Some Like it Scottish (10 page)

K
it finally got her nerve up for the Highland games. She was, after all, here to find bachelors—not to worry what her chauffeur thought of her ineptitude. Armed with her messenger bag for taking notes and cell phone for shooting pictures, she left the boardinghouse. Later, she would do background checks, so as not to encounter another Morven. Speaking of . . . She would steer clear of any booth that had a potato on it.

She followed the throng of people to the field and paid her eight pounds for access to the grounds.

It was a kilt-lover's paradise.
Real men
were everywhere, decked out in their clans' colors. Kit found herself inadvertently looking for the Armstrong tartan and made herself stop. She had a job to do. Today was not about Ramsay. She would put him from her mind. She had to forget how breathtakingly gorgeous he was in his tartan and remember that he was nothing more than a kid in a man's body. No woman could rely on a boy. Besides, today was solely about the business at hand. If she'd had some forewarning, maybe she could've rented one of the booth spaces and taken applications. She pulled out her notebook and jotted down that idea for the future.

Just as she was slipping her notebook back into her bag, people started forming a line. Two drum majors, fully dressed in their tartan uniforms, headed up the pack with the bagpipers and drummers lining up behind them. So this is what it looked like—the gathering of the clans.

Bagpipes rang out and the group began marching onto the field. Everyone, spectators included, followed the musicians. Kit was swept up into the crowd but felt out of place in her jeans without a stitch of plaid on her.

Once again she looked about for Ramsay, wondering if he'd gotten pulled along with the tide of the crowd. She found him walking along with a pack of beefy musclemen. Ramsay didn't have the meat and width of the others, but he had height and perfect proportion.

Automatically, her hand went up, but she stopped herself midwave.

He gave her a sideways grin, his eyes dancing as he nodded in the direction of the clan tents. She looked specifically where he wanted her to—the Armstrong tent
.
Maybe she'd check it out after the parade; maybe she wouldn't. She had work to do. Unlike him, she did make promises. And she had a stack of them to keep!

Once on the field, the emcee proceeded with the roll call, shouting out each clan's name. In response, the flag-bearer raised his colors and shouted, “Aye” back. The pride of the clans was clear in the vibrato.

When it was done, she didn't immediately exit the field but waited to see where Ramsay was headed. She looked on her map and found he was going toward the heavy-athletics area. She knew enough about the Highland games to know that was where only the strongest competed, in the caber toss, the stone throw, the hammer throw, and others.

She scanned the whole of the area as she walked off the field, feeling overwhelmed. She should've asked Ramsay to point out the best place to look for bachelors. But since he was busy, she would just have to muddle through. There were so many to choose from—good-looking bagpipers and drummers, athletes, men walking dogs about—some of the dogs were even dressed in plaid.

Her eyes landed on the Armstrong tent again. Before she got too busy picking out men, she decided to see why Ramsay had pointed it out to her.

Under the Armstrong canopy, a tall, thin man stood behind the table and lit up when he saw her, acting as if he'd known her forever. “Ah, ye must be the American lass.” He thrust a long, wide length of plaid at her, the same plaid that Ramsay wore.

“What makes you think I'm an American?” Was it stamped on her forehead?

The man held his hand above his head. “A bloke this tall, with shoulders this wide, said to give you this.” He smiled and shoved the Armstrong plaid at her again.

“I'm not taking that.”

“He said for ye to put it on.” The man nodded his head up and down. “He said ye'd argue, but it was for yere own good.”

“Thanks, but no, thanks.” She backed away from the tent.

“But he already paid for it,” the man called out.

She put her hands up. “I don't want it.”

It just felt wrong to put on Ramsay's tartan. Especially when she knew that was how they distinguished which family you were from. She was fairly certain there wasn't a Woodhouse plaid.

She glanced over at the field where Ramsay stood
with his beefy posse. What had he been thinking—
she, wear his Armstrong plaid?
She headed in the opposite direction to where the bagpipers were hanging out. They were sexy,
real men
, weren't they? Surely there was a chieftain among them who was looking for a bride.

