Meet Me in Scotland Read online

  At the doctor’s quarters, he let her in and followed her up the stairs. Now he would have the chance to tell her how he felt. And how he wanted to be closer to her. He waited until they were in the parlor, standing in front of the Christmas tree, directly under the mistletoe. As he opened his mouth to confess all, Emma threw herself into his arms, nearly tackling him, and kissed the holy holly out of him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Emma kissed him with every ounce of her being and with everything she had. Kissed him to forget her miserable parents. Kissed him to forget the troubles between Claire and Dominic. Kissed him because it felt so incredibly good. She didn’t care that he believed kissing her went against his principles. To hell with his bloody principles. She needed this. She needed him. She tugged at his flannel shirt and pulled it free.

  As she undid the buttons, she kissed his chest and burned for access to all of him. She pushed his coat from his arms and let it fall to the floor.

  In the back of her mind, she knew he could pull away at any moment, but he didn’t. He kissed her back, slipping off her coat, as well, and cupping her breast. His lips went to her neck, feasting on her, so much so that he had her moaning.

  “Take me to bed, Gabriel,” she whispered breathlessly.

  He didn’t hesitate, but scooped her into his arms, kissing her passionately as he carried her to his room. He flipped on the light switch with his elbow and laid her on the bed. The room was sparse, the only real decoration the hunter green, brown, and red quilt she lay on. Deydie had pointed out this pattern to Emma—the Bear Claw. It was very masculine and suited Gabriel to a T.

  He gazed down on her with more than lust in his eyes. He looked ready to pour his heart out to her, but she stopped him by reaching up and pulling him down for another kiss.

  In the past, sex had been disappointing. Terrible, in fact. This time, she was determined it would be different. Every sex manual she’d ever read came to mind—the correct way to stimulate your partner and the best way to achieve the ultimate orgasm. But she didn’t want to analyze every placement of her hands. Every thrust of her hips. She just wanted to feel. She pushed the sex manuals from her mind. All she would think about was having Gabriel inside of her, a part of her, if only for a short time.

  But what if I screw it up?

  The thought did her in. She pulled away and lay back on the bed, feeling stupid, awkward, and shy.

  “Are you all right, lass?” He kissed her chin and stroked her cheek. “Did something happen? Ye don’t seem as eager as a few minutes ago.”

  She couldn’t tell him that she sucked at the whole bedroom scene. She wouldn’t admit that the few times she’d gone to bed with men had been disastrous. She shook her head instead. “Just kiss me, Gabriel.”

  He did, slowly and thoroughly. Every caress of his tongue felt like a brand, as if he were marking her as his own. Once again she lost herself in him, in them. The rest of the world slipped away and felt inconsequential.

  Never breaking the kiss, he ran his hand down her side, pulling her hips closer to him. He kissed her as he touched her through her sweater. He kissed her while the sweater came off. He kissed her as all their clothes fell away and they were naked. Somehow the magic he wove kept her from being embarrassed. She was only cognizant of how he was making her feel. Warm and safe, and at the same time burning up like a roaring fire. His hands loving her. His mouth tasting her. His arms holding her. She felt swirled up in him. She was no longer Egghead Emma and awkward in bed; she was pure emotion. Completely right with the world. Wonderful. Touching, feeling, and being with him were as important as the air she breathed.

  She was dimly aware when Gabriel slipped on a condom; then he was poised above her, looking deep into her eyes. His gaze spoke of deep affection, a future together, and—Oh, my God—love. Emma had the urge to bolt, but he was pinning her down. Not against her will and not with his body. He held her there with the strength of who he was, his character. He wasn’t scared, and his confidence bolstered her. She had to see this through, had to know how they would be together.

  When he opened his mouth to speak, she was pretty certain he was going to say something she wasn’t ready to hear. She wrapped her arms around his neck, closed her eyes, and kissed him into silence, urging him back to the business at hand.

