Irresistible in a Kilt

by Anna Durand

  "Don't doubt yourself now," Alex says. "You're the cleverest woman I've never known. If anyone can pick a lock with their hands bound behind their back, it's you, Catriona Sorcha MacTaggart."

  Despite the situation, I smile. "That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me."

  The human-size door swings open.

  Our two kidnappers stalk across the warehouse to us with a third man following behind. I can't see the man's face until they stop in front of us and he steps out from behind the other two.

  The new man sneers at Alex and says, in an Australian accent, "Good on ya, making our job so easy. Ya served yourself up on the barbie for us, and your sweet little girl along with ya. This is going to be fun."

  Chapter Forty-One

  Alex

  "Hello, Reggie," I say, all but snarling the words. The sight of that bastard makes me want to throw myself at him, still attached to the chair, and head-butt him. "I've missed you terribly. There's been no snake in my house to hiss at me behind my back and plot asinine ways to take revenge on me for… What was it again? I can't remember. All your whingeing sounded like flies buzzing around me."

  Reginald Hewitt sneers at me again.

  Honestly, he'll have to come up with something much more menacing if he wants to intimidate me.

  I don't want to glance at Cat, since that might draw the attention of our three kidnappers, and they might notice she's unbending the hairpin. I can just see that in my peripheral vision. Her job is lock-picking. Mine is to distract these three. I might have no skills when it comes to picking locks, but I excel at distraction.

  Nigel and Julia stay slightly behind and to the side of Reginald.

  Until this moment, I'd been focused on Reginald. Now, I can't help looking at the two people who created me—biologically and criminally. They look so…old. I know they must be in their late sixties, but they seem even older than that. Two codgers with sour looks on their faces. My parents.

  No, not my parents. They spawned me, but they're not the ones who raised me, not really. The eight years I spent with them taught me nothing except how to con and evade the law. Henry and Imogen are my parents. They're the ones who loved me, believed in me, and never gave up even when I fought back against their kindness. They've stuck with me through everything.

  The two people currently staring at me like I'm radioactive mean nothing to me.

  I relax my posture, affecting my favorite air of indifference, the old "I don't give a flying fuck what you do or say" attitude.

  "Well, Reggie, what will you do now?" I ask. "Beat me? Electrocute me? Maybe first you should tell me what it is you want. Villains always have demands. And don't they always need to brag about how clever they are?"

  "Don't worry, mate. I'll tell you everything, when I feel like it."

  I sigh like being abducted is the most boring thing that's ever happened to me. "Go on, mate. I'm in the mood for more whingeing."

  Reginald moves closer, bending over to sneer at me yet again.

  "Come on," I say. "At least come up with a new facial expression. That one's getting tiresome."

  "Still arrogant, aren't you?" He sniggers, his sneer mutating into a nasty grin. "Alex Thorne, the man who always has the upper hand and never gets taken in by a con. That's rot, mate. I fooled you for nearly three years, and you didn't even notice when I cleaned out the household account. For ten days, it was empty. But you were too busy blackmailing a student into stealing artifacts for you to notice what I was doing."

  He might as well have backhanded me. His statement of fact hits me like a blow to the face. The cretin is right. No one had ever conned me until Reginald Hewitt came into my life, and I'd been blind to his treachery until the very end. I hadn't guessed Falk Mullane would blackmail me either. Maybe I've lost my touch. Maybe I'm not the grifter I used to be.

  But here, in this warehouse, I will be the best bloody grifter in the room. I have to be. Catriona is counting on it. Counting on me.

  I fake an Aussie accent as best I can, strictly to annoy the arse who's towering over me. "Good on ya, Reggie. Ya conned me good."

  He jabs a finger in my face, right between my eyes. "Don't make fun of me, ya mongrel."

  "Piss off, Reggie." I peer around him to see Nigel and Julia, but I focus on her. "Hello, Mummy darling. How did a sweet woman like you ever get tangled up with this plonker? Reggie doesn't seem like your type, but then, you never were particularly…particular, were you?"

