He had hoped for a big reaction, major heat, maybe a quick birthday shag behind his desk, but she’d already gone on to the next parcel. Something heavy in a plastic case tumbled out and landed on the toe of his boot. He swore as a piercing siren shattered his eardrums.
Emma lunged for the monstrosity, laughing as she poked at wildly flashing buttons on the thing. It gave a pathetic bleep, then fell silent.
“What the hell is that?” Jared demanded, rubbing his sore right ear.
“The latest in modern technology, no doubt. Let’s see…” Her brow furrowed as she scanned the official-looking lettering on the top of the packaging. “Hotel Door Alarm…Far from home? Don’t trust hotel locks! The Sleep Guardian stops intruders in their tracks…Jake’s always afraid some crazy is going to break into my room.”
Jared scowled, remembering Feeny, the nasty reporter who’d followed Emma up the tower steps what seemed an eternity ago. No wonder Emma’s stepfather was scared for her.
“I suppose I can see Jake’s point,” Emma said, shooting Jared a considering glare. “If he knew what you’d been up to, Butler, he’d probably feel honor-bound to kick your ass.”
“He could try,” Jared scoffed.
“Oh, he’d do it, all right. He’s a black belt in martial arts. Once he took a baseball bat to the car of…” Something suddenly shadowed her eyes.
Protectiveness flared in Jared. His fists clenched. “And?”
“And nothing.” She waved her hand, dismissing the subject. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Especially not while I’m opening presents on my almost-birthday.” She took up the glittery package. “My little sister, Hope,” she said, running her fingertips over the block letters before she ripped it open. “Probably full of Twinkies. They’re her daddy’s favorite treat, so she thinks everyone in the world should adore them. Once she made Jake’s whole birthday cake out of them. Stuck them together with toothpicks. Uncle Cade missed one and speared the roof of his mouth…”
Jared tried to wrap his brain around the kind of birthdays Emma was used to. Her whole family gathered around. Presents. Twinkie cakes sabotaged with toothpicks. His chest hurt.
Emma set the Twinkies aside and ripped open the biggest box of all. She unearthed a book, its cover a little worn, with soft illustrations of Victorian girls in watercolor skirts. “It’s the Tasha Tudor edition of Little Women!” Emma clutched it to her, her voice all quavery.
“It’s a lovely book,” Jared said. “But it’s not a first edition or anything. You could probably afford the first book off the presses if you wanted…hell.” His cheeks burned. “I must sound like a real ass. That didn’t come out the way I meant it.”
“Jared Butler, king of tact.”
“I just want to understand why you’re so excited by it.” Why the devil should it matter so much to him? He didn’t know. It just did.
“My aunt Finn was a librarian when I first met her. She turned me on to Little Women. On the first Christmas we were all a family, she found me a copy in an antique book store. I brought it with me wherever I traveled. A piece of home, you know?”
Jared nodded, surprised by the lump in his throat.
“Somebody stole it from my hotel room right before Drew and I divorced and I never got another. I guess I knew it wouldn’t have the same kind of magic unless it came from Aunt Finn.”
Jared scooped up a pottery box hand-painted with clouds and the names Deirdre Skye and Emma in bright pink letters. The lid had cracked in two during shipping.
Jared retrieved the broken piece from the packaging, turning the box on its side to see if he could mend it. Something jingled and fell into Emma’s lap. Jared retrieved it. “A key ring?” He held it out to her. A miniscule red corvette dangled from the chain, a note impaled where the keys should have been. “In case you need any ideas in the future. I will be sixteen this year,” Jared read aloud. “Amy wants a bug like Mom’s old one. This sounds more like an order form than a present.”
“It’s from my cousin Will. Now all I have to do is convince Uncle Cade to let me give his kids their first cars.”
Jared started at Emma’s mention of her wealth. He’d almost forgotten it. She seemed so much more the woman from small-town Illinois who loved Twinkies, the niece who cherished antique books, the daughter who still longed to hear her mother sing. He stared into the jumble of gifts as if trying to dig up the secret to Emma’s genuineness, her down-to-earth aura, her loving heart.
