Page 6 of Sadie’s Highlander (Highland Protector #1)

CHAPTER 5

“ I think you’ll be nice and comfy in here.” Miss Lydia unlocked the beautifully carved door. She pushed it open, then handed Sadie the fanciest room key she’d ever seen. Celtic knots and whorls topped the brass skeleton key that was lovely enough to wear as fine jewelry.

“The weather’s been so mild for this late in the year, I threw the windows open wide and aired out the rooms good and proper for you. Can’t stand a stuffy room. Can you?” The pink-cheeked matron with curly wisps of silvery gray hair escaping her messy bun didn’t wait for Sadie to answer. She bustled to the middle of the room, pressed a hand to the center of her ample bosom, and pulled in a deep breath. “Doesn’t that fresh autumn air smell sweet as the finest perfume?”

And it did. The room had a clean, welcoming smell that couldn’t possibly be achieved with any man-made air freshener. It reminded Sadie of the long walk she’d taken through the woods yesterday to shore up her courage for today. The same sense of peace she’d found among the trees also permeated this room.

“I love it.” Sadie meandered around the comfortable sitting room, taking in the overstuffed couch and comfortable chair completely fitted with pillows and a snuggly-looking lap throw tossed across its back. The cozy seating arrangement was angled in front of a stone fireplace built into the corner. She came up short when she reached an elaborate mahogany built-in taking up the entire corner of the room opposite the fireplace.

A router and several other black boxes of electronic wonder blinked a welcome and the promise of high-speed Wi-Fi on the shelf above the highly polished surface of the desk. A forty-inch monitor with an HDMI cable was ready to be connected to a laptop to provide an easy-on-the-eyes screen. A printer and reams of paper waited in the hinged unit to the left of the opulent leather chair rolled back to a welcoming angle in front of the desk.

“This is beautiful.” Sadie smoothed her fingers along the coolness of the wood. What a perfect place to write! A complete office in one corner of the room. Coincidence? A skin-tingling mix of uncertainty, excitement, and leeriness rushed through her.

“Brand new. Mr. Alec had it all installed just yesterday. I threatened those boys with their lives if they tracked up my carpet, but it looks like they took good care.” Miss Lydia opened the double doors on the other side of the room, revealing a grand four-poster bed decked out with enough fluffy comforters and pillows to please the pickiest of guests.

“Here’s your bedroom and over yonder is the . . .” Miss Lydia paused, frowning as she tapped her dimpled chin with a bent finger. She finally turned to Dwyn, still patiently standing just inside the main door to the suite waiting for instructions as to where Miss Lydia wanted the bags. “What did that decorator fella call that bathroom?”

“En-suite master spa,” Dwyn supplied, then held up the bags. “Where d’ye want I should put these?”

Miss Lydia pointed Dwyn toward the bedroom, then made an unimpressed face at Sadie. “I don’t know why that designer man Mr. Dwyn hired used such fancy words for the bathroom. I’ll admit, it is a bit on the hoity-toity side with all its doo-bobbles and such and I think you’ll like it, but let’s face it—a bathroom’s just a bathroom no matter what you call it.” She tossed a dismissive wave. “You go in there, do your business, and then get out. It’s just a bathroom, for cripe’s sake.”

“So do ye find the desk pleasing, then?”

That voice. Sadie sucked in a surprised gasp. Thank goodness she didn’t have any gum in her mouth this time or she’d be choking again and hacking like a cat with a hairball. A delayed shiver rippled through her like tinder catching fire. The man should bottle that deep, rich brogue. It would make millions as an aphrodisiac.

Alec stood in the doorway, blocking it completely with his height and broad shoulders, arms loosely crossed over his chest.

Sadie swallowed hard and patted the back of the chair. “This is gorgeous.” Plopping down in the plush leather seat, she wiggled and turned the chair back and forth. “Excellent chair. Spins without a sound.” Well, didn’t she sound intelligent? What the devil was she doing? Trying to make him think she was some kind of chair expert?

She mentally shook herself, shored up her waning confidence, and traced her fingers across the cool smoothness of the desk. She could do this. It was just a job . She picked up the knobby end of the HDMI cable and pointed it at Alec. “It’s the perfect height for my laptop. Most desks are way too high for my short little legs.” She nervously tapped her feet in a rolling bounce against the thick, lush carpet. Perfect height for hours of writing. Almost as though he’d planned it just for her.

