Second Chances: A Romance Writers of America Collection (Stark World 2.50)

I couldn't free the words trapped in my mouth, so I nodded. He released me, and a chill peppered my skin. I'd forgotten how long it had been since someone had touched me. It was the coldest I'd ever felt.

CAIRN WAS PACING THE stone steps of the old building when I arrived. Dressed in a sharp, three-piece suit cut to his frame, he alternated between checking his watch and shoving his hands into his pockets, which only accentuated the stretch of material across his very fine ass. When he saw me, he smiled. My pace, like my brain, slowed a little.

"How are you today?" That timbre rolled out like a lazy thunder.

"Well, thank you. I spent the day at the National Library hunting through some records. Hoped that would give us a head start. But I wasn't anticipating the rain." I looked up at the steely sky, which made a nest of my brown curls.

"Aye, it rains more here than in Tex-sus, I'm sure." He said the word with a Southern drawl, and I laughed at his teasing.

"Oh, is that how I sound, Mr. Scottish Solicitor?" I put my hand on my hip and pinched my face together, trying to mimic a stodgy lawyer. I knew I was ridiculous, but he laughed, a sound that carried us into the ancient building.

"Wow," was all I could say as we entered. The stoic and imposing space stretched beneath a soaring dome. I turned in a circle, taking it all in, until I realized Cairn was studying me. His expression conveyed something ... fiery. I swallowed before asking, "How was your meeting?"

"Long. We're working on a tough confirmation right now for a rather well-known fellow whose affairs were not in good order when he died. It's been a bit of a mess, and there's a lot of pressure from the family to decide inheritances."

"The stuff of novels." I smiled. "Where people's entire lives hinge on their great expectations."

Amusement danced in his eyes. "Aye, something like that."

Cairn directed me up a flight of stairs and into a dark-paneled room with an ornate, cream-colored ceiling. Stacks of red, green, and brown ledgers were piled on a long wooden table.

"Census records." He gestured to a chair. "Everybody living in Edinburgh in the nineteenth century would have to be listed in one of these ledgers. If your great-great-grandfather was born here, then his name is somewhere in one of these books."

My mouth dropped open.

"I thought I'd give us a head start, too," he said.

Cairn and I spent several hours going over the archives. I was used to demanding work as a pediatric nurse, but I wondered if he had somewhere he needed to be. The building had closed, but somehow he'd gotten special permission for us to stay.

"I can keep researching, but do you need to go?"

Cairn scribbled on a yellow notepad at the end of the table. He wore his wire glasses but not his suit jacket and tie. Those he'd tossed over another chair. The top two buttons of his shirt were open, and he'd rolled his sleeves up his lovely, sculpted forearms. He studied me over his glasses, the same tone as his vest, and before my brain could process this vision, my stomach growled. Loudly. He set down his pen.

"No, but you do. Let's go eat."

As we walked to a nearby pub, a bitter wind forced me to shiver, and before I could protest, Cairn slipped his suit jacket over my shoulders. It was heavier than expected and smelled of earth and something verdant. A faint recollection drifted from the edge of my memory: roasting marshmallows with my husband on a camping trip in Colorado. There was a lot of coaxing, a pinewood fire, and smoky, vanilla sweetness on our lips as we made love under the stars.

When I was first widowed, every sight, smell, and sensation tormented the space between my mind and heart. After a while, the associations dimmed, but even on good days grief pulled me like a riptide to a dark place. I inhaled the scent of Cairn's jacket, fighting the onset of tears. I didn't know I'd closed my eyes until he grabbed my hand. His touch was electric and authoritative, a command I didn't yet understand.

"Let's stop here."

He pulled me

off the sidewalk and through a narrow doorway. The pub was classic with dark wood, long tables, and a fireplace in a corner. Cairn seated us near the fire and caught me smiling. "Do you like it?"

"I do. It's exactly as I imagined a Scottish pub would be."

He raised an eyebrow, a gesture I came to expect now. "Sticky, dirty, and full of drunk men?"

I laughed and ran my hand across the worn table, which was, honestly, a little sticky. "No. I would say old, quaint, and full of character."

"Aye, that it is. More characters than you care to know, I can promise you that."

"Speaking of characters, it must be nice having such a big family. What's that like?"

"It's good. I spend a lot of time with them. I need to direct my brother in the ways of becoming a man." He winked. "I'm so much older than him that I don't want to miss being a brother. Ansley is a sassy teenager, so I've got to give her hell, you know. And then there's little Lizzie." His voice turned hollow. "She's sick. Leukemia. It's a bad deal."

Cairn traced a splintered corner of the table with his finger. "She's not responding to treatment anymore. She needs a transplant. Bone marrow. But none of us is a match. It's the beginning of the end, I think."