“And just like in darts, there can only be one clear winner.”
“Kat, I have no earthly idea what you’re referring to. Is this still about Pitts and the dart game?”
She shook her head. “Don’t be daft. I have no interest in Pitts other than taking his money. My money, as it were. I’m talking about the game of life. And I’m finally realizing that I can’t win if I don’t play. So I’m in.” She poked him in the chest. “And you know me, Brodie, when I enter a contest, I play to win. Take no prisoners.”
Come to think of it, she did look a bit on the bloodthirsty side at that moment. Brodie was torn between laughing off this whole strange mood of hers…and covering his bits and pieces. Ultimately, there were times when retreat was the better part of valor, and he was beginning to suspect now was one of them. “Fine, fine. Pretend I never asked.”
“Oh, no. I’m all done pretending.” She patted the spot she’d poked a moment ago, her smile still a bit on the edgy side. “So there you have it,” she announced, sounding both relieved and, if he wasn’t mistaken, nervous. “I’ve gone and put it out there.”
Nervous didn’t apply to the Kat he knew. Unless she was trying to bank a corner shot to sink a double against a tourist who’d proven to be a bit more on his game than he’d let on, Kat Henderson rarely displayed nerves of any kind. Fearless she was. Around these parts, when it came to darts or billiards, she was the shark in the pond.
“You’ve been put on notice, Brodie Chisholm.”
He lifted his hands in surrender. “I have no doubt. Take whatever you want.”
“If it were only that simple,” she said with a long-suffering sigh, then pushed past him. This time she was fleet of foot and managed to sidestep his last-second grab. He thought about going after her, but somehow he doubted the real meaning behind her odd behavior would be further illuminated at this point. However, she had left him standing on the corner, literally scratching his head, purely puzzled by the whole of their conversation. And if there was one thing that provoked him, it was a good puzzle.
Then there came a round of metal clanking against metal, followed by another round of very creative swearing. Brodie smiled and walked back around the corner toward the repair-shop door. Something was up with Kat, and considering mention had been made of no prisoners being taken and the like, perhaps it might be best to be forearmed if possible. There was only one man on earth who knew Kat better than he did. Maybe he knew what in the hell had gotten into her.
“Good afternoon, Alastair,” Brodie called out as he approached.
The old man’s legs jutted out from under Hinky’s old Mini. “Not sure what’s good about it,” he grumbled, grunting as more metal clanged about, the sound ringing through the small garage and echoing back again. “But I suppose it’s better than not having another afternoon a’tall.” He grunted some more. “Seeing as this one is like to be my last, as I’m about certain this bloody transmission is going to kill me before I manage to wrangle it into—” Another ringing blow, then, “Bloody hell!” Alastair shoved the trolley out from under the car, holding one hand in the other. “Teach me to taunt the fates, that will.”
Brodie was already searching for a clean rag even before he spied the blood oozing rapidly between the fingers Alastair had clenched around his wounded palm. Brodie dragged the wicker wash basket out from under the tool rack and fished out what appeared to be something clean—clean enough, anyway—and tossed it to Alastair. “Where’s your first-aid kit?”
“Just hand me some glue and some tape—I’ll be fine enough.”
The blood had already soaked through the rag. “So you’re sayin’ you don’t have a kit? I thought Kat had harangued you about that ages ago. She sees this and there will be hell to pay from now till all—”
Alastair scrambled up. “Now, now, no crazy talk like that.” He wobbled a little, having stood up too fast.
Brodie immediately slung an arm around his shoulders, taking the weight of the older man against him. Seeing as, at a few inches over six feet, he had almost a full foot on the man, stout of build though he might be, it wasn’t much of a burden. “Let’s get you over to the washbasin and see what we see.”
“Hello?” came the sound of a lilting female voice from the open bay door behind them. Even though she’d only spoken one word, he had no doubt who it was. There was only one American in town with a voice like that.
“Hullo, Daisy. Just a bit of first aid going on here.”
