Countdown to Turkey Day. 24 hours and counting, so I thought I’d give you guys a break. For a few minutes anyway. So back away from breaking up break crumbs or crushing cranberries, prop up your feet…and meet my Great Scot.

“How good are you at hiking?”

Erin looked down at her shoes, which were comfortable lace ups, but far from hiking boots. “Not much on traction,” she said, “and I’m kind of fond of these.” She glanced at him and smiled in the face of his obvious anticipation. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he was maybe a little excited. Or nervous. Or something. It was that something that made her smile broaden. Whatever on earth could make the Great Scot nervous was something she had to see. “What the hell. I can always buy another pair if I trash these, right?”

He nodded in approval, then gestured for her to go in front of him.

“I don’t know where I’m going. Why don’t you lead?”

He pointed. “See that trail there, angling off by that split tree trunk? We’re headed that way.” He stepped up behind her, making her quite aware he was in her personal space again.

Just as she was quite aware she did nothing to move herself out of it, either.

“I’d go first,” he added, a teasing note clear in his tone this time, “but you have this alarming habit of stumbling about. Best I stay behind ye, in case you need catching.”

She shifted just enough to look up at him over her shoulder. His eyes were crinkling at the corners. Probably the sun. But maybe not.

“What?” he asked, making her realize she was staring.

“When was the last time you laughed? Really laughed?” The words were out of her mouth before the thought had even completed itself.

“Far too long ago, I’m certain. I’ve been busy.”

She turned to face him. “Since when did busy and laughter become mutually exclusive?”

“Good point. I have no idea.”

“Before, when you lived in the city, were you happier?”

The question seemed to surprise him. “Since when was happiness measured by laughter?”

“How would you measure it?”

“Fulfillment. Contentment.”

She nodded. “Valid. So, were you? Fulfilled and content?”

“At times. Never completely, but then that’s what provides the drive necessary to fight on, does it not? Are you?”

That gave her pause. She’d poked and prodded him almost since the moment they met. This was the first time she could recall him asking something about her. “No, not completely. But I am happy. Maybe I should have used the word joyful. Are you a such a serious man as all that? Or is it life circumstance that has made you so dour.”

“Dour? Dour am I now?”

She merely arched an eyebrow.

He shook his head. “Och, if true, that’s a sad state of affairs then. I’m no’ a dour man, Erin. But perhaps you have a point about me no’ finding much to be joyful about, not in the sense you mean. But my business has been serious of late. My new life is fulfilling in ways my old life never was. And there is peace in that, which is a good start. The rest will come in time.”

“So you’re saying you’re an optimist.”

“You think me the opposite?”

Now she smiled. “Honestly, I don’t know what to think of you. I guess that’s why I keep badgering you with questions. You aren’t easy to figure out, Dylan Chisholm.”

Amusement did shift into his eyes then, and the resulting gleam was no trick of the sun. She swallowed hard. Perhaps it would be wiser not to provoke the playful side of him after all.

And then he was lifting his hands, pushing back the errant strands of hair the car ride had likely blown into a complete rats nest around her face. Suddenly painfully aware of her looks, or lack thereof, and at the same time exquisitely aware of his touch, almost to the point of pain, she wanted to shrink away, pretend this moment wasn’t happening. Because whatever he was thinking behind those dancing gray eyes of his, no way could it be anything she found herself suddenly hoping, praying, it would be. She didn’t attract men like Dylan Chisholm.

Gorgeous, confident, successful men were typically attracted to beauty first, and brains a distant second. Erin was used to falling in the distant second category, okay with it even. When it came to men like the one touching her now, looking at her so intently, well…it simply didn’t happen. So it had hardly been a problem for her. It would be the epitome of foolishness to allow herself, even for a second, to think this was somehow different.

“I canno’ figure you out either, Erin MacGregor,” he said, his voice deeper, somewhat rougher, as if…as if he were perhaps at least a tiny bit affected by her. Then all rational thought fled, because he was lowering his head towards hers, pressing his fingers into the back of her neck, to tip her face upward to his.

“You badger me with yer questions, talk me into abandoning my own home…” He lowered his head further until his mouth was hovering just above her own.

He couldn’t be, wasn’t going to—

“You sneak into my dreams, haunt my waking hours. What’ve ye done to me, lass?”

She haunted his dreams? In a good way? “Dylan—”

He made a guttural noise at the sound of his name that had a little instinctive moan of her own escaping her lips.

“I havena felt a hunger such as this in a very long time. Will ye allow me the pleasure?”

He was asking permission? Did he not realize that a second or two more of his heated whisperings and he could have her naked on the hood of his Jag?

He brushed her lips with his. “Perhaps I havena been the most merry of fellows, but if there has been anything to cause me to want a bit of respite from the endless hours of work, it has been you.”

“I thought I made you crazy.”

And there it was. The smile she’d been waiting for. It was slow to happen, but as it stole across his face, his entire countenance changed, as if he was lit from within. There was fire there, passion. “Aye, that you do. You’re trouble, Erin, with a capital T. Ye plague me.”

“A plague am I,” she said, but the intended dry sarcasm was somewhat offset by the breathy quality of her voice.

Which served to widen his smile further. “You have refreshing candor, and a smart mouth. You don’t seem to care overly much what I think.”

She tipped her head back slightly, to look fully into his eyes. “And that’s attractive to you? Hard to believe I’m still single with those lovely attributes.”

He rubbed his thumbs along the corners of her mouth, making her shiver at the feel of his work-roughened fingers on her skin. “Hard.” Then he slipped his arms around her waist and brought her fully up against him. “Aye, ‘tis that.”

She barely had time to register the stunning truth of it, then he claimed her mouth with his own and any hope of rational thought fled completely.

Tags: Writing //