  Nigel clenches his fists. "Don't speak to your mother that way."

  I laugh, and though the sound is bitter, it's not feigned. "When did you start to care about how anyone speaks to your wife? She's your whore for hire."

  Reginald smacks me.

  And yes, it smarts a little. But it also means I'm getting to the lot of them. Who's the cleverest now, eh, Reggie?

  I lean sideways to get a better view of Julia. "Mum, would you mind terribly kissing away the pain? That's what mothers are for, after all. Oh wait. You're not a mother, you're a grifter with a heart of rusted steel."

  "Shut up," Reginald snarls. "You won't be so up yourself once you hear what we want."

  "How did you find those two, anyway? I'm sure you'll want to brag about that before you make your demands."

  Peripherally, I see Cat has unbent the hairpin and is starting to pick the lock on her handcuffs. How long will that take? I have no idea, so I'd better keep tormenting these three morons.

  "How did I find them?" Reginald says. He straightens, puffing up like a peacock. "I broke into your desk, into the drawer you always kept locked. And I found the papers that said you legally changed your name to Alex Thorne and that showed what your old name was. I can't blame you for changing it. Alexis Lucian Charnley-Ainsworth is a bloody stupid name. Once I knew that, it wasn't hard to get a mate of mine to track down your parents."

  Why had I made the name change legal? I should've just started using a different name and not bothered with the formal paperwork. A true grifter would never go through legal channels to change his identity. Why had I?

  The truth is obvious, and not as disturbing as I would've thought. I did it because I'm not a grifter anymore. I'm a law-abiding citizen. Well, mostly law-abiding. Borrowing artifacts without permission doesn't count. I always give them back.

  "Now for what we want," Reginald says.

  "About bloody time." I peer around him again to see Nigel and Julia. "You two used to be the ones running every con. But you're hiding behind this bastard. That's quite a comedown, isn't it? I guess you're just too old these days to handle a simple kidnapping on your own. Is there a retirement home for useless old criminals?" I act surprised, like I've experienced a sudden revelation. "Of course there is. It's called prison."

  Reginald smacks me again. "We want your money, ya mongrel. All of it."

  "Sorry, I sank all my disposable income into building a house." It's my turn to look smug. "That would be the one you burnt to the ground."

  Nigel rushes forward to grab Reginald's arm and yank it, forcing the Aussie plonker to turn toward him. "You did what? You can't keep changing the plan because it's not your plan. We told you to hold him until we got to America." Nigel's lip curls, and his tone becomes nastier. "But no, you had to do things your way. Burning down the house? What are we going to get out of this now?"

  "He's got more money. He must."

  I do, but I'm not going to admit to that. Luckily, Nigel doesn't trust his new mate.

  "You stupid gorilla," Nigel says. "You bollocksed up the plan so you could have your revenge. And we've got nothing."

  Reginald glances at Catriona. "She's from a big family. Some of them must have money."

  Nigel narrows his eyes and speaks through his gritted teeth. "You're not in charge anymore. Julia and I will handle this. Get your blooming arse out of here."

  "This was my idea. You can't run me off."

  "Yes, I can."

  Nigel is
as tall as Reginald, and once upon a time he had a formidable physical presence. But today he looks old and worn out, more so than his years would suggest. Being a nasty piece of work clearly makes a person not age well.

  "They think you're a moron, Reggie," I say. "I'd wager they never had any intention of cutting you in on the score."

  Julia is loitering behind the other two, biting her lip, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

  "You festy little fucker," Reggie growls at Nigel. "I knew I should've done this on my own."

  He pulls his fist back, about to wallop dear old Daddy.

  Julia grabs something—I can't see exactly what—and whacks Reggie in the head with it.

  Doubled over, he shouts in pain and whirls on her.

  She whacks him again, harder by the sound of it.

  Reginald crumples to the ground. His eyes close.

  I can see Julia is holding a piece of metal, something that looks like the rubbish leftover from metalworking.

  Nigel hops over the unconscious Aussie and hugs his wife.

