Chapter Four
His sober promise made Bella smile. “It’s nothing so dramatic.”
“Then tell me.”
She pursed her lips, still unsure of him. “Never mind.”
“Ach, lovely Bella. Don’t be a tease. You’ve got my imagination running amok.”
“I love it that you know what that word means.”
“Are you calling me a nerd?”
“I would if I didn’t think you would take it as a compliment.”
“Touché, lass. You know me well already.”
They were flirting. She knew it, and she could see by the warm intimate look in his eyes that he knew it as well. It wasn’t a skill she had ever really mastered, but with Ian she didn’t feel the frozen awkwardness that hobbled her in other intimate situations.
Despite his looks and his inclusion on that much-maligned list of bachelors, Ian was easy to be with. Real. Honest.
It would crush her if that impression turned out to be false.
“Okay,” she said. “I guess I have to say it now. My field of study has narrowed to the evolution of courtship and marriage rituals among the aristocracy from the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries.”
“Is this the part where I try not to laugh? Sounds very reasonable to me. Not that I’m fully cognizant of acceptable doctoral topics in the history department.”
“It’s a fine topic. Suitably boring. I’m ninety percent sure it will be approved if I write up the proposal and submit it.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
She took a deep breath, her stomach flipping and flopping as her cheeks heated. Even Finley knew nothing about this pipedream. “I’m not excited about a dissertation. I want to write a novel instead.”
A long silence ensued. Apparently, Ian liked to think before speaking. Another point in his favor, even if it left her dangling in limbo.
He sat up and brushed off his hands. “Interesting.”
A hot blush worked its way from her throat to her hairline. She angled her head away from him, pretending to study a ship out in the horizon. Her eyes stung, though she didn’t know why. She had shared something intensely personal with a virtual stranger. What had she expected?
“We should go now,” she said abruptly. “It’s getting late, and I’m hungry. I want to grab an early dinner and get back to the house.”
Before she could shoot to her feet and head down the hill, Ian caught her wrist in a gentle grasp. “I hurt your feelings. Or made you angry. Or something. I’m sorry, Bella. Talk to me, please.” His voice was low, his words urgent. “I’m a clumsy oaf when it comes to this kind of thing. I had a very short-lived relationship in college with a woman who told me I had the emotional dexterity of a block of wood. I’m afraid she was right. I understand algorithms and equations, but I’m tone deaf when it comes to deciphering the nuances and subtext of conversation. Especially with women.”
Bella was torn between laughter and tears. It wasn’t often that a man identified his own shortcomings so succinctly. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “I threw that at you without any context. I shouldn’t have expected a glowing endorsement.”
He released her arm, but put a finger alongside her chin and forced her to look at him. “Is that what you were hoping for from me?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” The color of his eyes entranced her. The shade reminded her of a summer forest back home. Wriggling away from him, she stood up and wrapped her arms around her waist. “It’s not important.”
“It must be, or you wouldn’t be so upset.”
“I’m not upset,” she yelled. Stupid man.
He stood up and nodded soberly, though his eyes twinkled. “My apologies for misreading the situation. It might help if you gave me a second chance. I’d really like to hear about this novel of yours.”
“We’re leaving,” she said stubbornly. It was one thing to impulsively mention a lifelong secret dream. It was another entirely to keep plowing ahead when it was obvious the notion of skipping a dissertation was so far out in left field.
Ian wisely allowed the matter to drop, but they were both quiet as they continued their circuit of the island. She suggested a restaurant in the next tiny village. He agreed. The dining room was so small there was no place for a photographer to hide, even if one had gotten wind that Ian was out and about.
A couple of the other patrons shot the lanky Scotsman a curious stare, but their interest could have been attributed to his striking looks instead of anything related to the bachelor list.
The redheaded waitress who brought them their drinks was young and timid. She repeated the dinner order twice. Bella felt sorry for her. Jobs in the area couldn’t be thick on the ground. This girl was clearly uncomfortable dealing with the public. Poor thing. Fortunately, she got everything exactly right.
Bella and Ian chatted about this and that while they ate. The changeable Scottish weather. The strength of the dollar against the pound. Whether or not Scotland Yard and the FBI actually had enough personnel to keep tabs on everyone’s Internet searches.
Mostly, the conversation was dull as dirt. Bella felt foolish for having lowered her defenses so easily for no other reason than sharing a beautiful blue-skied day with a handsome man. Ian seemed distant now, though he was infinitely polite.
She decided to try one more time. “So tell me, Ian, how can you be away from your work for so long?”
He shrugged, his expression hard to read. “I never use all my vacation days, so I had plenty of time built up for a lengthy sabbatical. Plus, I’m always working in some capacity. As long as I have my laptop with me, I’m never entirely off the grid.”
“How do you get your ideas?”
Ian tapped the tines of his fork on the tablecloth, then traced an abstract design. “I could ask you the same thing about your novel. Sometimes it’s reading about another scientist’s project that jogs my brain. Maybe one day the wisp of an idea simply comes to me. Honestly, I don’t really know.”
