“No one is hurt, and if you’d stop interrupting me, I’ll tell you why I called.” Why is it that even at thirty-seven your mother can still make you feel like you are eight years old and been caught saying a dirty word? I hooked a chair with my foot and dragged it over to the telephone table. “Fine, it’s your money.
Why are you calling?”
“I just wanted to talk to you. I’m concerned over this plan you have to stay in Scotland with a man you’ve just met and hardly know when you have a good life and good friends and family here.”
Well, I knew it was coming. I took a deep breath and remembered Iain and the way he maneuvered the sheep. “You talked to Iain, didn’t you?”
“Yes. He seems like a very nice man, but really Kathie, aren’t you a little old for this love at first sight sort of thing?”
“Iain is a nice man, Mom, a really nice man. I’m very happy with him. I’m sorry if it seems like I’m abandoning you, but I want to stay with him, and he wants me to stay, so… I’m staying.”
“That’s just being foolish, Kathie. I’m sure Iain is nice and all, but you hardly know each other!”
“I know him well enough to know I’m in love with him, Mom.”
“And what about him? Is he in love with you, too, or is he just keeping the cow to get the milk for free?”
I sidestepped the question of Iain’s feelings and focused on the slur. “Well, thank you very much, Mother. Oh, how I love being likened to a cow. Thanks oodles.”
“That’s not the issue, Kathie, and you know it.”
“No, the issue is you butting in to my life.”
“The issue is you acting irrational and irresponsible. What are you doing about your apartment? Do you expect me to keep these birds of yours forever? What about your books? Kathie, you can’t just give in to heedless whims like this.
You have your future to think of.”
I thought of the wonderful man I just left. “I am thinking of my future, Mom.
It’s here with Iain.”
The rest of the call went downhill from there. My mother is not a sheep and she resisted being herded in the direction I wanted. By the time I hung up, we were both angry and hurt. I glared at the phone for a minute, then ran back to the one person who would make me feel better.
“Have a nice chat with your mum, then, did you?” Iain grunted as I threw myself on him.
“No. Hold me.” I snuggled as tightly as I could against him, and thought about what my mother had said.
Iain wrapped his arms around me, rested his chin on my head, and stroked my back with one hand. After a few minutes, he picked up his book and continued to read. I nuzzled his neck and pondered my life.
I’d known all along what staying with Iain would mean—I would give up my apartment, most of my belongings (shipping them abroad would be just too expensive), and only rarely see my friends and family. The first two didn’t cause me even a moment of hesitation, assuming I would be bringing my entire book collection over, but the last point weighed heavily on me.
It was a simple matter of Iain vs. my old life. Which did I want more, and did I have the balls to go after it? I looked ahead as far as I could see and decided the road might be a bit rough in spots, but it was the only one I wanted to take.
What I didn’t see were the potholes in the way, one of the deepest of which was directly in my path.
You ‘re what? Cait had e-mailed me earlier that day when I told her I had decided to stay with Iain. You ’re staying forever? FOREVER? What about everything here? What about us? You’re my best friend, you can’t move to Scotland !
I had replied with a list of reasons I would stay. Cait, use your head. I’m single, self-employed, have no ties other than a pair of promiscuous zebra finches, and I am madly in love with a man who welcomes me into his life. There is no choice to be made. Even with the specters of Archie and Bridget looming before me, I know that Iain is the person I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with. Friends and family are taken care of with phone calls and e-mail, and my work is something I can do anywhere .
So I sat snuggled up against Iain and felt his chest rise and fall beside me, his breath ruffling my hair, and listened to occasional hmmms of interest as he read his book. There was no question in my mind that this was where I should be.
That’s when those thoughts started hitting me. You know which thoughts, those thoughts. Those thoughts that included not only the L word, but the big one: the M word. The one my mother had mentioned in the phone call.
The one I had thought of only in a vague sort of “I don’t want to jinx this” way.