  Gabriel complied in the most delicious way. He entered her, and she almost died from the sheer bliss of it, the answer to her need almost too wonderful to endure. When she moved, fireworks lit up behind her eyes. She moved again and dared to look up at him. He gazed back at her in wonder and joined her in a slow rhythm, their bodies one, moving together.

  He brought her to the edge, backed off, and brought her to the edge again. Every time she moaned, it looked like it would be his undoing. Every time she squeezed the sinewy muscles of his arms, she thought it would be her undoing. The joy and tension grew inside of her and she didn’t recognize this woman who was giving everything to the man above her.

  She heard herself murmuring his name over and over. He answered her pleas in a mixture of Gaelic and love words, so primal she understood perfectly what he said. Without warning, they came apart in each other’s arms, the most exquisite experience of her life. She pulsed and hummed in places she never knew possible. She wanted to shout to the world what had just happened—she’d finally done it. Egghead Emma had had an orgasm! Gabriel’s lovemaking had transformed her into a sensual creature. Oh, sex is more than an act. She finally understood all the hype. She gazed upon his beautiful face, the two of them suspended in time where no one else could reach them.

  He rolled off her, pulled her close, and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Emma.”

  She froze. Why the hell did he say that? She scooted away from him, sitting up, feeling vulnerable and exposed.

  “What are you doing?” He reached for her hand. “Lie back down.”

  She jerked away from him. “I’m looking for my clothes.” She reached over the side of the bed and found her underwear.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he said.

  She stopped and shook her head. “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?” Her pitch had risen and she sounded oddly like her mother in one of her rants. “You had to go and ruin it.”

  He sat up now, too. “What are you talking about?”

  “What you said.” She couldn’t repeat it, not for all the crown jewels. “Everything was going along just fine and then—and then . . .” She couldn’t finish.

  “Then I told you I love you.” He moved closer to her and tried to pull her into his arms, even succeeded for a second. “I do love you, lass.” He brushed back her hair. “Whether you want to hear it or not, it’s the truth.”

  She wanted to put her hands over her ears and block it out. She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t dare fall for it. She didn’t want to end up like one of her disenchanted couples—brokenhearted, arguing over who should’ve taken out the trash, exposing all their intimate details and problems to a stranger, with no hope of ever getting back that initial illusion of love. Look what had happened to Claire and Dominic, the happiest couple in the world.

  “I don’t believe you,” Emma said.

  He stiffened like she’d disputed his very being. “Oh, you’d better believe it.” But there was more to his voice than anger. He seemed to have taken her statement as a challenge, the throwing down of the gauntlet, because he rose from the bed.

  She grabbed the rest of her clothes and backed away from him. “I mean it, Gabriel. I can’t do this. Sex is one thing. But love . . .” Her words trailed off.

  He was stalking toward her. His nakedness only made him look more the warrior. She clutched her clothes to her chest and kept backing away until she butted up against the door. She could’ve made a run for it, but she was the rabbit who’d frozen in the wolf’s sights. He stopped directly in front of her. He didn’t lay a hand on
her, but she felt firmly held in place just the same.

  With hooded eyes, he gazed at her for a long moment. “I’m not discouraged, Emma. Ye’re a smart woman. Ye’ll come round to my way of thinking.” The power, the certainty, the determination he emitted was intoxicating.

  She shivered as if he’d caressed her. The clothes she held in her arms tumbled to the floor.

  God help her, nothing could stop what she did next.

  She wrapped her arms and legs around him, kissing him as she climbed onto his erection, joining them as if it was meant to be.

  “Aye,” he growled, with her bum firmly in his hands as he made love to her, using the door as leverage.

  Afterward, he carried her to his bed and they made love again. Finally, he fell asleep. As he dozed, she lay in his arms, and every worry she’d ever had crowded in, making the king-sized bed feel too small.

