Some Like It Scot (Crescent Cove Book 1)

by Marlie May

  When Paisley got sick, the trailer park residents had hosted yard sales and a bake-off to raise money for her treatments. Now, they did regular fundraisers for the Foundation. While every penny would help, I hated taking money from a woman who lived on social security. I held out the envelope toward Jolene. “This is wonderful, but you should keep it.”

  Jolene’s eyes twinkled, and she nudged my hand away. “Just put it to good use.”

  “Okay. We will. Thank you.” I tucked the envelope into my pocket. I’d give it to Esteban, the Foundation chair, at our next committee meeting.

  “You should stop by for coffee Sunday morning,” Jolene said. “I’m baking cinnamon buns.”

  Her cinnamon buns were soft and gooey on the inside, lightly browned and drizzled with frosting on the outside. Since I was training, there was no better way to carb up than with cinnamon buns. “I’d love to. That’s really nice of you.”

  “You know me,” Jolene said. “Love to bake.” She nodded to Paisley, who always slept in on weekends. “I’ll pack up a few for you, too.”

  Paisley grinned. “I can’t wait.”

  One good deed deserved another. To thank Jolene, I’d mow her lawn this coming week.

  Minnow strained on his leash.

  “Guess I’d better let him roam before heading inside.” Jolene moved forward, calling over her shoulder, “See you Sunday!”

  We climbed the front steps to our trailer. Unlocking the front door, I let Paisley enter ahead of me. Cally, our Yorkie mix, scrambled off the recliner and darted over to wiggle in front of us. I stooped down and cuddled her, scratching behind her tiny ears.

  “Did my baby miss her mama?” I asked in a high-pitched voice. The dog whimpered and licked my chin. “Aww. I missed you, too.”

  “I’m going to bed.” Paisley yawned as she walked down the hall.

  “Night. And happy birthday.”

  “Thanks!”

  I poured a glass of water and sat on the sofa, tucking my feet underneath me. Cally hopped up, circled seventy-five times, and settled down with a groan. She twitched and drifted into doggy-dreams.

  No sweet dreams for me, because my internal reprimands needed to have a few words with me about my recent behavior.

  I shouldn’t have kissed Dag.

  Lord knows what he thought of a woman who groped him within minutes of meeting him. I’d cupped his broad shoulders. Clung to his curls. Kissed him. In a public place, where anyone could see. No, where I’d humiliated myself by—

  “Enough.” I rubbed my face. “Stop thinking about it.”

  Cally blinked up at me, her soft eyes offering the understanding I couldn’t find within myself.

  I needed to let this go, and reading would provide a distraction. But rather than return to where I’d left off earlier, I retrieved Bettina Cross’s first novel, Highlander’s Fury, from my collection on the shelf near the TV.

  The bare-chested man on the cover pulled in all my attention.

  Duncan.

  Just thinking about him made my lungs hurt. This man knew how to make a woman feel like she was the most important person in his life. Was I foolish to wish for a man like my Highlander?

  These books filled a dark spot inside me, and I couldn’t wait for the next one to come out. Bettina Cross was working on her fourth and final book in the series, A Highlander’s Last Kiss. I wanted to meet her, but details about the author were a well-kept secret. For all I knew, Bettina Cross was a thirty-something working on her computer in her Manhattan penthouse. Or a gray-haired granny squinting through pointy glasses while pecking away on a typewriter. Not that it mattered.

  Tonight, I would read about Duncan and Lenore’s first meeting. The time when their lives started to change solely because they’d met. Neither realized how significant this moment was to their future.

  Flipping through the pages, I found the exact section I was looking for.

  The first thing Duncan did when he saw Lenore was suggest she was crazy.

  “Yer aff yer head.” Duncan sat up in the deep grass.

  Exhausted from burying his father who’d died in battle, Duncan had fallen asleep in the moors. Lenore had been out collecting medicinal herbs and stumbled over him. Snatching up his claymore, she’d held it to his throat, hissing her outrage at finding him trespassing on her family’s land. Duncan had merely laughed.