An ever-increasing chokehold of edginess made her swallow hard again, then force in another deep breath. He couldn’t have installed this just for her. If he did, what was it going to cost her? What exactly was Alec MacDara’s angle?

“Very thoughtful of you to fit this out for business guests.” She flinched at the nervous pitch to her voice. What was wrong with her? Be professional. She could do this, and she’d also made a promise to herself that she was going to give the man a fair chance. Who knows? Maybe he was just looking for a friend. He’d mentioned the emails. Seemed like he’d read a lot of them. She shoved her insecurities aside and concentrated on studying Alec closer. He did seem a bit on the lonely side. Why in the world would a man like him be lonely? Was something wrong with him?

Had to be a trap of some sort. Well. If it was . . . she could handle that too. She’d overcome a lot of bullies who thought it the best sort of fun to set up the chubby girl for a fall. She was a big girl and could handle anything. She cleared her throat, swung the chair to face Alec, and spoke with more certainty than she currently felt. “The desk is perfect—especially for guests who might have to take care of business or something while they’re visiting.”

“He installed it for you. Said you’d need it for your writing.” Miss Lydia pulled the bedroom door closed behind her and toddled back into the sitting room, all the while shaking a stern finger at Alec. “And I thought I told you I’d be getting the young lady settled. What are you doing in here bothering us while we’re trying to get her particulars all sorted?”

“We have a minor crisis in the kitchen that requires yer immediate attention.” Alec moved deeper into the room, noticeably widening his stance and planting his feet as if silently declaring that he wasn’t going anywhere.

“A crisis? In my kitchen?” Miss Lydia glared at him with a warning look that would stop a herd of charging cattle. “Where is your mother? Has Sarinda already headed down to the herbal shops?”

“Aye.” Alec nodded, a solemn look of impending doom shadowing his features. “ Máthair’s already about her day and Esme has descended from her lair and is currently caterwauling to Athair about the frock I willna let her wear to the dance.”

“Lord have mercy on that child’s soul because I am going to have her behind.” Miss Lydia set her jaw, puffing up until the perfectly starched apron tied around her middle and pinned to the neckline of her printed cotton dress looked as though it was about to pop off and go airborne.

“Who is Esme?” Sadie hated to interrupt, but she had to ask. If she was going to be a part of Alec’s team for the next six weeks, she needed to know all the players. “And who’s Athair ?” She struggled to pronounce the word just as Alec had said it. She didn’t want to insult anyone with sloppy enunciation.

Alec turned to her with a heavy sigh, weariness reflected in the sudden slump of his broad shoulders. “Esme is my wee sister. Fifteen years of age and determined to send us all to an early grave. Athair is Scots Gaelic for father. Ye met Emrys MacDara, my father, at the meeting the other day.”

“Ahh . . .” Sadie understood completely now. A fifteen-year-old girl—and the baby of the family with nothing but older brothers for siblings. Definitely a recipe for disaster. Teenage girls could be snarling hormonal demons of epic proportions at times. Sadie had interned one summer at a girls’ camp for extra credit toward her psychology degree. She shuddered at the memory. There had been times when she’d wondered if she’d make it out alive.

“She doesn’t need to throw Mr. Emrys into one of his spells.” Miss Lydia hurried across the room, pausing when she reached the door. She turned to Alec with an expression that left no doubt as to what she was about to do. “That young lady is not too old for me to dust her britches. She knows better than to stress out Mr. Emrys.”

“Do whatever ye deem fitting. I trust yer judgment with that wee beastie.” Alec fisted a hand over his heart and gallantly gave her a short, reverent bow. “May the gods be with ye.”

“Hmpf.” Miss Lydia let out another disgruntled huff, then rapped the door facing with her knuckles. “That young’un knows better than to cross me. You’d better be praying for her. Time I get through with that child, she’ll think twice about throwing a tantrum around her daddy.” Then Miss Lydia disappeared, the thick heels on her sensible black shoes clacking down the hardwood floors of the hallway like the drum cadence of a battle charge.

