Page 89 of Some Like It Scot
Graeme had stayed beside me when meeting the sheep and almost kept guard while Maggie introduced me to the beasts in her own special way. He was a good man. Sure, a little grumpy around the edges, but good.
He caught me staring, and I looked back toward the view. A misty rain fell, the weather that seemed the most predominant to this place. “I refused to look up the story because I figured your version would be much more authentic than a Google search.”
I almost felt him smile.
“Legend has it—”
“Do you realize how incredibly tantalizing those words are?” I sighed back into the seat and closed my eyes so nothing would distract me from the sound of his voice.
“—there was once a lass named Malvina who loved a warrior named Oscar, but before they could be wed, Oscar was killed in battle.”
I sat up and looked at him. “There are a lot of really sad Scottish stories, Graeme.”
“We try to keep things real. Life is filled with both bitter and sweet.”
I relaxed back, sending him a frown. “I’m waiting for the sweet part then.” I closed my eyes again.
“A messenger from the battle delivered the bitter news to Malvina, along with some heather flowers as a token of Oscar’s love. It is said that Malvina wished that whoever received heather flowers would know happiness and luck for their days since she’d known the happiness and love of a good man, despite having lost him.”
Bittersweet for certain. “So heather means love and luck?”
“Different types of heather have different meanings, I suppose.”The car wound up the drive to Craighill’s back entrance. “White is usually in reference to purity and happiness. It’s also thought to protect, which is why Scottish warriors often wore it into battle.” He sent me a wink. “It’s also believed that white heather grows over the resting place of faeries.”
“Ooh, now that sounds like a great post idea.”
He brought the car to a stop by the side entrance of the house. “There’s some up along Tearlach Path, if you fancy a look.”
“The place not too far from your house where you can see the Gribun cliffs?” I turned toward him. Light from the house was playing with evening shadows across his features. “That path?”
“Aye, but be careful when you visit faerie places. You never know what may happen.” His eyes twinkled as he exited the car and made it around to my side before I even gathered up my camera bag, an umbrella in hand.
“I suppose the other colors of heather have meanings too?”
He frowned as he looked down at me. “But you dinnae expect me to know them, do you?”
“Of course I do.” I rolled my eyes and stood. “You seem to know everything else.”
He released a loud sigh as if I were the most “bathersome” creature and then slid his arm around my waist to pull me nearer beneath the umbrella. I sucked in a deep breath of his leathery-sea scent and his touch, and decided to take the slowest walk in earth’s history toward the door of the house.
Tarry, just like Grandpa taught me.
“The heather on the far side of the loch that I can see from my window, it’s purple.”
“Ah, the most popular color.” He didn’t seem in a hurry either. “Purple can mean admiration or beauty. Usually offered to let the person know how much you value them in your life.”
“Oh.” A soft touch of rain hit the top of the umbrella, and Graemetugged me a teensy bit closer. I “cooried” in like the enthusiastic coorieer I realized I was. “And pink?”
“Pink?” Had we gotten even slower? “It means love.”
Love.My breath hitched on the word and my heart took the hint by racing into a faster rhythm. Was it even possible to love someone you’d just met? To feel a kinship more real than with some of the people you’d known your whole life?
I stopped and looked up at him, the house entrance too close. Too clearly an ending to the evening. “You are all sorts of surprising, aren’t you?”
“Surprising?” The question brewed off his tongue in that wonderfully Scottish way that I somehow felt in my chest.
I cleared my throat in an attempt to get my emotions under control. “Well, it’s just that you started off all grumbly and ‘Have you got two left feet, woman?’”—this said in my best Scottish impersonation.
“That was horrible.”