“Bloody hell,” Alastair muttered. “This is all I need. Kat’ll be back any moment.” He shifted his weight out from under Brodie’s supporting arm and stepped away. “Why don’t you escort Miss MacDonnell wherever it is she needs to go. I’ll take care of this. Hardly more than a scratch.”
Brodie waved Daisy back. “Just a moment.”
“Are you sure you don’t need some help? My mother was a nurse. I picked up a few things growing up. Maybe I can help. Or go after someone for you? Dr. Frampton, maybe? I think I just saw him heading to your pub for lunch, but perhaps—”
“I’ll be fine,” Alastair called out. “Thanks anyway.”
If he’d been striving for civil, Brodie thought, he’d missed it by a stone’s throw or two. And he’d never known Alastair to be anything but friendly. Probably the pain. The cut must be even worse than it already looked to be. “Maybe we should get Frampton over here.”
“For the love of all that’s holy,” he hissed, “get her out of here before Kat comes back, will ye? I’ve trouble enough on my hands today without adding a catfight to the mix.”
Brodie had been trying to get Alastair to put his hand back under the water so he could see just how deep the gash in his palm was. He paused, frowned, remembering now the reason he’d stepped back around the corner. “Are Kat and Daisy at odds over something?” Of course, they couldn’t be more different. But then, no woman was quite like Kat.
The American lass was open, cheerful to a fault, and exceedingly friendly. Partly, he’d felt, during the scant few times they’d had words, because she was eager to fit in with her new neighbors. And partly, he knew, because reading people was his business, after all; it was her nature to be bubbly. Nothing like her Auntie Maude, that was for certain. A more grim-faced woman he’d never had the displeasure of meeting. There had been a collective sigh of relief when the taxi ferrying Maude’s only blood relation came in from the train station and Daisy had turned out to be nothing like the auld bat, God rest her mortal soul.
Kat, on the other hand, though outgoing enough, was bold and brash, bordering on cocky. But no’ arrogant. The lass was quite able to back up any claim she made about herself and was quick to defend any in her acquaintance who needed defending.
She was also quick to extract retribution from those who’d done wrong.
Probably why he was a bit twitchy at the moment.
“It’s more than a flesh wound,” he said to Alastair, dragging his thoughts back to the moment. “You’re likely to need stitches. Why don’t I send Daisy off to Hagg’s to get Frampton here before he finishes off his first ale.” He grinned. “You wouldn’t want your stitches to be all crooked.”
He thought he saw Alastair pale a little at the last part.
“You’re not afraid of a little mending, are you?”
“’Course not.” He pried Brodie’s hand off of his. “Not the first time I’ve seen a little blood. Just get me something to wrap around it—I’ll be fine.” When he looked up and spied Brodie’s set expression, he relented. Slightly. “I’ll see the good doctor tomorrow, aye? We’ve cleaned it well enough. It’s hardly pumping out any fresh at all at this point.”
“That’s because you’ve got water running over it and it’s compressed. Lift one finger and it’ll be gushing again and we both know it.” Over his shoulder, he said, “We appreciate the help. Send Frampton here as soon as you find him.”
“Will do,” she said, with a cheery smile and an even cheerier wave.
He g
ave the same in return. It was almost impossible not to be cheery where Daisy was concerned.
“You might want to reconsider that hound-dog smile when Kat gets back here, lad. No use in rubbin’ her nose in it.”
“In what?”
“Anyone can plainly see yer moonin’ after our newest resident. No’ that I blame ye, lad, she’s quite a corker.”
Brodie was honestly surprised. “Mooning? Me? After Daisy?” He glanced back to the spot where she’d been standing, as if looking there would help him make more sense of things. What was up with the Henderson clan this fine day anyway? They’d both gone a bit starkers. “Did you have the exhaust running at any point today?”
Alastair scowled at him, as if he were being particularly dense. “The only brain that’s been clouded lately is yours. Right in front of your nose is where she is. Where she’s always been.”
“You’ve lost more blood than I thought,” Brodie told him. “Here.” He grabbed a clean wad of paper napkins stacked by the sink for drying hands. “Press this against your palm, and hold it tight. Daisy should be here any moment with Frampton. Why don’t we sit down until he gets here.” Not that Alastair looked particularly woozy now, but obviously he was more out of it than he appeared, given the gibberish he was spouting.
