Must Love Kilts

by Angela Quarles

  The Jacobite Rebellion—not the best time to get drunk, hook up with a guy, and lose your sister.

  A drunken bet…

  When computer game designer Traci Campbell gets too close and personal with a bottle of Glenfiddich while vacationing in Scotland, she whisks her kilt-obsessed sister back to 1689 to prove hot guys in kilts are a myth. Hello, hundred bucks! But all bets are off when she meets Iain, the charming playboy in a to-die-for kilt.

  Wrong place, wrong time, wrong name…

  Iain MacCowan regularly falls in love at the drop of his kilt. The mysterious red-haired lass with the odd accent is no different. But when his new love is discovered to be a Campbell, the most distrusted name in the Highlands, his dalliance endangers his clan's rebellion against King William.

  It’s all hijinks in the Highlands until your sister disappears…

  Traci thinks men are only good for one thing—thank you, Iain!—but when she awakens once again in Ye Olde Scotland and her sister is gone, she must depend on the last person she wants to spend more time with. He wants to win a heart, she wants to keep hers, but can these two realize they're meant for each other before the Jacobite rebellion pulls them apart?

  To the hot men in kilts and the lasses who love them

  Prologue

  Highlands of Scotland, July, Traci’s present day

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.” Traci Campbell yanked open a dresser drawer at the Cluanie Inn. Mid-morning sun streaked through the corner windows. What would normally be gentle illumination was an annoying glare arrowing straight through to her pounding headache. The guy outside at the gas pump honking his horn was not helping.

  One eye scrunched closed against the light spear, the other barely cracked open, she dumped the drawer’s contents onto the carpet and shoved her clothes into her already overstuffed backpack.

  Adrenaline spiked with frantic worry still coursed through her veins, messing with her Scotch-soaked brain and coating her tongue with a bitter, metallic tang. Plus, God, she sported the mama and papa of all hangovers.

  “What else do I need? What about money?”

  Of all the times to mess up from a night of drinking, this screwed the pooch, stomped on it, and left it whimpering in a pile of goo. She dragged the back of her hand across her nose and sniffled.

  What had she been thinking?

  Oh, yeah. She hadn’t.

  Ha, ha, what else was new, right?

  She slung the backpack onto the four-poster bed—mussed from a night of drinking, laughing, and singing songs with Fiona. God, Fiona really sucked at singing. The pissed-off guest in Number 3 had abbreviated that bit of fun—the pounding on the wall a solid clue to her sister’s lack of talent.

  An empty bottle of Glenfiddich mocked her from the nightstand, accompanied by two empty glasses. Oh God, Fiona. Please be okay.

  “What else? What else? What else?”

  She cradled her head, which mimicked an overblown, painful balloon. Pretty please, couldn’t she just snuggle the poor thing in that cool, so-soft pillow right there, sleep, wake up, and have everything right in the world? Or, like the computer games she helped design, restart at an earlier save?

  She plopped onto the bed and pulled out her phone, the bed’s jouncing messing with her head. Fuck. She did the one-eyed wince, scrolled through her contacts, and hovered over the only one who could possibly help—Katy. Her muscles jumped with the need to act—but, God, no. Stop. Assess.

  Traci pulled in a trembling breath. Well, here goes nothing.

  She tapped the call button, her thumb shaking.

  The electronic ring tone seemed overly loud, as if saying, “Are you sure you want to call? You still have time to hang up.”

  The sound of a slight inhale told her Katy answered and not her husband. For him, a definite deliberation always came across the line, a pause, and his rumbling, medieval-Norman French accent.

  “Traci! Robert and I were just talking about you!” Her good friend’s soothing voice failed to relieve her anxiety. “How’s the vacation going? Still planning to swing back through Wales on your way back to London?”

  Traci picked at a wrinkle on the barberry-colored wool petticoat of her seventeenth-century dress. “Er, fine.” Ha. “And…well, listen, I need to ask you something. If someone wanted to go back in time, what would be your advice?”

  Silence.

  Traci drew the phone away and checked the call status. “Katy?”

