Free Must Love Scotland by Grace Burrowes

near a real fire for years.”
    Hadn’t been held in a real embrace, hadn’t been kissed in the pouring rain, hadn’t made love until she was too satisfied to move.
    What the hell has my life come to?
    “Fish and chips?” Niall asked, rearranging the table and chairs so they were closer to the fire. “A wee dram to chase off the chill? Sticky toffee pudding?”
    “All of the above,” Julie said, taking the chair Niall held for her. “You should eat up too, Niall. We’ll need our strength if the weather ever clears, and I may never again have a chance to enjoy all these wonderful Scottish delicacies.”
    Behind the bar, a glass went pinging to the floor, but it must have bounced off a rubber mat because it didn’t shatter.
    “I’ll place our orders, then,” Niall said, taking Julie’s purse from her shoulder and wedging it onto the dark beam that served as the fireplace mantel. “You sit right there and decide how you’d like all those Scottish delicacies served, though you can have seconds if you wish.”
    He was flirting. Julie reviewed their conversation and wondered if she had been flirting too.
    Yes, she had, most definitely, been flirting. A day to renew her acquaintance with simple pleasures then.
    “May I have thirds?” she asked, peering up at Niall.
    He got a handful of her bun, gently tipped her head back, and kissed her on the mouth.
    “Julie Leonard, you may have as many servings as you please, for as long you’re putting your feet under the same table as my own.”
    Well.
Julie ate every bite, ordered a second sticky toffee pudding to go, and even had a taste of Niall’s caramel apple crisp.
    ***
    Julie Leonard was wrecking Niall’s game. She looked delicious wet or dry, and he had a hunch she’d look good tidy or tousled too. He barely tasted his fish and chips, but the whisky—or perhaps Julie’s hand accidentally brushing his thigh when he’d held her chair?—warmed him up most agreeably.
    The rain had slowed by the time Niall pulled into the cottage driveway, and the afternoon stretched before him. He ought to start on his inquiries regarding the blasted will Declan MacPherson claimed to have unearthed. The document could well be some damned writ permitting cattle to graze on the village green, a list of farm equipment, a letter between cousins.
    His attorneys would want a look, his accountant would pitch a fit, the bank would carry on as if—
    “Niall, won’t you come in with me?”
    Julie’s question was not innocent. She might have intended it as a simple gesture of hospitality, but Niall suspected she was flirting. She was subtle about it, though an invitation hung in the air, like the rain dripping from the leaves, the scent of woods and pine, the glow in Niall’s belly from a nip of smoky, island single malt.
    “Julie, if I come inside with you, I’ll want to take you upstairs. Is that what you want?”
    “You’ll want to go to bed with me?”
    “Yes.” That was the simplest part of what Niall wanted with Julie Leonard. The rest was of no moment, when she’d leave in less than two weeks, and an expensive, protracted battle loomed courtesy of Declan MacPherson and his infernally literary granny.
    A little joy snatched on the eve of battle wasn’t too much to ask.
    And Niall could be Julie’s joy, too, as she prepared to lay the groundwork for the long struggle to land a judgeship.
    “You’ll be my rebound ride?” Julie asked, staring straight ahead at the snug little cottage. “You deserve better, Niall. I don’t want to be one of those golf groupies who sees you as a notch on her putter.”
    Julie wasn’t a golf groupie. Niall was beginning to wonder if she was any kind of golfer at all.
    He got out of the car, and Julie did likewise. Douglas sat regarding them through the kitchen window, his expression sagacious.
    “You’ll soon go back to Maryland,” Niall said when he and Julie were under the porch overhang. “I’ll stay here and thrash through the