Of course, that didn’t explain the gibberish his daughter had been babbling on about earlier. I should have never left the pub, he thought with a slow sigh.
“I don’t need to sit down, I’m perfectly fine,” Alastair grumbled, just as Daisy stepped back inside the shop.
“Here we are,” she announced, ushering in the doctor.
“What have you gone and done to yersel’ now, Alastair?” Frampton was from Alastair’s generation and the two had not only grown up together in Glenbuie, they’d fought for the heart of the same woman. Alastair had won. But even though Maddy Urquhart Henderson—Alastair’s loving and devoted wife of almost twenty years—had gone to her great reward almost a decade ago, Ben Frampton had never quite forgotten or forgiven.
“It’s naught but a scratch,” Alastair told him, clearly not pleased to see the man. “I told them both there was no reason to drag you from your midday meal.”
“Better Daisy got him here to get you fixed up before Kat gets back and sees what you’ve done to yourself,” Brodie reminded him.
Alastair grudgingly held his hand out for the doctor and scowled over his bent head in the general direction of both Brodie and Daisy. “Thank you both for your concern, but I’m being tended to, so why don’t the two of you move on now, enjoy the rest of your day.” His grouchy countenance belied the ostensibly friendly words.
Brodie decided maybe it was better after all to let the Henderson clan sort things out on their own. “Right you are,” he said to Alastair. “We’ll be taking our leave.”
Alastair waved absently in their direction with his good hand, his head bent and getting in the way of Frampton’s efforts to see the wound more clearly.
“Those two are quite the pair,” Daisy said as they exited the repair shop. “I sense some tension there.”
“Long history between them. But Ben is the only doctor we have, so they tolerate each other when necessary.”
Daisy nodded, looked like she was about to say something else, but thought better of it. “I appreciated you stopping by earlier. I hope you’ll reconsider what I had to say about promoting the pub, but I can’t thank you enough for passing along Reese’s business card. You know,” she added with a smile, “if his business card is any indication, he’s in dire need of my services.”
Brodie laughed. “The only Chisholm less inclined to spend a lot of time tooting their own horn than me is, well, any of my brothers, actually. But by all means, take your best shot. I’ll put in a good word for you.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Thanks, Brodie, I really appreciate it. I know I’m an outsider here, and I understand Maude wasn’t the easiest person in the world. I do truly appreciate how nice you’ve all been to me since my arrival. You’ve always gone out of your way to make me feel at home at Hagg’s, and that’s been really wonderful. I don’t take your hospitality for granted.”
“Och, we’re a pretty friendly bunch here. No need to get territorial, especially with a lass as fetching as yourself.”
Daisy blushed quite becomingly. “You Scots are quite the flatterers,” she said on a laugh. “I still think you should give some thought to my ideas.” She grinned. “I think we could make a great team.”
Brodie grinned back, then glanced beyond Daisy’s shoulder…to where Kat stood, clutching a Plough’s bag to her chest.
Chapter 3
After spending the past twenty minutes castigating herself over her ridiculously foolish display with Brodie—what on earth had she been thinking?—it took less than twenty seconds for her to switch gears right back again.
She hadn’t but stepped around the corner for a few sandwiches, and he was already consorting with the enemy. Again! Make a good team, would they? No one made a better team than Kat and Brodie, and she had half a mind to tell Daisy exactly that. Then she looked at Brodie and the words lodged in her throat. Did he have any idea what kind of partnership Kat really wanted with him? What would he think if he knew?
Every single one of her insecurities came rushing in, swamping her, tying up her tongue…and her stomach. Maybe she was a fool. Not for stating her intentions to him earlier, but for having them in the first place.
Daisy had noticed the direction of Brodie’s gaze at that point and turned to face Kat. Her smile was instant and seemingly sincere. Of course, she had no idea of the turmoil she was wreaking just with her very presence.
“Hi, Kat. I was just on my way to find you.”
