To Scotland With Love Read Online Free PDF

over the years.”
    Deydie made a disgusted grunt with enough vinegar to sour the whole ocean. “Your hair looks the same color as your da’s.”
    As Cait grabbed the onion and peeled off the skin, her eyes filled with tears. She’d come home to Scotland hoping for a glimmer of the happiness she’d known as a child. Instead, she’d stepped into a nightmare. Why couldn’t Deydie see that Cait was her mother’s daughter, too?With more force than she’d meant to, she brought the knife down and hacked the onion into two pieces. The floodgates opened and tears fell down Cait’s cheeks, blurring her vision. She jabbed the knife into the cutting board, handle up.
    Wiping her face, she got up from the table, not meeting her grandmother’s eyes. “Sorry. I’m heading back to the pub. To rest. Jet lag has caught up with me.” The only thing she wanted to do was to crawl under her mother’s quilt and never come out.
    Cait slipped on her jacket as she hurried to the door. She wasn’t quick enough, though. As she went out, Deydie got in the last word, and it wasn’t pretty.
    â€œGo on with ye now. Running away. Just like your da.”
    * * *
    Deydie crumpled into the rocking chair, the last eighteen years of bitterness, disappointment, and abandonment weighing her down. She put her head in her hands.
    â€œI shouldn’t have done it,” she said to her palms. “I’m as bad as me own mother.”
    That wasn’t necessarily true. Mother had been much more wicked, cruelly lashing out because Deydie hadn’t been good enough. Even worse, Mother had taken every opportunity to criticize the village for not being as cultured as Edinburgh. Few in Gandiegow had cared when Mother had died of the fever. Mostly, they’d felt sorry for Deydie, losing both of her parents that winter and Deydie barely old enough to fend for herself.
    She glanced at her bed with the quilts piled underneath the counterpane.
    Dammit, she wasn’t her mother. She had friends, most especially her quilting ladies. They loved her. They’d miss her. They would grieve when she passed.
    Still, she shouldn’t have used her own sharp tongue against Caitie. But certainly, everyone in town would agree that her own granddaughter had shamed her by not coming home when she had the chance. By staying in America even after she was grown and out of her father’s house. Deydie gazed around at her meager surroundings, the cottage she’d lived in her whole life. How lonely she’d been. Not a single kinsman left in the whole world but Caitie.
    â€œThose Americans. They love to claim Scotland as their homeland, but they’re too good to sleep with the sheep.”
    Deydie pushed herself out of the chair to go finish chopping the vegetables. Just another meal she’d eat alone. She swiped at a tear on her old cheek.
    No sense bawling over spilled milk. Soon enough, Caitie would be wanting to get back to the big city anyway, no longer the small-town Scot she’d been.
    No reason to get attached to the lass again. Caitie is just passing through.

Chapter Three
    B y the time Graham returned to the pub from dropping Caitie at Deydie’s, that gnawing feeling had returned. That woman had something up her sleeve and no one could tell him differently. It was no coincidence that she’d shown up at his son’s doorstep. How had she known he’d be there? Who’d tipped her off? She had to be a reporter. His instincts were never wrong on that count. This was how he’d kept Gandiegow a secret for all these years.
    Last night, he’d tamped down his suspicions. Caitie was, after all, Nora Macleod’s daughter. He’d also let Caitie’s bum and various distracting parts distract him. But today, when she’d refused to stay with her gran and insisted on staying at his pub instead, it all fell into place. She was a journalist out to expose