"That should—if you do it right—make your attacker release his hold enough for you to elbow him in the face."
Kirsty just screwed that up completely. It was as though she didn't have control over her elbow. Her shot missed him entirely. The women started to laugh.
"Lastly," Lake said, "you punch him as hard as you can in the groin."
Kirsty grinned wickedly. Now that she could do. As Kirsty's arm swung out, Lake released her and took a wide step backwards.
There was more laughing. Kirsty glared at him.
"That's cheating," she told him.
"It's self-preservation. Point to a man who willingly wants to be hit in the balls."
He had a point. Kirsty grinned at him. Against her better judgment, she was having fun.
When Lake saw Kirsty smile at him, he wanted to clear the room and have her all to himself. He couldn't. Instead he settled for more practice.
"Right," Lake said. "That's it. Now it's time to practice. Pair up and keep practising until you can do this without thinking. Because when you're in the sort of situation where you need these moves, you'll be too scared to think and your actions have to be second nature."
Kirsty walked over to get her coat.
"Where do you think you're going?" Lake said.
"The demonstration is over. I'm leaving."
"Oh no you're not, not until you've practised."
She smiled.
"The deal was for one demonstration, Lake," she said. "I hope you aren't thinking about backing out on an agreement?"
"I wouldn't dream of it."
"In that case, I'm going home."
She picked up her coat.
"Don't." Lake put a hand on her arm. She was wearing a black ribbed polo neck that made his mouth water. "Stay," he said. "Practice the moves."
Kirsty turned to him, holding the coat in front of her like a barrier.
"Why should I stay?"
"I want you to learn these moves properly."
Her green eyes darkened as she studied him.
"Why?" she asked again.
Lake ran a hand over his hair.
"Because I want you to fight back," Lake told her. "A war is no fun if you don't fight back."
She stared at him for a while, obviously thinking things through. Lake held his breath while he waited.
"Fine," she said at last.
To Lake's surprise, he felt relief that she'd agreed. He took her by the hand to a space large enough to practice in. As he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, he inhaled her scent. Delicious.
"Seriously, Lake," Kirsty said. "Why are you doing this?"
"I told you," he said. "I want you to fight."
There was a pause.
"I don't know how," she said softly.
Lake hated the way she sounded—defeated even before they started. It was a far cry from the hellion in the newspaper photo.
"That's why I'm showing you," he told her. "Trust me, Kirsty, this is going to be a blast."
"You keep telling me that," she said with resignation. "I'm getting a little worried that you might mean it literally."
With a grin, Lake wound his arm around her waist. He felt her relax this time, rather than stiffen against him. He smiled into her hair. Perfect. She was perfect.
With a sigh of long suffering, Kirsty half-heartedly elbowed him in the side. Lake grinned widely.
"That's pathetic," he told her. "Come on, make it a good one. You can't hurt me."
Kirsty elbowed him again. Hard. Well, hard for her.
"That's an improvement, but I'm pretty sure Jean can do better and she's half your size."
She frowned at him and elbowed him even harder.
"You're cheesing me off now," she told him.
"That's just the way I want it," he said, and she groaned.
As he dodged her other blows, he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye.
By the door to the shop stood a fuming tartan Hobbit.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lake was having a shower after his morning run when Rainne pounded on the door.
"What have you done?" she yelled.
Lake wrapped a towel around himself and threw open the door.
"It's terrible," Rainne wailed at him. "How could you?"
She stomped into the living room, making Lake follow. It was more like dealing with a teenager rather than his twenty-six-year-old sister.
"Want to give me a little more information, sis? What exactly did I do this time that's so terrible?"
He wasn't surprised to see Betty in her usual chair, scoffing her usual pie and making no effort to hide the fact she was ogling him.
"Cut it out," he told her.
"I'm a woman." She shrugged.
He wasn't sure about that. Half the time he wasn't even sure she was human.
"Well?" he demanded of his sister, who was currently pouting on the couch. "Spit it out."
"Kirsty's shop." She pointed to the window. "What have you done?"
Now he was really confused. He strode across the living room carpet, in five long steps, to pull back the curtain. Outside Eye Candy there was a group of people with placards. A woman wearing an A-line polyester coat and a headscarf was carrying a megaphone.
"I didn't do this," he told Rainne.
"Yeah, right. You always did fight dirty as a kid, but this isn't fair." Rainne came to stand beside him.
"You're too young to remember how I fought. And I didn't do this."
"So, who did?"
Slowly, they turned to Betty, who was doing a poor impersonation of an innocent person.
"Okay, old woman, what did you do?" Lake said, his stomach sinking with the words.
She stuck her nose in the air and made a humphing noise.
"I declared war," she said primly.
Lake let the curtain fall.
"No. I declared war."
"That you did, and it was such a piss-poor job I had to do it again. You don't want a war. All you want is to make googly eyes at the enemy. I saw you last night. Your mind wasn't on attack. It was on getting your hands on Kirsty. You were teaching her to fight. What the heck is that about? You clearly have no idea what a real war is. So I started one. If you want something done right, get a woman."