  It was one thing to have misgivings about love and commitment. That was enough to have her running from Scotland as fast as she could. It was a whole other matter to be an all-out liar. She’d had plenty of opportunity to set Gabriel straight about her sex life. But she’d been too weak to speak up and tell the truth. Now it was too late. She couldn’t turn back the clock—admit all—or take back what they’d shared. Her only choice was to move forward.

  Isn’t that why I came to Gandiegow in the first place—to figure out what came next? To get unstuck? To move forward?

  She hadn’t come here to fall for the town’s doc. Or to get her heart broken.

  She’d come full circle, back to the original problem she’d encountered the moment she’d stepped foot in this town. The only way for her to leave and get on with her life was to do the one thing she swore she’d never do again: marriage counseling. If only she could bring Claire and Dominic back together, Emma would be free to go.

  She slipped out of bed and left. It was three a.m. She knew where to find Claire: at the restaurant, baking scones. Emma stopped at the quilting dorm for a shower first. She pulled on a black turtleneck to cover the evidence of their lovemaking—the stubble burn to her neck and chest. She could do nothing about how she still tingled, how she could still feel Gabriel between her legs, making love so intensely that nothing else mattered. Emma only hoped that Claire was too busy baking to notice the glow on her face of being thoroughly loved.

  On the way to the restaurant, Emma reviewed in her mind every technique she’d ever learned about marriage counseling. First she’d work with Claire alone, then with Dominic by himself. After that, she’d meet with the two together. Emma should get something resolved between them by Christmas—one way or the other. She looked up and found she was outside the church, the tall white steeple rising to the sky, the one she’d thought was a ship’s mast on her first day here. Because she had nothing left to lose, she tried out a prayer on God, asking for wisdom while dealing with the Russos. “If that isn’t what you have in mind,” Emma said out loud, “then divine intervention would be grand.” She trudged on.

  Inside the restaurant, she found Claire in the kitchen, sifting the flour for the scones.

  “Good morning,” Emma said.

  Claire jumped. “Holy shit, Emma, you scared me.” She smiled at her then. “I’m glad ye’re here. Wash your hands, then grab the butter from the cooler, will you?”

  Emma pulled a clean apron from the hook before getting the cold butter to cut into the scones. As she went back in the kitchen, she got an idea of how to proceed.

  “Claire, I’ve been thinking about your mother lately.”

  “Really?”

  “I think it’s being here in Gandiegow that’s brought her to mind.” It was the truth, but what Emma was really doing was pushing Claire a little, trying to get her on the path of self-examination and help her to figure out what was going on. Emma continued, “Your mum would’ve loved Quilting Central.” She had been so like the other quilting ladies—open, loving, and meddlesome. Emma peeked to see if Claire had any kind of emotional reaction.

  Claire stopped the sifting and looked up with a sweet smile on her face. “Yes, Mama would’ve been quite happy to be living here now. She loved to quilt.”

  “So, is it just me that’s been thinking about her, or have you been, too?” Emma tried. Surely all of Claire’s upheaval had to do with the loss of her mother and being back in Gandiegow.

  “Yes and no. The one who’s really been on my mind is my da.”

  “Really?” Emma said.

  “It’s the fishermen, ye see. They remind me so much of him. The way they talk. The way they saunter in here, all full of themselves. My da was just like them. And, oh, how Mama loved him.”

  “I remember her speaking of him. She clearly loved him very much.”

  “Aye.” Claire rubbed her eyes with her sleeve and then grabbed the butter.

  “What was he like?” Emma prodded gently.

  Claire took a knife and sliced the butter into chunks above the sifted dry ingredients. “What I remember most is that he made my mama laugh. She always had a smile on her face back then.”

  Emma remembered Nessa later in life as calm and content, but not as a jovial sort of person, not with a constant smile on her face, like Claire. Or at least Claire before she came to Gandiegow.

  Claire finished with the knife. “I never thought about it before, but I guess Mama really didn’t smile and laugh as much after my da died.” She frowned as she took the pastry cutter to the mixture.

