Katie's Highlander

by Maeve Greyson

  Katie gave him a what the hell is your problem look. He recognized the scowl easily enough. ’Twas the same look Esme and Máthair always gave him when he butted into their business.

  “A friend,” she snapped in a tone that dared him to ask another stupid question.

  Turning to the Abernathys, she nodded at her poor car. “I’ll have the insurance stuff to you as soon as possible. Go ahead and start searching out the parts.” She blew out a frustrated huff of disgust and shook her head. “Even with my friend coming to get me, I’ll still probably be stuck in this godforsaken place for a few days. You’ve got my number and I guess I’ll be over at Brady’s Bed and Breakfast if for any unforeseen reason you need to reach me other than by phone. Okay?”

  Like hell ye will. As soon as he was out of earshot, he’d make damn certain that no rooms were available to rent for Katie nor her supposed friend Adam. Ramsay stepped forward, a sense of urgency fueling his newfound determination. “Ye can stay at the keep. There’s no need for ye t’rent a room at Mistress Martha’s.”

  “And what about Adam?” Katie asked with a look that dared him to challenge her. It was clear she’d reached the end of her patience with the current situation. “He can’t drive here all the way from Carolina Beach and be expected to immediately turn around and drive us back. He’ll need a place to stay at least for a night. Maybe two. You gonna put him up too?”

  So she is capable of a foul mood. Of course, he couldna blame her. After all, her plans had been dashed t’pieces by the news about her car repairs. Ramsay squared his shoulders. I’ll show her just how benevolent a MacDara can be. “Aye. Yer friend is welcome to stay in the west wing of the keep.”

  “I’m in the east wing—remember?” By now, Katie had fisted her hands at her sides and fixed him with a murderous glare. “There’s plenty of room there and Adam will want to be near me,” she said through clenched teeth.

  Fire suits ye, lass. Suits ye well, indeed. He had to admit he was rather enjoying this less than sunshiny side to the lass. Ramsay gave Katie his most beguiling smile. “Aye, lass. I remember quite well in which wing ye stayed. We enjoyed several drinks together there—remember? And the west wing—the suite of rooms on the other side of the keep from yours is the wing where yer friend will stay.”

  Katie’s eyes narrowed and by the stern set of her jaw, she was either about to strangle him or kick him in the balls.

  “Keep your damn wings,” she spit out the words. With a determined tilt of her head, she pointed at a two-story Victorian home several blocks down the street. “I’ll get a couple of rooms right now.” Then she aimed her pointing finger at the wide-eyed Abernathys. “Start ordering parts—got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Both men obediently nodded as Katie turned and took off down the sidewalk in a stomping march headed toward the bed-and-breakfast.

  “I suppose you’ll be wanting to use our phone?” Gordon looked at Ramsay and jabbed a thumb toward the office.

  “What’s he need the phone for?” asked James.

  “Never you mind,” Gordon advised his son with a disbelieving shake of his head. He pointed at the wrecked car then thumped his finger against James’s clipboard. “Start tallying, boy. We’ve got parts to order.” He turned back and winked at Ramsay. “Your daddy’ll be tickled if you hook that one and land her. She’ll give you strong sons that’ll do your family proud.”

  Gordon Abernathy’s words gave him pause. Is that what I want? Dare I start this battle?

  Ramsay slowly picked up the old-fashioned dial phone’s receiver and placed it to his ear. He turned and watched Katie stomping her way down the street toward the bed-and-breakfast and his heart lightened immeasurably. The hope for what might be strengthened his resolve as he dialed Mistress Martha’s private cellphone number.

  Aye, this is what I want. Let the battle begin.

  Chapter 7

  I am such a shit.

  She couldn’t believe she’d allowed her frustration to evolve into a rare fit of bitchiness in front of Ramsay and two perfectly innocent bystanders. How had this trip spiraled out of control? She couldn’t even rent a couple of rooms at the damn bed-and-breakfast. Some sort of convention, Miss Martha had said. A convention? Really? Here in Tiny Town, USA?