Lake ran a hand over his head. He couldn't argue. His decision to teach Kirsty how to fight was spontaneous. It had less to do with their war and more to do with getting his hands on her. That and the fact he'd rather see the passionate Kirsty from the paper than the scared one that didn't know what to do with herself. Unfortunately, Betty was right. It was no way to run a war.
"How exactly did you declare war?" Lake demanded.
He suspected he'd have been a lot more intimidating if he was wearing more than a towel. Rainne sat on the edge of the couch and glared at Betty. It would have been more effective if there weren't tears in her eyes.
"When I was getting the pies," Betty said tightly, "I might have mentioned to Morag McKay that Kirsty had started selling edible knickers and sex toys."
Rainne shot to her feet.
"She has not!"
"I know that," Betty said. "But Morag has been itching for a reason to stage a protest. There hasn't been anything to complain about since Agnes Stewart changed the glass in her bathroom window." She turned to Lake. "The glass she had was supposed to be frosted, but on a dark night you could see Agnes clear as day when she got out of the shower. The Boy Scout hut is over the road; they were charging a pound a time to have a look. It was a great fundraiser until the vicar shut it down."
Lake pinched the bridge of his nose.
"She's protesting?" he said.
Betty nodded. She was the image of an evil Yoda.
"Morag heads up the Society for Public Morality. Started it in the '60s when she couldn't get any of that free sex and went bitter. They're going to try to shut Kirsty down. They might do it and all. We'll need to see."
"That is..." Rainne couldn't seem to f
ind a word that she considered awful enough. "Terrible," she said at last. "You"—she pointed at Betty—"are plain mean."
"Smart, too," Betty said with a chuckle.
Lake pulled back the curtain again. The little group was marching up and down now. The banners said things like "Keep Invertary Smut Free", "No Sex Here" and "Take Your Dirty Underwear To Glasgow".
He let out a long, controlled breath. So much for a clean fight. He watched as all his hard work with Kirsty went down the drain.
Kirsty threw open the front door of her shop and glared at Morag McKay. Morag pursed her lips in a way that made you think she was trying to suck her whole face inside out in disgust.
"Just what do you think you're doing?" Kirsty demanded.
"I have every right to be here," Morag said, which didn't answer the question at all and made Kirsty want to smack her.
"That's not what I asked, Morag. I asked what the heck you think you're doing picketing my shop?"
Morag sniffed the air for that rotten smell that always seemed to follow her around.
"We don't want the likes of you bringing down the tone of the place," she said.
Kirsty clenched her fists. She could actually see tiny stars floating in front of her eyes. It either meant she was heading for a migraine or she wasn't on the planet any more.
"The likes of me?" She took a step towards the older woman. "The likes of me?" she said again, and listened to the words rise in pitch. "You mean a successful businesswoman who brings money and jobs into town? You mean someone who grew up in Invertary and who has friends and family here? Or do you mean the ex-lingerie model who can take you in a fight?"
She pushed up the sleeves on her rust-coloured sweater, for once unconcerned about the white scar that wound around her right arm. Morag's eyes widened.
"I'm old enough to be your mother, young lady. Have some respect."
"At least we agree that one of us is a lady," Kirsty told her.
Morag's grey skin briefly turned pink.
"Is that the kind of thing they taught you to say to your elders while you were taking all your clothes off and parading your wares in front of men? For money."
Kirsty sucked in a lungful of bitter autumn air.
"You." She pointed down at the woman.
At six foot tall, Kirsty was one of the few women in Invertary who could look down on Morag. Morag always took her height to be a point of pride and had made it quite clear over the years that she wasn't impressed that Kirsty had outgrown her.
"You," Kirsty said again, "need to pack up and clear out."
Morag's dead eyes scrunched to slits as her lips thinned out into a mirthless smile.
"What are you going to do?" she said. "Officer Donaldson is in Fort William on a training course. He'll be gone all day."
Now Kirsty really did want to thump her. She'd obviously planned her protest for the only day in months that the town was without a police force. To make matters worse, Morag turned her back on Kirsty and signalled to her little group.
"Don't be distracted, get on with the protesting."
She waved her hands in the same way someone did when they were conducting an orchestra.
"Oh, no, we won't go," the group began to chant.
"No, no," snapped Morag. "The other one."
The four women, all dressed in the same uniform of polyester coats and scarves, flinched under her direction.
"Sorry, Morag," one of them mumbled.
"What exactly are you objecting to?" Kirsty said. "Good underwear? Cleavage? Anything that isn't beige? What?"
Morag gave her the look that made people think twice before buying pies in her bakery.
"Smut. Pornography. You're selling sex toys. Dirty things that don't belong in a good, clean family town."
Kirsty reeled back on her heels.
"I am not!"
"What do you call that, then?" Morag pointed at the shop window.
Kirsty was confused.
"That's the Victoria's Secret autumn range," she said.
"Exactly," Morag said.
Kirsty clenched her fists, feeling helpless as her throat began to tighten and her breathing sped up.
"Breathe slowly." Magenta appeared beside her and put a calming hand on Kirsty's arm.
Kirsty nodded, grateful.
