Highland Games: sparkling, sexy and utterly unputdownable - the romantic comedy of the year! (The Kinloch Series)

by Evie Alexander

  Zoe dropped her head, utterly mortified. ‘Did I really snore?’

  ‘To be fair, it was more of a snuffle, I thought it was Basil at first.’

  ‘Go away,’ she mumbled.

  Rory grinned, stood up, walked to the table, lifted it up, and moved it across the room. He then came back for the chairs.

  ‘No! Stop!’

  Zoe was on her feet, stumbling towards him, hot tea slopping everywhere. She put her free hand on the back of the commode. ‘Don’t touch it!’

  ‘Why not? There’s nothing inside, is there?’ he asked, innocently. ‘Let me just take a look.’

  Zoe sat down on the seat and glared at him.

  ‘Well, I’m glad it’s been useful for you.’ He started laughing, face lighting up, the sound resonating through the floor and sending a tingle up through her legs. ‘Do you want me to empty it?’

  Zoe pointed to the door. ‘Out! Get out! I’ve had just about enough embarrassment for one morning. Give me five minutes, then you can come back and pretend you’ve just arrived and none of this ever happened.’

  Rory gave her a salute and walked out, still chuckling quietly.

  Five minutes later, Zoe emerged with the potty to find Rory lounging against the wall of the cabin, his thumbs hooked into the belt of his trousers. He was so devastatingly gorgeous she let out a moan which she disguised with a cough.

  ‘You may go in now,’ she said, with as much dignity as she could muster whilst holding a container of her own wee, and hurried off to the outhouse.

  When she reappeared, Rory was nailing in battens with practised efficiency. She opened the Rayburn to put more logs in, only to find he had already done it. She hadn’t the energy for porridge so finished off the last of Sunday’s leftovers, then stood at the bottom of the tower.

  ‘What time can I visit the castle?’

  ‘Meet me in the back courtyard at two. That should give me enough time to finish this.’

  ‘You sure I can’t help you here?’

  ‘Yep, go make an Instagram or whatever you need to do. I’ll take care of Basil and the Rayburn. I’m better off on my own.’

  His words stung. She knew how he felt, but to hear it vocalised still hurt. ‘Yep, me too,’ she replied brightly, then packed her bag and left him to it.

  * * *

  Back at her usual seat in the library, Zoe arranged to pick up the back boiler for the Rayburn, ordered a water tank, and set to work on the castle’s website. She bought a new domain, wrote a website brief and chose a WordPress theme. She then went to an online jobs site to put out a tender for a developer and fleshed out her ideas for the menus and content.

  Her tummy rumbling made her realise how much time had gone by. She went to the post office to give back the empty Tupperware and hopefully cadge a sandwich.

  Morag was about to close for lunch and told her it was perfect timing. Fiona and Liam were off with Duncan, and Jamie was out at work so she was glad of the company. The two of them sat around the small kitchen table and chatted as Morag plied Zoe with soup so thick you could stand a spoon up in it. Morag was still fretting about the businesses who had let her down but Zoe reassured her.

  ‘It’s fine, I’m doing a job swap with Rory. He’s helping me do up the cabin in exchange for me helping him sort out the castle accounts and designing them a website.’

  ‘Has he said anything about the earl? Is he coming back?’

  Zoe shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He’s just left other people to sort out the mess.’

  ‘Well, if you find anything out, let me know. It would be nice to have it open again. It’s been shut for too long.’

  Zoe let Morag’s happy chatter wash over her, and ruminated about the best marketing approach for the castle. It was hard to be inspired about a cold dead building, when images of a man who was the embodiment of life kept pushing their way into her thoughts. As she let her unconscious mind sift through ideas, she turned over a magazine on the table. It was last month’s copy of Vanity Fair and on the cover, smouldering out at her, was her first love.

  Morag paused her stream of consciousness and let out a sigh.

  ‘Oh, Zoe, what a dreamboat, eh? That’s going to be my bedtime reading for quite a while.’

  Brad Bauer: Hollywood superstar and power player. He began his career as an actor, then moved into producing blockbusters with his name on the top of the poster and his face in every scene. Not content with dominating at the box office, he also wanted recognition, and once a year took on smaller, indie projects, this time his focus on a different kind of prize. The roles he played involved angst, injustice, and disability, and were set against the backdrop of slavery, poverty, or any war starring Americans. They were Oscar catnip, and he’d finally hit the jackpot playing a one-legged, gay, French–American Jew who became a spy, stealing Hitler’s secrets out of Germany hidden in his prosthesis.

