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hear Liam Cromarty’s.
    She opened the door to find the man himself on her doorstep. The cat shot out between his legs, while Uncle Donald remained at the table, munching the last of Louise’s raspberry scone.
    “Uncle, what a surprise.” Liam clearly wasn’t pleased to see Donald, and neither was he surprised.
    “Liam, good day to ye. Help yourself to a scone, and the coffee’s hot.”
    Liam wore a kilt, another black T-shirt, and a wool jacket. The only resemblance between the two men, though, was size and blue eyes.
    “I have an aunt just like Uncle Donald,” Louise said, patting Liam’s chest. “Every bit as presuming, though not half as likable. You might as well have some coffee. I’m not quite ready to leave.”
    “Liam doesn’t eat meat,” Uncle Donald observed as he dusted his fingers. “Makes him skinny and cranky, but a day in the city will do the boy good.”
    “At least I don’t housebreak uninvited,” Liam remarked, taking up Dougie’s empty green bowl and running it under the tap. “You’ll cost Jeannie her business one of these days, old man. Miss Cameron’s a lawyer. She can sue you for unlawful entry and pilfering her scones.”
    Liam sounded more Scottish—“auld mon”—and he looked more Scottish in his kilt and boots. He smelled the same, though. Spicy, woodsy, delightful.
    “Save me the last raspberry scone,” Louise said, “and Uncle Donald, it was a pleasure to meet you—mostly.”
    With two Cromarty men in the kitchen, the space became significantly smaller. Louise took herself upstairs, grabbed a shower, finished dressing, and came down to find Liam alone, putting the last of the dishes away.
    “You can relax,” Louise said. “Uncle Donald hadn’t really warmed up before you got here, and your deep, dark secrets are safe for now.”
    Liam draped a red plaid towel just so over the handle to the oven. “You have an aunt like him?”
    “She has to let everybody know I graduated first in my law school class, and that business with art school was a funny little idea I picked up from the Yankees, bless their hearts.”
    Liam stared at the towel, his hands tucked into his armpits. “And every time she says it, you hurt a bit, but you’ve learned not to show it. I don’t drink spirits.”
    Every time Aunt Evangeline dismissed four years of hard work and heartbreak as a silly little phase, Louise died inside. When Aunt Ev started in on
that awful man
and
the silly business about the pots
, Louise spent days in hell.
    “Sobriety is a fine quality in the man who’ll be driving me all over Scotland, Liam.”
    His shoulders relaxed, his hands returned to his sides. “I enjoy a good ale, and I’ve been known to have a glass of wine.”
    The topic was sensitive, though, and personal, so Louise changed the subject. “Do we pack lunch, or eat on the run?”
    “We’ll eat atop of Arthur’s Seat, unless you have an objection to picnicking?”
    Louise had not gone on a picnic for… she couldn’t recall her last picnic. “No objection at all. Let me grab my jacket and purse, and last one to the car is a rotten egg.”
    When she joined Liam at the car, he held the door for her, and she climbed in, prepared to enjoy a day that combined art, architecture, exercise, and natural beauty.
    Also some company, though who would have thought: Liam Cromarty, that Scottish male monument to relaxed confidence and easy grace, had deep, dark secrets after all.

    Liam enjoyed art—sublime art, ridiculous art, functional art, art that struggled, art that failed, art that did both.
    The greatest work of art ever conceived, however, was the human female.
    He’d forgotten that.
    Louise Cameron first thing in the morning was a different creature entirely from Louise striding around the busy airport terminal, Louise making pronouncements about whom she did and did not kiss, and Louise marching down the river trail.
    Louise in the morning was sweet, a little creased around the edges, and