Page 5 of A Flower for Angus

It had been so long since she’d felt safe.

Chapter 2

With a sigh, Macy turnedover the engine of her sporty white vehicle and started navigating her way through the streets of Inverness and towards the tall mountain peaks she could see hovering over the city. She would dearly love to play tourist and revisit some of the places she and Molly had visited all those years ago, but she didn’t dare. At least in the highland country, perhaps she would see her enemy coming.

Her reservation in the hotel could be cancelled with a phone call. She’d left them with enough money to cover tonight’s fee if she didn’t return, and instructions not to divulge her renting of the room to anyone asking for her. Budget Car Rentals had been given the same strict instructions.

For all intents and purposes, Mrs. Julian Condoloro had dropped out of sight after arriving at Heathrow airport in London. She’d created a totally fake name from restaurants and billboards that sounded English and got on a bus. She’d also worn a blonde wig and sunglasses to disguise herself. She’d changed her name a couple of more times when she’d changed buses along the route, satisfied that her trail wouldn’t be followed. It was easy when you paid cash—no one asked questions.

She’d gone back to Macy once she was in Inverness, using the fake ID she’d had made in Chicago before she moved to Toronto. Aside from that, she was now completely off the grid.

Her son-in-law, Morgan Kincaid, had given her a booklet on how to stay under the radar and not attract attention to herself. She’d made good use of all his tips when she’d left Chicago, but she knew Adrian hadn’t given up.Her daughter, Andrea, kept her informed as much as she could when Adrian would harass her for Macy’s whereabouts. If Andrea hadn’t been married to a competent FBI agent who didn’t like Adrian Condoloro, and wasn’t a man to be intimidated, Macy would never have left her daughter and her family.

How she missed Andrea and her two grandbabies.

Shaking herself out of her sudden bout of melancholy, Macy put the SUV in park while a local shepherd and his dogs coaxed a herd of sheep across the road. She was in no hurry. The sun was warm on her face, she was in no immediate danger, and the beauty of the rugged highland country was a balm to her soul. From the quaint walls of rocks along some of the roads to the waving wildflowers along the spreading grasslands, the vista was breathtaking.

Taking the map out while she waited, she realized she was already on Heaven’s Gate land. It shouldn’t be too long now before the turnoff to the main house. From Mr. MacNamara’s description it was an impressive place, and she was looking forward to seeing it. Mr. MacCandish was an actual lord, but didn’t go by Lord MacCandish, he’d told her. And the man highly valued a good cook.

Macy had reasonable skills in the kitchen. Maybe she wasn’t a grade A chef, but she could cook a satisfying pot roast and her angel food cake never fell in the pan. The hang of making good pie crust had eluded her, but she loved making hot yeast rolls. Italian food she adored, but had no idea how to cook traditional Scottish dishes. Lamb hadn’t been something she’d ever cooked or eaten much, so she was looking forward to trying out some new recipes. After all, she had plenty of time to learn what the men around here liked to eat. Haggis she couldn’t wrap her mind around and hadn’t even been able to make herself sample that, but Mr. MacNamara had told her that his daughter, Lucerne, could teach her to cook it.

She would if she had too, she needed this job.

While shuddering at the thought of haggis, she drove past the turnoff to Neamh and stopped suddenly when she realized what she’d done. “I’m such an airhead,” she muttered to herself. Backing up several yards, she finally got onto the road that would lead her to the long drive towards the main house.

Then her rental died—right in the middle of the road.

“No, no, no, no...NO!” She yelled her frustration into the windshield, slammed the shift into park, and rammed the gas pedal to the floor while she tried to get the key to magically restart the engine. When it wouldn’t start after several tries, she dropped her forehead against the uncompromising steering wheel and groaned loudly. A wisp of smoke from the hood wafted up into the breeze and the smell of petrol and something burning hit her nose.

Just great.

Macy popped the hood latch and got out of the car. Making her way around to the front, she fished beneath the front of the hood for the latch that would allow her to open it and look inside. That’s what men did, right?

Knowing what was wrong with a car engine was built into the male genders brain. It would forever remain a mystery to the female sex as to just how they had achieved that particular skill, but they had. Just like they were the species with all the muscle groups, their brains were hardwired to mechanical things while she on the other hand, knew nothing about engines.

Finally, flipping the hood up, she glared helplessly at the mechanical mass of metal connected to tubes and wires running in all directions and sighed deeply. There was a hissing noise coming from what she thought was called a radiator but she didn’t dare touch it. She’d heard horror stories about people being scalded when trying to open a hot radiator lid.

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