LITMIR.BIZ

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Christmas lights. A full moon hovered illusively among the clouds. Without warning her eyes filled and she closed them tight. How ironic it was that after all the times she and Tom had talked about visiting Scotland she should be going there alone, and under such inauspicious circumstances.

      She swallowed hard. Tom’s family’s roots were in Scotland, and traveling to the land of his forefathers had always been one of his dreams. Working in a side trip to St. Andrews or Troon—Tom had been an avid golfer—had held its own allure. They’d planned to make their way up the west coast and then travel to the Isle of Skye. Just wait until the kids are old enough to appreciate it, she’d always said.

      Now she wished she’d shut up.

      With a muffled sigh, she shifted the pillow farther into the crook of her neck and attempted to sleep. Regret wasn’t going to change a thing, she reminded herself sternly. The reality was that she was traveling to Scotland on her own, in mid-November, and the bleak weather forecast predicted rain, snow and subzero temperatures. A freak cold spell, they’d called it. Meredith shuddered, opened her eyes once more, grimaced at the chicken and the files in the neighboring seat and hoped the well-advertised central heating at the Strathcairn Arms really worked.

      But after ten minutes it became obvious sleep was not on the agenda. Fiddling in her pocket for her Palm Pilot, Meredith turned on the overhead light and checked the weather report again, praying it wouldn’t interfere with the tight schedule she’d set herself. With any luck she’d be back home in time to make Mick’s baseball game on Saturday.

      Closing her eyes once more, she tried to stop her thoughts from drifting to Tom and then back to Rowena, wondering what her client’s letter to her grandson contained. Had it been a sentimental soul cleansing, an expiation of her sins or merely a history of past events? Perhaps it was a justification of her actions.

      But somehow, knowing Rowena, Meredith didn’t think the latter was the case. Accepting a bottle of water from the flight attendant hovering in the darkened aisle, she turned her thoughts to Dallas, who was still being thoroughly obtuse. The girl was obviously angry and confused by Rowena’s rejection, even though she’d had every intention of refusing the money she’d expected Ro would leave her. The real question, though, was why the relationship between grandmother and grandchild had deteriorated so badly in the first place.

      From comments Dallas had made, it had become clear that Rowena and Isabel had been forever at odds. Was that why Dallas professed so little love for her grandmother? It would be natural that she’d side with Isabel, however inadequate a mother she might have been. Or maybe Rowena had created a barrier between them—perhaps when she lost Isabel, she simply turned her back on Dallas, unable to accept her daughter’s death.

      Recalling the numerous conversations she’d had with Rowena, Meredith knew she’d loved Dallas deeply and that she’d spent many hours trying to breach the rift between them. It was therefore shocking that the granddaughter she clearly cared about was so summarily cut out of the will.

      When Meredith last spoke with Dallas before boarding, she’d noticed something in the girl’s voice—a note of near-hysterical despair—that made her determined to try to secure some kind of financial benefit for her. Perhaps she should hint to Gallagher that he might be sued if he didn’t make a settlement with Dallas, although that was hardly ethical. Besides, something as trivial as a lawsuit would hardly faze a man used to taking on unions. He probably got sued so often he had a bevy of lawyers at his disposal to swat down anyone impertinent enough to assert he’d done anything wrong.

      As dawn broke, Meredith watched the misty, translucent glimmer on the distant horizon turn into soft gray. It was only another couple hours before they landed. Changing positions, she rolled her shoulders and decided this whole situation had an air of the absurd. What must it be like to be left a large fortune? What would she do if Great-Aunt Agatha left her one hundred million dollars? The thought lightened her mood considerably. Aunt Agatha was the meanest old scrooge. She’d probably leave whatever she had to the cat-and-dog home. Yet she liked Mick. Imagine if her aunt died and suddenly left her son a fortune?

      Meredith would not want that kind of responsibility for herself nor her kids. They were doing okay as they were. Of course, since she’d taken on the new responsibility of her own law practice, she exercised caution where spending was concerned. But she’d received a comfortable sum from Tom’s life insurance, her client list was growing and she had a paid roof over her head. What more could she ask for?

      Tom.

      She would give it all up in a heartbeat if only she could have him back, at her side, laughing that rich, deep laugh, teasing her. Oh, for the warmth and security of his strong arms enveloping her. What wouldn’t she do, Meredith asked herself, for just one more night curled up against him in their big, soft bed, cuddled under the goose-down duvet?

      She must have dozed awhile for she jolted from a strange dream as the flight attendant’s voice came on the loudspeaker, announcing they were about to land.

      Fastening her seat belt, Meredith dragged her fingers through her hair, then gathered her thoughts and her papers. She must stop feeling sorry for herself and concentrate on her client. For even though she despised everything Grant Gallagher represented, like it or not, he was now her responsibility.

      He woke up stiff and bad-tempered.

      It did not take long for him to remember why.

      Now, as he walked along the bluff, doing battle with a sharp east wind and driving rain, Grant muttered a string of oaths. He’d been doing a lot of that over the past couple days, he realized, as anger coursed through him as furiously as the bleak waves pounding the jagged rocks below.

      “Damn Rowena Carstairs,” he muttered, half to himself, half to the two pointers, Monarch and Emperor, scampering at his heels. Stopping at the edge of the cliff, his black hair whipping across his face, Grant gazed out at the water. Somehow she’d managed to resurrect the niggling demons he’d believed long put to rest. Questions about who his real parents were had haunted his childhood. His endless wishful thinking had always entailed the secret hope that someday, by some miraculous act of God, he’d wake up to discover that the handsome jet-setting pair of Raymond and Gina Gallagher, who, for some incomprehensible reason, had adopted him, would return him to two mythical figures he envisioned as his birth parents.

      Of course, at this point in his life, he couldn’t give a damn about the past. He’d emerged unscathed and had built a life that suited him fine—no long-term attachments, no personal commitments except to himself. That some unknown woman should claim to be his grandmother and unearth his past was nothing more than a practical joke—and a poor one at that.

      Except that he wasn’t laughing. Because, he admitted as he breathed in the salty, damp November air, he’d never doubted the letter told the truth. Had it been sentimental or soppy he might have been suspicious. But Rowena Carstairs offered no mushy regrets, no pleas for forgiveness. Just the bare facts. And to his annoyance, he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

      Moving forward in long strides, Grant wished now that he’d followed his first instinct and thrown the bloody thing into the fire. He wanted to distance himself from all its implications. But even as he resolutely ignored the couriered packages from the lawyer’s office in Savannah, he found himself hypnotically drawn to all that they represented. For in Rowena Carstairs’s letter lay the embryos of answers to the mystery of his past.

      Now, if he wanted, those answers could be his.

      Grant threw a stick idly across the weather-beaten grass and watched the dogs hurl themselves at it.

      “Hell,” he exclaimed, turning quickly about, his Wellington boots squelching in the mud as he marched back toward Strathcairn Castle, hands stuffed in the deep pockets of his Barbour jacket, each word of Rowena’s spidery black writing stamped in his psyche forever. It was an undeniable reminder that the world he’d created was an illusion.

      With the wind to his back, Grant climbed the last few hundred yards to the castle. The black mood that had settled over him for the past few days was affecting his work. The deal in Sydney was full of loopholes.

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