A smug grin wiped away his earlier signs of weariness as Alec turned back to Sadie. “I’d best guard my boots well. The last time wee Esme became angry with me, she filled them with fresh horse shit.”

An embarrassingly loud snorting laugh escaped her. Sadie couldn’t help it. The look on Alec’s face paired with the mental picture of him shoving his foot into a boot full of horse manure was more than she could bear. “Sorry—” She clapped her fingers across her lips.

The nervousness she’d been fighting ever since she arrived swelled to epic proportions. She suddenly realized she was staring at Alec like an animal caught in his headlights.

She forced herself to blink, drop her hand away from her mouth, and smile. Her clenched teeth made her face feel tight and unnatural. Great . Alec was waiting for her to take hold of the conversation and all she could manage was a strained grin and a glassy-eyed stare.

She made herself unclench her teeth, nervously licked her bottom lip, and walked over to the wall of windows encasing an unusually wide set of French doors at the farthest side of the room. The double glass doors fitted with ornately curved brass handles opened out onto a private deck overlooking an autumnal wood halved by a sparkling stream.

Taking a deep breath to compose herself, Sadie kept her gaze locked on the breathtaking view. She just needed to be herself and stop acting like this was the first time she had ever talked to a member of the male species. This was just business and he was just a man. A damn fine man, but a man just the same.

She immediately forgot her advice and risked a glance back at him. “Sorry,” she repeated. She cleared her throat and consciously relaxed the stranglehold she currently had on one of the door handles. “I didn’t mean to laugh”—she stole another glance back over her shoulder—“but you have to admit the child’s creativity is impressive.”

Something else he had said about the crisis in the kitchen gave her an idea to help calm her case of raw nerves to a more manageable level and find something—anything—to talk about. She would ask him about the crisis . Get him talking about this family . “You said Esme might push your father into one of his spells. Is he in poor health?” The elder MacDara had seemed a bit odd and absentminded in the boardroom, but other than that he’d looked fine.

Alec joined her at the wall of windows.

Sadie shifted slightly, doing her best to increase the space between them with as much subtlety as possible. It was amazing how much heat and . . . and . . . something she couldn’t quite put her finger on rolled off the man in waves. It wrapped her in a teasing cloak of come closer—you know you want to know me better. The air crackled whenever he was near. Every hair on her arms stood on end. The closer he got, the more she wanted to shiver and snuggle up against him just to see how much that feel-good tingle would grow.

Alec glanced down at the space between them, then fixed her with a knowing grin. He knew exactly what she was doing—and found it amusing. He clasped his hands to the small of his back, eased sideways to close the distance between them, then turned his attention to the view out the windows. “Aye. Esme is creative—too creative for her own good, as well as ours sometimes.” He barely shook his head, his amusement fading to a tensed, unreadable look. “And Athair is fine—just a wee bit too old and muddled in the head to weather many of Esme’s storms.”

He pulled open one of the doors and gallantly waved toward the charmingly rustic cushioned settee and pair of rocking chairs situated in one corner of the wide redwood deck. “Would ye care to sit outside and visit a bit before we go over our duties for the coming weeks? ’Tis a lovely fall day and I wish to learn more about the gifted writer of the entertaining emails that gave me so many reasons to smile over the past few weeks.”

Every self-preservation alarm Sadie possessed blared out loud and clear, warning her to stay on her toes and be ready. If this was a trap, here was where he would set the bait for whatever was going to happen that would make her wish she had never come to North Carolina.

She slid past Alec, the heat of his nearness triggering that same wave of skin-tingling shiver bumps. She avoided his gaze and hurried out onto the deck. The scent of him washed across her. Fresh-scrubbed male. Clean and enticing with just a hint of the wild, as though he’d bathed in the middle of the woods in preparation for the hunt.

Sadie held her breath to stave off the urge to back up, lean in close, and take another long, appreciative sniff of the broad chest that had just been mere inches from her nose. She clenched her fists so tightly all her knuckles popped. Glancing at the cozy gathering of seats in the corner, she barely paused before veering toward the other side of the deck. There was no way she could sit still.

She took refuge next to the wood railing hemming in the porch. Perfect spot. She could stand here, enjoy the view, and act like she had everything under control. She could do this. She wasn’t all that experienced when it came to men, but she was no fool.

