Echoes of Edinburgh Read Online Free

and told her he worked for a private family foundation. “I have meetings in Edinburgh and Glasgow this trip before moving on to London. Although it’s an American foundation, my work takes me all over the world.”
    “Do you ever tire of traveling?” she said as they reached the restaurant, and he held the door for her.
    “I’m starting to.”
    She puzzled over his answer as the buzz from the noonday lunch crowd engulfed them, lively and mixed with the clatter of silver and glassware. A young hostess greeted them with a bright smile, and Robert rose to his feet and waved from a table by a side window.
    “This is charming,” Shelby said as Harrison helped with her chair. A small bouquet of purple and pink flowers sat in a crystal vase in the middle of the white linen-covered table. “Is that thistle?”
    “Aye,” Robert said. “The national flower of Scotland.”
    Harrison nudged her arm. “Catch up on your tour book reading last night?”
    “A bit.” She grinned. “Truthfully, I spent more time writing in my diary about a chivalrous hero named Harry who saved me from falling off an extinct volcano to certain death.” Where did that come from? Something about Harrison apparently brought out her inner flirt from wherever it’d been hiding the last few years. Well, make that pretty much her entire life.
    Surprised delight flickered in Harrison’s eyes as servers brought three glasses of water that Robert must have ordered.
    “Fair warning. You keep calling me that, I’ll find a way to retaliate.” Harrison’s tone was light and teasing, but that all-too-dangerous smile seared straight through her.
    “Call you what? Hero? Last time I checked, it was a flattering term.”
    He chuckled. “Harry.”
    “I’m shaking in my flats.”
    “Then I’d better stick around to catch you if you fall down a slope.”
    “Yes, well,” she said, “been there, done that. Next time, I’ll try to do something more original.”
    Both Harrison and Robert laughed.
    “Your sense of humor is infectious,” Harrison said, raising his glass in a toast, and Robert followed suit. “Wry and borderline British in your employment of sarcasm. It’s difficult to do well. They’ll make a local out of you yet.”
    “Don’t know about that.” She watched as Harrison swirled the ice in his glass. “But what you’re doing now is making what little ice you have dissipate faster.” She took a sip of her tepid water. Ugh, although it was better than nothing.
    “Now, you see?” Harrison laughed. “That comment is exactly why I find you so fascinating, Shelby. Why say melt when you can say dissipate?”
    The way Harrison looked at her, it was as though he could see everything about her—the good parts as well as her many faults—yet he liked her in spite of them. For a woman known for her tenacity and forthrightness, she was quickly becoming absentminded and fanciful. From across the table, Shelby glimpsed Robert’s obvious approval of their unabashed flirting.
    Boisterous laughter came from behind the swinging kitchen door, and a woman nearly as wide as she was tall navigated her way toward them, weaving among the scattered tables. A grin stretched across her round, pleasant face. “Why, it’s me American friends and their bonnie guest.” Wearing a neatly pressed tartan plaid apron over a puff-sleeved, white cotton dress that skimmed her knees, she blew a wayward wisp of graying hair away from flushed cheeks. “What strikes yer fancy today?”
    “We haven’t had a chance to check the board yet,” Robert said. “Nessie, this is Shelby Harmon.”
    Nessie? When Shelby raised a brow, the middle-aged woman laughed. “Me parents named me Vanessa, but some of the hooligans call me Nessie and find it amusin’ because of that ole legend of the monster in Loch Ness. But me guid frein here”—she patted Robert’s shoulder—“is me protector.” She tweaked his chin. “Aye, the handsome fellas are always comin’ ‘round