  Emma remembered what both Claire and Nessa had been like when they first came to live in the Hamilton household—grieving. Those were sad days. But Nessa seemed to put on a brave face and, after a while, she didn’t seem as sad anymore.

  Emma hated to do it, but she had to dig a little deeper, open the wound as it were, to get to the root of the problem. “Do you think that’s why she never married again? Because she loved your father so much?”

  Claire looked up with a thoughtful expression. “I think they were soul mates. I think she knew it wouldn’t do any good to even look for another man. My da was her everything.” She went back to her work and said the next sentence almost to herself. “Like Dominic is to me.”

  Emma put her arm around Claire and gave her a squeeze.

  “I’m okay,” Claire said, straightening. “I’ve spoilt things between Dominic and myself. I have to live with that.”

  Emma stepped away, giving Claire a few moments to process. She pulled the napkins from the dryer and began folding them.

  Claire poured cream into the bowl and began stirring. “You know, Dominic reminds me of my da in some ways. He makes me laugh, just like my da did for my mother. Da was so vibrant and alive. I just couldn’t believe it when they said he was gone.” She turned toward Emma. “Did you know that he was only thirty-one when he died?” She shook her head. “Thirty-one.”

  Electricity shot through Emma, enough so that she froze while folding the napkins. She thought about her prayer in front of the church. Clearly, divine intervention was real. “What did you say?”

  Claire frowned at her. “I said Da was only thirty-one when he died.”

  Emma took a deep breath. She’d been such an idiot. Why hadn’t she seen it sooner? This was almost textbook. “Claire, how old is Dominic?”

  Her friend’s frown deepened. “Thirty-one.”

  Emma put the basket of napkins aside and pulled Claire to sit on a stool. “Do you think that’s why you’re so frantic about having a baby?”

  Claire’s eyebrows pinched together for a long moment. She reached up with a trembling hand and moved the hair out of her face. “Is that why I’ve been feeling this way, because I’ve been worried about losing Dominic?”

  “I think only you can answer that.” Emma believed there might even be more below the surface. Maybe Claire was playing out her mother’s life by losing her husband in a whole other way. But Emma wouldn�
�t say that. This was Claire’s discovery and she had to find her own way through it. Good therapists were only guides, not the ones running the show.

  Tears started running down Claire’s face. “Emms, I think I wanted a baby so badly because I need a piece of Dominic in case the worst happens.”

  “So, you remember what Nessa used to say?” Emma asked gently. Claire had to be the one to say it.

  “‘At least yere da will always be with me because I have you.’” Claire said the words as if she were Nessa herself. She turned to Emma. “I forgot she used to say that. I forgot she used to say I was her greatest blessing. Do you remember?”

  “Yes, I remember. Your mother was a good woman.” Emma put her arm around Claire. “Just like her daughter.” The two friends hugged for a long time, both of them grieving for Nessa all over again and hopefully healing some of the pain from the past.

  After a while, Claire pulled away. “I’ve done enough blubbering. The scones aren’t going to bake themselves.”

  “You go up and wash your face,” Emma said. “I’ll get these in the oven.”

  * * *

  Gabe woke and realized Emma wasn’t there. He stretched and climbed out of bed, not worried. For the first time since she’d come to Gandiegow, the lion in his chest felt tamed. Contented. It was all settled between them, no matter her skittishness or the fact that she’d slipped out of his bed. She’d be back. He meant to make it permanent.

  He took a quick shower, dressed, and reached for his phone to text Dom his plans:

  Off to Edinburgh to see Da for a few days. An early Christmas visit. Pass along the news of my whereabouts to the town.

  He sent Emma a text message, too, not wanting to wake her, knowing she must be sleeping after the night they’d shared. He smiled at her shoes in the back of his closet as he pulled out his suitcase. Already partially moved in. She just didn’t know it yet.