  ‘Have you ever seen anyone more gorgeous than that? Apart from our Jamie of course.’ Morag swooned.

  Brad stared out at Zoe from the front cover. He was classically and conventionally good looking. High cheekbones, long dark lashes, tanned skin with a hint of swarthiness from day old stubble, and thick black hair cut short. He was responsible for kickstarting Zoe’s puberty with a film called The Boyfriend Plan, in which he played a small-town bad boy, who pretends to be dating a pastor’s daughter to help keep him out of a juvenile correction facility. The pastor’s daughter agrees to his idea as a form of rebellion against her domineering father, and to gain acceptance from the cool kids at high school. The film was everything you expected: racy enough to earn it a 15 certificate, but with a suitably moral ending, and innocent enough for parents to allow their kids to see it. The film had changed Zoe’s life, and she watched it over and over again, especially the scenes where the heroine locked lips with Brad.

  Morag snatched the magazine from Zoe and thumbed through it. ‘You’ll never guess, but he’s Scottish!’ She reached the interview and photoshoot, cracked the spine of the magazine, and laid it down in front of her with a flourish. ‘Get a load of that braw man. I’ve never wanted to be a kilt so bad, I can tell you.’

  Zoe’s eyes widened as she took in the image of Brad Bauer, lying back on a four-poster bed, naked except for a length of tartan material. His hair was tousled, a faint sheen of sweat caressed his chest, and he was staring directly out at Zoe. The tagline read ‘My Scottish Dream’. She swallowed.

  ‘Good grief, Morag, this is, er, um—’

  Morag let out a hoot. ‘Aye, it’s pretty racy stuff, I nearly put it on the top shelf.’

  Zoe tore her gaze from Brad’s body to skim through the article, quickly getting the gist that he saw himself as the next Braveheart. She turned the page, then the next, then the next; photo after photo of Brad Bauer draped in tartan fabric and little else. If he’d intended to cause a storm then he had succeeded. This was gale force filth. Zoe sat back. If only she could use these on the castle website, they’d have no issues attracting visitors.

  There was a faint knocking on the post office door and Morag glanced at her watch. ‘Got to open up, love, you stay out here as long as you like. Fancy another bath?’

  ‘Could I possibly have a quick shower? That would be amazing.’

  ‘Of course, love, help yourself, and take the magazine. It’s not good for my health having him around.’

  Twenty minutes later, a clean and rosy Zoe left Morag’s with Brad Bauer in her bag. She could continue working on content for the new site offline, and now she felt more presentable she wanted to see Rory. She walked quickly up the road towards the castle, her feet and heart tripping over themselves in their haste to see him. She shook her head. Did she really have it that bad? However, rounding the castle wall and stepping into the courtyard to be greeted by him, she knew it was far worse than she could have possibly imagined.

  14

  Rory stepped out of a door to a long, low building at the side of the courtyard, brushing sawdust an
d wood shavings off his clothes and stood in front of her.

  He was devastating. It had only been a few hours since she’d seen him, but he appeared even bigger, even stronger than she remembered. A thick shirt and old trousers did nothing to disguise the power of his body. His eyes were pools of endless darkness and blue fire, drawing her to her doom.

  He stared at her blankly, as if he had forgotten who she was and was trying to place her, then opened his mouth to speak and coughed.

  Zoe could see wood shavings in his hair. He must have sawdust in his throat. Her feet walked her forward before her brain caught up to the fact she was moving. He stepped back but stopped when she reached out, plucked a delicate curl of wood and dropped it to the cobbles.

  He bent his head for her and, with trembling fingers, she picked through his hair to remove the rest. The heat from his scalp radiated out through the dark gold waves. She wanted to feel that heat warming through to her bones, filling every part of her. Her need for him was getting so strong, so deep, her hands shook visibly with the desire to grab him and pull his mouth to hers.

  He tossed his head like an angry bull and stepped back, striding towards the castle. Zoe followed him, desire, hurt and embarrassment scorching through her. Why was he so cross? She wanted to say something to break the ice, but didn’t know what or how.

  He opened a small, unassuming door in the back of the castle and led Zoe along a rabbit warren of stone-flagged corridors. The floor was worn down in the middle by hundreds of years of footsteps. She could see other rooms off the corridors, piled high with dusty boxes, furniture and accumulated junk. These were the rooms the servants used. Functional and utilitarian, no need for comfort or grandeur. The ceilings were low and Rory had to dip his head. He filled the corridor, blocking out the light. Eventually, he rounded a corner and passed through a fire door into the main body of the castle.

