Highland Secrets (English Edition) (9 page)

“You are a sour old woman”,
ranted Molly as I entered the kitchen to get my very hot cup of coffee. After that argument, I need something that would strengthen my nerves. I felt increasingly confused. There was the way which he treated me and kept me at a distance and then this attraction that I felt when I just thought of him. I cursed myself because I knew where it would lead. Attraction had led me into Aidan’s arms.

Adam
sat at the kitchen table and wrinkled his forehead in annoyance. “Stop grumbling, Molly”, he replied.

“No, I will not. Why don’t you finally just wake up.”
She looked at me, then at Adam and smiled. “Take the girl to the harbor festival tonight. She has been sat at home for days. You should both get out the house. A little change of scenery would do you both good. For God’s sake , don’t let the murders get you down like this. It will also look even more suspicious if you suddenly change the way you live.”

Adam
looked up and glanced over at me unmoved. “Do you fancy going out?”

I tilted my head
. “Is that a date?”, I asked snapping.

“No, just thera
py as ordered by Molly. And you said that I needed therapy.”

“Well, if I can help you with that, then I
’ll be happy to go to the harbor festival with you”, I said dryly and was happy that I would see something else besides the MacLeod’s estate.

At half past eight in the evening, Adam knocked at my bedroom door. I open
ed it in a white blouse and a dark blue, tight-fitting skirt, which was six inches above my knee. I opted to have my hair loose which is why my bright red mane dropped down over my shoulders in long waves.

Adam
raised his eyebrows and looked at me intently. His eyes went from my face, to my torso and right down to my legs and then back up again where they lingered on my hair. It felt as if his gaze was like a laser moving over my body and igniting every centimeter of my skin. My pulse started to accelerate and my breasts were heavy and hot. He moved one of his hands towards my locks and pulled a strand of my hair.

“Soft. And sexy.”
He let my hair fall again and moved away from the door so that I could step out. Adam was wearing his kilt again today. He had a sporran, a small bag which the Scot used to store bits and pieces like tobacco or money, tied around his hips. His dark hair was combed behind his ears. I also wanted to grab hold of his wonderful locks which stretched down to his shoulders, but I just didn’t dare to touch him.

“We’ll go through the basement. I have to pick something up that I
have promised to somebody.”

I nodded, but I actually
didn’t need to do that as Adam was in front of me and wasn’t able to see what I was doing behind him anyway. So I stuck my tongue out at him because his mood still didn’t appear to have improved.

I was amazed at how the basement looked. It seemed to be from
a different age. It was dark and smelt musty like any other basement. But it looked exactly like the dungeons in films that featured the middle ages. There was a long corridor with an arched ceiling. There were heavy wooden doors acting as exits off to the right and left. There were also a few gates like in prison.

“What kind of a basement is this?” I asked in amazement and looked at everything in great detail.

“It used to be a dungeon. The house was built in 1642. It belonged to the chieftain of the MacLeods at the time. Sometimes it was necessary to bring prisoners down here. They used to be wild times in the Highlands”, said Adam and looked at me with a grin on his face. He pointed to a wall in one of the cells on which thick chains that were getting rustier and rustier were still attached. “You can now use these chains for much nicer things.”

I squinted my eyes and then glared at him. “I bet you’ve already tried them out.”

Adam laughed raucously and carried on walking. “I haven’t done anything down here yet. But who knows …”

He opened one of the doors, turned on the light and entered the room that was a vault.
And a storage space. Barrels of different sizes were stored here from the floor right up to the ceiling. When I saw the barrels, it made me involuntarily think of my encounter with Adam in the distillery and at the same time I felt my face warm up and the heat go between my legs.

Adam
took one of the smaller barrels from a shelf. It was not larger than the 5-liter beer barrels that you find in supermarkets during the barbecue season. “That is a single malt from the year 1886. It is a very treasured possession. I ought to take it with me for Priest Jenkins. A good person can appreciate an expensive drop of whiskey. Him and my father were close friends. He asked me whether I could spare a barrel of it. How can I say no when his holiness is asking me.”

We left the basement through a small, unimposing wooden
door which acted as a side exit from the house to the outside. We then drove down to Dunvegan in Adam’s Porsche 911.

“I wouldn’t have considered you to be a Porsche driver”, I said when we had left the estate and were travelling along the country road. I looked at him from the side as I was saying this. He seemed
tense as he had been over the last few days. The imminent harbor festival wasn’t able to lift his spirits either. Why did he even commit to going with me?

“It is not any old Porsche. It is a classic from 1967.” He sounded quite peeved when he said it. Had I offended him unintentionally?

“1967, no wonder that everything looks so old.” I actually meant that to sound as if I was in awe, but Adam also got the wrong end of the stick about that. He looked over at me indignantly.

“Old
? Did you just say old? Nothing about this car looks old. Everything is in perfect condition.”

“I didn’t mean it like that”
, I murmered and avoided his glance by looking out of the side window. “I meant the design. It is very retro. Besides I like old things, I stammered again apologetically and I wanted to kick myself. Men and their cars. I should have known that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about a man’s car.

“So you like old things? Does that include men who are eleven years older than you?”

I gave him a confused stare, but he was looking at the road again. “Eleven years? What do you mean? Oh, you’re thirty five. That’s right.”

“So?”

“If you mean whether I would have a problem with older men, then no I wouldn’t.”

I saw him raise
his eyebrow. “Interesting.”

“Not really. You know I don’t really have a problem with older men, but I do
with men who go to bed with each and every woman.”