  “I’m here. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.” Traci stretched across the rumpled bed and grabbed the silver calling card case that granted wishes via funky magical powers. Katy and Traci had speculated that the case transported you wherever—and whenever—your ideal mate existed. It had worked for Katy, who had married her medieval knight right before Christmas two years ago, and it had worked for Katy’s friend Isabelle, who’d stayed back in time with her hunky viscount.

  A drawn-out sigh came across the phone. “You know I love your spontaneity, but this isn’t something you should undertake lightly. Before doing this, stop and think for a minute. I gave that case to you believing you’d be responsible.”

  Traci’s throat closed up, and it took her a second to reply. “Too late,” she rasped.

  “I’m serious. Traveling back in time can be scary and dangerous, and you need to prepare. I mean it. I know I overdo it with the planning, but listen, okay? You’ll need the right clothes, the right kind of money—”

  “I don’t have a choice,” she choked out. Her fingers tightened around the phone.

  Another Katy-sigh came through the line. “Yes, you do.”

  “No. I really don’t. I left…scratch that…I lost my sister back there.”

  Chapter One

  Take a little dram of passion,

  In a lusty bowl of wine.

  “The Man of Fashion,” Jacobite Reliques

  Ten hours earlier

  Traci clasped a hand over Fiona’s open mouth and pushed her down onto the brochure-strewn bed, snickering. “No. No more singing. The guest in Number 3 says so.”

  Fiona squirmed away, grabbed the bottle of Glenfiddich on the nightstand, and topped them off. “To Scotland then.”

  Traci clinked glasses, humoring her sister. “To Scotland.”

  While all the clan-this-clan-that sightseeing had been driving her bonkers, it was achieving her main goal—getting to know her sister better.

  They’d arrived yesterday in this remote corner of the Highlands with two purposes—for Traci to climb the local peaks and add to her tally (bagging a Munro as climbers called it) and to island hop, ending on the Isle of Skye for the Highland Games. Exhibit A for how much she wanted to bond with her sister—she’d sworn off attending the Games when she’d left home for college.

  Fiona lifted the bottle and squinted at the bottom, leaning a bit to the side. She put a hand down to steady herself. “We’re all out. Maybe there’s some we can buy from the bar downstairs.”

  “We’ve probably had enough. That was a full bottle, you know.”

  Fiona burped and did an oops-face.

  Ha. Ha. Nothing like alcohol to grease that bond-forming. “I can see you learned to drink like a pro in college.” Not. This trip was actually Fiona’s graduation present from their Scot-obsessed parents. And because Traci had moved to London shortly after her own graduation three years ago, she really hadn’t seen Fiona since their mid-teens.

  “Well then, to hot Scottish men in kilts.” Fiona raised her glass again.

  “Yeah, we haven’t seen any.” She sipped the Scotch and threw an arm around her baby sister. The affection came easier now that their relationship’s rough, tentative edges had smoothed from bouncing around and partying in their room.

 
Fiona hopped away and leaned back against the pillow on the headboard. “There was that one in Perth, but he wasn’t hot. If we’d been born back in the day, we would’ve seen plenty.”

  Traci snorted. “That’s a myth.” Scot-obsessed and unshakeable in the belief that all men in kilts were hunky and hot back in the day—that was her sister.

  “How can you know?” Fiona sat forward.

  “I don’t. But there couldn’t be more hot men then than there are now. You need to let go of your unrealistic fantasies about men.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s unhealthy. I should take you back and show you.” The sooner Fiona had her eyes open, the sooner she could face life—and men—on her own terms. Because fantasies could only lead to heartache.

  Luckily, she had Big Sis to hold those eyes open.

  Fiona regarded the silver calling card case perched on the nightstand, and her eyes shone with a determined, alcohol-fueled glint. “Yes, you should show me!”

  Before Traci could react, Fiona grabbed the case.

  Shit. “We can’t go back!”

  Why the hell had she told her sister about the case? Oh, yeah, the bonding thing—it was a hungry beast for sharing. So she’d blabbed. About how it had taken her friend Katy back to medieval Wales. And taken another woman back—Isabelle, a friend of Katy’s—to pre-Victorian London.

