Free Must Love Scotland by Grace Burrowes Page A

next round of foolishness with Declan’s lawyers. Why deny ourselves shared pleasure? A candidate for a judgeship can’t exactly kick up her heels in her own backyard, can she?”
    Not that she would. Julie Leonard wasn’t a kicking-up-her-heels sort. Even wet, her bun was still tidy.
    “A judgeship is years away,” Julie said, perhaps the first time she’d admitted that to herself. “But you have a point. I’m an employee of the state, an officer of the court, and I have to watch my step.”
    “You’re on holiday thousands of miles from home, Julie. Enjoy yourself.”
    Niall wouldn’t beg. Julie had been wheedled and manipulated enough, and he liked her hesitance. Flirtation was fun, but Niall had learned that what came next, for him at least, wasn’t as easily forgotten.
    Julie kissed him, pressed herself close to him in the gloom of the porch, the dripping trees all around them. She was extending an invitation, and maybe coming to a conclusion.
    Niall drew her closer, so she could feel the evidence of his arousal, and factor that into her decision. Her arms came around his neck—when had a woman ever fit him so well?—and she snuggled right into his embrace.
    “I’m out of practice, Niall. This could be awkward.”
    No, it could not, not with a fit like that. “I haven’t used my putter in a while either, Julie. We’ll keep swinging until the ball goes where we want it to.”
    She smiled at that. Golf lent itself to all manner of stupid analogies. The law probably did too.
    “I’ll need a minute upstairs,” Julie said, slipping away and opening the door. She put the extra sticky toffee pudding on the counter and knelt to pet the cat.
    Niall took his phone out and set it on the counter. “You have five minutes, madam.”
    Julie stared at his phone, then fished hers out of her enormous bag and placed it beside Niall’s.
    “Five minutes, and the cat stays down here,” she said.
    The cat went where he pleased. When Julie headed upstairs, Niall locked the various doors to the cottage, though, because Uncle Donald might see Niall’s car in the driveway and invite himself in for a cup of tea.
    “Our privacy is in your paws,” Niall said, giving Douglas a scratch under the chin. “Guard it well, and there’s tuna fish in it for you.”
    Niall used his five minutes to leave a message telling his lawyer to find him an expert who could decipher an old will without costing him a fortune. Then he made use of a guest toothbrush in the downstairs loo and dragged a comb through his hair.
    When Julie’s five minutes were up, Niall took the stairs, making certain his tread was audible. He found her sitting on the bed, still dressed, though her slides were by the window, and her feet were bare.
    And Julie’s hair was still in its chastity belt.
    Niall sat beside her. “Your expression was far more animated when you faced a full bowl of sticky toffee pudding with a spoon in your hand.”
    “I’m not married anymore,” Julie said. “There’s nothing my ex can appeal, no chance the decree can be overturned, but this…”
    Her head came to rest against Niall’s shoulder.
    “This makes it real,” he said. Like when the tour started, and he wasn’t on it. “You’re alone again, but you prove that by being with me. A paradox.” Or an irony. He slipped an arm around her waist, because sex was only part of what they were doing. “Are you scared, Julie?”
    She hiked a leg across his thighs, adopting a very friendly posture.
    “Niall, I am so
relieved
, so shamelessly, endlessly, unendingly relieved. No more
trying
, no more misplaced loyalty, no more pretending I haven’t been betrayed, no more ignoring the disappointment or the anger. I get my future back. I get
my self
back. I get back a simple, honest reality I never should have let slip from my grasp.”
    Julie was savoring a moment of victory, when Niall had feared she was hesitating before a decision she’d regret.
    “You’re quitting the