“It’s a more than reasonable and attractive offer,” Max said, before Dunstan Cromarty could lawyer-piss on the parade. “It’s my best offer, too, and the only one I’m prepared to make.”

Take it or leave it in other words, because if Max didn’t close this deal, at this meeting, on these terms, his investors would walk. His bills would not be paid, and that was unacceptable.

“I understand your position, and I have a counter-offer,” Brodie said, which was not among the options Max had given him.

“Make it quick, Mr. Brodie, because this is not a complicated situation.”

“Elias, might I have a word with you in the hallway?” Cromarty asked.

“Mr. Maitland, you’ll excuse us?” Brodie said, rising. The inflection, even making allowances for a Scottish accent, was a question, but Max wasn’t being given a choice—as usual. They went strutting out the door, leaving Max in a room without flowers.

At least Bonnie and Derek weren’t arguing down the hall. The voices from the other side of the closed door were hushed, rapid, and… arguing? Maybe Brodie had committed that most frequent of client inconsiderations and failed to be straight with his lawyer.

Max gave them a very long five minutes, then opened the door. They stood nose to nose, fists on hips. Bonnie was goggle-eyed at her desk, and Max had the odd thought that he ought to get himself one of these kilt get-ups. His grandfather had been born in Scotland, and Max’s mom had pictures of the old guy in a plaid skirt.

“I don’t have all day, gentlemen. Are we doing this deal or not?”

Cromarty shoved Brodie on the shoulder—a good, hard shove, not exactly contemplated by the bar association’s Rules of Professional Conduct concerning client contact.

“We are doing this deal,” Brodie said. “It wants only an explanation, and your consent, Mr. Maitland.”

“I’m all ears,” Max said, gesturing back toward the conference room.

“Max?” Bonnie called. “You had a call from Mr. Sutherland. He’d like you to call him back as soon as your meeting is over.”

Well, of course. And for the next few years, while Max shepherded the Hedstrom project through all manner of hazards and challenges, Sutherland would be demanding a call back at the most inconvenient times, creating artificial deadlines, and stomping all over schedules and budgets Max had lost sleep creating.

“Thanks, Bonnie, and if you go to lunch, please lock the front door behind you—though I don’t think we’ll be that long.”

Brodie grasped Max by the arm, and hauled him into the conference room, while Cromarty closed the door.

“Are all Scots this physical?” Max asked, brushing out the wrinkle on his sleeve.

“Aye,” Brodie said. “The ladies prefer us this way, just as they appreciate a man with the balls to wear a kilt. Sit down, Mr. Maitland, and pay attention, for I too have an offer I will only make this once. Do you happen to know which city has the dubious honor of being the oil capital of Europe?” 

“They’re back,” Jane said, “letting the curtain fall into place. Put the chocolate away.”

Violet did no such thing. She went to the window, and caught sight of two big, drop-dead gorgeous, dark-haired men, swinging along in their kilts and sporrans, arguing about something—or perhaps, given that it was Dunstan and Elias—having a friendly discussion.

“They don’t look like a pair of guys who just committed treason against true love,” Jane said.

They looked scrumptious. Dunstan wore his kilt well, with a certain confidence. It fit him beautifully, and he was entirely at ease in his Highland attire.

Elias, though, was breathtaking. The tassels of his sporran bounced with each step, the buttons on his coat winked in the mid-day sun. Whereas Dunstan was confident, Elias was splendid. Exuberantly male, uncaring what breeze might come along and tease at his pleated hem. He had places to strut, deeds to derring-do.

“They look fine,” Violet said. “Elias did what he had to do, and I understand that.”

“You’re an idiot,” Jane retorted, jamming the chocolate into the drawer. “Elias is a bigger idiot.”

The men came into Jane’s office a moment later, their expressions solemn. Gone was the animation Violet had observed through the window. Elias didn’t, in fact, seem glad to see her.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” he said.

Dunstan back-handed him in the belly. “Tell her, ye daftie. Tell her, or I will.”

“Tell me what?” Violet asked.

“He was brilliant,” Dunstan said. “Damn near conjured the ghost of Rabbie Burns right there in the conference room. You’d think Maitland had never heard of Aberdeen, when half the Texas oil families have vacation homes there.”