I looked up at the underside of Iain’s jaw. That’s an incredibly sexy spot, the underside of a man’s jaw. Ticklish, too, much of the time. I pressed my lips at the spot where his jaw met his neck.
He loved me, of course he loved me. Even if he hadn’t ever mentioned the fact, he must love me. He wasn’t the type of man to toy with a woman, stringing her along and then dumping her after he tired of her. No, he was a serious, one-woman kind of guy. Of course he loved me. I loved him. We loved each other.
Therefore—I took a big mental breath—we ought to be married.
I waited, prepared to flinch away from the pain that the thought brought with it. Nothing. Hmmm. I gently probed at the idea. Hmmm again. No pain there, no shrieks of horror, no feeling of this is not a good thing , just a pleasant warm glow about it. I leaned into Iain and nibbled my way along his jaw line and over to his ear, where I sucked his earlobe into my mouth and gently chewed while I thought it over.
He loved me, therefore, we should be married. It would solve all of the problems of my having to leave the country every three months or obtaining a visa to stay longer. I could just imagine what sort of a scene that would be, my asking the British government for a visa so I could stay in my illicit Scottish love nest. No, we loved each other, we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, and thus we should be married.
“Erm… love… I take it you’re finished with your book?” Iain’s lazy voice rolling around the room, reverberating deep out of his chest, couldn’t fool me.
He wasn’t as unaffected as he’d have liked me to believe. I had my hand inside his shirt. I could feel his heart beating, and the cutest little nub of a nipple.
I released his well-tenderized earlobe. “Why, no, I’m only halfway through it.
Why do you ask?” I scooted a little lower and slipped my other hand into his shirt, feeling around for his ticklish spot. What a surprise! A second adorable nipple! Isn’t there a saying along the lines of A nipple in hand is worth two in —
no, I guess not.
“If it’s not readin‘ you’re interested in,” Iain mumbled a few minutes later, his mouth being occupied at that moment with making sure my tonsils were where they should be, “maybe there’s somethin’ else you’d be wantin‘ to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said when I could string enough words together to make sense. “Cards, perhaps?”
I arched my back when his wandering hands found my ticklish spot.
“Cards, aye, sounds marvelous. I love a guid card game.” I let the fingers of one hand wander over to the scar on his rib cage where an angry ram had broken his ribs. “Gin Rummy?” I asked breathlessly as he unbuttoned my blouse. With his tongue.
“Nay, not Rummy,” he murmured against the mole on my stomach. I sucked in my breath when his fingers splayed over my bare breasts, making them tighten beneath his hands as he stroked his palms over my sensitized nipples.
“Surely you must be uncomfortable what with all of those clothes weighing you down so.” I did my best to relieve him of such a terrible burden. It was the least I could do. “If you don’t like Rummy, what about Crazy Eights?” I was having a hard time getting air into my lungs. I wondered briefly if that was a bad thing, then decided his mouth and hands on my breasts were more important, and returned my attention to uncovering a tiny birthmark I had noted on him a few w
eeks before. I wrestled briefly with his belt buckle, pushing down his zipper as I tugged his pants off. He kicked his way out of them and his underwear, returning his attention to my upper half. I squealed when his lips closed around one taut breast, heat spreading from his mouth to all points across my torso, pooling low, deep within me.
Iain surfaced briefly for air. “I dinna ken how to play Crazy Eeeeeeeeeiiiiii !” I had found the birthmark.
“Well then… oh, my!… perhaps you might be interested in a round of… of…
oh, Iain!”
He sucked a hot path to my neck as warm, strong hands slid up my thighs. I parted my legs and let him peel off my underwear, a sob of delight catching in my throat as his hands returned and he let his fingers do a little walking.
“Round of what, love?” he murmured.
I chased his tongue out of my mouth so I could answer. “Go Fish?”
“Ahhh, I thought you’d never ask!”