Adam laughed quietly. “The priest also has an issue with that, but you will
see that for yourself soon enough.”

Adam
parked the car in a narrow side street next to a church. He got out, walked around the Porsche and opened the door for me.

“Thank you, how gentlemanly of you”, I said sarcastically. He pursed his lips and went round the church to the front entrance with the small barrel lying in the crook of his arm like a baby. I smirk
ed quietly to myself at the thought.

He held the door open for me. “May I hold this door open for you too?”

Inside it looked like any other church. I had never been religious, but I had been to a church once or twice and never had a great feeling about it. It always smelt so musty, was sombre and felt a little eerie. I had barely entered the nave and I already started to get butterflies in my stomach. I looked around nervously and hoped that it wouldn’t last too long here.

I guess I was walking too slowly for Adam because he took me by the hand and brought me to the altar. Now I had butterflies in my stomach for a different reason and that was because Adam had touched me.
A tingling feeling from our joined hands immediately went up my arm to my chest where my heart was beating heavily and down to my stomach where I felt a pleasurable pulling sensation. I breathed out some air in frustration. Treacherous body.

Adam was making huge strides and I could barely keep up with him. I was relieved at that moment that I wasn’t wearing my high heels. Ever since I can remember, I didn’t like walking i
n shoes with heels and that’s why I avoided them whenever possible. And because I could imagine that this type of harbor festival involved a lot of walking, I decided to do without these instruments of torture today too. My eyes fell on Adam’s kilt with its material wrapped around his calves and which made quiet noises upon every step he took. I sighed. He really did have a pair of muscular, sexy calves. Alarmed, I put my hand over my mouth. How could I have these thoughts in a church?

We walked past the altar and before I even finished scolding myself for having such bad thoughts, Adam pulled me through another door into an office. He laid his hand on the
lower part of my back and led me towards the desk behind which the priest sat and looked at us both attentively. I hoped that he didn’t know anything  about the lewd thoughts I had had in his church.

Until now, I had been reasonably sure that there was no God. If there had been one, would he have really
allowed for a fourteen-year-old girl to lose both her parents? But by the look the priest gave me, I suddenly started to have doubts. He must have known that I had just imagined myself kissing up to Adam’s wonderful calves and then stopping between his legs to get a closer look at what the Scot wore underneath or didn’t wear as the case may be. Bloody hell. Did I just curse? Damn it. Linda, can you please just keep your trap shut? Just don’t think about anything at all.

“
Aye, Adam. You’ve brought somebody with you today? Please take a seat.”

Adam
put the barrel down on the desk in front of the priest. “I wasn’t intending to stay. We were planning on going to the festival.”

“Sit down briefly anyway”, insisted the grey-haired gaunt man in his sixties. He joi
ned his hands together and leant on the top of the desk.

Uncertain, I sat down on one of the old leather armchairs in front of the desk. Adam took a seat in the second one and
wheezed. “You wanted the malt. I brought it along for you. Is there anything else?”

“Why are you being impatient?” The priest looked back and forth between us. “Don’t you want to introduce me to your companion?”

“Priest Jenkins, this is Linda Sands. Linda, Priest Jenkins”, mumbled Adam and I could really sense that he felt just as uneasy as I did.

“
Linda, you really are a beautiful woman. Very natural. Completely different to the women Adam usually surrounds himself with.”

“Thank you”, I said politely. “I am not one of those
women that Adam usually surrounds himself with either.”

Adam
looked at me angrily from under squinted eyelids, while the priest opened his eyes wide in astonishment. “Then you must be the person responsible for restoring the paintings?”

“Yes, that’s her”, said Adam almost snarling.

“Aye, my old friend really did have a good eye when he chose you.” I assumed he meant Adam’s father by old friend. I fidgeted around nervously in my armchair.

“Did you want anything else
?, asked Adam impatiently.

“How are you finding it with us on the island?” The priest had obviously decided to ignore Adam. I wondered why Adam, despite looking uncomfortable, still remained seated and didn’t just stand up and leave. He must have respected the priest.

I looked at the priest. He looked so much smaller and slender, but there was something in his gaze that made me feel like I was back in my school days with a particularly strict teacher. “I haven’t seen very much yet. Only the MacLeod’s estate and the distillery. But I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far.”

“How
has Adam been treating you? Heaven knows that Adam can be a right rascal when it comes to women.” The priest laughed. Adam snorted.

“I think he’s making
an effort. He does have mood swings though”, I said honestly, but only to annoy Adam because I liked how he was squirming.

»Aye,
Adam is rarely in a good mood. That used to be different.” The priest frowned, glanced at Adam and then turned towards me again.

“I don’t want to hold you up too
much longer, but I have a small matter I need your help with, Adam. As you know, strong men don’t turn up here all that often.” The priest stood up and made a hand gesture pointing towards the door.

Adam
and I also got up. When we had left the office, Adam automatically reached out for my hand again which brought a smirk to the face of the priest. Priest Jenkins led us through the church and up a steep staircase to the bell tower. Anybody else may have been amazed by this, as only a select few ever got to see the tower, but I broke out into a huge sweat because I suffered from a fear of heights. And every step we continued to take upwards made my pulse beat faster and faster.

Adam
obviously noticed my nervousness or he saw it in my fearful gaze because, as we were all standing at the top next to the bell, he put his arm around my waist to protect me. It did make me feel protected in a certain way and at least it made me feel a little bit calmer to feel Adam’s body so close to mine.