  And to add insult to injury, Ramsay, who had already saved her sorry ass once…well…apparently more than once, since he had oh-so nicely tucked his kilt around her drunk ass last night and not taken advantage of her. Which was great, but it kind of hurt her feelings too.

  Had he even tried anything? Was he even interested? I mean…damn. A girl wants to be wanted—especially by a guy like him. Anyway—the man had not only re-offered rooms at the keep for her and Adam, he’d also been gallant enough to escort her to the town’s only café for a calming cup of coffee and something to eat.

  Katie cupped her hands around the white ceramic mug and scowled down at her reflection rippling across the black depths. She blew out a heavy sigh. Unbelievable. I am my own worst enemy.

  “Lass?”

  She blinked away all the damning accusations bouncing around in her head and looked up. Ramsay was leaning toward her over the small café table with an expectant look. Waiting. Apparently, he’d just asked her a question after she’d apologized to him for the third time for losing her temper and acting like an ungrateful bitch.

  “I’m sorry, Ramsay. What?”

  “Earlier, ye said ye’d no’ eaten yet. ’Tis late in the day now. Would ye care for some food with yer coffee? Might make ye feel better.” He kind of grinned at her—a sympathetic lift to one corner of his mouth that bordered on a come, let me hold you smile that only made her feel worse for snapping at him earlier.

  Ramsay had been nothing but nice. Too damn nice. He deserved better. He leaned closer and winked, lowering his soothing deep voice to a conspiratorial tone. “And ’tis a well-known truth that whisky is best handled on a full stomach. Ye found that out well enough last night.”

  He would bring up last night. She pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed the inner corners of her eyes, the beginnings of a belated headache already starting to pound. Usually, she’d always been miraculously free of hangovers whenever she drank. Apparently, she’d earned this alcohol-induced migraine by acting like such a shit.

  Karma.

  She could hear her father say the word as clearly as if he was standing beside her.

  She looked across the table at Ramsay. She did remember mentioning the need for another night of copious amounts of alcohol at some point in her rant about her car but at this moment in time, she wasn’t too keen on any additional opportunities to make a fool of herself.

  “A bit a food might help the ache hammerin’ inside yer head as well.”

  So, he’d noticed. Damn, he’s such a freaking nice guy.

  “Valid argument,” she said as she blew out a heavy sigh and picked up the laminated menu divided into four easy sections: breakfast, lunch, supper, and beverages. The reverse of the page was nothing but desserts. Apparently, the folks of Brady loved their sweets.

  She wasn’t hungry, but Ramsay was right; she needed to eat. She finally plopped the menu back to its position between the metal napkin box and the wire basket holding squirt bottles of ketchup and mustard along with a pair of dented salt and pepper shakers that looked like they’d been there since the fifties. “You order for me. I’m sure you know what’s good here. Everyone greeted you by name when we walked in, so I have to assume you come here a lot.”

  “They all know me because I’m a MacDara.” Ramsay held up a finger and the young waitress in the pink-and-white polyester uniform hurried over, coffeepot in one hand and water pitcher in the other.

  “Y’all ready to order now?”

  “Aye, Mary, we’ll both have the special but tell Mistress Meg if she puts brussels sprouts on m’plate again she’ll find them
freshenin’ up the inside of her car on this lovely warm August day.”

  Mary giggled and winked at Katie. “It’s an ongoing war between those two. Meg found out that he detests brussels sprouts so she pesters him by sneaking them in everything he orders. Old Meg pesters everybody she likes—and she likes Ramsay a lot—judging by the number of brussels sprouts I’ve served him.”

  Katie involuntarily shuddered and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t blame him. I can’t stand those nasty things either.” Baby cabbages. Yuck. Her empty stomach gurgled in agreement.

  Ramsay sat back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and gave Mary a smug look. “Ye see there? Ken my meanin’ now, do ye?”

  Mary rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Don’t suck me into this. I have to work here.” Then she hurried off toward the kitchen.

  Ramsay lifted his glass of ice water in a toast. “Here’s to the death of all brussels sprouts. May the goddesses wipe them from all creation.”

