Five Days in Skye: A Novel Read online

  Their gazes met and held, and she froze, not even a breath breaking her stillness. James didn’t dare move. He couldn’t have even if he wanted to.

  Then she lowered her eyes and stepped past him. “Good. Please see that you do.”

  James exhaled and watched her walk back toward the gate lounge, stride clipped by the high heels, spine straight. For the first time, he wondered if he might have promised more than he could deliver.

  Chapter Five

  Inverness may have been the unofficial capital of the Scottish Highlands, but its airport more closely resembled an industrial-styled chain store than a terminal. Andrea stepped from the plane onto the rolling staircase and tugged the collar of her wool jacket closed against the wind. London had already begun to show a hint of spring warmth, but here the air held a crisp bite despite the bright sunshine. Had she known she was coming to Scotland, she would have packed more appropriate clothing.

  “Allow me.” James took her carry-on and edged past her down the steps. She dug in the pocket of her coat for her sunglasses and slid them on against the glare of the afternoon sun. The dark lenses shielded her eyes, and she hoped, her expression.

  James had been perfectly cordial, even gentlemanly, since that odd, intense moment in the airport. He’d spent the short flight looking over what appeared to be financial statements on his tablet while Andrea distractedly worked a crossword puzzle. Other than to offer a six-letter word for ponderous, he’d spoken little, but she’d still felt his gaze slide over her when he thought she wasn’t looking.

  His suddenly serious demeanor was all the more disconcerting because she suspected it was unusual, at least where women were concerned.

  She carefully navigated the narrow steps to the tarmac, where James waited with the handle of her case extended. She took her suitcase with a nod and followed him across the short expanse of asphalt to the terminal entry.

  The interior of the low-slung building was compact, with a few rows of blue-upholstered chairs beside each of the handful of gates, freestanding shops cluttering the center aisle.

  “Do we need to rent a car?” she asked.

  He slowed as they approached the information desk and produced a parking stub from his inside jacket pocket. “I left mine. It’s a fair way to Skye. Too far for a taxi.”

  The redhead behind the desk brightened as he approached. “Mr. MacDonald. Welcome back to Scotland.”

  “Thanks, Marcie.” Andrea couldn’t tell if he actually remembered her or if he had just sneaked a surreptitious look at her name tag. “How’s the weather been the last couple of weeks?”

  Marcie shrugged and gave him a coy smile. “It’s Scotland. Rainy.” She swiped his credit card and handed it back to him, her eyes deliberately finding his.

  Andrea barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The woman couldn’t be sending out clearer signals if she’d been waving semaphore flags. Not that she cared. Why should it matter that women fell all over James MacDonald wherever he went? It wasn’t as if she planned on joining their ranks. If anything, it just proved idle flirtation was as natural as breathing for him. Except he didn’t seem to be returning the flirtation with more than his usual friendly manner, which was obviously just fine with Marcie.

  James finished up the transaction, and Andrea fell into step beside him as they walked out the front entrance to the parking lot, the wheels of their cases humming on the uneven asphalt. She had been so distracted by her client’s charms—or rather, the effort of not falling under them—she hadn’t given much thought to what came next. “My office said you’d arranged a room at the hotel. Does that mean the renovations are finished?”

  “Not the main house. But there are three self-catering cottages on the property. We completed them first so we’d have a place to stay when we came to check on the work.”

  “Good. How long is the drive?”

  “Three hours, give or take.”

  “Give or take what?”

  “Speed. Weather. Sheep.”

  “Sheep?” Her eyebrows flew up.

  “It is Scotland, after all. They’re a complete menace outside the city.” He cast her a curious look. “I assumed you’d been here before. Or is your dislike of Scotland strictly a matter of principle?”

  “I’ve just been to Glasgow, and I don’t remember anything involving sheep.”

  “Glasgow and the Highlands are two entirely different things.” He stopped abruptly. “Here we are.”

  “Where?” Andrea looked around the nearly empty lot, but she saw no vehicle she would have expected him to drive.

  He dug his keys from his pocket and threw her that half-smile as he unlocked a battered green Subaru wagon. “Disappointed?”

  “No. But I admit, I didn’t see this one coming.”

  “I’d never leave a nice car at an airport for weeks.” He popped the hatch and loaded their suitcases in the back. “Besides, the roads here can get pretty bad in the winter.”

  He slammed the rear door with a rattle of license plates and then opened the passenger side for her. When they were both settled in the car, he asked, “Are you hungry?”

  She was, but she hardly wanted to do something as social as have lunch with him. Besides, she only had thirty-six hours to concoct a proposal that would sell her company’s services to a somewhat disinterested client.

  Well, he’s interested. Just not in the same thing I’m proposing.

  She gave a little internal laugh. Then she noticed his quizzical look and realized she still hadn’t answered his question. “I’m fine. I’d rather get started on the proposal tonight if I can.”

  “Suit yourself. If you change your mind, I probably have something in the glove box.”

