teacher,” he said. “I don’t know as it’s the best teacher. Children are good teachers, too, as are the elderly.”

He’d misconstrued Julie’s meaning—or had he?

“It’s like this, Niall. I’m a lawyer, a very competent prosecutor, but if I don’t want to spend the next thirty years dealing with criminals and their charm-free, defense weasels, then I need to go after a judgeship. The logical progression is state’s attorney, master, judge, then appellate judge and so forth. Judges play golf.”

“Now that’s odd,” he said, taking a sip of beer as if wisdom itself came in a glass. “I was under the impression judges went cavorting about in black robes, hearing cases, and dispensing justice, but what would I know about the American courts?”

“Judges do that,” Julie said, “but they play golf to do their judicial politicking. I can’t keep up with the guys on the long game, but I can hang out at the country club, talk golf, and do well among the women. They’re learning to play golf too.”

The food was hitting Julie’s bloodstream, making rational arguments an effort and weighing each limb down with its own jet-lag induced cinder block.

What had she done with her caffeine gum? The stuff tasted awful, but it worked in a pinch.

“Are you ordering dessert?” Niall asked.

Dessert would mean squinting at the menu. Derek had said she looked like his fifth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Francina, when she squinted.

“Are you?” Julie asked.

“The sticky toffee pudding here is outstanding.”

If the fish and chips were any indication, the sticky-toffee-whatever would be heavenly. Also full of calories.

“Can we split one?”

Niall’s look was pitying. “Yes, we can split one, but when you’re all kitted out in your black robes, who will notice whether your figure is less than perfect?”

Her figure was less than perfect. Derek had said he “loved her
anyway
,” the bastard.

“Tell me about the courses we’ll play,” Julie said, because Niall’s question was rhetorical and those were permitted in oral argument.

“What are you looking for from the courses?” he countered.

A better score, of course. A better sense of how to play the game. Some exercise, if necessary.

“What do you mean, what am I looking for? I’m looking to up my game and cut my score.”

He ordered their dessert from a waitress who looked about sixteen years old—and infatuated with him—then took the last few swallows of Julie’s beer.

“We have nearly seven hundred golf courses in Scotland, which is more than four times the per capita ratio in the United States, and we’re a country the size of South Carolina. If it’s scenery you want, we have that. A windy game is easy to find. Par fives until hell freezes over, driving ranges until your arms fall off. Why golf, Julie? Why golf in Scotland?”

A growing sense of disorientation made concentrating on Niall’s question difficult. This was how a witness felt after two hours of hostile cross-examination. Reckless, loopy even.

“I should not have had that beer,” Julie muttered.

“You didn’t come to Scotland simply for the golf.”

Fatigue, a good meal, and the vagaries of the post-divorce emotional roller coaster conspired to hide Julie’s self-restraint from her mouth. She’d never see this guy after she got back on that plane in two weeks, so she tucked a serving of fresh, cold honesty between courses of his lunch.

“I came to Scotland because I am ashamed, Niall, and so damned pissed off I couldn’t trust myself in the courtroom any longer.”

The waitress chose that moment to approach with what looked like bread pudding slathered in a glaze redolent of whisky, topped with ice cream that had flecks of real vanilla in it.

Niall pushed the dessert across the table to Julie. “Not bad reasons for coming to Scotland. We know a lot about shame and rage here. Makes for interesting golf. Dig in. You’ve earned it.”

Badgering a woman when she was exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and far from home sat ill with Niall, but if Donald didn’t get over his snit, then Niall’s next two weeks would be spent with Julie Leonard, her moods, and her damned scheduled itinerary.

Niall did not have two weeks to waste on some American lawyer’s judicial ambitions, but for a woman trying to recover her dignity, he’d make some time.

“Shall I order a dessert for myself?” he asked.

Even enraged, Julie Leonard knew how to properly respect a sticky toffee pudding.

“You’re trying to put me in a food coma,” she said, skimming her spoon into the caramel whisky sauce blending with the melted ice cream. “It’s working.”

Simple fatigue was working, but a woman who didn’t know when she was famished probably wouldn’t know when she was exhausted.

