Fire Maidens Scotland (Billionaires & Bodyguards #6) - Anna Lowe Page 0,2
packet of tissues and handed her one.
She smiled through her tears. “You’ve come prepared.”
He grinned and showed her the two backup packets he’d brought. “I know you too well.”
Fergus stuck on his reading glasses and picked up where Penelope had left off. “So calls the woodlark in the grove…”
Natasha’s knee bounced impatiently.
Lachlan frowned, picking up on a slight vibration through the floorboards. Someone was running down the hallway outside. His ears twitched and his nostrils flared, ready for trouble.
But that was a light, woman’s step, not the heavy stomp of a soldier. Voices sounded outside — a woman pleading with the receptionist — and a moment later, the doors burst open.
“So sorry I’m late,” a woman cried, hurrying in.
Lachlan turned with everyone else, but Balloch Smith — the huge, lumbering representative of the Highland cattle shifters — blocked his view. Still, Lachlan’s heart hammered. Not in alarm — more like recognition, though he couldn’t place the voice or the fresh, flowery scent that wafted through the room as a young woman hurried toward the solicitor’s desk.
He craned his neck, wondering if he knew her. But Penelope dropped the packet of tissues just then, and he ducked to retrieve it. By the time he straightened, the new arrival had hurried past him, close enough for her elbow to brush his shoulder.
His blood rushed. Why? He fought the sense of joy and anticipation her touch had set off. Who was she?
At first, all he saw was a whirl of color, as if a gypsy had just danced by. Her clothes were bright and flowing, her gait light. Her long ponytail bounced like a thoroughbred’s tail, distracting him from the details that usually allowed him to judge a person at a glance.
Not a thoroughbred. A mustang, his dragon corrected.
Mustang fit — she was that free and spirited.
When she spoke, her words came out in a hurried American accent.
“I’m really sorry. I’m never late. Well, okay, sometimes… But sometimes, you can’t help it. Like today. I got off the flight first and everything. But then luggage took forever, and everyone’s came out before mine. Literally — mine was the very last one. Well, except a black suitcase, but that was from the flight before. Anyway, I caught a cab — one of the new ones — and we got lost. Actually, the driver got lost. Okay, more like turned around. Both of us. I swear, half the streets in Edinburgh are closed for that rally. Not that it’s not an important cause,” she hurried to add. “Just a little inconvenient for getting around. We had to take this long detour…” She waved a hand, nearly smacking Fergus, who’d leaned in to inspect her like an exotic specimen from a distant planet. “The driver tried South Bridge, but that was closed. So we headed all the way back to Princes Street, but that was backed up. Seriously — all the way back to the train station. Finally, I just got out and walked. But I had to drop off my things first…”
Everyone exchanged glances, unsure what to make of the one-woman whirlwind.
Every muscle in Lachlan’s body stiffened, and a slew of memories flooded his mind, transporting him to a different time and place. Rather than clutching thin air, his fingers were combing through long, wavy hair. Instead of parting in confusion, his lips moved over a soft pillow of goodness. And instead of the dull, mothball smell of the solicitor’s office, he caught the scent of fresh wild flowers — and the scent of desire. His desire, along with a woman’s. The only woman who’d ever made his heart sing.
He sat immobile, caught in memories he’d been forced to lock away for a long, long time.
Holly? his dragon whispered.
His first love. His only love. The one he’d spent a decade pretending to forget, though he knew he never would.
The solicitor beckoned her forward. “So pleased you could make it, Miss Jennings.”
She thumped an urn onto the huge oak desk, then turned as if to hurry away. But her elbow bumped the urn, and it nearly toppled over. When the solicitor lunged for it, it tipped farther, and everyone gasped.
“Trevor!” Penelope clasped her hands in horror.
Lachlan pictured old Trevor’s ashes spilling out and covering everyone in the front row. But at the last possible moment, Holly slapped one hand around the urn and another around the lid, keeping them clamped together. Slowly, she exhaled and set them back on the desk.