He glimpsed a tiny velvet jewelry box still nestled at the bottom of the package, looking for all the world as if it could hold an engagement ring. Jared felt himself bristle instinctively. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a phantom boyfriend back in the States and he’s decided to propose long distance.”
She laughed as he took the box out, laying it in her hand. He wondered what it would be like if it were an engagement ring and he were the man giving it to her. Something exquisite and antique…maybe an emerald or…
Don’t be mad, man. You’ll not be offering her any ring and she’d not be daft enough to take it. Where the devil would the both of you live? In Beverly Hills or in a tent?
Emma snapped the box open. It was a necklace, a delicate gold star, rimmed with tiny diamonds and suspended on a chain. Hell, it was so small nobody would even see it.
“There’s no card,” Jared said.
“I know who it’s from.” Emma fastened it around her throat right away, pressing the star against her skin as if to imprint its shape in her heart. “The Captain…my grandfather always called me his diamond in the sky. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Beautiful,” Jared echoed. But it was the woman before him he was speaking of. She took his breath away—the joy in her, the strength, her courage, her wide-open heart. God in heaven, the man who won her would be a lucky son of a bitch.
Jared’s hand clamped hard on the package he’d slid onto the bookshelf, desperation rising inside him, the need to remind himself he wasn’t that man. Never could be. “There’s one more package left.” He hated the edge to his voice. “This one’s from your ex-husband.” He’d meant to warn her. Instead he figured he’d just made it worse.
Did she pale a little or was he just imagining it?
“From Drew?” she said, fiddling with the flap of the package. “Why would he be sending me a present?”
“I was wondering the same thing, after letting those rag sheets print such lies about you. It would take some nerve for him to contact you now.”
Emma gripped the package as if it held a bomb. “We’ve talked a couple of times since the divorce. Drew said how—how sorry he was.”
“And that fixed everything right up,” Jared sniped. Damn, he wondered, why was he feeling so surly? Because he’d missed her birthday and now it was too late…Or because of the wariness and vulnerability Drew Lawson could still bring to Emma’s eyes?
“It’s not Drew’s way to grab guys like Feeny by the collar and throw them off the property. Drew was always too much of a gentleman for that.”
Jared swore under his breath.
“He’d hoped someday we could all be friends again. He and Jessie and me. But I…it felt…”
“Ridiculous? Stupid? An exercise in sadomasochism?”
Emma gave him a weary grin. “Something like that. It still hurt too much for me to imagine a time I could see Drew without pain. But now…” She shrugged. “It’s funny. The present surprised me, but it didn’t…lacerate me inside, you know?”
“It didn’t?” Jared was stunned to realize just how much he’d wanted to shield her from that hurt. “What’s different?” He couldn’t help asking.
“You.” She turned the full force of those melting chocolate eyes on him, eyes dark and beautiful and full of feeling.
He must have gotten pale. She actually grinned. “Don’t panic, Butler. I’m not going to make any mad undying pledges of love or anything to ruin your day. It’s just that, you made my body feel more than I ever did while I was with Drew. So no
w I can hope someday my heart will feel more, too.”
Dangerous ground, Jared thought, his pulse jumping. Better to change the subject. “So what did the asshole get you?”
She laughed out loud, obviously as relieved as he was to break the tension at least a little. “So much for that tender little moment,” she said.
Then slowly, intently Emma loosened the tape, unfolded the paper. When she emptied the contents into her lap, Jared stared, completely flummoxed.
Socks.
A gorgeous woman like Emma, and the idiot had sent her a bunch of chunky gray wool socks? He couldn’t wait to hear her slam the jerk’s present.
She extracted a small card and read it aloud. “Sent you these so you won’t get cold feet.” She blinked hard against what he knew were tears.
Jared felt jealousy gnaw inside him. “Your feet aren’t cold,” he complained. Hell, Drew Lawson had been married to Emma for years. He should know the woman was red-hot.
