Page 5

“No offense, but I don’t need an escort.”

I step closer, her long body meaning that she doesn’t have to crane her necktoomuch to look up at me, but enough that it feels satisfying if only to get under her skin further.

“No offense,” I counter, “but it isn’t a request. This is private property, and you’re trespassing.”

“What,” she snorts, “are you going to tell me you own the place?”

My lips curl in a smirk. “Aye, lass. I do.”

For once, she remains blessedly quiet.

Key is pouting in the passenger seat of my old Land Rover, clutching that vase of hers tightly.

“I still don’t know why I couldn’t drive myself.”

I roll my eyes. “Did you not hear Hamish? You wore out the clutch on your poor motor. What were you even doing to it?”

“Driving it!” she answers exasperatedly. “Itoldthe rental place I wasn’t good with a stick shift.”

“Well, that’s bloody obvious now.”

“At this point, I would have rather walked,” she mutters.

I chuff a laugh as I point out the windshield to the now-pouring rain beating against the car. “Would have had a bad time with that, I think.”

“Whatever.”

I sneak a glance at her while I continue down the path, having a hard time not noticing how stunning she is, if not loud and stubborn. She’s all long limbs and wild curls, and I try again to see Duncan in her, who I know from Hamish was her da. I was just a boy when he ran off to America, but I remember the story well. Just as I know all the stories of the MacKays.

“Your da,” I start. “Hamish said he passed?”

I notice even in my peripheral vision how much she tenses. “He did.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, not because I had any particular love for her father, but because it seems polite, at the very least. Plus, know thine enemy, and all that. “I was just a lad when he ran off, but I know your granny was torn up over it.”

And so was my da, I think bitterly.

She turns in her seat. “You were a kid when my dad left? Just how old are you?”

“Thirty-four,” I tell her, frowning. “I was only six when he left.”

“So you don’t remember him,” she says, an air of disappointment in her voice.

“Not really, no. He came back now and again, but I didn’t see much of him. Not before he stopped coming altogether.”

She turns her eyes down to her lap, frowning. For some reason, it makes me want to keep her talking.

“And how auld are you, then?”

“Twenty-seven,” she says.

“Practically a wean,” I chuckle.

“Oh, shut up,” she grumbles. “You’re not some old man.”

“I am in my bones, princess,” I say with another dry laugh. “Just ask anyone.”

It’s a joke for her benefit, but there’s truth in it too. Some days I feel…ancient. But that’s not exactly proper conversation between strangers.