“What are you two talking about?” Jane demanded.

Elias crossed the room to stand very close to Violet. She caught his scent, a little floral, a little spice, blended with high quality wool.

“What bothered me most,” he said, “was the idea of leaving you here, your sworn enemy in plain view across the road. Maitland has the entire world to develop, why should he choose your valley, right now, to build his little boxes?”

“It’s a beautiful valley.” Elias was a beautiful man too—also attractive as hell in his kilt.

Or out of it.

Jane drew Dunstan from the office, kissing his cheek as they went.

“I couldn’t leave you here to contend with him, so I found a reason for him to go far, far away for at least the next few years.” Elias’s eyes were very blu, and very serious.

“You didn’t sell your farm? What about the castle, Elias? The legacy, the family, the—what have you done?” 

Violet had sat up half the night, wrapped in Elias’s shirt, wracking her brain for fresh options, and coming up with only nightmares. Her valley turned into suburbia, her mortgage accelerated.

Her heart in Scotland.

“Maitland’s people have money,” Elias said. “I have a project requiring money. More to the point, I have a pressing need to get Maitland out of your valley. We negotiated a ninety-nine-year lease of the castle, and Maitland’s people will take over the refurbishment at their expense. Brodie Castle will become a state of the art business conference destination, surrounded by scenery, history, sights to see, salmon rivers to fish, world-class golf courses, and locals needing decent employment.

“Jeannie will sit on the board of directors,” he went on, “to deal with the local council, and to explain all things Scottish to Maitland and his investors. When she’s had enough of that frolic, another family member will succeed her. She’s pleased to be able to see the project through, in fact.”

Elias was pleased with this arrangement too.

While Violet couldn’t quite grasp what he’d done. “You let your castle go?”

“I still own that castle, but I found it a patron, so to speak, for my lifetime and beyond. A century is nothing in the life of a castle, and Maitland’s people will make money on the arrangement. Aberdeen has a great deal of wealth, much of it American. Maitland will know how to finish out the castle so the Americans leave as much of their money in his hands as possible. Dunstan, for once, could find no fault with my plans.”

“You like that too, having out-smarted your cousin.” Violet liked this plan—liked it a lot.

Elias draped an arm across her shoulder. “I liked sending Maitland packing. I liked finding a means to fit out the castle that didn’t deplete family resources. I love, however, being able to look you in the eye, and ask if you’d like to put our parcels of land together, and do some agricultural preservation with me.”

Oh, that sounded wonderful, but not wonderful enough. “Are you hiring me to manage your farm, Elias?”

A second muscular arm draped itself across Violet’s shoulders. “I offer no coin, though coin will come along. I offer myself, Violet, as a partner in all things. I love Scotland, and it will always be the land of my birth. I love you more. You are my home. There will be travel, and complications, and frustrations, I know, but if you marry me, no difficulty will be insurmountable, no problem too great.”

Violet looped her arms around Elias’s waist. The sporran prevented her from getting as close as she wanted to, so she pushed it aside.

“Yes, Elias Brodie. I will marry you. I will manage your farm—our farms—and travel with you, and face the difficulties. I would love to see your castle, meet your family, and invite them to come see us. I would love…” She swallowed past a lump bigger than all of Damson Valley. “I love you. I love you, I love you… Elias…”

They held each other for long, lovely minutes, until Jane came barging back in.

“I need my chocolate,” she said, “and Dunstan was too polite to interrupt you. Elias, I hope you have honorable intentions toward Violet, or I’ll have to ask Dunstan and his fists to have a word with you.” 

“We have honorable intentions toward each other,” Violet said, remaining in Elias’s embrace. “You’ll be my maid of honor, right Jane?”

“Depends,” Jane said, popping a chocolate kiss in her mouth as Dunstan joined them. “If you’re getting married soon, then yes, because I won’t be much farther along. If you’re going to drag your feet and spend months planning the wedding, then no. Your godchild is on the way, in case you’d forgotten.”

Elias kissed Violet, a question in his eyes.

“The wedding will be soon,” Violet said. “The wedding will be very, very soon.”