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Andrea looked around the nearly empty lot, but she saw no vehicle she would have expected him to drive.
    He dug his keys from his pocket and threw her that half-smile as he unlocked a battered green Subaru wagon. “Disappointed?”
    “No. But I admit, I didn’t see this one coming.”
    “I’d never leave a nice car at an airport for weeks.” He popped the hatch and loaded their suitcases in the back. “Besides, the roads here can get pretty bad in the winter.”
    He slammed the rear door with a rattle of license plates and then opened the passenger side for her. When they were both settled in the car, he asked, “Are you hungry?”
    She was, but she hardly wanted to do something as social as have lunch with him. Besides, she only had thirty-six hours to concoct a proposal that would sell her company’s services to a somewhat disinterested client.
    Well, he’s interested. Just not in the same thing I’m proposing.
    She gave a little internal laugh. Then she noticed his quizzical look and realized she still hadn’t answered his question. “I’m fine. I’d rather get started on the proposal tonight if I can.”
    “Suit yourself. If you change your mind, I probably have something in the glove box.”
    As he put the car in drive and exited the long-term lot, Andrea popped the latch on the glove compartment, more interested in what the contents might tell about her client than in finding a snack. All in all, it was disturbingly tidy. A packet of road maps, a pair of lined leather gloves, and an unopened bag of organic trail mix. Barely worth the effort of looking. So he didn’t like to get lost, his hands got cold in the winter, and he was health conscious. Hardly illuminating. She closed the compartment with a click.
    “What were you expecting to find?” His voice hummed with barely repressed amusement.
    Dang. She needed to stop being so transparent. He’d been far too smug about his lucky guesses in the airport. She looked at him over the top edge of her sunglasses. “Oh, I don’t know. Unpaid parking tickets? Little black book?”
    “I’m disappointed. I thought you’d at least give me credit for being smart enough not to leave that sort of thing in the car.” He grinned, and she almost felt relieved. Playful was much preferable to … smoldering.
    She fixed her gaze out the window while he drove toward Inverness proper, then turned south onto the A82. Andrea relaxed into the seat and watched thick patches of trees and open fields fly by. She rarely got the opportunity to break free of the noise and activity of the city, to be surrounded by nature. The few times she had gone home to Ohio, she’d been struck by the broad expansiveness of the land, a sort of freshness. By contrast, Scotland felt old. Maybe it was just her awareness of its long history of conflict and warfare, its old, majestic structures and even older ruins, but even the trees felt more deeply rooted here.
    Signs of civilization thinned as they skirted a broad lake, its edge choked with greenery and mountains rising sharply beyond. “What is that?”
    James glanced out her window. “That’s Loch Ness.”
    “As in the Loch Ness monster?”
    “One and the same. We can stop in Drumnadrochit if you’d like. Urquhart Castle is worth a look, and the view’s spectacular from the ruins.”
    She was sorely tempted to take him up on the offer, but this wasn’t a pleasure trip. She was here to close a business deal, and the more firmly she kept that in mind, the better off she’d be. “Thanks, but I really need to get to work.”
    “That makes it difficult for me then. Less than two days to change your mind about an entire country, and I can’t even show you its historic treasures.”
    “You take this very personally, don’t you?”
    “How else should I take it? You seem to have rather strong feelings on the subject.”
    “There’s nothing particularly wrong with Scotland,” she admitted. “It was just supposed to be my first