“He’s not talking about my feet feet,” Emma said. “He’s talking about my career feet. The first rumblings that Barry had bought the movie rights to Lady Valiant were rippling through the industry when our marriage was getting rocky. I wanted the part of Lady Aislinn so badly but the role also scared me to death. It was taking such a chance. I didn’t know if I could do it. Now I wonder if that’s the real reason I thought I could give up my career to have a baby. Because then I’d never have to know I couldn’t do it, you know?”
She sighed. “Drew’s right. I married him for the wrong reasons, too. I took the safe way out, but I didn’t understand what it would cost me. I wanted security, but not predictability. He was too tame. I needed excitement, adventure. Someone I could fight with who wouldn’t walk out the door whenever things started getting uncomfortable.”
Jared tried not to remember they’d been fighting since the moment they’d met, and coming back for more. Fighting, laughing, loving.
“I’ve barely known you a month and I can tell you even if you’d quit acting and had a dozen babies that relationship would never have lasted. He would have driven you crazy if he couldn’t stand up to a good row.”
“You’re right about that. Maybe Drew knew it, too.”
“I doubt it,” Jared snapped before he could stop himself.
The toe of one sock crackled as she started to set it aside. “Something’s inside this,” Emma said. She pulled out an old photograph, one corner crumbled.
“Don’t tell me,” Jared groused, looking down at three teenagers squeezed into a wooden booth at some kind of shop. Even as an awkward teen Emma had been one hell of a heartbreaker.
“It’s me and Drew and Jessie at Lagos, this little soda shop back home.”
Jared ground his teeth. “What a jerk, reminding you of this after the divorce. I wonder if his wife knows he’s sending things to another woman.”
Drew had written on the white border around the snapshot. I’m sorry loving you wasn’t enough. I wanted an ordinary life but married an extraordinary woman. Be happy, Em.
“You can’t possibly buy into this—” Jared sputtered but Emma seemed a million miles away, her attention focused on a line squeezed in the white blur where the photographer’s thumb had apparently covered part of the lens.
In neat block-printed letters the message said: I miss us.
“Jessie,” Emma murmured, running her fingers over the line. “I miss us, too,” she confessed softly.
Suddenly Jared wanted to dash away the images clouding her thoughts, wanted to make new memories for her, memories of his world to drive back the shadows.
“Listen,” he said. “I’ve kept you a virtual prisoner here these past weeks. What would you say we see a bit of Scotland for a change?”
“But reporters—there could be…and I thought you didn’t want to encourage the town’s kids to come around and muck up the excavation.”
“I changed my mind. How about we all go to the pub tonight? You, me, the kids.”
“Great idea, Butler. We can pile everybody into the family station wagon and try to keep Davey and the soccer boys from fighting over who gets to sit by the windows.”
“I mean it. A kind of…well, impromptu birthday thing. It could be fun.”
“It could be disastrous. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Me and alcohol…we don’t mix. All those galas and premiers? I’m drinking tonic water with lime.”
“You’re kidding.”
“All that time I spent in clubs as a kid kind of wrecked the drinking scene for me. And then after my grandma died, my grandpa kind of went on a binge. I wasn’t around for it, but I’ve heard enough to get the picture. I don’t want you to think I’m a killjoy or anything. I just want to warn you that if you’re plotting to get me drunk and have your way with me…it ain’t a-goin’ to happen.”
Jared’s mood improved as he considered the possibilities. “I can have my way with you anyway. All I have to do is find that sweet spot on your throat, the one that makes you moan, and rake it with my teeth…”
He could see her shiver of response, just thinking about it. It made him hot as hell.
“You’re getting way too arrogant for your own good,” Emma said, giving him a measured glance. “Maybe I should get a headache just to take you down a peg or two.”
“Flora, the pub keeper, will take care of cutting me down to size. She puts every man in town in their place, except one. Come on, McDaniel. Let’s go to town. The kids will love it. And you can’t go back to America without taking in the local color. Scotland’s pubs are famous.”
“Infamous, don’t you mean?” She grinned. “All right. We’ll go to town. Maybe I’ll be able to find some presents to send home to Hope and Mom and everybody. In fact…” She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment. “I might even pick up a baby present to send Jessie and Drew.”