  As he put the car in drive and exited the long-term lot, Andrea popped the latch on the glove compartment, more interested in what the contents might tell about her client than in finding a snack. All in all, it was disturbingly tidy. A packet of road maps, a pair of lined leather gloves, and an unopened bag of organic trail mix. Barely worth the effort of looking. So he didn’t like to get lost, his hands got cold in the winter, and he was health conscious. Hardly illuminating. She closed the compartment with a click.

  “What were you expecting to find?” His voice hummed with barely repressed amusement.

  Dang. She needed to stop being so transparent. He’d been far too smug about his lucky guesses in the airport. She looked at him over the top edge of her sunglasses. “Oh, I don’t know. Unpaid parking tickets? Little black book?”

  “I’m disappointed. I thought you’d at least give me credit for being smart enough not to leave that sort of thing in the car.” He grinned, and she almost felt relieved. Playful was much preferable to … smoldering.

  She fixed her gaze out the window while he drove toward Inverness proper, then turned south onto the A82. Andrea relaxed into the seat and watched thick patches of trees and open fields fly by. She rarely got the opportunity to break free of the noise and activity of the city, to be surrounded by nature. The few times she had gone home to Ohio, she’d been struck by the broad expansiveness of the land, a sort of freshness. By contrast, Scotland felt old. Maybe it was just her awareness of its long history of conflict and warfare, its old, majestic structures and even older ruins, but even the trees felt more deeply rooted here.

  Signs of civilization thinned as they skirted a broad lake, its edge choked with greenery and mountains rising sharply beyond. “What is that?”

  James glanced out her window. “That’s Loch Ness.”

  “As in the Loch Ness monster?”

  “One and the same. We can stop in Drumnadrochit if you’d like. Urquhart Castle is worth a look, and the view’s spectacular from the ruins.”

  She was sorely tempted to take him up on the offer, but this wasn’t a pleasure trip. She was here to close a business deal, and the more firmly sh
e kept that in mind, the better off she’d be. “Thanks, but I really need to get to work.”

  “That makes it difficult for me then. Less than two days to change your mind about an entire country, and I can’t even show you its historic treasures.”

  “You take this very personally, don’t you?”

  “How else should I take it? You seem to have rather strong feelings on the subject.”

  “There’s nothing particularly wrong with Scotland,” she admitted. “It was just supposed to be my first vacation in three years. Have you ever been to Tahiti?”

  “Tahiti? No. Bali. Fiji. The Philippines. Trust me, I understand the appeal of a tropical holiday after a long winter. Why didn’t you just say no?”

  “Say no to the illustrious James MacDonald? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  He laughed, and she couldn’t deny she found the sound appealing. Deep, warm, free. It twined itself into her middle and radiated warmth into her chest. She tamped the feeling down. That response was just the sort of distraction she didn’t need.

  “You had no idea who I was. That much was obvious last night. Why didn’t you just say you were taking time off? With your sales record, I doubt you’d get sacked.”

  “No, probably not. Passed over for promotion, maybe. I’ve worked too hard and too long for a chance at VP to throw it away over a vacation.”

  “So I’m standing between you and a corner office? That puts a bit of pressure on me.”

  Maybe she shouldn’t have been so frank about her objectives. Somehow, her mouth always seemed to run away with her where he was concerned. “I hope it doesn’t put pressure on me.”

  “I already told you, I compartmentalize well. Tell me, Ms. Sullivan, how did you get into the business in the first place?”

  No harm in answering that question. He could pick up almost as much from reading her biography on Morrison’s website. “I worked in pharmaceutical sales to put myself through my MBA at Cornell, but it was too hard to keep up with classes when I traveled. One of my professors mentioned a market research position at Morrison, I got the job, and you can guess the rest.”

  “Somehow I wouldn’t have pegged you for a researcher.”

  “Me neither. But I was good at it. I also worked in creative in London for six months before I decided I’d rather gouge my eyes out than sit in an office and write copy for one more second. By that time, I knew so much of the business, Michael—Mr. Halloran—figured I was better out front anyway.”

  “You’re their closer.”

  It was exactly what she was. She handled the largest and most difficult clients, because she never walked away without the deal. Until recently. She wasn’t about to admit it to him though. “Something like that. How about you? Did you always want to be a chef?”

  “Not always. I wanted to drive grand prix cars for a while. At some point, I may have conceived a plan to swim the English Channel.”

  “Seriously.”

  “I am being serious. But yes, my aunt taught me how to cook at a very young age, and I loved it. My mother, of course, wanted me to do something ‘useful.’ So I suffered through my business studies until I’d finally had enough and went to culinary school.”

  “Your mother doesn’t like what you do for a living?” Andrea asked in surprise.

  “Oh no. Quid pro quo. You can’t start questioning me about my mother unless you give me something that’s not on your CV.”

  “Not going to happen.” Andrea crossed her legs and planted her hands firmly in her lap.

  “You can start small. Your favorite color. Your favorite movie. Favorite television program.”

  She almost refused, but that was just silly. It wasn’t as if he were asking her to spill her deepest secrets. “All right. Purple, North by Northwest, and I don’t own a TV. Your turn.”

  “Hang on a moment. I want to explore this. We’ll ignore the fact that purple is a very girlish color for someone like you, though you wear it well. Why would you choose a movie that’s over sixty years old as your favorite?”