  “To the death of brussels sprouts,” Katie said as she clinked her coffee cup against his glass. Goddesses instead of God and all those Celtic symbols on his spear. His father talked a lot about goddesses too. Interesting. “So…your family—all pagans?”

  All amusement left Ramsay. He shifted in his seat as though it were two sizes too small, then scowled down at the butter knife that he became very intent on spinning on the table in front of him. “What would cause ye to ask such a thing?” He didn’t look up, just remained totally engrossed in the art of knife-spinning.

  Katie studied him. Interesting again. Gone was the self-assured, I can save you from anything Ramsay, replaced by defensive Mr. I don’t trust anybody. Blinking away thoughts of strange cults tucked away in less populated parts of the country, Katie took another sip of coffee before answering. “You referred to goddesses in your toast and your father talked quite a lot about them and all kinds of rites and rituals this morning. Which goddesses? The ones on your spear? I think they’re fascinating, but if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. Religious preferences are totally private—unless you sacrifice animals or do satanic crap. If you’re that kind of guy…” Katie paused, then came to a firm conclusion on gut feeling alone. “Nah…you’re not that kind of guy.” She waved away her words then took another deep sip of the strong black coffee. Ramsay was a good guy. Her knight in a kilt—which she just realized he wasn’t wearing today. A sense of disappointment nudged her. She placed her cup back on the table then reached over and set her hand down on top of the spinning knife. “Never mind. Sorry I brought it up. Really.”

  She sat straighter in her chair, folded her hands on the table, and searched for something to say that would make up for how badly the day had gone so far. A safe topic. “So…what do you do here in Brady? You know. For a living?” Time to learn more about Ramsay. Of course, if she learned more about this sweet guy sitting across the table, her departure from Brady might not be so easy. Already, the thought of leaving this place and all the interesting eccentricities it held, the thought of never seeing Ramsay again, all that made her feel strangely twitchy and kind of sad.

  “I’m a MacDara.” Ramsay’s smile returned, and his earlier wariness melted away. He pushed back from the table and made way for Mary as she placed two overloaded plates of meatloaf, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, and bacon-wrapped green bean bundles in front of them.

  “Meg must be off her feed today. No brussels sprouts. But I’d watch out. She never gives up that easy. She’ll probably send out a brussels sprouts pie or something.” Mary smiled and nodded at them both. “I’ll be right back with a basket of hot rolls. She was just taking them out of the oven.”

  “Thank ye, Mary.” Ramsay picked up his fork and turned his attention back to Katie. “Tell me more about yerself. Archeologist, ye’d mentioned earlier? Ye said ye had to return to Princeton after yer visit with yer friends. Is that where ye do yer history work?” Brow furrowed, his gaze dropped to his plate and he suddenly became extremely intent on cutting off the perfect chunk of meatloaf. He shrugged a shoulder and didn’t look up as he continued, “Or be that where yer husband works—and ye just live there? With him?”

  Ramsay struggling to find out if she was single did wonders for lifting her mood. No guy had ever worked so hard at finding out if she was available. Katie managed to hide her smile behind a quick sip of coffee and a bite of green beans. Apparently, he’d forgotten that she’d told him that she had no one to call on their ride to the keep last night. She clearly remembered telling him she was all on her own.

  “I’m not married,” she replied as soon as she could trust herself to speak without giving away her pleasure at Ramsay’s clumsy detective work. “Not even seeing anybody. With my research and Papa’s recent passing, dating hasn’t ranked too high on my priority list.” She shrugged. “I’ve always been pretty much married to my job.”

  “I see.” Ramsay sat taller in his chair, visibly brightened, and gave her quite the charming smile. “Research, ye said?”

  “Archeologist stuff. When I’m not digging around in a pit or a cave, I teach a few classes at Princeton University.”

  Katie mentally braced herself. Incredibly nice guy or not, now came the moment of truth. Most men she’d met shied away as soon as they discovered her accomplishments. She was one of the youngest tenured professors at Princeton University, had published several highly lauded papers in her field, and received several awards. She was a successful, independent nerd, plain and simple. That fact coupled with her less than impressive chest, above-average height, and lack of giving a shit whether a guy approved of her or not—was the reason she had pretty much come to the conclusion that she was destined to be single the rest of her life.

