The Perfect Bargain

by Jessa McAdams

  “I know, but we didn’t.” She swung her leg over the saddle and hopped down. She was unsteady, perhaps a wee bit shaken by her reckless ride, but her smile was effervescent as she led the heavily breathing pony through the hole in the fence.

  Once on his side, Sloane beamed up at Galen, her eyes shimmering with delight.

  “All right, I concede,” Galen said, throwing his hands up. “You can ride.”

  “I told you,” she said with breathless and unabashed exhilaration.

  Galen dismounted. He took a pair of apples from the deep pockets of his jacket and fed them to the two horses then swatted their rumps, sending them into the meadow to graze. With their noses to the ground, the dogs trotted off, after a scent.

  Sloane shed her jacket. “I lost the hat.”

  “I noticed.”

  She looked at the fence and gestured to the hole. “What happened?”

  Galen forced himself to look away from her and at the fence. It was dry stone construction, and several of the stones were lying scattered about. “Sheep. We’ll take a few from the top of the fence and salvage what we can from the rubble to repair the hole. Owen will come up and repair it properly when he returns.” He handed Sloane a pair of gloves.

  “What do I do?”

  “Start stacking stones, lass.”

  She looked at the gloves, then at the fence. “Oh.” She grimaced as understanding dawned.

  Galen swung his arm around her shoulders and gave her a healthy squeeze. “You’re my girl, aye? That’s what we do in these parts. We mend fences.”

  “Don’t make it sound so sexy,” she said, playfully shoving against him.

  “Start small,” he suggested. “You’d no’ want to pull a muscle.”

  “No, wouldn’t want to do that,” she drawled.

  As she searched the top of the fence for a stone, Galen settled down under a yew tree and stretched his legs long.

  She examined the stones, apparently looking for one she could carry. But she happened to see him sitting there and stopped. “What are you doing?”

  “Having a sleep.”

  “But what about the fence?”

  “I thought you understood. That’s what girlfriends do in the Highlands.”

  “Oh my God, you’re using me,” she said, indignant.

  He laughed. “No more than you’re using me, aye, lass?”

  She couldn’t argue, so Sloane clucked at him. “Stand back, Braveheart. I have a personal trainer, you know.” As if to prove it, she bent over and picked up a stone. She struggled to lift it, but she somehow managed to stack it properly in the hole in the fence, then threw her hands high in the air with a shout of victory. “Ha!” She brushed her gloved hands against each other. “I could be even your girlfriend, Galen Buchanan.”

  “I see,” Galen agreed. The funny thing was, he did see. He closed his eyes as Miss Prim nattered on about her personal trainer and the number of burpees and crunches and lunges she did—numbers she tossed at him as if to say, top that—and Galen saw much more than he wanted to see: An attractive woman who was mending his goddamn fence without complaint. He hadn’t been this aroused in a long time.

  Until she kicked his foot to wake him up some time later, complaining, “I can’t move my arms,” and he saw that she’d only managed to stack about ten percent of what was necessary.

  “Is that all you’ve done?”

  “I’m not kidding, I think I hurt myself,” she said, wincing.

  It was a universal truth that women did not make good fence builders.

  Chapter Five

  Sloane did not spur the pony to race back to the cottage; she plodded alongside Galen at a slow pace.

  “What’s this?” he asked. He looked as fresh as morning dew, as if he’d been merely supervising her work on the fence instead of lifting two or three stones to her every one once she’d whimpered and begged for help. “I thought you’d be leaping fences and perhaps even doing a few acrobatics on the back of the horse.”

  “I think the horse is tired,” she said. “Probably isn’t used to running and jumping so much as it has today.” She flashed a smile, then hid the truth by leaning over to pat the horse on the neck. She would never admit, not even under threat of torture, but the horse was a little more powerful than she was accustomed to, and she’d been surprised by how hard it had been to handle when they’d ridden out.

  “Oh aye,” Galen said, an all-too-knowing smile on his face. “She does look a wee bit knackered.”