“Over my dead body!” Jared began. She grabbed him by the front of his sweater.
“I’ll take your body about any way I can get it, mister,” she teased. “Come on. We’ll have them ship a plaid bib and a pair of booties and then—”
“Then what?” Jared demanded darkly.
“We’ll go be party animals, Dr. Butler. I might even live dangerously and get a lemon in my tonic water instead of a lime. And who knows?” She flashed him a come-hither smile that almost dropped him to his knees. “You just might get lucky after all.”
TWO HUNDRED YEARS of peat smoke had seasoned the rough wood beams of the Royal Stuarts Public House. Dusty stuffed fish were smattered on the gray walls among World Cup posters and beer signs. The massive stretch of bar, polished by the hands of generations of patrons, gleamed softly in the dim light, the evening crowd gathering around wobbly tables.
Emma tried to claim a couple of tables in the back corner, but the proprietress, a stocky woman with a ruddy face and a wealth of ice-white hair, gave her a look that stopped her in her tracks.
“Sorry, miss, but that table is occupied,” she said.
Emma frowned at the chairs. “It looks empty to—Don’t tell me!” she exclaimed, with a sudden burst of excitement. “You have a ghost! Some soldier from the seventeen-hundreds who followed Bonnie Prince Charlie to the battle of Culloden Moor!”
“No self-respecting Jacobite would ever get near that table.” Jared took her elbow, guiding her firmly away. “Snib would have driven them away years ago.”
“Snib?” Emma wrinkled up her nose.
“That’s the ruddy bastard’s table. He brings Widow Steen trout once a week in the season and she holds it for him.”
Emma pulled a face. “Please tell me it isn’t trout season!” She cast her gaze heavenward. “Hey, God, if you want to give me a birthday present, keep that man and his demon dogs away from here!”
Jared surprised her, slipping an arm around her in spite of the students’ watchful gazes. “Don’t worry,” he murmured, his breath tickling her ear. “I’ll protect you.”
Emma figured he could start by deflecting the
daggers Veronica was shooting out of her eyes. But before Jared could see the woman’s reaction, Veronica plastered an oh-so-helpful smile on her face.
She brandished a disposable camera. “This is my present to you, Emma,” Veronica said. “Pictures of one of your last weeks in Scotland. I’ll be sure to write everyone’s name on the back of the photos. You can’t be expected to remember little details like that when you go back to Hollywood.”
“I’ll remember,” Emma said, looking around the bright faces of the students she’d come to love and the man she wished could be the love of her life.
But not this life, she admitted with a sudden ache. Jared belonged to another life. One an A-list actress would never be able to have.
In spite of the enmity she’d sensed from Veronica, Emma couldn’t help but be grateful for her camera. It would be good to have pictures of Davey and Beth. Pictures of Jared. She imagined his fierce green eyes staring at her from his warrior’s face in a frame set beside the one of her family. Reminders of what really mattered, the people she loved.
One of the boys ordered a round of drinks and the party ensued. With a laugh, Emma refused to drink anything but tonic water, for self-preservation she insisted since God knew what would fall out of her mouth after a few drinks.
The kids teased and begged until Davey finally convinced them to surrender, insisting no power on earth would get her to change her mind. Emma watched Beth try her best to flirt with a blushing Davey while the other boys turned their energies to showing off for the girl students, downing shots that should have knocked out an elephant. Seamus Jones was on his fifth by the time the pub door swung open to reveal the last person on earth Emma wanted to see.
Snib MacMurray stomped in like a little black cloud, the pockets of his tweed jacket bulging with what looked to be old tin cans, a smelly stringer of glassy-eyed fish dangling from his hand.
It took a moment for the farmer to realize his pub had been invaded by Jared and his much-loathed students. Once he recognized their faces he might as well have been some medieval pope seeing Jerusalem being desecrated by infidels. Jared folded his arms over his chest and met the old man’s gaze as if daring him to ruin Emma’s birthday party. Suddenly a mere toothpick impalement from Hope’s Twinkie cake seemed uneventful compared to the threat of an all-out brawl.