The three dogs lying before the fire heaved heavy, imposed-upon sighs, and moved out of the way just before Iain and I hit the floor. He bent me forward over the coffee table, his long, muscled thigh parting mine as he nipped at my shoulder, pinning me down with the weight of his chest behind me. The cold of the coffee table against my raw, aching breasts made me shiver, just as the heat of him at my back made me melt. Those feelings were lost in joy as he nudged my legs open wider and suddenly thrust into me. A low moan of pleasure escaped me as I arched my back beneath him, allowing him in deeper, reveling in our closeness, wild with the rapture he gave me, thrilled with the hot blast of his breath rasping against me as he held me tight and slammed into me with short, hard thrusts.
He loved me. I just had to get him to admit it.
The night after we played cards Iain asked if I minded if he went down to the local pub.
“The lads are asking about me since I’ve not been in for the last few weeks,” he said.
I looked up from where I was working on my laptop, in the throes of revisions.
“Huh?”
“I know you’re busy writing now, love, and thought you wouldn’t miss me for a bit if I went and saw the lads at the Twa Brithers.” Wouldn’t mind? I was furious. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve been ignoring your friends to stay home with me?”
“It’s not been a great sacrifice, love,” he leered at me. “I’d rather spend the evening with you than a group of men.”
“And I’m thankful for that small mercy, but really, Iain! You make me feel like a great big ogre keeping you from your fun! Is there anything else you used to do that you’ve stopped since I came?”
“Oh, aye, love, but I won’t miss that.” He winked, and whistling a jaunty little got the last word in tune, went off to the pub.
When two people move in together, there are a lot of adjustments to be made by both parties. When one person moves in with another, there are even more adjustments, since the movee is often in a territorial position, while the mover is in a lesser, interloper position. The adjustments become greater still when you have two people who have been living alone for a long time, and thus are set in their ways. Toss in a puckle of cultural differences, and you’re looking at my situation.
For the most part, the transition went smoothly. The issue of whose furniture to use was moot—there was no way I was going to ship my furniture to Scotland. We agreed that Mrs. Harris should remain on the job, allowing me to work the hours of the day when Iain was out tending the farm. Money, however, was a bit of an issue. Part of the problem was that neither of us had any, but the biggest trouble stemmed from the fact that Iain had a head of household mentality, which meant in his eyes any money that came my way was mine and wasn’t to be added into the household fund.
Bollocks, said I, and after a few no-win arguments on the matter, shrugged my shoulders and proceeded to slip money into the kitty whenever I could. I had a suspicion Iain knew full well what I was doing, but as it allowed him to save face, and me to contribute to our survival, we both pretended it didn’t happen.
Once those little differences were hashed out, I came a cropper on one that would rear its head time and time again, ultimately ending with Bathsheepa.
It was no secret to anyone that I had some issues with Iain’s farm. They were my issues, not his, and although Iain respected them, he couldn’t do anything about resolving them without destroying his entire way of life.
I knew this, and I understood it. I knew what line of work he was in when I met him. I may not have understood everything a sheep farmer did when I moved in with him, but I wasn’t stupid. The number of lamb dishes that regularly appeared by Mrs. Harris’s hand was a big hint that Iain was not raising sheep just so they could frolic on the hills and look scenic.
I didn’t like it, but there was little I could do about it, just as there was little I could do to sway Iain away from allowing a slaughterhouse to be built on his land. I tried bringing the subject up, but never felt comfortable expressing my hopes and wishes that he’d forgo Bridget’s plan for something less murderous.
“Kin Aird is really a lovely piece of property,” I said brightly one morning at breakfast. “Have you thought of buying Bridget’s share?” Iain looked up from his bowl of cereal and the paper. “Aye, we both have thought about it, but neither of us has the money needed to buy the other out.”
“Oh.” I poked at a cold piece of toast with my knife and wondered if I dared suggest a loan. It couldn’t hurt. “Well, you could take out a loan—”
“No.”
The abrupt manner the word was ejected from his lips spoke volumes. A loan was clearly out. I didn’t know a lot about his financial situation other than the realization that cash was a bit tight, which was no doubt why Bridget’s proposal looked so good to him.