  “Surely ye dinnae think ye can kill me with my own weapon?” His eyes took on a wolfish slant as they slid down her figure.

  Lenore bridled and released an unladylike snort. “It would be yer own fault to die this way. Trespasser. ‘Tis not your land.” Smirking, she circled him.

  “Come now, lass.” Duncan raked his hand through his hair. He rose and brushed his backside, but bits of grass still clung to the snowy white shirt that had come half-untucked from his kilt.

  How could she be attracted to a man who epitomized disarray? She’d known who he was the moment she’d spied the colors of his tartan. The handsome and utterly forbidden Duncan Magnus Ferguson MacLeod. Her father would kill her if he discovered she’d been alone with him.

  Duncan stalked her, his stockings brushing against the heather. “I will not be bested by a woman.”

  As arrogant as he was handsome.

  “Ye believe a woman cannot best ye? Allow me to demonstrate.” She lifted the sword with two hands, holding it steady. But her shoe caught on something, and she fell onto her backside, crying out. The claymore slipped from her hands and landed beside her.

  Before she could scramble out of the way, the solid form of Duncan MacLeod pinned her to the ground. He grabbed her flailing hands and secured them over her head even while she bucked underneath him.

  “Where be yer bravado now, lass?”

  “Unhand me.”

  “I’ll let ye up.” His eyes fell to her mouth. “But not without a kiss first.”

  Stilling, Lark stared up at Dag. She should hit him. Scream for help. Insist he release her. Instead, her eyes were drawn to his lips.

  Lips that descended to capture hers.

  “Argh.” I tossed the book onto the coffee table.

  Dag. Kissing Lark. Figures.

  Cally grunted. She hopped off the sofa and her toenails clicked as she scampered into the kitchen.

  “You get it, don’t you?” I called to the dog. “I can’t go out with anyone right now.”

  Cally just huffed.

  Flopping sideways, I beat the sofa cushion with my fist.

  Why, why, why? When I should be dreaming about Duncan’s first kiss…

  All I could think of was Dag’s.

  Dag

  Who would’ve thought I could drive a woman away with my kiss?

  I climbed out of Roan’s car at the end of my driveway.

  “See ya later, dude,” Roan said.

  As he drove off, I stomped down the path beside my garage. If I was wise, I’d park myself in my study with my computer, where I should’ve been hours ago, working to meet my deadline. For whatever reason, I wanted to sit outside first.

  My neighbor had mowed earlier, and I breathed in the sharp grassy tang still lingering in the air. In the boggy area beyond my back lawn, peepers cheeped. Frogs did their usual ribbits, and a splash told me something bigger jumped into the water. I continued around to my back deck, my shoes crunching on last year’s fallen leaves, where I settled on a plastic deck chair and stretched out my legs. Head tipped back, I stared at the sky.

  Scruff, my old orange tiger cat, meandered out of the deep grass at the edge of my lawn. We’d adopted each other six years ago and had been best buds since—as much as a cat was willing to befriend his human slave. Stopping to sniff every rock, blade of grass, and speck of dirt, Scruff prowled toward the house and up onto the deck. He wove around my legs, and his purr rumbled in his chest.

  I rubbed the cat’s neck, and he leaned into my touch. “You been out on the town, too, buddy?”

  Scruff flopped beside my feet and winked toward the
woods. A king surveying his domain.

  I wasn’t so sure about my own domain.

  Why had I kissed Lark? She’d made it plain she wasn’t interested in having anything to do with me.

  But, that kiss…

  I wouldn’t mind feeling Lark pressed against me one more time.

  Rising, I popped open the screen door. When I turned on the kitchen light and held open the door, Scruff deigned to stroll inside.

  He lumbered over to the placemat lying on the floor beside the fridge, where he eyed his dish. Me. The dish again.

  “Got it.” Popping open a can of something that smelled like three-week-old dead buffalo, I dumped some into a bowl. While Scruff ate his kill, I grabbed the last beer from the fridge. I walked down the hall, turned on my desk lamp, and settled in for the long haul.