  Sloane would have agreed, but Galen was looking at her, and not the horse.

  She was exhausted. Every jolt of the horse beneath her sent the sharp bite of overused muscles. Her arms felt rubbery, her legs almost dead. And while she’d never been a fan of hard physical labor, she felt strangely exhilarated by it.

  When they reached the cottage, Sloane slid off the horse and landed with a wince and mewl of pain she couldn’t quite suppress. Galen, damn him, chuckled. “That’s right, amuse yourself with my pain,” she said, gesturing at him with her hand. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like a bath. I mean, if that’s on the list your of approved activities for your girlfriend.”

  “Aye, of course,” Galen said cheerfully. “The accommodations are a wee bit primitive, but there’s a nice old claw foot tub. The pump is just there,” he said, and pointed to the side of the cottage where there was a spigot. Just beneath it was a bucket, turned on its side. “I’ll go easy on you today, lass. You did a brilliant job of fence mending.”

  “I did,” she agreed.

  “So I’ll clean out the horse stalls and bed them while you have your bath.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, just as dramatically.

  Sloane watched him stroll into the barn, amazed that he did not look the least bit fatigued. He looked as if he could have kept on building that damn fence all the way to the bottom of the UK. “How does he do that?” she muttered.

  She’d figure it out later. At the moment, the only thing Sloane cared about was a bath.

  She went into the cottage and glanced in the tiny bathroom. The tub was positively ancient and the spigot looked as if some enterprising Scot had welded it on to the tub’s rim. Sloane sat on the lip of the tub and reached across to turn on the water. Nothing happened. She turned the spigot the other way. Still nothing. She thought about going out to the barn to tell Galen that it wouldn’t work, but then remembered he’d pointed out the pump to her.

  Understanding slowly dawned, and Sloane whimpered—she had to pump the bath water? “Ohmigod,” she moaned.

  She was starving, she was dirty, and though she’d rather die before she ever mentioned it—she’d broken a nail to the quick and it hurt like hell.

  There was a precarious moment when Sloane teetered on the edge of sliding down onto the floor to really wallow in her misery, but thank goodness, the bathroom was so tiny there was no room. She imagined Galen’s smug look of superiority if, after he’d told her she wasn’t good enough to be his girlfriend, he then found her in the throes of a full-blown meltdown.

  That was it, the thing that compelled her to keep going. She came to her feet, and swimming in the oversize boots, she marched outside. If she had to pump water, by God, she’d pump water.

  It wasn’t actually a pump, but an outdoor spigot that, in Sloane’s vast knowledge of how water works, she assumed came from some underground well. The spigot was rusted and took all of her strength to turn. The water that sputtered into the bucket was brown, but then ran clear. She dumped the first bucket, and watched in dismay as it all pooled at her feet. She ignored it, filled the bucket to the very top, and turned off the water. But a bucket full of water was so heavy that it required both hands to carry, and it banged painfully against her leg and cut into her palms. Still, Sloane managed to get it inside and dump it into the tub.

  What she’d carried in didn’t even cover the bottom of the tub. “Unbelievable!” she said loudly.

&nbs
p; By the time she went out for her second bucket, the big muddy dog that had come up from Gairloch with them had moseyed over from the barn, following Sloane to the spigot, then walked casually along directly in front of her, stopping under each doorframe until Sloane yelled at her to move.

  After three more trips carrying the bucket in that excruciating manner, Sloane had managed to put only a half-inch of water in the bath.

  “That’s okay, it’s okay,” she told herself before she burst into tears. “You really don’t need that much water.” Perhaps…but she needed it to be warm.

  She went outside again and noticed the skies were darker and the wind had picked up, dropping the temperature. She would freeze. Her skin would turn blue and she would die in an old bathtub in a cottage in the middle of Absolutely Fucking Nowhere, Scotland. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. It was now imperative that she have warm water. Preferably hot.