"I'm fine. I want to throw Morag in the loch, but I'm fine."
"Ignore this." Magenta pointed to the women in disgust. "Heck, it'll probably increase business. Everyone will come out to see what the fuss is. Don't give her the satisfaction of fighting. She feeds off it."
Kirsty knew her friend was right, but the thought of conceding made bile bite at her throat.
"Let's go. We have a marketing plan to implement, remember?" Magenta tugged at her sleeve.
"This isn't over," Kirsty told Morag.
She was rewarded with a superior smirk.
"New chant, let's get on with it," Morag ordered.
"We don't know, but we've been told, dirty knickers here are sold..."
The shop door slammed behind them. Kirsty stood with her hands on the hips of her ankle-length woollen skirt and fumed. Magenta stared at the protesters and shook her head slowly.
"Do you think they even know what they're chanting?"
Kirsty didn't care.
"Auch, no," Magenta said.
Kirsty spun towards her.
"What?" She wasn't sure she could take any more, but she had to ask.
"Nothing." Magenta turned her back to the window.
Suddenly the display of nightdresses beside her was fascinating.
"Maggie," Kirsty said. "You need to tell me."
"You can't call me Maggie, remember?"
Kirsty wondered if she had ever been that young. Nineteen seemed like a lifetime ago.
"I forgot. Sorry, I won't do it again. Promise. Now, what's the problem?"
Magenta pursed her lips.
"I think I know who's behind this," she said.
Kirsty was instantly alert.
"Who?"
Magenta pointed out the window. Kirsty followed her finger. Her gaze went past the protesting women, over the road and up to the twitching curtain over Betty's shop.
"He wouldn't," she said.
"I saw them all at the window a minute ago," Magenta said. "Betty had her evil grin on."
"No!"
Kirsty could feel her eyebrows trying to escape up her forehead into her hair, which wasn't possible since she was still sporting the short haircut she'd been forced into in hospital.
"You think it was..."
A cold white rage took over her. She grabbed the door handle and yanked.
"I don't think that's a good idea," she heard Magenta say as she pushed past the women and stormed over the road.
Kirsty didn't care what kind of idea it was, she was going to find the English idiot and wring his neck.
"Holy smoke, here comes trouble," Betty said. "I need to be somewhere else."
"Stay right where you are, Bilbo. You caused this, you need to take some responsibility." Betty glowered but sank back into the chair that fit her bum.
"You're both bad, bad people," Rainne told them before disappearing to her bedroom.
As far as Lake was concerned she could stay in there all day and sulk. He had enough to deal with without a whining sister following him around. A minute later Kirsty thumped at his front door to let him know she was there. He hung his head for a second to regroup. There wasn't even time to pull on some clothes.
"You're not letting a girl get to you, are you?" Betty mocked.
"Another word and it could be your last."
"Son, I'm nearly ninety. If you think threats of death are going to scare me, then you need your head examined. You'll have to come up with something better than that."
There was more thumping. He got the impression Kirsty was kicking the door.
"I'll deal with you later."
"Promises, promises," Betty said, and blew him a kiss.
He swallowed a smile as he went to the door.
"You rang," he said as he opened it.
A red-faced Kirsty pushed past him and stomped into the living room.
"Right," she said when she'd taken her position in the middle of the ugly orange carpet. "Which one of you thought to let Morag loose on me?"
"There's been a mistake," Lake said in the calm, soothing tone he was famous for.
"That"—Kirsty pointed at the window—"is not a mistake."
Betty snorted. Kirsty spun on her. The soft black fabric of her skirt clung to her hips and made Lake lose the plot for a minute.
"It was you." Kirsty pointed at Betty. "That idiot hasn't been around long enough to know about Morag. It had to be you."
"It might have been Rainne."
"Rainne would never do anything like this."
"Because she's soft."
"Because she's a nice person, not like some people I know!"
"Ladies!"
Lake held up his hands as they turned towards him. It was a move practised to make him appear non-threatening. Kirsty's almond-shaped eyes narrowed.
"Keep one hand on the towel, soldier boy," Kirsty said with threat in her voice.
Lake did as he was told.
"We can work this out," he said in a soothing tone.
"This is all your fault," Kirsty told him. "You barge in here, not having a clue about anything, stomp all over your sister and let her"—she pointed at Betty—"loose on the town. Around here we try to keep her on a tight leash."
"Hey," Betty shouted. "That's a mean thing to say about an old lady."
"And you," Kirsty told Betty. "I'm telling the vicar on you."
"I'm telling the vicar," Betty mimicked. "If that's all you've got to fight with, then we're going to wipe the floor with you. This is war, lassie. Step aside or we'll roll right over you. I've been in two wars. I know what I'm talking about."
"Please." Kirsty rolled her eyes. "You were here tending a vegetable garden during the Second World War, not in a tank somewhere. And you were a baby in the other war."
"I meant the Falklands, not the First World War."
"RIGHT!" Lake shouted, and moved to stand between them.
It put him close to Kirsty, and messed with his head a little. When he'd imagined scenarios where he was half naked with Kirsty, this hadn't been one of them.
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