But along the way, she came across a group of drummers at one of the many performance tents, setting up for their gig. She tried her best to talk to them about her business, and about bringing the American girls to Gandiegow, but they weren't interested in what she was selling. They were, however, interested in
her
. The group of percussionists backed her into a corner.

She held her ground. “Gentlemen,” she said calmly, but glanced from side to side, looking for an escape. “That's not why I'm here.”

The burly bass drummer laughed, motioning to her attire. “But ye're not under the protection of any clan. Ye're free game under Scottish law.”

She doubted that, but glanced down at her T-shirt and jeans anyway. “Explain.”

He gave her a devilish grin. “Ye're not wearing any plaid.”

“So?”

“If ye're not wearing plaid, then it means ye're looking for a mate. Ye're out searching for a man who'll give ye his plaid.” He took a step forward, starting to unwind his own tartan from his shoulder.

She ducked under his arm. “I must've left my sash at the Armstrong tent.” As she ran off, the men roared with laughter.

She muttered all the way to the Armstrong tent, “I don't need
his
protection. This is the twenty-first century, not the middle ages.” But the scene at the performance
tent had proved she at least needed the pretense of belonging to one of the clans.
Cave dwellers—all of them!

Back at the tent, she put her hand out.

The thin man grinned. “I figured ye'd be back.” He gave her the sash along with an Armstrong crest pin.

Kit stomped toward the athletic field. From a distance, she saw Ramsay take his spot with a stone cradled to his chin. Like a shot-putter, he spun in a circle and hefted the stone. The crowd gasped and roared as the stone landed a long ways off, men running with a tape measure to mark the divot. Something inside Kit hitched at the sight of his rippling muscles, his brawny body in action. He took her breath away and she didn't understand why. She'd planned the kind of life she wanted and what type of man was for her. Wall Street trader. Provider. Four-bedroom home. The right schools. Dinners out. Stability.

Ramsay walked to the fence line, wiping his brow. As she moved closer, he turned to her, as if he could feel her nearing.

“I see ye got my present.” He grinned like the drummer had. But Ramsay's gaze felt different from the Burly Bass's. Ramsay's eyes on her felt more like a caress than a jeer.

She felt hot. She slammed her hands on her hips to cover up what he'd done to her. “A little warning about what would happen if I didn't accept the present might've been nice.” She tied the sash around her waist and held out the pin. “Here. I don't need this.”

“It's tied all wrong,” Ramsay scolded. “Ye're not a pirate, lass. Come.” He grabbed her wrist and yanked her to him, the fence between them.

The modern woman in her hated that his little yank
had turned her on. They stood so close together that she felt the heat as it rolled off him. It was intoxicating. She wanted to close the distance between them. But instead, she let her gaze move up his massive chest until her eyes met his.

“Here.” He undid the knot at her waist, pulling the sash free. “Lift your arms. It goes like this.”

He looped it under her arm and up to her shoulder in a way that felt intimate. She was a little dizzy having him so close. Catcalls and whistles broke out from the men on the field and in the stands.

“Give me the pin, lass.” He stuck out his hand. “I'm not used to dressing a full-grown woman. Undressing? Yes.” Ramsay pushed her hair back, clearing a spot. “But for you, I'll make an exception.” He secured the sash in place with the Armstrong crest. “There.” He placed his hands on both of her shoulders to look at his handiwork, holding her there as if she wasn't already paralyzed.

The fog cleared from her brain. She tried to wiggle from his grasp, if for no other reason than her sanity.

“Now, off with ye.” He spun her around and swatted her bottom, laughing, and the crowd roared along with him.

She stomped off the way that she'd come, in the opposite direction from him.

She made several attempts to talk to men who were watching the dance competitions. But most of them had daughters who were competing, or they weren't interested. She finally found the group of bagpipers at a table eating lunch, but then was rejected by them as well. Feeling defeated, she trudged back to the athletic field, planning to snag Ramsay and beg him to find her a few men.

He stood at the fence again, but his back was to it this time, while he watched the caber toss—where the Highlanders hefted what looked like a telephone pole across the field.

