“And then?”
She shrugged. “Then nothing. You live your life in Scotland. She lives hers here in Candlewick. I’ll call you when the time comes.”
“When she dies.”
“If you want to be blunt about it, yes.”
He straightened slowly, unfolding his tall, lanky frame and flexing his wrists until they popped. Despite his self-professed temporary vow of celibacy, he put his hands on her shoulders and massaged them.
Cate couldn’t decide if he was attempting to comfort her, or if he was trying to avoid shaking her until her teeth rattled.
Maybe he subconsciously wanted to touch her. She didn’t know.
Brody rested his forehead against hers. “You’re trying to make me lose my temper, Catie lass, but it won’t work. I came here to take care of my grandmother’s affairs, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Your way.”
“It’s the only way, or at least the only way that makes sense.”
His breath was warm on her face. The masculine scent of his skin filled her lungs when she inhaled sharply, imprinting on every cell of her body. Brody was not a man one could easily forget. She leaned into him, blaming her weakness on the late hour and her bone-deep distress. “I won’t help you manipulate her, Brody. I won’t.”
His chest rose and fell in a sigh so deep it made her sad. “I suppose I can understand that. At least promise me you won’t be deliberately obstructive. Duncan and I love Granny. We’ll take care of her, Cate.”
She nodded, her eyes damp. Was it hormones making her weepy or the knowledge that something miraculous had happened? She and Brody had created a baby. People did that every day in every way. But sheer numbers didn’t make the awe she felt any less.
With her breasts brushing the hard planes of Brody’s chest and her barely-there pregnant tummy nestled against him, she felt an incredible surge of hope mixed with despair. What she wanted from him was the stuff of fairy tales. The gallant suitor. The happy ending.
She made herself step away. “I need to go back to bed,” she said. “Please leave.”
Brody cupped her cheeks in his big, calloused hands. Years of handling rope and sails had toughened his body. Even without Isobel’s estate, Brody’s fleet of boats had made him a wealthy man. Isobel had bragged about it often enough. The eventual inheritance would secure his fortune.
His big frame actually shuddered, his arousal impossible to miss. “If it was going to be anybody, it would be you, Cate. But I’ve never been much for home and hearth.”
“Thank you for being honest,” she whispered.
Pressing his lips to hers, he kissed her long and deep. It was a goodbye kiss, bittersweet, painfully bereft of hope. The kind of kiss lovers exchanged on the dock when moviegoers knew the hero was never coming back.
Cate twined her arms around Brody’s neck and clung. If this was all she would ever have of him, she needed a memory to sustain her. She could be a single mother. Lots of women did it every day. She wouldn’t be any man’s obligation.
There was a moment when the tide almost turned. Brody was hard and ready. His hands roved restlessly over her back and settled on her bottom, dragging her close. His hunger made him weak and Cate strong. But she had always been the kind of girl to play by the rules.
Only twice in her life had she broken them, and both times she had paid a high price.
Drawing on a dwindling store of resolve, she released him and eluded his questing hands. “Go,” she said. “Go, Brody.”
And he did.
Brody spent the following week working himself into a state of physical exhaustion so pervasive and so deep he fell into bed each night and was instantly unconscious. Six months of neglect had left Isobel’s spectacular house with a host of issues and problems to be addressed.
He and Duncan made massive lists and checked them off with painstaking slowness. Damaged roofing shingles from a winter storm. Rotting wood beneath a soffit. Gutters clogged with leaves.
Some of the backlog of general repairs dated back to his grandfather’s illness. The old man had suffered a stroke five months before he died. Virtually nothing had been done to the house, inside or outside, for almost a year.
Isobel was a wealthy woman. Brody and Duncan could easily have hired a crew to come in and do everything. But the two grandsons were silently paying penance for not coming sooner and staying longer.
The very depth of their guilt made Brody realize that returning to Scotland without their grandmother was going to be unacceptable.
No matter what Cate said, Candlewick was not Isobel’s home anymore. Without her beloved American-born husband, she would be far better off to cross the ocean with her two devoted grandsons and settle in amongst the people of her youth.
On the eighth day, Brody and Duncan abandoned the house so a professional cleaning service could descend upon the mountaintop retreat and restore the estate to its previous glory.
While that refreshing and refurbishing was underway, the two men helped Isobel pack up her personal items downtown, everything she had taken with her when she moved into the apartment over her offices.
While Duncan carried a stack of boxes down to the car, Brody sat beside his grandmother and took her hands in his. “You know this is only temporary, Granny...a few nights for you to say goodbye to the house. I contacted a Realtor this morning about preparing the listing.”
Isobel Stewart pursed her lips and straightened her spine. Her dark eyes snapped and sparked with displeasure. “I love you dearly, Brody, but you’re a stubborn ass, exactly like your father and your grandfather before you. I am neither weak nor senile nor in any kind of physical decline. I’m old. I get it. But my age doesn’t give you the right to usurp my decision-making.”
Brody ground his teeth. “Duncan and I have lives we’ve put on hold. We did it gladly, because you’re very important to us.”
Her fierce expression softened. “I appreciate your concern. I truly do, my lad. But you’re making a mistake, and you’re being unfair. I’m moving back into my beautiful home—thanks to you boys—but I’m not returning to Scotland. My dear Geoffrey is buried in Candlewick. Everything we built together is here in the mountains. I can’t leave him behind. I won’t.”
“It’s dangerous for you to live alone,” Brody said, incredulous to realize that he was losing the battle. Isobel would have been far safer to stay here in town where people could keep an eye on her. Now he and Duncan had convinced her to do the very thing they wanted to avoid.
“Life is a dangerous business,” the old woman said, her expression placid. “I make my own choices. You can go home with no regrets.”
Brody knelt at her side, putting his gaze level with hers. “Please, Granny. For me. Come to Scotland.”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I’ve been away from Scotland too long. Candlewick is my home. Your grandfather and I, together, built something important here...a legacy. We spent so many happy days and months and years creating a host of memories that are all I have left of him. But I might consider a wee compromise if another party is agreeable.”
He couldn’t imagine any scenario that would make the situation palatable. “Oh?”
His grandmother stood and smoothed the skirt of her black shirtwaist dress that might have been designed anytime in the last six decades. Jet buttons marched all the way up to her chin. “I