“This… um… abattoir,” I said, hesitant to continue on a subject which was so clearly not any of my business. I gnawed my lower lip as I watched him closely.
“This abattoir would bring in a lot of money if you had it built?”
“Aye, it would.” He munched cereal. I gnawed lip.
“It seems a shame to ruin such a lovely piece of land with a horrible, bloody building. That spot is so tranquil, so peaceful.”
He raised both brows at me in a quizzical look.
“It just seems a shame,” I told his eyebrows.
He chewed slowly. “That it does.”
Damn the man! Why did he have to be so reticent to discuss everything? Did I have to drag every opinion out of him? We’d been together a month, shouldn’t he have started to open up to me by now? I gritted my teeth at him. “Given that it’s a crime to waste that lovely land, why are you going to allow Bridget to have that horrorhouse built on it?”
“Horrorhouse?” A faint frown teased his brows.
“Slaughterhouse. Abattoir.” I waved my fork around. “The place where you take innocent little animals to be murdered. Whatever you want to call it.” His frown increased. “They’re livestock, love. Their purpose is to be used for food. You eat beef, you know where it comes from.”
“Yes, but I’m not personally acquainted with the cows that gave up their lives so we could have a roast! And besides, cows aren’t as cute as lambs. I can’t believe people eat cute, adorable, fluffy little white lambs.” He was going to roll his eyes, I just knew he was, but he stopped himself in time. “We’ve had this discussion before. I’ll not make you eat lamb if you don’t like it.”
“But that won’t stop you from sending them off to slaughter,” I muttered as I pushed my toast around on my plate.
Iain reached out and took my hand in his, rubbing his thumb across my knuckles in a manner that sent little tendrils of fire snaking up my arm. His lovely peaty eyes were dark with distress. “Love, you knew I was a sheep farmer when you agreed to come up here. I told you that first day out in the parks that they weren’t pets, they’re livestock, even the lambs.” I was the most selfish being in the whole wide world. How could I make him feel bad about doin
g his job? The need to comfort him warred with the desire to beg him to not sell sweet little lambs for slaughter, but my love for him won out.
“I know. It’s just that the lambs are so cute and…” I stopped speaking at the look of sorrow in his eyes. I knew he hated the fact that I hated the reality of life on the farm, but there was nothing either of us could do.
He released my hand and sat back to finish his breakfast. “‘Twill make you feel better to know that I’ve decided not to go ahead with the abattoir.” I stopped slouching dejectedly over my toast and beamed at him. “You have?
Oh, Iain, that’s so wonderful! I knew you wouldn’t go through with it!” He started shaking his head the minute I spoke. “I’ll not have you believe it’s because of how you feel, love. I decided it was too much of a risk counting on the council to approve plans for a commercial business to be built in an agricultural area.”
I jumped up and flung myself into his lap, kissing along his jaw until I could capture his lips. “I don’t care,” I whispered against them, delighted with life. “I don’t care why you’re not going along with Bridget’s plan, I’m just pleased you’ve scotched the idea.”
A smile flirted with the corners of his mouth as he hugged me closer. “Aye, well, I am a Scot…”
There might not have been anything I could do about Iain’s livelihood, but there was something fully within my ability to change, and change it I did.
Within days of Iain’s and my coming to terms over my staying, I had arranged for his three dogs to spend their nights in the house. I had already supplemented their diets with table scraps (which they approved of), given them baths when they came in up to the oxters in mud (which they heartily disapproved of), and fought for their right to laze around the fire on the cold winter evenings (approval rating was very high on this as well).
Iain thought I was mad.
“They’re working dogs, love,” he pointed out the first night I bedded them down in the kitchen. I had found some old blankets in the back of Iain’s linen cupboard, and after making sure they weren’t old family heirlooms, I arranged them near the Aga, and invited the dogs to lie down on them. “They’re used to sleeping in the barn. They’re not pets.”