  Fiona got that look she remembered from childhood. This wasn’t going to end well. “Why not? I bet you a hundred bucks there were more hot men in kilts in earlier days.”

  The energy-panic of being swept up in her sister’s bets constricted her chest. “We don’t have supplies! Plus, it’s not safe.” And boy had Katy drilled it into her to not use the case without being properly prepared.

  Fiona leaped off the bed and yanked open the armoire. “We have our outfits for the Highland Games next week. Our late-seventeenth-century personas. We can wear these and pop to that time just long enough”—she spun around and tossed over Traci’s dress—“for me to win that bet!”

  “Shh. Shhhh,” Traci spluttered. Yep, she might be a teensy bit tipsy. She stumbled up the rocky, dirt path to the inn’s entrance. Shit, it was dark. The moon, a pale sliver, joined the two torches sputtering in the ground near the door to provide the only illumination.

  “Holy crap. I can’t believe that worked,” Fiona whispered. “We’re actually back in time?” She clutched her stomach.

  A few minutes ago, they’d rubbed the case and made their wish. The weird tug-squeeze-swirl had been a little unnerving. Looming before them in the murky dark, with a blanket of stars capping the valley between the mountains, stood the same inn, but in 1689.

  “Yes. Told you I could.”

  Wow. Look at those stars…

  Traci drifted to a stop, gazing up, but when her sister didn’t respond, she cast a glance downward.

  All the color in Fiona’s face dropped right out. “I didn’t really believe you. I think I was just drunk enough to pretend.” Torch light flickered across her face as she lifted her chin and straightened. “We’re doing this. I can’t believe it. Let’s go in.”

  Why, why, why had she let her sister rope her into this? But when Fiona had uttered the three-letter word bet, the outcome had been inevitable.

  Good God.

  Traci tugged her sister’s arm and pulled her up short. “Remember. We’re only peeking inside to settle the bet, and then we’re leaving.”

  “Yeah, yeah. But do you know what this means?” Her eyes begged for understanding. “What events we can see? Wait till Mom and Dad hear about this.”

  “We will not be telling them.” She yanked on the iron-banded wooden door, which opened with a low creak. Couldn’t she share something with her sister that didn’t also involve their parents?

  They slipped through the opening, and a wall of heat, spiced with soured whisky and yeast and stale sweat, rolled over them. Scots in multi-colored kilts and blue bonnets clogged the common room of the inn, drinking their whisky and shouting and singing.

  Aaand…that was more than enough taste of Ye Olde Scotland, thank you very much. But one salient detail overshadowed all: no hunky men in kilts. Not. A. One.

  Hello, hundred bucks!

  Dark wooden beams criss-crossed a low ceiling, the walls yellow-stained plaster. A peat fire burned in the rough-stone fireplace. “Oh, Fiona, this would be a perfect setting.”

  “For romance?”

  “No. My design team needs one for a side-quest location in the new game.”

  “You are such a hopeless geek.”

  Her sister pushed past, then morphed into wall art. “But where are the hot guys?”

  “There aren’t any. And now you”—she nudged her sister—“owe me a hundred bucks.”

  Fiona slumped her shoulders. Oh, that face. Traci stifled a snort.

  Fiona pushed away from the wall and flicked her blonde braid over her shoulder. “Not yet, I don’t. This village is probably an anomaly. I bet the women in this time call it Nastyville or something.” Her eyes flashed with a hint of defiance. “But the night’s still young!”

  “Nuh-uh. We’re going back. I won.”

  “No way. I’m staying.” She rubbed her upper arms. “There’s more here for me. I can feel it.”

  Uneasiness swirled through Traci’s gut. The words I’m staying, had been laced with weight, as if she meant permanently.

  “Oh, all right.” She was so going to regret this. “Let’s just sit at that table near the shadows. We can people watch for a few more minutes.” Traci edged farther into the room. Silence descended. Chairs scraped back, and several men stood. But all of them stared.

  Er…

  Fiona shrugged, so Traci took another step and Fiona interlaced their arms.

  The closest Highlander rumbled in Gaelic, his face bunched into a scowl. Fiona opened and closed her mouth, cleared her throat, and replied in stilted Gaelic. Unlike her sister, Traci had never bothered to learn.