  Bollocks. I don't want them lovey-dovey. I want them at each other's throats, so they won't notice what Cat's doing. She'll have her cuffs off anytime now. At least Reginald is out of commission, but that leaves my erstwhile parents.

  An idea pops into my head, and I stifle the urge to smile with smug satisfaction. Oh yes, I've got just the right bombshell to blast these two apart.

  "Mummy darling," I say with syrupy and completely false affection, "I'm so sorry to have caused you strife. But I'm sure you and Daddy can work things out, like you did after that time when you left him so you could go shag that other bloke. What was his name? Oh yes. Selwyn, wasn't it?"

  Nigel's expression goes blank. He stares at Julia for several seconds, like he's never seen her before, then he steps away from her. He wipes his hands on his trousers as if he's cleansing himself of her filth. "She wouldn't do that."

  "Oh yes, she would. And she did." I cock my head at him. "Did she at least share the spoils with you after she conned that man out of his life savings?"

  His eyes go wide, and his mouth crimps. He aims his glower at her this time. "Tell me that's a sodding lie."

  "Of course it is. I would never betray you."

  Nigel studies her with a look I remember so well. It's the way he looks when he's holding in his anger. "But you had posh new clothes when you came home. And new shoes, new jewelry, new everything. Where did the money for all that come from?"

  "She stole it from Selwyn," I say. "And she didn't share it with you. I suppose she deserved to keep all the money since she's the one who had to fuck the man for months and months."

  "You bitch," he snarls at his wife.

  Julia races up to him, laying her hands on his chest. "I love you, Nigel. You know that. Whatever I did while we were apart has nothing to do with us. You're my true love."

  I chuckle. "Is that right, Mummy? He's your true love. How sweet. So you shagged a man you didn't care about and bore his child strictly for the sake of the con."

  Nigel grips Julia's arms. "You had his child?"

  "Well—Nigel, you need to understand—"

  "You filthy, lying slag!"

  "It's a lie," she says, but she sounds panicked and not the least convincing. "I would never betray you that way."

  "But she did," I tell Nigel. "She gave the baby to her lover. He raised the boy. I have a half-brother, and he's not yours."

  I know my father won't hit her. Violence has never been his forte. Though he normally prefers subtler means of expressing his disappointment, right now he's shouting at his wife. She's shouting right back. They call each other every vulgar insult imaginable, and a few I've never heard before.

  Distraction complete.

  Maybe I'm not the grifter I used to be, but I can still manipulate these bastards.

  Cat has freed her hands. She unties her feet, then kneels beside my chair to pick my handcuffs. She accomplishes the task faster this time, and I'm free by the time Nigel and Julia catch on to the con I've run on them.

  The pair of them gape at us.

  "You grab her," I whisper to Cat, "and I'll get him. Use the cuffs."

  I snag one pair while she takes the other, and we rush at Nigel and Julia. We're younger and stronger and haven't just been in a rollicking row, so we have the upper hand. I collar one of Nigel's wrists before he realizes what I'm about, drag him over to the chair I'd been bound to, and handcuff him to it. Cat does the same with Julia. I can't resist tying the ropes around their ankles. The blighters deserve it.

  We don't have anything to restrain Reginald with, so we decide to lock him in an old closet. I have no idea where the key is for that, but I'm sure Cat will pick that lock when the time comes. It takes both of us to move him, each grasping him under his arms. We've just dragged his worthless arse to the closet doorway when Reggie rouses.

  He grabs Cat's ankle and yanks it.

  She's ripped off her feet, smacking down on her bum, a cry bursting out of her.

  Reggie reaches for my leg.

  I kick him in the face. "Sod off, Reggie!"

  He snarls like a rabid dog, jumps up, and spins around to make another attempt to seize Catriona.

  Like hell he will.

  I charge Reginald and tackle him from behind. We tumble to the floor together, with him underneath me, but he struggles like mad. Though I'm trying to punch him, I can't do it with his body face-down. Reggie flails until he flips us over, and suddenly I'm crushed under his body.

