by Vines, Jolie
Obsessed
Wild Mountain Scots, #1
Jolie Vines
Copyright © 2021 by Jolie Vines
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editing by Emmy Ellis at Studio ENP
Proofreading by Zoe Ashwood
Cover design by Elle Thorpe at Images For Authors
Cover model photography by and copyright of Regina Wamba www.reginawamba.com
Cover model: Steven Christensen
Created with Vellum
Praise for Jolie’s Scots
A selection of five-star reviews:
If you loved Jolie’s Marry the Scot series, buckle up, because this new generation are hotter, edgier and sexier – Elle Thorpe, author of the Dirty Cowboy series
Highly recommended for anyone looking for a modern-day Highlander to swoon over – Viper, Goodreads reviewer
I swear, every time I pick up a Jolie Vines book, I think: this is him, my favorite hero, no one will be able to top him. And then I read the next book and the process begins again - Chikap09, Goodreads reviewer
Jolie Vines has fast become a one-click author for me - J. Saman, bestselling author
I loved this book! It had all that I would expect with hot Scots and rambling castles – Paula, Goodreads reviewer
Jolie Vines is an amazingly talented writer. I am so completely obsessed with this series and so madly in love with the characters. When you start off with a 5 star? There just aren't enough stars – Carmen, Goodreads reviewer
To those who put their lives on the line to aid lost souls
Blurb
He's the leader of the mountain rescue service. She might just need saving.
Lochie
For too long, I've been alone. Just me and my daughter. Keeping her safe is everything, so taking a job in the remote Scottish Highlands suits us fine.
I shouldn't need anything more.
Yet I'm beyond distracted by a lass.
Smart, beautiful, and living right next door, Cait McRae makes it clear she's not interested.
Every sly glance tells another story.
It's all I can do not to throw her over my shoulder and take her home.
Cait might claim she only wants to explore the physical, but I know she's wrong.
She's mine.
If the people pursuing us both don't destroy what we've found.
Cait
I always knew I was different. No one ever caught my eye.
Until a huge, scowling man moves in next door. He's the new head of the mountain rescue service, and a single dad to a sweet little girl.
Turns out, I'm a late bloomer, as all I can think about is Lochie.
But someone else wants me.
A series of strange events point to one conclusion. I have a stalker, and the danger I'm in is only just starting.
--
The Wild Mountain Scots series follows on from the Wild Scots series with more of your favourite McRaes. Meet the brooding, tough, protective men of the mountain rescue and the beautiful women who tame their hearts.
Contents
Reader Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Bonus Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Jolie Vines
About the Author
Sneak Peek - Storm the Castle (Marry the Scot, #1)
Reader Note
Dear reader,
Thank you for picking up Obsessed, the first in my series about the men of the mountain rescue. Get ready to swoon!
In case you didn’t know, the series comes hot on the heels of the Wild Scots books—five of Cait’s cousins have already had their romances.
If you’ve read those, have you met their daddies? The Marry the Scot series features the fathers of the Wild Scots and Wild Mountain Scots crew.
All the stories are standalone, and each has its own happily ever after.
Be sure to check out the audiobooks too!
Enjoy my hot Scots.
Love, Jolie x
1
Lochinvar
From a short distance away, the white piece of paper under my car’s windscreen wiper fluttered in the breeze, innocuous even as it tore through my peace of mind.
The folded note bore my name—my old name—written in a bold pen.
We’d been found.
My heart pounded, and panic washed through me. A day of travel lay behind us. Weeks of planning this journey now wasted. We’d have to get back on the road and leave Scotland again. I dug my fingers into my hair, stifling a howl of frustration.
All the preparation. All the careful arrangements. Ruined.
With rigid, locked muscles, I glanced around the car park, squinting at the people hustling in and out of the service station. Someone was watching us. We had to go.
“Da? You’re crushing my hand.” Isla tugged her fingers from mine. “When we get to the cottage, I want to put my unicorn duvet on my new bed, then I’m going to line up all my books on the shelf. There will be a bookshelf, won’t there?”
I answered through gritted teeth, “Sorry, sweetheart. We cannae go.”
My tiny daughter’s expression dropped. “No! Ye promised.”
I’d promised more than that, though she’d never know exactly how much. Gripping her hand once more, I strode the distance to the car, alert for attack.
Isla wailed, dragging her feet.
“Remember what I told ye?” I asked her. “We need to stay safe.”
