Page 4 of Edinburgh Escape (Brotherhood Protectors International #5)

Maggie McKendrick walked alongside Callum, mulling over his offer.

She would probably have thanked him and refused if she hadn’t had an altercation with a rude man moments before meeting the handsome Scotsman.

She’d just come out of passport control and was tucking her passport into her purse when a big oaf of a man had slammed into her.

She’d staggered several feet and almost tripped over her roller bag before she’d righted herself. The man who’d rammed into her hurried away before she could call him out for being rude. What was wrong with people these days?

The woman with the toddler who’d been on the same plane with her had stopped to ask if she was all right.

Maggie had assured her she was, but the incident had left her feeling less confident in her hasty decision to fly to London and take a train to Edinburgh.

She probably should have taken a transfer flight from London to Edinburgh.

No. She refused to let some bumbling bully ruin her trip.

This was her first time in the United Kingdom.

Delaying her arrival in Edinburgh by just a day was a good idea.

There was so much to see in London, and they had the mass transit to get her around without having to drive.

It was a no-brainer to delay arriving in Edinburgh long enough to do a quick tour of London.

She’d planned to buy a ticket for one of the hop-on-hop-off buses as soon as she found a place that sold them.

But first, she had to get to London via the train.

Excitement resurfaced. She was in London! Or almost.

Who would have thought the results of a DNA test would lead her to the UK to meet relatives she hadn’t known existed?

She’d spent her entire life in Eagle Rock, Montana, only leaving long enough to attend college in Bozeman, to take a driving vacation to Reno and meet college friends in Spokane, Washington.

She hadn’t even been on a commercial aircraft until she’d boarded the plane in Bozeman the day before.

If not for help from her friend Sadie, she wouldn’t have known where to start when she’d made her flight reservations.

At first, Sadie had tried to talk her out of going, or at least waiting until Sadie could go with her.

She’d reminded her that Maggie didn’t know anything about her newfound relatives.

She should wait until Hank could check them out.

However, Maggie only had two weeks until she had to be back in the classroom with her preschoolers for the new school year.

Her half-brother had invited her to the family home in Edinburgh.

If she wanted to meet them, she had only a short window to do so.

Thankfully, Sadie and her husband Hank walked her through making the flight reservations. Hank had even offered to send one of his ex-military men along with her as her personal bodyguard at his own expense.

Maggie didn’t make a lot of money, but she prided herself on paying her own way.

She refused to accept Hank’s offer and assured her friends she’d be all right.

If she didn’t feel comfortable around her half-brother, she’d find a hotel and continue with her plan to see more of Scotland a little sooner.

She hadn’t slept much on the plane, finding it difficult to nod off while sitting upright in her middle seat in the economy section.

She’d had a man with broad shoulders taking up the armrest on one side and a teenage boy on the other side who had watched movies all night long, shifting in his seat every few minutes in an attempt to get comfortable.

By the time they’d landed in London, she was tired, running low on energy but not on determination.

She could sleep on the train that evening.

When Callum had offered to show her the way to the train, she’d been happy to follow. It wasn’t like he was taking her down a back alley to sell her into the sex trade. They were surrounded by people. If she’d felt at all threatened, all she had to do was scream.

And he seemed so nice—and wasn’t at all hard on the eyes.

When she’d shaken his hand, she’d been startled by the spark that had shot through her veins, dispelling any sleep-deprived grogginess.

Since they’d be on public transportation and visiting public, tourist-heavy places, she’d never be alone with him.

Why not take him up on his offer to show her around town?

“Thank you,” she said. “If you aren’t already regretting the offer, I’d appreciate the guided tour. I have all day, but I need to get to Euston Station this evening.”

“Great,” he said. “We can start with Buckingham Palace and work our way back to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. If you aren’t afraid of heights, we can hop on the London Eye for a spectacular view of the Thames and the city.”

“Sounds wonderful,” she said.

Callum showed her how to use her smartphone to pay for her train ticket and then escorted her onto the train, along with dozens of other people eager to get into the city.

