Page 13 of A Flower for Angus

Darro just grinned.

Apparently, this was another inside joke between Darro and Angus, but Macy wished she hadn’t let it slip to Lucerne that she’d grown up in Chicago. It was just so difficult to stay closed when everyone around her was so open and friendly.

Talk of Chicago suddenly had her feeling homesick. She wondered how her daughter and grandchildren were doing? Was Adrian hassling them over her whereabouts? She wished she could get a decent phone and call them. The cheap phone she’d bought with minutes on it was very limited, but she couldn’t afford to buy one and use her credit cards. She also didn’t want to call them and maybe put them in danger. Her son-in-law, Morgan, had warned her not to call the house in case Adrian was monitoring their phones as well. Maybe she should just tell her lawyer to turn everything Julian had left her in the will over to Adrian and leave her out of it. Maybe she could finally get her life back then.

“Macy?” Lucerne asked. “Are ye all right?”

Startled, Macy realized she hadn’t been listening. “Umm...yes...I’m sorry. I was just thinking.”

“Thinkin’ about makin’ haggis, right, Macy?” Angus added helpfully.

Macy smiled at the garrulous teasing. “Not really, no.”

Angus feigned shock. “Ye actually don’t like haggis, Macy?”

“Do you like bologna and hot dogs?” Macy fired back defensively.

He winked at her and sauntered towards the breakfast table. “I’ll eat just about anything that doesn’t eat me first, lass. But a woman who can cook good haggis with neeps and tatties has the key to my heart.”

Macy instinctively stepped back slightly as Angus patted her hand on his way to the table. The skin tingled where he touched her. Her lips tightened and she turned away to get the porridge from the stove. Did Angus always take breakfast with the boss’s family as well as dinner and lunch now and then? She’d never actually been to the breakfast table yet because of her light duty.

In Chicago with Julian, she hadn’t been required to cook anything, and she never ate breakfast anyway except for a slice of toast with some tea or coffee. He and the cook hadn’t allowed her in the kitchen to prepare meals. Occasionally when the cook was off, she’d do some baking or fix simple snacks. It was only since she’d been on her own for the last year that she’d taken up cooking again. When she didn’t order takeout that is.

Here in the highlands, Macy had expected an atmosphere more like Julian’s home when she’d found out Darro MacCandish was a Scottish lord, but nothing was further from the truth. These people were kind and kept trying to draw her into their family atmosphere. Trying to stay reticent was getting harder to do. Finding herself attracted to the station manager with his dancing eyes and muscled forearms was the last thing she would have seen coming. Was Lucerne, right? Was Angus interested in her? Or was he just a natural flirt?

Confused at her feelings, she bit her lip and was grateful to hear the kids coming down the hallway at a dead run. Sighing with relief, she set the porridge pot on the table and the ensuing chaos from the children coming in prevented her from having to reply to Angus’s comment.

Chapter 4

Once breakfast wasover, Angus slipped his plate into the sink at Macy’s elbow. He’d been working up the nerve to ask her to spend some time with him. He’d seen her frowning at her small cell phone a few times as if it wouldn’t do what she wanted it to.

“Since Lucerne is staying home today, how would ye like to run into Inverness with me and I’ll help ye pick out a decent phone? I’ve seen ye ready to heave the one ye have into the nearest loch and shaking it to get a better reception,” he teased.

Macy shot him a panicked glance and stammered. “Well...uh...no, I can’t leave. I’m on duty. The kids...” She looked around. The kids had already gone off to get ready for school. “And...and...I haven’t gotten my first paycheck yet to buy a new phone.”

Angus stared. The lass was making up excuses, no doubt about that.

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