“I know. That’s why I’m Isla Ross now, and not our other name. That’s why we came here. Da, please don’t change your mind.”
We reached my newly purchased off-roader, and I snatched the paper from the windscreen. “This is why. Someone has followed us and put this here. We have to leave. Right now.”
Under her mop of blonde curls, Isla’s eyes widened. “No, Da—”
“I know you’re disappointed, but we have each other and that’s all we need. I’ll do anything and everything to protect ye.”
Tears filled her eyes, and I clamped down more on my urge to yell. This wasn’t fair, not on the six-year-old who needed a stable home. Not on me, a man exhausted by worry.
We had nowhere else to go.
“I wrote the note!” Isla burst out.
I halted my spiralling thoughts. “What?”
“It’s mine. I put it under there for you to find when we came back fro
m the bathroom. I’m sorry.” She burst into a flood of tears and threw her arms around my waist.
Fear receded, and I stared at the piece of paper, crumpled in my hand. L. MacNeill, it read. I flipped it open, and inside was a red heart, drawn in crayon.
I love you, daddy. From Isla, was scrawled underneath.
Oh fuck. Oh fucking God.
I’d officially aged a year in sixty seconds.
“Sorry,” Isla blubbed.
I crouched and wrapped her in a hug. It took a long minute before I could speak. “Christ, sweetheart. Naw, it’s me who’s sorry. I jumped to a conclusion.”
“I wrote it when we were driving, using the new pens Auntie Blair gave me. I thought you’d like it. My letters are so neat.”
“They are. Perfectly so.” I hushed her, stroking over her yellow hair, so different to my dark-as-night own.
I needed to calm the hell down.
No one knew where we were. Even my sister didn’t have our new address. Isla was still safe. We could continue.
With another hug, I strapped my lass back into her car seat and kissed her forehead, then drove us on.
The last forty minutes took us deep into the Highlands of Scotland, to a remote estate where I had a new job and we’d settle in a new home. For a while, we could hide and be happy.
Yet the echo of my alarm still infected me.
I drove, edging over the speed limit, needing to escape the sense of danger.
Finally there, I pulled up outside our cottage—one of two that backed onto a thick pine forest and a good distance from any other property. Isla sat forward, peering out.
“What’s that woman doing to her door? Is she painting words on it? That’s naughty. I can see a ‘B’, then an ‘I’ and a ‘T’. Oh, but the paint is running.”
I stared, too. Our neighbour, a woman I’d yet to speak to but who my boss had assured me would help with childcare if my job called me out late, was gazing at her front door, not noticing us.
Then I saw the painted slur.
There was no chance she’d done this herself.
My anger spiked again because I’d had it with threats, worry, and stress. With driving four hundred miles and thinking I’d have to drive us back.
Whatever the fuck was going on here had one pissed-off Scotsman to contend with.
2
Cait
The red paint dripped like blood, and I gazed at my cottage door, my gut tight.
Of all the emotions I could stir in another person, obsession scared me the most. This had all the hallmarks of a spurned lover. Except that was hardly the case.
As a pre-teen, I’d been followed by boys who asked me out, caught on my apparently perfect face. Likewise, teenaged me gained admirers in droves.
Until they got to know me better. Then, they gave up.
No amount of good looks could replace the fact that I had nothing to offer them. Or them to me. Zero, zip, nada sexy feelings. It hadn’t happened for me once, not for any boy, man, or woman. It had become common knowledge that Cait McRae just wasn’t interested.
I still feared the attention. The infatuation my birth mother had had for my father that led to the disastrous first few months of my life.
At twenty-three, I’d hoped the days of random crushes were past me.
The events of the recent few months and now the word splattered on the entrance to my home told another story.
Bitch, it read.
Well, thanks very much, weirdo.
Gravel crunched behind me, and I twisted around. Two people exited a car. A man and a little girl.
My new neighbours, I assumed, and my heart sank. Why the ever-loving heck did they need to arrive right at this moment?
“Back in the car,” the man barked at his daughter.
She did as ordered, and he stalked over to me.
“What the hell is this?” He glared at the door as if the slur was aimed at him, not me.
Lochinvar. That was his name. My uncle had recruited him as the new head of the mountain rescue. He looked the part, too. Dark hair, a close-cut beard, and dangerously intelligent almost-black eyes.
He was huge, too. A mountain of a man. Wide shoulders stretched his t-shirt, sizable muscles plain.