Once they arrived in London, they stashed their bags in lockers at the station. Then they got on the tube to get closer to Buckingham Palace and walked the rest of the way.

Callum was full of information about the palace, the changing of the guards and the statue in front of the gates. As they walked toward Westminster Abbey, he told her some of the history of the church and famous people interred there, including Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens.

“Isn’t it Stephen Hawking’s final resting place as well?” Maggie asked, remembering some of the information she had read recently.

“Indeed,” Callum said. “A brilliant man, Mr. Hawking.”

Maggie caught sight of Big Ben, the clock tower, standing high above a long, huge building.

“The House of Lords and House of Commons meet in Westminster Palace.” Callum tipped his chin toward the clock. “Big Ben is actually part of Elizabeth Tower, also attached to Westminster Palace.”

“You must have spent a lot of time in London to remember all of this,” Maggie said.

“We learn much about the history of the United Kingdom in school.”

“Is Edinburgh very different from London?” Maggie asked.

Callum chuckled. “Very. For one, London is much larger and more cosmopolitan. Edinburgh, with its Gothic architecture, transports one to another time. It’s quite lovely yet has many of the amenities found in London. On a smaller scale, of course.”

Maggie couldn’t wait to see it for herself.

She’d researched online and found the photographs amazing.

She could imagine it would feel like stepping back several centuries in time.

Talking with Ewan Drummond, her half-brother, hadn’t given her any clue as to whether her newfound family was happy or dismayed at discovering a long-lost sibling.

Nor had it given her any idea of where their home fit into the city of Edinburgh.

Would it be near the old town or in one of the more modern suburbs?

“You say you’re on your way to visit relatives in Scotland?” Callum asked as they walked along the Thames toward the Tower of London.

“I am,” she said.

“In Edinburgh?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure they’ll love showing you around the city,” he said.

“I hope so,” she murmured.

“You don’t think they will?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t actually met them in person.”

Callum glanced down, his brow dipping low. “Yet they’re your relatives?”

“It’s not like I’ve ever been to Scotland before,” she said.

“As far as I know, they’ve never been to Montana.

” And they hadn’t known about her until she’d connected with Ewan through the ancestry application after receiving her DNA results.

Callum didn’t need to know all that. He’d probably think she was a ridiculous romantic for searching out relatives she’d never met.

Maybe she was. After losing her mother the previous year, Maggie had felt the void.

For as long as she could remember, it had been her and her mother.

No grandparents, siblings or cousins that she knew of.

Her mother had never spoken of her father.

When Maggie had been old enough to be curious, her mother had told her he was dead.

Her grandparents had died before Maggie was born.

Her grandfather had been an American soldier who fell in love with her grandmother while stationed in England.

He’d brought her grandmother and mother to live in Montana after he left the military.

Sadly, he’d died of pneumonia within the first year there, shortly after Maggie’s mother was born.

Her grandmother returned to her native Scotland, where she’d raised Ayleen, Maggie’s mother.

When Ayleen’s mother had passed away, Ayleen returned to Montana, where her father was from, pregnant with Maggie.

To this day, Maggie’s birth certificate had a blank space for the name of her father.

Based on the DNA results, Maggie’s father was Ewan Drummond’s father as well.

She wondered if Ewan’s father knew Ayleen had given birth to his daughter.

Ewan had mentioned his father had recently passed away, which made Maggie sad she hadn’t had the chance to meet him.

Still, learning she had a half-sibling made her feel less alone in the world.

“If you don’t want to go inside St. Paul’s Cathedral, we can move on to the London Tower,” Callum was saying.

“What?” Maggie glanced up, her cheeks heating. “Sorry. I was thinking. What did you say?”

“I asked if you wanted to go into St. Paul’s. There’s a long line for tickets and it’s lot of steps up to the top, but worth the view.”

She smiled. “I’d love to go inside, but viewing it from outside will have to be enough for this short tour of London. I still want to see the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge—and I’m getting hungry.”