  My computer chimed, and in seconds, I had my document open.

  LAST KISS OF THE HIGHLANDER

  by Bettina Cross

  Who would’ve thought a guy using a female pen name could write a historical romance series that would top the Bestseller List? What started as a joke had turned into a lucrative career.

  All because I’d teased my aunt about her reading material. While hanging out at my parents’ lakefront camp after college graduation, I’d found my aunt’s novel, a historical romance set during the French Revolution, lying on the dock. I’d opened it and read it aloud in a high-pitched voice. Turning scarlet during one of the sexy parts, my aunt had snatched the book from me and smacked my head with it.

  But I’d been sucked into the story. When she left it on the coffee table after finishing, I tucked it into my back pocket. That night, I was unable to put it down until I hit The End at three a.m. What an awesome story. Sword fights. A mystery in a dark Abbey. And a bunch of hot sex between the hero and the spunky chick.

  After majoring in Celtic Studies in college and with no job in sight, I’d seen a big possibility.

  My first writing attempt had tossed into the computer trash can. But, with each book, my stories improved, until I took the plunge and self-pubbed A Highlander’s Fury.

  “Why a pseudonym?” Mom asked. “You should be proud of your writing.” Said while messing with my hair. Like I was three and didn’t care what other kids thought about me.

  I worried they’d never let me live it down. A guy writing romance novels? It didn’t fit with the image I had of myself at twenty-three. And while I was proud of what I did now, with each subsequent sale, it seemed easier to keep quiet. For whatever reason, I didn’t dare reveal Bettina’s true identity. My pen name was welcome to take credit for my success. I’d kept my personal information to a minimum and maintained a low social media presence. I turned down interviews and signings, allowing my readers to draw their own conclusions about why Bettina Cross insisted on complete privacy.

  The system worked. Why fool with it now?

  I stared at the computer screen, unsure what to write next. This was it. The conclusion my fans had been waiting for. For the first time, Lenore would tell Duncan she loved him. Once she told Duncan, he would…What was Duncan supposed to say to a declaration like that? If he was wise, he’d run.

  Love? It was the scariest emotion on this planet.

  Leaning back in my chair, I tapped a pencil on my chin. For the first time ever, I’d hit the infamous writer’s block. I’d stalled in the trenches and couldn’t find my way out. With five weeks and forty-five thousand words left to write before I could send this book to my editor, I was cutting it close. And I wanted to make this good, the best story I’d ever written. My faithful readers deserved it. Well, Lenore and Duncan did, too.

  Why was the last book in my Highlander Series so difficult to write?

  For book four, I knew I had to give my characters a conclusion. Duncan and Lenore must confess their love, marry, and fulfill their happily ever after.

  Should be easy. IF I could write the scenes needed to complete the book. And IF I could make their feelings come across as real. But to make it happen, I had to write about True Love, something I avoided at all cost.

  “Who needs love?” I growled at the screen.

  Love wasn’t keeping my brother, Gunner, from collapsing on the ground, all while voicing platitudes that meant nothing. Hardening any speck of feeling inside because, shit, this losing someone stuff could mess with a guy. While Gunner said I should let him die, that he needed to be with his wife in her newly dug grave.

  Love wasn’t overhearing the woman I was dating tell a friend she liked what I could buy her more than she liked me as a person.

  Love wasn’t embezzling from your husband’s company, which Roan’s wife had done to him.

  And, if love was real, my father wouldn’t have taken off to be with someone else. Too many nights, my mom had stood at the kitchen sink, tears leaking down her face as she stared out at the drive. Hoping the jerk she adored would return and say it had all been a nightmare. Dad moved home and Mom forgave him, but it was too late for me. I decided, right then and there, that I’d keep my heart locked behind four solid walls.

  I groaned and raked my fingers down my face. Knowing why I’d stalled in my book didn’t add words to the page.

  “Just type I love you from Lenore,” I said. “And I love you, from Duncan.”

  Scruff padded into the room. He climbed up onto the pillow I’d placed beside my desk and employed kitty yoga to bathe. Reaching down, I stroked the cat’s back, which he enjoyed for all of two seconds before he slanted an eye at me and seemed to say, how dare you touch my fur? I just cleaned it.

