Scotland for Christmas

The past is over, as his mother had so often said when he’d asked questions. It’s what’s in front of you that counts.

Well, that was what he was concentrating on now—what was in front of him. That was what this upcoming weekend would be about, despite the lousy choice that it was. But the choice to bail on the opportunity was even worse.

“I’ll do it,” he said to Lee. “I’ll guard Isabel Sage. Thanks for setting this up. I mean it.”

As he hung up, he felt Eddie’s gaze on him. Jacob sighed. “Do you want to go with me?”

“I wish I could. But Donna wouldn’t be happy if I left her and Alden for another work weekend.”

Jacob nodded, thinking of Eddie’s four-month-old son. “You’re right.”

“So you’ll be alone this time,” Eddie remarked, hunching deeper into his jacket. “There’ll be no team behind you to back you up. That’ll be different.”

Jacob considered that. Secret Service protective details were huge and complex. Whenever they did bodyguard assignments for a visiting head of state or a foreign dignitary, they worked in large, interconnected teams, with command posts, operation centers, motorcade service. One-on-one coverage was unheard of. “Yeah, I’m not looking forward to that.”

“Are you gonna be all right with this?” Eddie asked.

Jacob shoved his phone into his pocket. “Two days ago, we were responsible for escorting a murdering dictator—sorry, a member head of state—safely from the U.N. to his five-star hotel and back, and I did it without so much as looking cross-eyed at him. It’s a job, Eddie.”

“Yeah, but it’s also personal this time, Jake.”

A gust of wind sent some dead oak leaves skittering across the sidewalk. That, and the now-driving rain, soaking his bare head, seemed to slam into him personally.

“Why don’t you come in and finish dinner with us,” Eddie said. “We’ll talk about it. Sherry’s not bad. She’s just—”

“No,” Jacob interrupted. “Thanks. But I need to prepare for this job.”

He didn’t stick around to discuss it with Eddie any longer. But while Jacob jogged the few short blocks uptown to his apartment building, folded newspaper over his head, service weapon and badge at his hip, he couldn’t help deliberating on Eddie’s question.

Are you gonna be all right with this?

Of course. He had to be.

Even if Isabel Sage was as privileged and entitled as he assumed she was—the niece of a billionaire industrialist—he would never react to anything she said or did. Guarding people was his business, and he was damn good at it. He couldn’t let it matter that she was related to the family that had been involved with his father’s death.

Besides, his job didn’t affect him emotionally. Just as his father’s death didn’t.

As soon as he had the operational details for the psychologist, she would see that, and all would be well. He would soon be on his way to D.C.

* * *

JUST ONE MORE year and then you’ll be happy.

Those were the words Isabel Sage had written on the corner of a notebook. Old graffiti, scribbled last winter during a study session while a sad song played on her internet radio.

Outside Isabel’s window, three stories above the pavement, the city’s shop windows displayed the beginnings of winter decorations. In six more weeks came the Christmas break and the end of her term.

She’d been privileged to be here—a Scottish woman from the Highlands, living in the biggest city in America and studying international finance with the savviest people on Wall Street—though, to be honest, she’d been shocked by how lonely she’d felt.

Sighing, Isabel watched a queue of yellow taxicabs snake down Broadway, toward the route she knew led to the airport. Really, she was most looking forward to that day when she could fly home.

Isabel pulled off her earphones and turned away from the window to her case still open on her bed, and tossed inside a bra, some pants—underpants here, she reminded herself—and then added the dress she would wear to her cousin’s wedding reception.

Somehow, not even the promise of a weekend respite was raising her spirits, because at the end of the day, there was no escaping the fact that she would be attending a wedding without Alex, her longtime boyfriend. Which didn’t exactly ease her loneliness.

Another part of the problem, she reflected as she tossed in her cosmetics bag, was that the groom at the wedding was her cousin, Malcolm, her competitor for the job at home—the reason she was here, studying in New York. Malcolm—her uncle’s favorite—had a leg up on her. Now he was even getting married at a pretty inn—or so they said, though she hadn’t the heart to look it up online—in Vermont.

Like Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, she supposed. Her late father had enjoyed that old romantic film very much. But her father had died long ago. Her boyfriend was thousands of miles away in Scotland, on assignment as part of his lawyer duties, and he wouldn’t be available to accompany her, either.

Feeling gloomy, Isabel added her flatiron and comb to the case. Tossed a pair of shoes on top. She had better cover her disappointment soon, though she supposed it was the “attending solo” part that was truly bothering her.

All she knew was that she would give anything to have someone to go with. Just someone who knew her as she really was—someone she didn’t have to pretend with.

She heard a commotion outside in the corridor, near the lifts. Isabel straightened. Before she could investigate, her mobile phone rang. For a moment her heart skipped. Alex? But no, he was too busy to contact her on weekdays. And he was five time zones away, besides.

She checked the caller ID. It was the driver service her uncle used in New York. Her spirits sank lower, but she stuffed the disappointment down. Smile. If she put a smile on her face, then a smile would sound in her voice. A pleasant voice covered all manner of sins.

“Yes,” she said lightly into the phone. “This is Isabel.”

“Ms. Sage?” the dispatcher said. “I’m calling to confirm your one o’clock pickup.”

She forced herself to smile so hard, her lips hurt. “I was told it was a two o’clock pickup.”

“That explains it, then. Your assigned security agent buzzed you on the intercom but received no response.”

Isabel groaned. She’d been wearing a headset. Obviously, she’d been playing her music so loudly, she hadn’t heard the bell. “I’ll go down to the lobby and escort him upstairs myself. Is this the same driver who met me at the airport last September?”

“No. It’s not.” There was a pause. “You’ve been assigned to Jake Ross.”

A good Scots name. A Highland Scots name. That lifted her mood. Even if the man himself wasn’t Scottish, the name was a nice reminder of home. “Brilliant. I’ll go straight down and look for Mr. Ross.”

She piled everything still on her bed into her case and then zipped it up quickly. Made one last check of her face in the mirror: fine. She looked presentable.

As she opened her door, she bumped into Rajesh, his fist lifted to knock. He blinked at her. Rajesh was her suite mate, an engineering PhD candidate, with a dark moustache and snow-white turban.

“Braveheart,” he said. “There’s a man looking for you in the hallway.”

She didn’t react when he said Braveheart, though she felt a bit like cringing. So hard she’d worked to stay low-key amongst the members of her residence hall. For security purposes, she’d been taught since childhood never to let people know she was a member of the wealthy Sage family from Scotland.

Still, she smiled at him. “Thank you, Rajesh. I appreciate it.”

“Did you know he’s a Secret Service agent?” Rajesh asked. “Why would a Secret Service agent be looking for you?” He peered at her. “Did you do something wrong?”

“What? No. Of course not.” Isabel never so much as dropped a wrapper on the street. Shaking her head, she marched past him, into the living area of their four-person suite.

“Freedom,” Rajesh whispered as she brushed past, and he made that signal with his fist from the movie Braveheart.

Usually, she smiled congenially when he did that, but today she just couldn’t. He walked off, back to his group of engineer friends. She couldn’t see what they were doing in his room, but she could smell the pizza and hear the adverts on his television set.