Maybe it was just none of her damned business what either of them did with his time.
Go haime, gel.
She rubbed her fingers gingerly over her forehead. If she’d had any sense, she would have hopped on a plane that afternoon and run away from the whole situation.
Unfortunately, her stockpile of good sense had followed her ’67 Jag into Lake Washington on that crisp fall day almost four years earlier. She’d tried to replenish that cache with a scoop out of that pile of hidden crazy called Sheldon Cook, but even her mother had very briefly and under her breath agreed thatthathad been a mistake.
All she had was herself to ask for advice, so she pulled herself up by her metaphorical bootstraps and dispassionately considered her options.
She could go back to Seattle, march into the offices of her father’s archenemy—or one of them, at least—and promise all sorts of her own family secrets in exchange for their destroying Sheldon in court so he would never bother her again. She could find a job doing something that actually put food on her table. She could go teach art. She could go back to working temp stuff so she could save up enough money to...
To come to Scotland.
She laughed a little, because there was nothing else to do. If she had the perfect life and all the money in the world, she would still be exactly where she was. That she was sitting in a lovely little room courtesy of a decent guy who had a fondness for fast cars and junk food—well, maybe what she should do was just be grateful and keep her mouth shut.
Of course, none of that meant she couldn’t continue to let odd things show up now and again and sort themselves into the piles they chose.
She grabbed her jacket, shoved her phone in her backpack, and left her room to go downstairs. She made it all the way to the bottom step before she had to pause and look across the lobby at that very lovely, generous man who had offered to share a few of his favorite sights with her, no strings attached.
He was wearing black jeans, boots, and a cabled pullover sweater, topped by a slicker. He looked like he should have been starring in a romantic drama about either a modern Highland laird in a spendy sports car or a gorgeous medieval clansman sitting in the chieftain’s chair. She could have seen him in either role.
She examined that thought as it rolled down in front of her like a drop of rain on a windowpane. Was that what he was doing? Prepping for a movie audition?
He turned his head and looked at her.
He smiled.
Well, if that’s what he was up to, she completely supported the idea. But until his movie came out, she would take advantage of his relative anonymity and his desire to meander over cobblestone streets. She stepped down the last step and walked across the small lobby.
Nathaniel pushed off from where he’d been leaning against the wall. “Breakfast?”
“Sounds wonderful,” she said.
“Do you mind if Brian tags along?”
“Of course not,” was what she said, but what she was thinking was,What a perfect chance to observe you while you’re distracted. Who knew what watching him have a little chat with one of his buddies over breakfast might reveal about him?
She soon found herself sitting with him and his friend Brian in a charming little coffee shop just up the way from their hotel. Breakfast was interesting, but watching Nathaniel talk to Brian about football was better. Apparently Brian had been born in Glasgow, but gone off to Oxford for school. She learned that those two disparate events warred within him and disqualified him in Nathaniel’s book from being allowed to have a definitive opinion on the sport in question.
“And what do you think, Emma?”
She realized Brian was talking to her. She smiled and shrugged. “No idea,” she said honestly. “I’m just here for the heather.”
“Nat, tell me you’re not going to leave the poor girl to tromp about the hills herself. At least take her to dinner now and then.”
Emma listened to them argue in a friendly fashion about the places she really should see if she intended to form a proper opinion of Scotland’s true glory. She couldn’t bring herself to protest, not that Nathaniel would have listened if she had. She would have to pull cash at some point, and maybe it was best to do it from Edinburgh. At least that way, if Sheldon had somehow managed to get access to her accounts, he would think she was traveling south.
She shook her head in spite of herself. There was no possible way he’d known anything about her plans unless he’d gotten it from her father, who she knew had gotten it from her mother. It also wouldn’t have surprised her at all to know her father had put the screws to one of his buddies from her bank—that was something she would be changing when she went home—and gotten more information from him than she would have wanted. Illegal, but her father didn’t let anything as trivial as either the law or good taste stop him from getting what he wanted. He’d been furious when she’d dumped Sheldon, so he’d more than likely decided this was a good way to bring her to her senses.
She could disappear if she had to. Bertie had given her several pointers over the years that would serve her quite well.
She shoved that thought aside as perhaps too extreme for the moment and allowed herself the pleasure of thinking about the previous evening. She’d enjoyed a lovely dinner courtesy of a certain St. Andrews alumnus, then dragged that same man on a ghost walk. She’d been fairly sure she’d seen absolutely everything of a paranormal nature the tour guide had suggested they would. Nathaniel had only shaken his head and smiled wryly.
“Cynic,” she’d whispered.
“Hopeless romantic,” he’d returned.
But he’d jumped right along with her when someone had leaped out of the shadows at a particularly spooky spot, then laughed at himself.