Sadie rested her forearms atop the wide plank and leaned to peer down into the woods below. “It’s beautiful here. You are a very lucky man, Mr. MacDara.”

The wood of the railing creaked as Alec leaned on it next to her. “I prefer ye call me Alec—aye?” He took a slow look around the area, then nodded toward the blazing reds, oranges, and yellows of the autumnal wood. Here and there the vibrant colors were interrupted by the rich green of lush pines pushing their way toward the sun. “And yes—I’ve been blessed with many opportunities and the good health to work hard enough to make them a success.”

Had she worded that wrong? Had she made it sound as though she thought him entitled? Sadie inched sideways, surreptitiously putting a little more space between them. “I didn’t mean to sound as though I thought you hadn’t earned”—she waved a hand toward the wood—“all this. The park. The lodge . . . I mean the keep.” Great. And now the babbling would begin. She tried to recover with a hard swallow. “Sorry. I don’t always word things right—at least not when I’m talking out loud.” That sounded awesome. Maybe she should tell him when she was writing, she was great. She edited out all the stupid—but when talking, the stupid escaped.

Alec’s gaze dropped to his arms propped atop the railing, then he subtly shifted sideways, closing the distance she’d just placed between them. Without looking at her, he nudged his shoulder against hers. “Rest easy, lass,” he said softly. His voice vibrated with a deep, soothing tone she’d replay in her dreams. He sidled a glance at her and grinned. “Ye’ve got nothing to fear from me. I swear it.”

Maybe if she grabbed this Scottish bull by the horns and got all her misconceptions out in the open, she’d feel better. She hadn’t had this bad a case of uneasiness in years and didn’t like it. She faced Alec, keeping one hand planted on the wood railing to steady herself. “If I have nothing to fear from you—no worries about ulterior motives or . . .” she struggled to pick the right words “. . . or whatever.” She released her chokehold on the railing and made a sadly weak flip of her hand. “Then tell my why—straight out and in plain terms: why am I here?” She pointed at him, taking great pride in the fact that she’d managed to keep her finger from trembling. Confidence bolstered; she pointed at him again. “Why am I here with you for the next six weeks?”

Alec straightened from his relaxed lean against the wood railing, his gaze focused on the colorful tapestry of the acreage of trees surrounding the keep. His smile was gone, replaced by an unexplainable look. He seemed lost in a daydream—a daydream that had him puzzled.

“Thirty-one emails,” he finally said with a decisive dip of his chin.

“What?”

He turned and faced her, dead serious, with a look in his eyes that made her forget to breathe. “Thirty . . . one . . . emails,” he repeated, enunciating each word slowly and clearly to prevent the slightest hint of misunderstanding.

Sadie traced her fingers along the rough grain of the wood plank, willing the board to give up all its secrets about Alec MacDara. The disturbingly handsome man was so unreadable. “What do you mean by thirty-one emails?” she finally asked, while staring down at the rough-grained board and tracing the pattern with her fingernail.

“Ye asked why ye were here.” Alec leisurely turned around and leaned back against the railing. Fingers laced together, he rested his hands across his middle and propped his elbows on the sturdy banister behind him. “’Tis because of yer emails. Yer way with words.” His voice dropped lower, took on a quiet, sultry tone—and sounded almost . . . lonely. He looked at her—not just a glance, but something more. His gaze heated, growing more personal and soul-piercing by the second. “Each email ye sent drew me in—touched me in ways I canna explain. I heard yer laughter in each line. Felt yer joy. I glimpsed yer heart in those words. Saw their purity. Learned yer truths.”

He reached out and smoothed a curl of hair away from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. The unexpected gentleness of his touch stole her breath and made her heart double-thump with a giddy rhythm.

“The more I read, the more I realized I needed time with the writer of those messages. I needed time with you,” he finished, his expression almost . . . hopeful.

“They were just emails,” she whispered, mesmerized by the softness of his touch and the turbulent storm of emotions she saw in his eyes. A hungry loneliness was reflected in their depths and Alec no longer attempted to hide it.

She’d written the first missive in standard marketing snag their attention style. But then after a spark of intuitiveness—or maybe what some might call divine guidance—she’d been inspired to write the rest of the emails as though she were clueing in a long-lost friend on all the silliness of the fool’s-gold glitter of Hollywood. The more she wrote, the more she envisioned the reader as a cherished pen pal she hoped to meet someday.