  She carried the last bucket in and poured it into the tub. There had to be a way to heat this bath. She dropped down to all fours and bent her head to have a look under the clawfoot tub, certain she’d find a heating apparatus there.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Sloane was so startled she jerked up and banged her head against the lip of the tub. “Ow, ow.” She grimaced, rubbing her crown.

  “Mind your noggin there,” Galen said, and Sloane felt his hand on the back of her head. “Are you all right?”

  She realized he was squatting beside her. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “What are you doing under there?”

  “What do you think? I’m trying to figure out how to heat this thing.”

  Galen looked confused. He glanced at the tub. “I donna know what you’re expecting, but most of us just run the hot water.”

  “Huh?” She lowered her head, examining the tub. “Where’s the switch?”

  With a puzzled expression, he pointed to the tub. “There’s the tap, lass. A bit old, aye, but it’s the tap for water.”

  “But it doesn’t work.”

  “Aye, no’ without the pump turned on. Did you turn it on?”

  Sloane could feel the burn of frustration building behind her eyes, threatening to emerge as tears. “Did I turn it on? Did I turn what on?”

  Galen tilted his head to one side as if he couldn’t quite figure her out. But then he noticed the bucket, and his demeanor suddenly changed. A huge smile spread across his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes and creating dimples beneath his new beard. He looked annoyingly cute as he tried not to laugh, which made Sloane’s frustration soar. “What is so damn funny?” she demanded.

  Galen burst into laughter. He laughed so hard that he fell back on his bum and into the doorframe. He threw one arm over his belly as if to contain the laughter that was thundering through the cottage.

  “What is so funny?” Sloane cried, pushing herself hard against his leg.

  “You, lass.” he said. “Why didna you turn on the pump?”

  “I did!” she exclaimed heatedly. “I had to use two hands because it was so rusted. Doesn’t anyone ever take a bath around here? And I filled the bucket with water and I carried it in,” she added, holding up her reddened palms, “but now all I want to do is heat it. Is that asking too much?”

  “No, no,” he said, and wiped a tear from beneath one eye. “But it’s a wee bit easier if you turn on the pump, lass.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Are you kidding me right now?” she asked weakly.

  Galen was still grinning as he hopped up and grabbed her hand in his big, rough one. He held it tight as he tugged her along outside and around to the side of the house. He chuckled again when he saw the mud beneath the outside faucet, but reached up to a metal box attached to the house, which Sloane had not noticed until that very moment, and opened it. He flipped on a switch that was clearly labeled water pump; and from somewhere below the house, Sloane heard a motor shudder to life. He grinned down at her as he closed the box. “I meant you had to turn it on. It’s an electric pump that brings the water up to the house. We’ve no’ had to manually pump water to our homes for many years.”

  “Holy shit,” she said, and sagged against the wall of the cottage. “Shit,” she said again.

  His laugh was sympathetic, and he pushed a thick strand of her hair from her face as if it were a natural thing to do. He took her hand and tugged her away from the cottage wall. Sloane did a little hop to avoid the mud and in doing so, landed not even an inch from Galen. She was so close she had to put a hand to his waist to keep herself from crashing into him.

  The moment she touched him, the moment she felt his hard, lean waist, her senses lit up like a big, bad, firework display with everything exploding at once. He was looking down at her with those Scottish mist eyes, and their gazes were locked in a mutual tug of intrigue. Her gaze slipped to his mouth. To his moist, full lips. They were just there—

  “The water will run now,” he said, and shifted back and away from her.

  Sloane felt a swell of disappointment rise up in her.

  “I’ll feed the dogs before the rain comes.” He turned away, shoved his hands in his pockets as he strode across the overgrown garden. “Mind you donna build a fire beneath that tub,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Shut up,” she muttered, and wrapped her arms tightly around her.

  What just happened? One moment, she felt the electricity between them and the next moment, he was practically jogging away. Did he see something he didn’t like? She’d really wanted him to kiss her full on, mouth and tongue and all. She’d wanted him to put his arms around her and hold her close to his impossibly sexy, smug body—

  “Really?” she whispered to herself. “Great, girlfriend. You just bought your own make believe.”

