least.
Mm-hm. Her dragon swiped its tail at the sweet, sultry memories. Not just memories of great sex but of how he’d held her afterward. Tightly. Lovingly. Joyously, even, as if he hadn’t experienced true happiness until then.
Not that she had much to compare the experience to. She’d slept with exactly two guys before Lachlan, and none since. But dammit, maybe she should have. Surely one of the many cute cowboys who’d come on to her over the past ten years would have left her with steamy memories to overwrite Lachlan’s.
Her dragon snorted. As if. Besides, none of them is our mate. Lachlan is.
She clenched her jaw. Maybe she was destined to be like her mom, whose first great love hadn’t worked out, but who’d still ended up with a wonderful man. The right man the second time around. Maybe Holly just needed to give herself more time.
We can wait a lifetime, and it will still be Lachlan, her dragon grumbled.
“And right now — where are you going?” he asked, rolling his Rs in that thick brogue she loved.
She motioned vaguely, pretending she had it all worked out. “Um…Arthur’s Seat.”
Lachlan’s brow furrowed. “With the urn?”
She looked down. Oops. She covered up quickly. “Yes, in fact. Trevor would like the view. Or is Arthur’s Seat off-limits to me too?”
Lachlan looked pained, and she almost regretted her sharp tone. But then she remembered his reaction when the island of Gleninnis had come up. He’d been totally, utterly uncompromising and condescending.
Her inner dragon sniffed. He was being sweet, thinking of our safety.
Yeah, well, she could look after herself.
When he spoke, his voice was soft, even apologetic. “The island isn’t off-limits to you. It’s off-limits to everyone.”
Dammit, did his smoky voice have to tickle her ears and make her cheeks heat?
“Why?”
He looked at her, clearly torn. His chest rose, then fell, and his eyes hit the pavement. “I’ll explain.” He glanced at the surrounding crowds. “Later. It’s a long drive.”
A cop-out, and she knew it. What was with all the secrecy?
Still, she was in no mood to argue, so she continued her determined march to…wherever her feet took her.
“It’s a long way to Arthur’s Seat,” he pointed out.
“I know,” she growled.
He pointed to the low heels she’d worn to the lawyer’s office. “The trail is rough.”
“Ha. I’m from Wyoming. I could make it up Ben Nevis in these things.”
He considered that quietly, then said the most unexpected thing. “Trevor loved it there — Wyoming. A second home, he called it.”
And dammit, the lump jumped back into her throat. How different her life would have been if Trevor hadn’t stumbled across her dad’s distillery, all those years ago. Somehow, chance had led him there to start not just a business partnership, but a beautiful family friendship.
Not just chance, her dragon whispered. Destiny.
She bit her lip. Once upon a time, she’d trusted destiny — the force that had led her to Lachlan, that first summer she’d visited Scotland. He lived on an estate near Trevor’s, and the first time she and Lachlan had laid eyes on each other, they’d both stopped in their tracks.
Destiny, her dragon whispered.
At the time, she’d thought so too. And two flirty weeks later, when she and Lachlan had finally given in to burning desire, her soul had sung with certainty. Lachlan was her destined mate — the one man on earth fated to be her forever companion. She’d been sure he felt the same, but then…
She winced, pushing away the memory of that morning after. Then she trained her eyes on the craggy hillside straight ahead. Arthur’s Seat, here I come.
Lachlan trudged along at her side. “Can I carry something for you?”
She hugged the urn and box of instructions closer. “No thank you.” Then she made a shooing motion. “Honestly, I need some time alone.” When he scanned the sky like a hawk, she rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me whatever danger lurks on Gleninnis is here too.”
“Hard to say.”
She studied him from the corner of her eye. Was he tuned in to genuine danger, or had the military left him paranoid?
“I really need some time alone,” she insisted. “I’m in a fragile mental state right now.”
Lachlan laughed out loud. “Fragile? You? Try again, lass.”
She elbowed him in the ribs. Well, she tried, but her elbow just bounced off those steely abs. Worse, the physical contact gave her dragon all kinds of bad ideas.
I’d be happy to try again, her dragon purred, maneuvering closer.
Just in case, she pushed him an arm’s length