She raised one highly skeptical eyebrow. “Really.” She couldn’t imagine why.
“Your father—” Brodie started, but before he could complete the sentence, Doc Frampton stepped around Hinky’s Cooper and came over to where the three of them were standing.
Her heart squeezed and her stomach clutched more tightly, but for entirely different reasons now. “What happened? Is he all right?”
“Ornery cuss, so he’s fine,” the doctor told her, scowling himself, as if at war between his Hippocratic oath and his personal ones where Alastair was concerned. Which, knowing full well the history between the two, he likely was.
Kat felt her lips twitch. She knew Ben took the feud quite seriously, but after all this time, she couldn’t help but think what both of them needed was to down a few ales together and let bygones be bygones. “What happened?”
“Cut on his hand. Needed a few stitches. He should come get them out in a week.”
Everyone standing there knew Alastair wouldn’t be darkening Ben Frampton’s door unless it was life or death, and even then, only if it wasn’t his own. So she juggled the sack of sandwiches into one arm and stuck out her hand. “Thanks, Doc. I’ll make sure he takes care of himself.”
“Ale’s on the house,” Brodie told him as Frampton gave Kat’s hand a polite shake. “Thanks for coming right over.”
Frampton nodded and was gone a moment later.
“I should go see to him,” Kat said, motioning to the back of the garage. “He’ll be like a lion with a thorn for a few days, I imagine. You know what a baby he is when it comes to things like this.” She was bordering on babbling, and she knew it. Brodie likely thought she’d lost a marble or two after her speech in front of the shop earlier. And who knew what Daisy thought of her? She shouldn’t care. But a part of her wondered, nonetheless. The insecure part that was standing there in grease-stained coveralls, hair in ratty braids, nails torn and ragged, not so much as a swipe of makeup on her face. While Daisy stood there looking every bit as cute and perky as her namesake. Effortlessly so. She wondered what it would be like to have the kind of natural beauty that so easily turned heads, and the quiet confidence that came along with it.
Kat had plenty of confidence about a lot of things regardin
g herself, namely when it came to her abilities and skills. But when it came to things like appearance and attractiveness to the opposite sex, that same sense of self deserted her completely. Sure, she cleaned up okay, all things considered. She wasn’t a total grease monkey. Before going to Hagg’s for an evening of billiards, darts, and Brodie, she’d scrub herself clean, rebraid her hair, put on a clean pair of dungarees and a fresh shirt. But that was as girly as she got. No need to pretend otherwise, after all. She knew everyone far too well, and they her. What would be the point?
Aye, there might have been a moment now and again when she’d indulged in a makeover fantasy—hallucination was more like it—but when it came down to it, she had zero inclination to so much as paint her nails, much less her face. She was a take-it-or-leave-it type when it came to any sort of cosmetic enhancement. For the most part, she chose to leave it. Her feeling had always been that if she had to slap on layers of goop in order to get a man’s attention, it wasn’t worth getting. Men didn’t have to go to all that trouble. They shaved, brushed their teeth, and combed their hair. She was willing to do that much.
Standing there now, in the face of Brodie’s easy good looks and Daisy’s perky perfection, however, she began to have second thoughts about her stance on all things cosmetic. Brodie liked girly-girls. Well, to be fair, Brodie liked all kinds of women. His head could be turned by an infectious laugh as easily as a pretty face. It was one of the things she liked best about him, that he judged people for who they were and not what they looked like. And yet…when he looked at her, she doubted he saw anything resembling a desirable woman. He just saw good ol’ Kat. One-of-the-boys Kat. Best-buddy Kat.
“I, uh, I’d better get inside and make sure Papa isn’t doing anything he shouldn’t be,” she stammered, suddenly feeling out of her element and hating it. This was her town, her people, her place of business. It was ridiculous to feel like an outsider in any manner. “Thank you for taking care of him, I appreciate it,” she told them both, and meant it, but wanted nothing more than to get as far away from them as possible. Not waiting for a response, she clutched the sack of sandwiches more tightly in her fist and went inside the shop, leaving Brodie and Daisy standing there looking confused by her abrupt departure.
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