  He hoists himself up on his straight arms and bares his teeth at me. "About time I smashed that pretty face, ya mongrel."

  Christ, how I wish he'd stop calling me that. It's bloody irritating. I know it's an Australian insult, but I am not a ruddy dog.

  "Sorry," I tell him. "You'll have to be disappointed again."

  Then I do something I never imagined I'd ever do to another man. I grab his balls and twist as hard as I can.

  Reginald screams.

  I shove him off me and punch him in the face three times until he stops struggling and his eyes close. My hands are shaking and spattered with blood, the same blood that trickles from his mouth. I'm breathing hard too and feel…strange. I've rarely assaulted anyone, and only ever bastards who deserved it, but he started this.

  Cat kneels beside me, touching my arm. "Are you all right?"

  "Yes. Fine." I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. "Well, not completely all right. But I'm doing better than he is." I press a finger to his throat, at the pulse point. It throbs under my finger. "At least I haven't killed him."

  "Let's get him into the closet."

  I nod.

  Once we've got him locked away, we stand in front of my erstwhile parents. Cat wraps her arms around my waist, nestling her head in the hollow of my shoulder. I put my arms around her too.

  Julia is gawping at me. "Alexis…"

  "Don't call me that," I say. "My name is Alex Thorne."

  She claps her mouth shut and stares down at the floor.

  "How do we ring the police?" Catriona asks. "I don't have my mobile."

  "Neither do I, but it doesn't matter. Logan will find us soon enough."

  "But how?"

  I pat the back of my shoulder, right where Logan had patted me with a touch more enthusiasm than necessary earlier today. "He planted a tracking beacon on me. He must've done. I'm sure he knew I'd notice he did it, but that's probably his way of expressing his fondness for us."

  "We're all right, then?"

  "Yes, we are."

  Cat blows out a breath, and her shoulders sag.

  I tug her closer, wrapping my arms around her. "You are wonderful, Catriona. If I'd been here alone, I never would've gotten out of those handcuffs."

  She rests her chin on my chest and smiles up at me. "We work well together, don't we?"

  "Perfectly."

  The crunching of gravel outside the
open doorway makes us turn to look in that direction. Logan walks through the door, followed closely by Lachlan and Rory.

  Logan surveys the situation, then looks at me. "I missed the party, didn't I?"

  "Don't feel bad. It wasn't much of a do." I tip my head toward Nigel and Julia. "These two are the most inept kidnappers in history. Really, I thought they would've learned that lesson years ago when they tried to abduct me, three times, and failed."

  "I rang the police. They ought to be here soon."

  "Good." I hug Cat tighter, grateful for the warmth of her body and the strength of her spirit. "I'm knackered. Hope you saved that enormous bed inside that enormous castle for us."

  "We did," Rory says.

  I want to go home, but I don't have one of those anymore. Then again, I have Cat in my arms. Sounds like home to me.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Catriona

  The sun beams through the windows into our room at Dùndubhan, muted slightly by the sheer curtains, and spills over Alex's face and bare chest. He's sleeping on his back, his mouth curved into a faint smile, like he's dreaming of something wonderful. I want to wake him, but I also don't want to do it. He looks more relaxed than I've ever seen him, asleep or awake.

  So I lie on my side next to him, hands tucked under my cheek, and watch him sleep.

  A few minutes later, his eyes open. He yawns and glances my way. "Good morning, Catnip."

  "I love it when you tease me, but I still don't like that nickname."

  "All right. I'll stick with Cat."

  "Thank you. Should I call you Alexis?"

  He winces. "Please don't. That's what Julia always called me."

  "You mean your mother."

  "No. My mother is Imogen Bennett." He rolls onto his side, lying so close to me that our noses almost touch. "What should we do today? It will be hard to top yesterday."

  "Why don't we just relax? Lie in bed for a long time and then have a huge late breakfast."

  He kisses me softly. "That sounds perfect."

  I run my finger along his jaw, loving the rough texture of his morning stubble. "What were you dreaming about? Something good, by the look on your face."