“I owe the game of golf a great deal,” Niall said. “Took it quite seriously for years, and gained a lot of perspective as a result. One thing I learned: The Coo is an excellent place to refuel an empty belly.”

Julie pushed the best part of the dessert to Niall’s side of the table. The ice cream was half-melted, the sauce had thoroughly soaked into the bread, and good whisky perfumed the lot.

Niall picked up his spoon, though Julie’s wistful expression suggested he was about to devour all her hopes and dreams.

“You’re sure you don’t care for any more?” he asked—which was naughty of him. Julie Leonard wasn’t the sort to change her mind.

“I had ten bites. Ten bites is my limit with a dessert.”

No wonder Julie was enraged, if she never finished her treats. Niall dug in, ignoring the fact that she watched him eat dessert the way the women among gallery groupies had watched his backside.

Good food shouldn’t go to waste. Good women shouldn’t either, but a man couldn’t take on every challenge life threw at him.

“The Ladies’ is to the left of the bar if you’d like to freshen up while I finish this,” Niall said. “We’re still an hour or so from Dunroamin Cottage.”

Julie fished around in the depths of her bag, a shapeless black canvas sack that screamed pragmatism on the outside, and likely lacked any sense of organization on the inside.

“I changed some money,” she said, extracting a worn brown billfold that might have spent twenty years crammed into Uncle Donald’s sporran. “I agreed to this meal, and I agreed to split the dessert, though I know the exchange rate fluctuates, and I’m not clear on how the tipping—”

The woman was absurd, and endearing. Niall closed his hand over hers before she could start waving bills around.

“Keep your money, Your Honor. Scotland is a hospitable place, and you barely touched this dessert.”

Julie Leonard’s hands were cold, but her smile was astonishingly warm. Brilliantly warm, in fact, and bashful to the point of transforming her from a brisk, brittle, business traveler to a lady whose short game might be intriguing. With a single expression, she conveyed pleasure, surprise, mischief, and even a sort of dignified capitulation to Niall’s generosity.

“Thank you,” she said. “I can’t recall the last time somebody bought me lunch.”

The last time she’d
allowed
somebody to buy her lunch?

Niall saluted with his spoon. “You’re welcome. Give me a few more minutes with my pudding, and we’ll be back on the road.”

She daintily blotted the smile away, rose, and moved off to wash her hands ten times, or inspect the location of the fire extinguisher. Americans were odd that way. Niall should probably have insisted she drink water after the long flight, though that would have been a sacrilege with the Coo’s fish dinner.

Niall finished every bite of the pudding, paid the bill, and went outside into a spring day gone a trifle chilly.

Scottish weather wasn’t burdened with an overdeveloped sense of reliability. Gray-bellied clouds clipped in from the east, and the breeze bore a damp warning, while the sun still stabbed down in golden shafts between the overcast to the west.

Julie Leonard came through the front door, her cell phone in hand. She turned and snapped a picture of the Coo, or of its boxes full of red geraniums and some yellow flower Niall didn’t recognize.

“That was good food,” she said, marching over to the car, “and we’re still inside my margin for flight and baggage delays. If we arrive at the cottage within an hour, and the driving range isn’t—Why are you looking at me like that?”

He was smiling at her, at her determination, at her silly schedule, at her dutiful compliment for the quality of the meal, and her complete lack of awareness of her surroundings.

“Are you to drive us the rest of the way, Julie?”

She had her hand on the car’s door handle, then realized what country she was in. The passenger and driver sides were reversed in Britain compared to what she was used to in America.

“No, thank you. No driving for me,” she said, scooting around to the other side of the car. “I’ll probably make that mistake every time we go somewhere.”

“Because you’re focused on where you’re going, not where you are,” Niall said, opening the door to the passenger’s side. “You can’t play golf like that, not on a good course.” The best golfers knew how to play
from
where they were
to
where they needed the ball to go. For a time, Niall had been among them.

Julie settled in, buckled up, and heaved out a sigh. “You have to practice law like that, always three moves ahead of opposing counsel, getting ready for cross-examination while the witness is still fielding questions on direct, like a chess match. I hate chess.”