Scotland for Christmas

“She didn’t come back to you? Tell you she’d made a mistake?”

“No.” He looked at her. “Is that what you’re hoping for?”

“Me?” She shook her head fiercely. “I have very few real friends, Jacob. Few people I can trust.” She sighed. “You were right. He showed me his true colors.”

She folded into herself. But Jacob knew that her heart was broken.

Jacob’s heart had been broken, too. Worse than the embarrassment. Worse than the jealousy or the anger or the betrayal—it was the secret inner sadness, the empty pit of abandonment that nobody ever talked about. It was the stark reality at the end of the day, when you came back to your apartment and you were alone. Because the only people you’d trusted had taken your heart and tossed it away.

“Don’t feel sad for me,” Isabel said. “I’ve just decided I am going to this wedding. I’m going to show Malcolm that he still has a competitor for this job. He’s not the shoe-in that everybody thinks he is.”

She leaned over and kissed Jacob on the cheek. “Let’s get back in the car and drive to Vermont, please.” She smiled. “But I’m not sitting in the back. There’s no need for that anymore.”

As she turned and climbed inside, Jacob stood there in the rain, touching his cheek where she’d kissed him.

He should be happy. He’d gotten what he wanted from her—they were going north—but at the same time he’d lost something in the process, too. Some level of protection that she’d just stripped from him.

He wondered if he could get it back before it was too late.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_97eb3232-12d3-5f76-8848-e0af3ee3f69d)

FLIPPING HER SEAT warmer to the highest setting, Isabel enjoyed the warmth that seeped into her bum. She sighed, wriggling her thighs and stretching her toes.

Thirty minutes outside New York City, past the congestion and stops, the drive was more freeing to her than she’d expected.

She felt mostly awe as the SUV hugged the curves of one of the massive motorways she’d read about. They passed the hugest lorries she’d ever seen, most of them left in their dust. Jacob roared at a steady clip in the left lane, usually the slow lane for her—but everything was flipped backward for her, with the driver on the left-hand side of the car.

This was a five-hour drive away from the rut, the loneliness, the stalled disappointment that her life had become.

She gazed through the sparkling clean glass. Welcome, success. From now on, everything would be new again, including her.

They threaded through some pretty parkways that would connect to another major route, Route 91 in Connecticut, and then all the way north to Vermont. For too long, Isabel had been cooped up in the city, bound to her work. She had barely left her campus or residence hall, unless as part of her studies.

Two years ago, during student orientation, she’d been part of a group that had toured the stock market and watched the famous ringing of the bell, and another week, had walked through Central Park. She’d even toured the museums one rare Sunday.

But since classes had started, she’d never veered from the work it took to earn her degree. This was a fresh way to start over with a renewed attitude.

“How is it that you know your way around the countryside so easily?” she asked Jacob.

“This is Connecticut.” He shrugged. “I have family here.”

“You grew up here?”

He gave a tight nod. “I did.”

Such a different world. A different life. They shared a common language, but the States seemed so much more complicated and larger than what she was used to.

Louder, faster, more crowded. Their course through Jacob’s home territory changed to a gently rolling two-lane motorway with no lorries, only cars, and then again to a larger motorway. Jacob stayed in the left lane most of the drive north. He used a GPS, as she liked, though he kept the radio off. He drove carefully, not recklessly, but he didn’t fear speed traps.

They saw several pulled-over motorists with police officers in cars, issuing tickets.

“Yeah, that’s Connecticut,” Jacob mentioned with a smile.

“We tend to follow the rules in Scotland. Nobody likes to get fined.”

“That’s not a problem I have very often, being in law enforcement,” he replied.

She’d almost forgotten his profession. With each passing mile, rather than feeling anxious over going someplace new, someplace she was unsure how to act in, she felt calmer in his presence.

“There’s a rest stop up ahead,” he said. “I’m going to pull in. There are facilities and vending machines, but if you’d rather sit down to eat, there’s a better place about an hour up the road.”

“You know this route to Vermont well. Do you drive it often?”

He smiled slightly, as if to himself. “I haven’t been in Vermont since college, on a ski weekend.”

“We have skiing in Scotland, too,” she remarked.

He glanced at her. Those two frown lines were between his eyes again. “Do you live in Edinburgh?”

Was he asking if she was a city girl? She did live in the city, but during this drive through Connecticut, seeing all the trees again and the rolling hills, she was getting a bit homesick for the country.

“I have a flat in Edinburgh. I work in the corporate headquarters for my family’s company. But I grew up in the Highlands.”

Near Inverness. She felt a stab of nostalgia for the deep blue lochs, the glens, the relative ease with which one could drive past castles from east to west, North Sea to Irish Sea.

Jacob was staring at her.

“How much longer until Vermont?” she asked politely.

He laughed. “We’re not even in Massachusetts yet. We have two more state lines to cross.”

She took it to mean they had a lot more time to spend together in their cocooned, rolling world. That made her smile. And she didn’t have to fake it.

* * *

JACOB HAD PLANNED out the route already, days ago. He knew where each stop was that they would make. Nothing would be left to chance. This was how he worked, how he was trained.

And yet, he’d never had a protectee like Isabel.

She’d thrown him off balance yet again.

For one thing, she sat up front with him. For the past hour, she’d been toying with the satellite radio. She was putting on music that messed with his head. ʼ70s on 7, the station was called.

All kinds of old pop music that had played in their apartment back when he was a kid—just him and his mom, together in New York City. Sometimes even years later, alone in the new house in Connecticut with Daniel—Jacob’s stepdad—she would cry silently over those old songs when Daniel wasn’t around. She never told Jacob why, but he didn’t need to ask.

There were some things he wasn’t ever supposed to ask. They only caused sadness and silence. Daniel was a calm, levelheaded guy. He hated conflict in the home, and Jacob’s mom shared that aversion.

Jacob ran his hand through his hair. He was thinking all these things just because they were driving through the state where he’d lived in his teens. He’d learned every inch of this place like the back of his hand, but especially the tristate area: southern Connecticut, New York City metro and northern New Jersey.