Delia would have fired her on the spot if she’d read any of those emails. Of course, Sadie had also figured the reader of the emails was some grossly underpaid assistant working in small-town North Carolina—maybe even a woman her own age—lonely and looking for a friend. Sadie tried not to flounder even deeper into the mire of need reflected in Alec’s gaze. She had so figured this all wrong. Who would’ve thought Alec MacDara would have read those emails himself? All thirty-one of them.

“J-just emails,” she hesitantly stammered. Her alarm bells clanged even louder, and a sense of imminent danger surged through her like the burn of good whisky. “I thought I was sending them to . . . y-your assistant. You know . . . a counterpart. Somebody on my level. They weren’t addressed to the CEO. I wouldn’t have used such silly words to the . . . b-boss of the company.” The way Alec’s tempting mouth quirked to one side as his full lips barely parted made it difficult to speak intelligently, and even more impossible to think.

“They were not just silly words.” Alec leaned in close, barely frowning as he tucked more hair behind her ear and cautiously cradled her cheek in his large, callused hand. “Ye ken that I mean ye no harm, Sadie Williams,” he said, ever so slowly drawing her in. “Ye ken that for certain . . . aye?”

Ken? She had a pretty good idea what ken meant but didn’t trust herself to answer. At the moment, standing upright with a minimal level of composure instead of either tossing caution to the wind and climbing aboard this delectable Scottish mountain of a man or turning and running like hell in the other direction was all she could manage. She wet her lips and focused all her senses on the totally kissable mouth hovering so close she could almost feel the velvety heat of its pending touch. Yeah. She was so not running .

“Ye dinna answer,” he whispered, shifting ever so slightly and brushing a hand down her arm from shoulder to elbow with an awkward, hesitant stroke. “I do mean to win yer trust,” he finally said. Then he fell silent, his mouth still excruciatingly close. All she needed to do was lean in—just lean in a little closer. No. He needed to do it. She felt the warm, soft brush of his breath against her skin. Sadie held her breath, waiting and hoping that Alec MacDara would finish what he had so artfully started. He needed to be the one to kiss her. Not the other way around.

Alec’s hand that had been hesitantly brushing up and down her arm paused just above her elbow and squeezed, holding tight as though he suddenly feared she was about to turn and run. Running had left the list of options at least a dozen heartbeats ago. She wasn’t running anywhere. She wasn’t about to leave until she figured out what the devil was going on. And she also wasn’t about to miss what promised to be the best kiss of her life.

Just one kiss. No harm in a little kiss. Sadie risked sliding a hand to the center of Alec’s firm chest, tracing her way up the ridge of buttons pulled tight between his pecs, until she brushed her fingertips against the heat of his bare throat. His pulse was pounding out a rhythm just as thunderously scattered as hers. Wow. He was as scared as she was.

Alec squeezed her arm again while lacing the fingers of his other hand into her hair and tilting her head back.

Good. He was finally going to kiss her. What could one little kiss hurt?

Something suddenly flickered in his eyes and he stiffened beneath her touch. His hands dropped away and he took a step back, politely ducking his head and pointedly doing all he could to avoid making eye contact. “I shall leave ye now to unpack yer things.”

He coughed, covering his mouth with his fist as his voice rasped with a deep huskiness—the huskiness of a man fighting for control. “I am certain ye wish to get settled afore ye start yer duties.”

Sadie didn’t say a word, just folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the deck railing.

He cleared his throat again, then stole a quick glance up at the sun. Flexing his hands into fists, then slowly relaxing them, he jerked his chin down with a decisive nod. “Aye, ye’ll get yerself settled and we’ll have the noonday meal with the rest of the family. I’ll send Ross or Ramsay to fetch ye, then I’ll give ye a tour of the park and we can get better acquainted so ye can feel comfortable teaching me all ye ken about this filming business yer sister has planned for Highland Life and Legends.”

Still refusing to look her in the eye, Alec politely nodded in her direction, then was gone before she could reply. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear the man was doing his best not to break into a run. Tapping a finger against her disappointed lips, she couldn’t help but smile. Maybe she wasn’t the only one on treacherous ground here.