Instinctively, I took a step back. “This is my place. I’m Cait. I just arrived home and found it.”
His gaze swept over me. “Ye havenae been inside?”
“Not yet.”
“Unlock the door.”
I bristled at the order but still obeyed. I’d seen enough horror movies to know that the woman should never enter the creepy house alone.
Except this wasn’t a creepy house. It was my home, my lovely cottage that I’d decorated and furnished. My refuge from a busy life. The place where I intended to raise a family.
Besides, I wasn’t on my own in this scenario.
The lock gave way, and I pushed inside, the stranger right behind me. His heavy hand landed on my shoulder, and he restrained me, sweeping the living room with a fierce focus.
I flipped on the light against the evening’s gloom and peered around. Nothing was out of place. Envelopes sat in a pile on my desk under the window, right where I’d left them. On the stone floor by the edge of the rug, my boots lined up undisturbed, and my sofa blanket draped at a jaunty angle, as I’d arranged it before work this morning. To the left, a clear line of sight into the kitchen gave the all-clear that way.
“I don’t think anyone’s been inside,” I breathed.
Lochinvar grunted then strode in the opposite direction to the closed door of my bedroom.
“Wait!” I squeaked, leaping after him.
While the rest of my tiny four-roomed single-storey home was neat, my bedroom was the opposite. Next to my bed, a patio door led to a small paved space out the back, bracketed from the forest by a low wall, and I often used the space to dry my laundry on an airer. Last night, I’d arrived home late after dinner with my family and grabbed the airer inside, and this morning, I’d dumped the lot onto my quilt.
Lingerie. All of it.
Fancy lacy bras. Thongs with gauzy panels and embroidered flowers.
My new neighbour stuck his head inside. “Holy fuck,” he muttered. “Someone’s been in here. The dirty bastard’s been in your drawers.”
Hot, I squeezed past his huge frame and whipped the blanket over to conceal my underwear. “Nope. This is my doing. I left it like that.”
Two dark eyebrows rose, then Lochinvar continued on to the last closed door—the en suite. “Clear,” he remarked and stalked back into the living room.
I closed my eyes for a second and tried to see a pattern in the recent minor disturbances. My stolen coat. My work emails opened before I’d read them. I had no idea who was behind it.
I’d also told very few people about it, too, and intended to keep it that way.
Where I lived, on a remote estate in Scotland, I was surrounded by family, which was both wonderful and slightly smothering. My parents and twin brothers respected my space, but if they heard about this…
A voice came from outside the cottage. “…paint on the door. Some arsehole up to no good. I need your police contact so we can get someone here.”
Oh, flipping hell.
I rushed out, my hand up. “Please don’t. I can handle this.”
Lochinvar glowered, his eyebrows forming a solid line. He stuck his finger into his ear and turned away, listening to the conversation I could only assume he was having with my uncle, the man who’d hired him.
There was no chance Da wouldn’t be here in twenty minutes.
“Aye. Grand. I’ll do that.” Lochinvar hung up and twisted back. “What’s the problem? This needs reporting.”
Annoyance rose at the presumption I couldn’t handle this myself. “Did you seriously just tell my family? Do ye know what you’ve done? The whole estate will find out in minutes. How about minding your own business?”
He reared back. Then his eyes narrowed. “
Do ye know who did this?”
I fought the urge to grind my teeth. “No, but I’m more than capable of working it out on my own. I’ve been managing just fine for months.”
I caught myself too late, and Lochinvar homed in on that sliver of information.
“This has happened before,” he deduced.
“I didn’t say that, and don’t ye dare repeat it to my uncle, Da, or any other family member who comes steaming over.”
My chest heaved, and I stared him down. Likewise, the stranger glared back, hands on his hips, and breathing hard.
We locked gazes.
Why the hell was he so angry? I was the one who’d been attacked.
The car door popping open claimed both our attentions.
“Da?” came a small voice. “Is it safe?”
Lochinvar broke eye contact with me and swivelled to go fetch his daughter: a sweet little darling with blonde curls and big eyes. I wanted to meet her, too—part of his coming to work here was the agreement that we’d help with looking after his child if he had rescue call-outs overnight. I’d volunteered for that, more than happy to have a little one to care for before I had my own family.
Except right now, I was so hopping mad with her father, I couldn’t stand it.
I stomped inside and changed into old clothes then grabbed a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush. Maybe if I was lucky, I could get rid of the evidence before anyone else saw it.