  I pivoted in my chair and stared out the window.

  That kiss…

  “Why can’t I push Lark from my mind?” I asked Scruff.

  My cat glared up at me. Don’t you need to finish your book?

  Yeah, the book.

  An hour later, and with only two-hundred words written, I stumbled down the hall to my bedroom.

  As I tumbled onto the bed, I was determined not to dream about Lark.

  * * *

  Beyond tired and settling into cranky, I hauled myself out of bed early the next morning. After brushing my teeth, I stalked back to my room and pulled on my favorite sweats. My heels smacked the carpet as I walked toward the kitchen, nearly tripping on a box of books I’d left in the hall. Needed to put those up in the attic later. Tomorrow. Okay, next week.

  Once in the kitchen, it didn’t take long to get some extra strong coffee going.

  Yesterday’s—well, the past few day’s dishes—nagged from where they overflowed the sink. Like any other time, when I worked on a book, my home suffered.

  I opened the cabinet for a mug, and the curse of Old Mother Hubbard greeted me with her empty shelves. I really needed to load the dishwasher and run it.

  My belly growled, but shopping had been a low priority for far too long. With my deadline looming like the final stages of a curse, I hadn’t found the time. If I was living a fictional fantasy, I’d need to unearth the long-lost treasure, kill the princess, and save the dragon before I could do anything else. Otherwise, the world would end. Or I’d starve to death. Something like that.

  Rubbing my bare chest, I tugged a cup from the pile and rinsed it under the faucet. I opened the Temple of Doom, umm, the fridge, where a lone container of half-and-half stood sentinel. How long did it take before this stuff grew enough bacteria to kill a guy? Unscrewing the cap, I sniffed and, grimacing, dumped it down the drain.

  After drinking my coffee black, I threw on jeans and a tee.

  Since most people slept in on weekends, the supermarket should be quiet.

  Lark

  Wrangling a shopping cart down the canned goods aisle on a Saturday morning sure beat…well, it didn’t beat anything, as far as activities went.

  Everyone said shopping provided a decent social interaction, which must be a joke. So far, I’d only seen two harried women with fussy toddlers, two guys picking up provisions for the weekend, and a bunch of elderly people.

>   I stopped by the canned spaghetti sauce, trying to decide what I could make for dinner that wouldn’t blow my budget. As I reached for a jar, I heard someone shouting.

  “Lark. Lark!”

  I’d lived in Crescent Cove for nine years. Shopped at this particular market at least once a week. And not once had I run into Dag. I had a feeling I would’ve remembered.

  He surged up to me, knocking past a display of bendy straw packages, making them sway.

  “Keep cruising at that speed,” I said, cocking an eyebrow, “and you might get a ticket.”

  “Nah. Sherriff’s cruiser is on the other side of town.”

  Leave it to him to know where the law enforcement officer was parked.

  He stopped his cart next to mine, blocking traffic. Fortunately, no one appeared ready to slam their way through. We were alone except for an old lady who was studying the canned tomatoes farther down the aisle. The confusion on her face was priceless and expected. There must be seventy-thousand different kinds of tomatoes on display. Which made no sense to me. Who needed their tomatoes fire-roasted, anyway? Or garlic infused? Unnecessary fluff when all you wanted to do was dump it on pasta.

  Dag’s lips twisted into that smirk he appeared keen on sending my way. Because it implied he knew things I preferred to keep hidden, it irked me. It made me want to scoot away, leaving him in my shopping cart dust. Instead, I clenched my cart handle and tried to keep from drifting closer to him and doing something reckless, like rediscovering his lips.

  Dressed in a tee and jeans, he looked tastier than dark chocolate.

  I blushed. What was wrong with me?

  His face showed more cheer than it ought to at this time of the morning. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said.

  “Fancy that.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  I knew our encounter was purely coincidental, but fate sure seemed eager to hand me opportunities to meet up with Dag. “Never crossed my mind.”