Bella nodded slowly. “I suppose I understand that. I work from imagination, too, though in a different way. I’m always asking myself, ‘what if’? And fictional characters live inside my head. I begin to know them. Then I start to write.”
His quick grin startled her.
“We’re not so different then, are we, lass? Other than coming from opposite sides of the pond and the fact that you are most definitely female and I am not, we both like to see where our brains take us.”
“I suppose so,” she said slowly. Though in Ian’s case, his phenomenal IQ gave him the capacity to truly innovate.
When the little waitress offered dessert, Bella and Ian each declined. Ian smiled at the girl. “We’ll take the check now, please.”
“Oh, but ye must try the treacle tart. It’s the best in all of Scotland.” She seemed unduly anxious about the subject.
Bella shook her head. “None for me. Thank you.”
Ian nodded. “Nor for me. Another time perhaps.” He gave the server a gentle smile that reduced her to silent blushes. But she finally gave up on them.
Unfortunately, she also seemed absurdly slow in returning to the table with their check. The wait was so long Bella finally excused herself and went in search of the facilities. When she exited the bathroom, she had to pass by the corridor that accessed the kitchen.
The ginger-haired waitress was huddled against the wall, her back to Bella. The other woman spoke in a low voice, but Bella could hear every word.
“They’re about to leave,” the girl whispered. “I can’t hold them any longer. If ye want your photograph, ye’d best get here in a hurry.”
Bella gaped. Then she charged into action.
Returning to the dining room, she leaned down and whispered in Ian’s ear. “Hand me my purse. I have enough cash to cover this. We need to get out of here. Our doe-eyed waitress has ratted you out to the press.”
Ian blanched, but refused her offer to pay. He peeled a stack of pound notes from his wallet, tucked them beneath the salt shaker, and followed Bella to the door. Unfortunately, as soon as they peeked out, they saw the very same photographers who had besieged Bella’s hilltop home.
Now this was personal. “I saw an exit beside the loo,” she said. “Hurry.”
Ian didn’t waste time arguing. He spun on his heel and followed her, not running, but close. Bella knew she and her dinner companion must look comical to the other diners, but who really cared? Once they sneaked out the back door, they found themselves in an alleyway filled with dust bins. Ian loped to the corner of the building. “The reporters just went inside. We can make it if we hurry.”
His legs were longer, but Bella was fueled by righteous indignation. How dare these dweeby little jerks hunt an innocent man like Ian? She jumped into the driver’s seat of her brother’s Jeep, turned the key in the ignition, and peeled out of the parking lot in a flurry of gravel.
They were only twenty minutes from Portree. Bella kept her foot on the gas aggressively, but with an eye to caution. She didn’t want to collide with a hapless sheep.
When she passed town and kept on going, Ian frowned. “Where are we headed?”
“If they follow us back to my place, you’re stuck. Everyone will know where you’re staying. I’ve thought of somewhere we can hide out for a couple of hours. The reporters won’t be able to find you tonight. They’ll give up for the time being, and they still won’t be able to prove I’m the one giving you asylum.”
Ian’s grin, when she glanced sideways to see his reaction, was surprisingly carefree. “Sounds great to me.”
* * *
Ian was having fun. It was sobering to realize that even though he enjoyed his life for the most part, rarely could he identify his days as fun. Yet with Bella at his side, determined to protect his identity, he felt like a kid again.
Suddenly, she barked out a warning. “Hold on.”
Just in time, he grabbed the door handle. The hard left turn as they abruptly exited the main road sent his shoulder banging against the doorframe. What the hell? Bella let off on the gas only a fraction in order to maneuver the Jeep over and around dangerous potholes on the rutted, dirt and gravel track.
“Where are we going?” He had to raise his voice to be heard. Though dusk was closing in, there was still plenty of light for anyone following them to spot the Jeep.
“There’s a house up here. Deserted. I’ll explain in a minute. Do you see anybody on the highway?”
He craned his neck. Far in the distance, from the same direction he and Bella had come, a navy sedan appeared over a rise. Though the car was still a long distance away, it looked like the same one they had seen at the restaurant. “I think that’s them. Can you cut the headlights?”
“Good idea.”
With the Jeep now running in the near dark, they had to go much slower. Even so, there was little chance the reporters would spot them way up here. The track was steep. As they pulled around behind a small, forlorn cottage and Bella cut the engine, Ian realized they were halfway up the hillside.
In the sudden silence, he could hear his heart beating in his ears. “We’d better get out and see if they’re heading our way.”
Bella nodded. She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Yes.”
She seemed tense, her expression harried.
He put a hand on her forearm. “It’s okay,” he said. “I can’t outrun them forever.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” she said, climbing out of the Jeep. “They’re maggots, bottom feeders, scum of the earth.”
Ian laughed. “Good Lord, Bella. They’re only trying to do their job.”
She whirled to face him. “Then why did you run the first time?”
It was a very good question and one he wasn’t ready to answer. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s take a peek.”