  And she was okay with that. Maybe there wasn’t a special someone for everybody in this world. Maybe she was supposed to go it alone. While a little disappointing and fairy tale busting, she was cool with that too because she liked her life. She had several friends and interesting colleagues. The career she’d always wanted. And thankfully, she’d been blessed with a father who’d instilled a deep sense of self-worth into her psyche at an early age.

  Papa had always said, “You should only seek the approval of two entities in your entire lifetime, Katie. God and yourself. Trying to please everyone else will just cause you grief and make you crazy.” And then he’d always wink and add, “Even your Papa will make you crazy if you try to live by what I want for you rather than what you know in your heart is right for you.”

  Ramsay cleared his throat, snapping her out of power-up mode against the usual geek-a-phobia rejection. “Research,” he repeated. “And diggin’ in a pit, ye say?”

  “To find artifacts—like your spear. I search for history’s lost treasures and the tales they tell us about everything in the past.” Katie popped a bite of meatloaf in her mouth and followed it with a sip of coffee.

  Ramsay’s eyes flared a bit wider and he visibly swallowed hard. “I see,” he finally said.

  What an odd reaction. The strangest things seemed to trigger an uncomfortable sense of wariness in Ramsay. Apparently, she was going to have to keep a mental list: no talk of Celtic goddesses, no talk about the spear. He was such a great guy. A sense of disappointment and the feeling of an opportunity lost killed what little appetite the enticing aroma of the meal in front of her had stirred. Pity she wasn’t going to be in Brady long enough to really get to know him. Speaking of getting to know him…“By the way, you still owe me an answer. You never said what you did.”

  With a huge bite of meatloaf halted midway to his mouth, Ramsay’s expression shifted to a look of bafflement. “Aye. I did. I said I was a MacDara.”

  “That’s your name. Not your profession.” Katie waved her fork like a laser pointer. “Or did I miss something?”

  “When yer a Scot, yer name is yer profession.” His strained tone coupled with the od
d look he gave her made her want to hug him. Ramsay kind of reminded her of a mistreated dog that had been dumped on the side of the road to starve and was now leery of any sort of kindness. Even when he allowed himself to laugh, there was just something about him that made her feel like he was afraid of allowing himself to be happy.

  Wonder what he’d do if I gave him a big hug right now and told him everything would be okay? The thought was quite appealing. Poor guy would probably think me nuts for sure and head for the hills. But from the way the day had gone so far, seems like they could both use a hug.

  Ramsay’s tensed body language clearly transmitted that if she wanted anymore information out of him, she was going to have to pry it loose with a crowbar.

  “Okay.” Katie paused, stirring her empty fork through a puddle of mashed potatoes and gravy. “So…since you’re a MacDara and your mother and sister told me the MacDaras not only operate Highland Life and Legends but also own it, what is your particular role in the business? I assume it takes all the family members to run such a large operation. Yes?”

  “Aye. Highland Life and Legends takes quite a bit a tendin’.” He shoved his empty plate away and leaned back in his chair, gifting her with one of his trademark smiles that didn’t reach his eyes. “All the animals are my responsibility. Horses, sheep, cattle, herd dogs, and whatever else bears fur, fins, or feathers in the park. I oversee their tendin’ and trainin’.” He seemed thoughtful for a moment, staring off into space, looking at nothing but seeming to see things he didn’t want to see. Gradually, his lopsided grin transformed into a narrow-eyed, bitter expression. “Tourists baffle the hell out of me. People in general do. I kent a long time ago that the so-called simple creatures of this world are much easier to understand. Animals dinna chase after money nor sacrifice all that’s truly important in this world. All that’s precious and holy. They dinna lie, cheat, nor sell another’s soul to gain the things that in a few days’ time, they’ll toss aside because it’s no longer the social style or good enough t’be the envy of their neighbors.”