  What did she expect? Forcing oneself into someone’s life was not a turn on.

  With a sigh, she made her way back into the cottage and to her shallow, but blessedly hot bath, and tried not to dwell on how they were going to spend an entire evening trapped in a shoebox together.

  Chapter Six

  That hot bath actually turned out to be very relaxing after the ordeal of the tub, thanks to some scented bath salts Sloane had brought and the little travel size Chanel lotions she kept in her overnight bag. Thank goodness for portable luxuries—by the time Sloane crawled out of the tub, she felt like herself again.

  She pulled on some yoga pants, a long sleeve Henley t-shirt, and opened the door of the bathroom. Steam poured out into the main room of the cottage, and she strolled out behind it, drying her wet hair with a towel. She paused and realized she was hearing music.

  “Hey, that’s jazz,” she said, startling the slumbering dogs awake. The three of them stood up and, with tails wagging, advanced on her, their snouts pointed up at her crotch. “Okay, all right,” she said, putting out her hand to stop them, which only excited them more.

  “Aye, it’s jazz,” Galen said from the tiny kitchenette, then whistled at the three dogs. They sat instantly and obediently, but their eyes were still on Sloane, their snouts still pointed at her as if she were some delectable treat they were not allowed to eat.

  “That’s the last thing I thought I would hear,” Sloane said as she inched carefully around the dogs.

  “Funny thing—now that we’ve designed the mechanics to pump our water, we’ve left off the bagpipes and imported jazz from America as well.” He gave her a wry smile.

  “I didn’t mean it like that…not exactly like that.” She’d expected Gaelic music like he played in the pub.

  Galen was chopping something. She’d always liked the look of a man in the kitchen, especially with the scent of something so savory wafting around. “It smells incredibly good in here.”

  “Venison stew,” he said. “My mum brought batches around to us all last week. I found Owen’s share in the freezer.”

  Sloane followed her nose and leaned over the pot of stew simmering on an old stove. “I thought cooking was on the list of things your p
retend girlfriend is supposed to do.”

  Galen gave her a quick once over before reaching around her for an onion. “Aye, it is. But after you tried to build a fire to heat your bath, I feared you might want to go and out and bow hunt your own deer.”

  Sloane laughed.

  “I hope you like stew, as there is precious little else here. My brother is no’ interested in culinary arts.”

  “I do.” She watched him dice the onion. “I never would have guessed you cook.”

  “Only a bit. You?”

  “Not really. I’m more of an eater.” Actually, Sloane couldn’t remember the last time she’d broken out a pot. “Especially stew that smells as wonderful as that.” She left off the addendum that as hungry as she was, she could eat the countertop. “I’ll be right back to help,” she said, and started for the bathroom.

  “No’ necessary—”

  “Yes, it is,” she said over her shoulder. “You have to know how I am in the kitchen.”

  When she returned with her hair combed and tied at the nape of her neck, Galen handed her a wooden spoon, wiped his hands on a towel, and said, “Just keep stirring. I’ll have a quick bath.” He brushed past her as if there were a fire, grabbed his bag from the floor, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Well, then. Sloane would not try to take the fact that he’d almost leaped over the little bar and sprinted into the bathroom any more personally than she had when he’d practically tripped over her trying to get away from her at the pump.

  She stirred the stew and scolded herself for feeling mopey about it. She had to keep reminding herself that disdain was not unreasonable, given her proposal.

  Yes…but she liked looking at his eyes. Braveheart was definitely a sexy man, and she wished she’d put aside her work and paid closer attention to him when she’d first arrived in Gairloch.

  She couldn’t help a sudden grin as she stirred the pot of stew. Dylan, Paige and Victoria would be very impressed. They didn’t believe she could attract any guy at the moment, much less anyone like Galen. Maybe they would finally admit that she knew what she was doing and agree that they didn’t need to save her. Maybe Sloane could really save herself.