Absent in the Spring (The Shakespeare Sisters 3)

‘Don’t look so surprised.’ She smiled at his expression. ‘And no, I don’t really own her. She’s just this little tabby that belongs to my downstairs neighbours. She seems to have become attached to me – every time I come home she’s waiting, and slinks into my apartment with me. Then she curls up next to me while I finish my work.’

‘Lucky cat.’

Their eyes met and her heart thudded against her chest. ‘She stops me from being a boring old workaholic, I guess.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I might have a thing for boring old workaholics.’

‘What kind of thing?’

He grinned. ‘Are you really asking me about my thing? I thought we were professionals. Now here you are, interrogating me about —’

‘Stop it.’ She was grinning too.

He reached out, his arm closing the distance between them, running his gloved finger across her cheek. It was the smallest of touches, yet it felt so intimate, so sensual, that it set her whole body on fire.

‘There’s never a dull moment with you,’ he murmured.

Right back at you, Mr MacLeish.

Though a barri

er of leather separated her skin from his, Lachlan could practically feel the chill on her face as he stroked his finger along her jaw. Her cheeks were bright pink, her eyes shining, her lips a deep red from the cold. It had been a mistake to get so close. With only a few inches between them, his whole body was begging him to close the gap. He wanted to taste the cold on her lips, to heat them with his own. He wanted to slide his tongue inside that soft, velvety mouth, to feel her breath battling with his.

He’d thought of her as a cool blonde before. But out here in the wild, she was so much more than that. It was as though she’d thawed along with the dusting of snow on the ground, exposing her real self. Not the perfectly groomed, perfectly professional Lucy she projected in meetings, but a softer, gentler side that was only for him.

After the few days he’d had, she was like a crackling log fire after a cold spell, and he wanted to bask in her.

‘Am I crazy for wanting to keep this place?’ he asked her.

Was it his imagination, or was she leaning closer into his hand? ‘Almost certainly,’ she said, closing her eyes for a moment. ‘But why would that stop you?’

‘It would take a massive investment.’ He ran his thumb across her cheek. It took everything he had not to pull his glove off, to remove the final barrier between them. It was crazy the way she pulled him in every time, he couldn’t escape, even if he wanted to. ‘Renovating this place would be a fool’s errand.’

She turned her head to look at the space where the stag had stood. All that remained were his footprints now. ‘But it isn’t always about money, is it?’ she asked him.

His hand hovered in the air as she moved her head away. Reluctantly he pulled it back, resting it at his side. How was it that he already missed their connection? There was something so addictive about it. Like a drug, he wanted her, but knew she was going to kill him in the end.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘It was never about the money. But I don’t want to lose money on it, either.’

‘I guess it depends how you look at it,’ she said, staring at the trees where the stag disappeared. ‘People pay money to go on holiday all the time. They come back with nothing but memories. The same goes for hobbies – what one person calls a waste of money, another one thinks of as money well spent.’

‘Are you saying I should keep this place as a hobby?’ Lachlan asked, amused. ‘Do you know how much it costs to run?’

A ray of sun had fought its way through the grey layer of cloud, and she squinted where it hit her face. ‘All I know is that if I owned this place I could never let it go. No matter how much I was going to lose.’

The first time he’d seen her, in that Miami restaurant, he’d thought she was attractive. But standing there in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by rocks and water untouched by time, he could see she was so much more than that. Beautiful, captivating, untouchable.

She was temptation, made into a woman. And he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out.

14

I that did never weep now melt with woe. That

winter did cut off our springtime so

– Henry VI, Part III

‘So tell me again, you’re in some castle in the middle of nowhere, with Mr Hotty McLaird in the bedroom down the hallway, and you decided you wanted to talk to me. What the hell are you thinking?’ Kitty sounded amused. They were chatting on Skype, so much better than trying to use the non-existent mobile connection. Lucy made a mental note to thank Alistair for the powerful wifi.