“Ramsay?” She touched his arm; he felt warm.

He spun around. “What is it, lass? Have you come to watch me crush these chaps?”

One of the chaps spoke up. “In your dreams, pretty boy.”

She pulled Ramsay away from the eavesdroppers. “I need to talk to you. I need your help.”

Ramsay smiled at her. “Ye look nice in my clan's colors.” He adjusted the sash as if he couldn't keep from touching her.

She grabbed his arm, biceps actually, and was struck by its solidness. “Concentrate, will you?” She could've possibly been directing those words at herself, but she stared at him. “Can you talk to them for me? I'll pay you extra.” She motioned to the men competing in the heavy athletics with him. “I haven't had any luck on my own.” She felt so off her game.

His eyes twinkled. “I want to hear ye say that
ye need me
.”

“You're impossible.” But she did need him.

“Say it.”

She chewed her lip for a moment. “Fine. I need you.” She patted his biceps for good measure. “Will you talk to them now?”

He grinned. “Nay.”

“But you promised.” She shook his rock-solid arm.

“No. I told you before that I don't make promises.”

He was an infuriating man! She had firsthand
experience with men and their promises. Her father had promised to come back and he never had.

The loudspeaker crackled and the announcer came back on with his thick burr. “And the last one, number seventy-four. Ye're up.”

“That's me.” Ramsay sauntered away. “Don't worry, lass. I'll talk to them.”

Kit stood there, watching. He was pure beauty to gaze upon, but exasperating to talk to. She leaned over the fence to see how he would do.

Ramsay approached the tall pole lying on the ground. Two men lifted one end of the pole and walked toward Ramsay until the pole was standing straight up. Ramsay hugged the pole and then scooted his hands down until he lifted it straight in the air. With control, he walked forward and hefted the pole. It flew, landed on one end and fell over.

The loudspeaker rang out. “Och, that was a grand throw by seventy-four. But was it good enough to win?”

The men measuring gave the judges the thumbs-up, one of them signaling the length.

As the announcer praised seventy-four, Ramsay threw his head back and roared. He made his way toward her purposefully. When he got to the fence, he jumped over and pulled her into his arms. She gasped as he leaned down and kissed the breath out of her.

The crowd shouted their encouragement. But Ramsay's assaulting lips were doing fine on their own. He urged her mouth open with his tongue and thrust deep inside, claiming her. It was more than electrifying. In the back of her mind, she knew kissing him wasn't a good idea, but for the life of her she couldn't fathom why. Kissing Ramsay was
breathtaking, making her legs feel as sturdy as the fabric of his shirtfront that she clutched. He held her tighter, lifting her feet off the ground.

When he finally set her away, she wobbled, but he was right there to steady her.

He grinned. “Gawd, ye're a passionate sprite.” He turned, jumped the fence again, and sprinted back onto the field with his arms raised, victorious over her and the caber toss. As the three judges met him in the middle and presented him a medal, Kit turned, touched her fingers to her swollen lips, and slunk away.

*   *   *

Ramsay felt like the frigging king of the world with the other men slapping him on the back. He looked around for Kit, but he didn't see her anywhere. It was no big deal; he'd see her back at the boardinghouse. Maybe even pick up where he'd left off with her right kissable lips.

But hell, he couldn't kiss her again. It'd been a hoot, surprising her like that, and he'd enjoyed it and all, but he had his agenda. He took the medal off his neck and shoved it in his pocket.

One of the locals whacked him on the back. “We're all going over to the whisky tent. Join us.”

“Aye.” It would do Ramsay good. He needed a little distraction and distance. All he could think about was his need to find the matchmaker and take her back to the boardinghouse for some
adult games
. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her again, take her clothes off, and love on her tempting little body.

Unfortunately, the whisky tent didn't fix the problem. Thirty minutes later, he was bored with the other athletes and the untouched drink in front of him. He headed back to the boardinghouse to shower. When he got there,
Kit wasn't in their room. He did notice that her messenger bag had been left behind, which was strange. He quickly cleaned up in the communal restroom down the hall, then went in search of the sprite.