Carefully, they leaned around the corner of the house and scanned the highway. The navy car was much closer now. Ian held his breath as it pulled even with the wretched, narrow lane and then flew right on by.
Bella exhaled audibly. “Thank goodness.”
“We’re not out of the woods,” he cautioned. “If they think we’ve given them the slip, they may double back.”
“I doubt it. C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go inside and warm up.”
There was a storm on the way, and the air was heavy and moist. “Don’t you think it’s locked?” he said dubiously. He didn’t want to add breaking and entering to his reputation.
Bella laughed softly, the sound hitting him gut deep. “It is. Yes. But I know where the key is hidden.”
She was as good as her word. In moments they were inside. Unfortunately, the electricity was not in working order. Ian flipped a switch to no avail. “Now what?”
“We build a fire. We couldn’t have turned on the lights anyway, not if we wanted to maintain our hiding place.”
“True.” He helped her pile logs and rolled-up newspapers in the grate. Unfortunately, the box of matches on the hearth was damp.
After they tried and failed to get a spark three separate times, Bella groaned, rubbing her arms with her hands. “I thought we could hang out here for a few hours and be all cozy. This wasn’t part of the plan.”
Ian pulled a silver cigarette lighter from his pocket. “This should do the trick,” he said.
Bella gaped, her eyes round in the glow of the sudden flames. “You smoke?”
The tone of the question made it sound as if he kicked puppies or stole money from the church.
“I don’t,” he said mildly. “But if I did, would it be a deal breaker?”
She frowned, sitting down in a rocking chair and pulling her knees up to her chest as if she really were cold. “A deal breaker for what?”
“A deal breaker for us. You and me,” he elaborated. In case there was any doubt.
“Umm…”
For once he had stumped the opinionated and prickly southern belle. Ian grabbed the second rocker and angled it to hers, deciding not to push his luck at the moment. He kicked off his shoes and warmed his sock-clad feet on the brass fender. “This is nice. But are you ready to tell me why we’re playing squatter in a crofter’s cottage in the middle of nowhere?”
Bella recovered her equanimity. “My new sister-in-law, McKenzie, rented this place sight unseen when she came here to spend a month in Scotland. But the owner was old and senile, and when she arrived, the house was in shambles. Finley rescued her until they had a chance to get the cottage cleaned up and in livable condition. It’s really a very romantic story.”
Ian rocked slowly, extremely conscious of the woman beside him. “So no one lives here now?”
“It’s a big secret from McKenzie, but my brother is in the process of purchasing the house from the original owner’s family so he can give it to McKenzie as a present on their first anniversary.”
“Most men might go with jewelry.”
Bella smiled dreamily, her chin resting on her knees. The firelight cast shadows on her face. She looked very young. “You’d have to know McKenzie. She has a great deal of money, but she appreciates simplicity. To have Finley give her this place will please her to no end.”
“What would a man have to do to please you, Bella? What do you appreciate?”
He saw the muscles in her throat work as she swallowed. “Are you making a pass at me?”
“Does anyone really say that anymore?” There was something very proper and old-fashioned about her wary posture. He found himself flooded with a mixture of tenderness and hunger.
“Okay then,” she snapped. “Are you hitting on me?”
He winced. “I’m trying to get to know you.” It was the truth, though maybe not the entire truth.
Bella was smart, too smart to be pacified by his equivocation. Still, she didn’t pursue her original question. “I like fresh flowers, even in the dead of winter. They make me happy. I adore chocolate, but only in moderation. I enjoy spending time alone. My musical tastes are eclectic. Is that the kind of thing you want to know?”
“It’s a start.”
“And what about you, Ian Larrimore? What do you do when you’re not being hounded by the paparazzi?”
“Nothing very exciting, I assure you. I work and work and work, and when I’m not working, I think about work. I love what I do, so it’s difficult to keep my personal life and professional life separate.”
“I understand that, I think. Do you run for exercise only, or do you really like it?”
“Both. My chosen field requires a great deal of mental concentration. Getting outside to blow the cobwebs away is not only necessary for good health, but it often gives me a jolt of creative energy. I might be in the middle of a five-mile run and suddenly have a breakthrough.”
“That must be exhilarating.”
“It is. But what about you? I know from what Finley has told me that you’re an academic overachiever. Are you hoping to teach when you finish your dissertation? Mold young minds for the future and all that?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I thought that was what I wanted. Now, I’m not so sure. What I fantasize about is living here in Scotland and spending my days researching history and learning everything I can about the past five hundred years. That’s not really a viable life choice, though, so I’m stuck.”
“Tell me more about this novel.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, her expression mulish.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re a man and men sneer.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“Education is supposed to broaden a person’s horizons… expand the mind. Why would you make assumptions about me?”
“I’ve known more than a few ‘geniuses’ in my academic tenure. Arrogance and intolerance comes with the territory.”
“I’m not sure what your brother told you about me, but I assure you I’m neither as intelligent nor as close-minded as you seem to think. I may be a socially awkward introvert, but I’m not a jerk. At least I don’t think so.”