  Traci leaned down and whispered, “What’s going on?”

  “They’re wondering why we’re unescorted.”

  What the hell? She took in the wary gazes. “Why does that matter?”

  “Women—respectable women—apparently don’t do this.”

  “Will they let us stay?” Even the scruffy dog by the fireplace gave them the side-eye.

  “I don’t know.” Fiona crossed her arms, her gaze skittish. “I told them we were looking for our cattle-herding brother.”

  “Well, that settles it. Let’s go back.” Traci stepped back. “And then you’ll fork over that hundred bucks, because I’m telling you…” Traci leaned closer. “Hunky men in kilts are a myth.”

  Traci backed up and—oomph—bumped against a solid, warm wall. She startled, stepped on her hem, and lurched sideways. Strong hands gripped her waist and pulled her upright. Strong hands doing as simple a thing as holding her waist, but God, the grip felt dangerously possessive. The stranger’s body heat warmed her back with awareness.

  “Whoa, there, lass. I have ye.”

  The voice—deep, accented, and laden with the right serving of sinful fun—made the hairs on Traci’s arms stand up and go, “Hey there, handsome.” No. She didn’t have time for this.

  Fiona’s mouth hung open a smidge, and Traci mouthed, “Hot?”

  “Oh, yes,” her sister whispered.

  Great. Just great. Heat flashed up her spine from where his hands still clasped her waist. And were they moving slightly, as if taking the measure of her curves?

  Curves she’d rather not have someone know their extensiveness. Big-boned, her mother had called her, which Traci knew was polite speak for “hefty for a tall girl.”

  She smoothed a shaky hand down her suddenly too-tight bodice, fluffed out the skirts of her earasaid, and turned, breaking the man’s firm grip. And stepped back. And looked up. And up. And that said loads because she topped five-eleven in flats.

  The definitely manly specimen before her crossed his arms, w
hich—dammit—did some interesting things with his obviously powerful biceps under his funny short jacket, crossed by a leather strap over one shoulder and a plaid draped saucily over the other. Could a plaid be draped saucily? Well, for sure this guy’s was. A white handkerchief encircled his neck with two jaunty knots, and a blue, flattish hat sat slightly askew on his dark-brown hair. A strange combo of power and playfulness radiated from him. Which was the real him?

  He caught Traci’s gaze and held it, his light-blue eyes the most arresting shade she’d ever seen. Power. It was power.

  But then he winked and bowed his head, his hair cascading forward. Jeez, his hair was saucy too. And he smiled so broadly and so sincerely, it lit up his eyes, creasing the skin around them as well as his cheeks, transforming his entire face as if everything in the world delighted him, and he mirrored the delight back in his all-encompassing grin.

  Her breath left her in an undignified puff. Oh yeah. Her sister had the right of it. Hot. In a kilt. And he knew it. Her untrustworthy heart gave an extra thud in case she hadn’t gotten the memo that he had the goddamn key to turn her crank. She thumbed the ring on her right hand, twisting it round and round.

  Yep, time to skedaddle.

  He raked his eyes down her body and back up, and the heat of his gaze swept across her skin. “My profound apologies for interrupting what sounds like an interesting discussion. What are ye believing is a myth then? If it’s the wee fox that patrols the nearby glen and turns into a buxom lass on foggy nights, I saw her with me own eyes.”

  Aye, this is the one.

  Never mind he said that about every lass he met. The night was young, the lass was lovely, and he was of a mind to have a bit of fun. Iain had long since learned his heart was a stupid bastard, always falling hopelessly in love.

  He’d fall in love with this one too. Pour his heart out. And be left, as always, empty-handed.

  Aye, but it was fun while it lasted, was it not? This latest his heart had decided to martyr itself upon was uncommonly tall, drawing his eye as he’d entered the public rooms at the inn. That and the sumptuous curves outlined by the odd dress she sported. He let his gaze roam, from the heart-shaped face framed by dark red hair to her long and graceful neck, shapely bosom, and the lovely hips he’d lately had excuse to clasp. And, by God and all the holy saints, he’d taken that excuse, even though she hadn’t truly needed his support.