  “That wasn’t the deal. You asked, I answered. Now, why doesn’t your mother like what you do for a living?”

  James made a face. “She wanted me follow in my brother’s footsteps and become a lawyer. Or an investment consultant. Or anything respectable. In her mind, cooking in a restaurant is one step above being a servant. Owning said restaurant is only marginally better. Your turn, answer the question.”

  Andrea hesitated. Delving into personal matters with a client was never a good idea, but James didn’t seem the type to let it go. Besides, if she was going to make this deal happen, they needed to venture beyond flirtation and insults.

  “I grew up in a little town near Dayton, Ohio,” she said finally. “It was small. No stoplights or fast food chains. We had this old art deco movie theater on Main Street that only showed one new movie a month. The rest of the time, they played classic films: Greta Garbo, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant. I loved them. I saved my allowance so I could just sit and watch for hours after school. I was usually the only person under the age of fifty in there, but I was hooked.”

  “Why?”

  She remembered hunkering down in the threadbare red seats, transfixed by the flickering black-and-white images on the screen. “I don’t know. They were clever and sophisticated and sometimes a little naughty without being vulgar. No one I knew talked like that. They seemed so glamorous. To a small-town girl …” She broke off, heat rising to her cheeks. “I know that probably sounds ridiculous.”

  “Not at all. Skye is not exactly the cultural center of the UK, you know.”

  He didn’t seem inclined to elaborate, so she let it go. Instead, she studied him as he drove. One hand rested easily on the steering wheel, the other moving from the seat beside him only when he needed to shift. In London, he had practically radiated energy. Now his intensity was muted to a soft glow.

  How much of the flirtatious wit was the real him, and how much was just the public persona? It wasn’t as if he were a movie star, drawing paparazzi to him every time he stepped outside—they’d made it through two airports without anyone doing more than a curious double take—yet his frequent appearances in the gossip pages suggested he purposely sought the spotlight.

  She dragged her eyes away from him and looked out her window. She was spending far too much time analyzing the man when she should be focused on the business owner. At least James seemed comfortable with silence. She’d figured he’d want to flirt and tease the entire drive to Skye.

  Andrea lost track of time, soaking in the rapid changes of scenery: open country, enormous lochs, and patches of forest that reminded her of home. The land finally gave way to a tangle of trees as the road climbed upward into the craggy hill. Storm clouds mounded overhead, spattering the windshield in a half-hearted attempt at rain, and mist hung over the higher peaks in the distance.

  “Look. We’re approaching Glen Shiel.”

  Andrea pulled her attention back to the road, which now wound downward into a valley, rounded mountains sloping sharply up on either side of them. Green had begun to overtake the brown, but snow still capped the top of the ridge. Wide swaths of evergreens stretched along the side of the road and jutted up the mountainside. There was something both desolate and breathtakingly beautiful about the scene.

  The road curved along the edge of a loch and climbed back into mountains. When they emerged again from between the hills, Andrea gaped at the water spread out before them, twisting between the mountains in craggy inlets and shorelines. Below, just off the shore, rose a stunning stone castle.

  “Eilean Donan,” James said. “The most photographed castle in Scotland. You’re sure you don’t want to stop? I don’t mind.”

  “No,” Andrea said, but she heard the reluctance in her voice. “We have work to do.”

  “I am going to wear you down, you realize.�
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  It won’t take much. How long had it been since she’d laced up her hiking boots and strapped on a pack simply to spend a day surrounded by the quiet of nature like she had as a child? Three years? More? The promotion to senior account manager meant weekends in the office or on planes, not exploring her favorite spots in the Hudson River Valley or on Breakneck Ridge. Long summer days and mountain sunsets were just distant memories.

  They emerged from the mountains and descended toward the water. Andrea took note of the whitewashed buildings on either side of the road as they passed through a tiny town that reminded her of a New England fishing village. Then the graceful concrete arch of the Skye Bridge lay before them, stretching over the short span of water and framing a lighthouse just beyond.

  James pressed a button and rolled the front windows down.

  “What are you doing?”

  This time, his smile made him look downright boyish. “You can’t tell me you don’t love salt air.”

  “I suppose I do.” Andrea inhaled the tang of salt and the earthy scent of peat beneath. When they proceeded over the wide multilane bridge, she allowed herself to peer out the window at the water.

  “I’ve got you now. Don’t try to deny it.”

  A smiled stretched across her face. “It’s spectacular. I’m beginning to understand why you decided on Skye.”

  “Just wait, love. You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “Love?” She shot him an exasperated look.

  He frowned, taken aback. “It’s just an expression. Like—”

  “—sweetheart, honey, pumpkin.”

  “I swear to you, I have never used pumpkin as a term of endearment for anyone over the age of ten, nor will I.”

  She scowled at him.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I thought we were having a nice friendly conversation. It just slipped out.”

  His abashed expression summoned a twinge of guilt. Maybe she was being too sensitive. She just despised the diminutives men used for her. Too often they felt like subtle put-downs, a way of minimizing her position. But James didn’t seem to have meant anything of the sort.