along the way—people in the right places, freshly charged batteries for her phone and navigation system waiting in odd places, flowers magically being delivered by small children while she was sketching—that had given her the idea he was involved in some kind of super-private spy network somewhere.
She sat down on the rock next to him and looked out over the sea for a few minutes before she came up with just the right words.
“So,” she said slowly, “is this how it’s going to be?”
He looked over at her and smiled. “How is that?”
“You sending me messages and waiting for me to come running?”
He scooted over and patted the spot next to him. “Didn’t check your rearview mirror all that often, did you?”
She laughed a little. “I didn’t. I was too busy being dazzled by the scenery.”
“Lass, you need a security detail.”
“I’m beginning to think I had one.”
He only smiled.
“How’d you get here first?”
“Aston Martin Vanquish, love. It goes faster than your car by quite a bit. And I had Peter sweeping for bobbies for me, which you did not.”
She moved to sit next to him. “Did you loan me that MG on purpose so I couldn’t go as fast as you?”
“Nay, I bought you that MG because a learner’s sticker doesn’t look quite as silly on that sort of car as it would on mine.”
She froze. “You bought me a car?”
He looked at her seriously. “I thought you might need one to get around in.”
“Awfully generous of you.”
He shrugged, but it didn’t look all that casual. “Again, sparing myself the embarrassment of an L sticker on mine.” He continued to look at her gravely. “Self-serving, as always.”
She looked out over the sea that rolled in endlessly against the shore. It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen the sea before. There was just something about that sea when it found itself running up against a Scottish shore that gave it a certain cachet. Or that might have had something to do with the man sitting next to her. She considered the ramifications of that gift she’d just been given—and the keychain that said I’m Scottish on the front and You’d better not kiss me or my husband will kill you on the back, then looked at Derrick.
“Am I going to be staying long enough to get a UK driver’s license?”
“I don’t know,” he said carefully. “Are you?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “That, good sir, does not sound anything like a proposal of, well, anything. And I want to know why you made me drive all the way up here instead of you coming down to get me.”
He took her hand, brought it to his mouth, and kissed it. Then he looked at her seriously. “Because, my dearest Samantha, I wanted you to have a damned long time to think about where you were coming and have an equal number of times to change your mind.”
She frowned. “Are you bossing me again?”
“Once I get the ring on your finger, I thought I might try.”
“Every other day.”
“Well, aye, I suppose I’ll be limited to that.”
“Still not much of a proposal.”
“Then how about this?” He knelt down right there on the uncomfortable pebbles in front of her. “Would you like to take driving lessons and get your UK license?”
She pursed her lips. “Am I going to need it?”
“Our children might be happy if you could drive them to school. Which you won’t be doing in that death trap, by the way. I’ll buy you something safer tomorrow.”
She considered. “We’re not sending our kids to boarding school, are we?”
“Hell, no.”
“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?”
He pulled something out of his pocket and held it up. “Would this bridge the gap, do you think?”
She laughed a little. “You just can’t bring yourself to ask the question, can you?”
“I checked my pockets for holes.”
“Well, there is that.”
“As for the other, I’m not afraid.”
“Of course you aren’t,” she said dryly.
He paused, then took a deep breath. Then he looked at her, the single most unsure expression she had ever seen on his face.
“Samantha Josephine Drummond,” he said slowly, “will you marry me?”
“How did you know my middle—never mind.” There was no point in asking that question. The man knew because he had the ability to hack into things she didn’t want to think about. She smiled. “Yes, I will.”
He put the ring onto her finger, looked at it for a moment or two, then bent his head and kissed her hand. Then he looked at her. “Thank you,” he said