  The ceilings were at least twice the height of the corridors they had just walked through. From her research, she knew the estate was an earldom and had been in the hands of the MacGinley family for generations. The front of house rooms were built for status; for proclaiming wealth and power. Zoe followed Rory into the great hall and stared up at the portraits lining the walls. They were hung four metres from the ground, hundreds of years of inbreeding and entitlement sneering down on those below them.

  She shivered. ‘Why can’t they have been painted smiling? They were the ones with all the money but they look bloody miserable. Typical upper-class nobs. Turning their noses up at everyone and never having to work a day in their lives. They weren’t the peasants hauling wood, herding cattle and shovelling shit.’

  Rory’s cheeks flushed and Zoe winced. ‘Oh god, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you’re a peasant.’

  Rory raised an eyebrow, and gave a wry smile. The sun came out in Zoe’s heart. ‘There’s nothing wrong with shovelling shit. It’s very Zen, and it keeps you fit. Anyway, I’d rather be a peasant than one of them.’ He looked at the portraits and continued. ‘They didn’t have to empty their own commodes, but it didn’t mean life was easy. The women were treated like property, married off by their fathers to benefit the estate, and the men were unlikely to live to a ripe old age. They were either killed in battle, executed for choosing the wrong side, or murdered by a younger brother.’

  Zoe shrugged. ‘Maybe, but not any more. It’s just their inbuilt sense of superiority that gets me, and how they treat people. Willie worked for the estate his whole life and I don’t think they ever paid him a penny. He was happy as Larry but it wasn’t right. They took advantage of him.’

  There was a pause, then Rory spoke. ‘He got the cabin and the land. It’s worth quite a bit. He could have sold it.’

  Was he trying to bait her? His face was blank, she couldn’t read him. ‘Leasehold. He got the cabin leasehold remember? And Willie would never have sold. He didn’t want to live anywhere else. Mum says he was little more than a slave for an entitled bully.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’m not a fan of the MacGinleys, or hereditary peerage, but it’s not going to stop me doing my job. I promise.’ She walked to one of the tall windows, shaded by blinds. ‘Can I open them?’

  Rory nodded. She pulled on the rope: light flooded in. The room was now much less foreboding and she walked around, imagining the potential beyond a few day-trippers. There were spaces on the wall at the far end of the hall. Faint outlines where two paintings had hung.

  She gestured to them. ‘What used to hang there?’

  Rory’s face was shuttered. ‘A couple of portraits that got water damage. They’re being sent for restoration.’

  He walked out of the room. Zoe sighed. His moods were like the Scottish weather: ever changeable. But she did just throw his boss under the bus. She followed him through the castle on a whistle-stop tour from room to room: library, study, billiard room, dining room. On and on through rooms trapped in time. Rooms that hadn’t seen life for years. Dusty and tattered around the edges, smelling of age and neglect.

  She made notes and snapped photos as they went.

  ‘Can I see the kitchens and below stairs rooms? There could be hidden treasures we could use to help the castle make money.’

  ‘Not likely.’

  He led her to the basement where one of the wine cellars had been converted into a tea room, but it was dark and damp and there was no gift shop. They climbed the main stairs to the upper floors and the multitude of bedrooms. Zoe didn’t want to stay long. Being in a room alone with Rory and a four-poster bed was a torture too far. After an hour of traipsing up and down stairs, he led the way to the great hall, drew the blind, and returned her to the back door. Rain was hammering down. They stood in the entrance.

  ‘Have you seen enough?’

  ‘I think so. I’ll need to come back with my bigger camera and take proper photos for the website as soon as possible. Where’s Bandit?’

  Rory gestured to the single-storey building running along the side of the courtyard, the one he had come out of as she arrived.

  ‘Is that your workshop?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Can I see it? See how the front door’s coming along?’

  He hesitated and Zoe saw a muscle twitch in his jaw. His internal argument seemed to reach a conclusion and he held out his arm, gesturing her towards the building. She dashed across the cobbles through the rain, pushed open the door and ran in.

  The smell of freshly cut wood travelled up her nostrils and fired her pleasure centres. She knew she would forever find this smell erotic, as it was one of the notes that made up the incredible man who had entered the building behind her.

  Before her stretched a winter wonderland of wood, with drifts of sawdust covering the floor like a blanket of snow. The building was the old stable block, with a cobbled floor and pitched timber-framed roof. She could see indentations in the walls along the far side where the stalls used to be, round metal baskets for holding hay still attached to the walls. The horses were long gone. Now planks and blocks occupied every available space, propped up or piled in heaps, and workbenches, bandsaws and circular saws were dotted around. A large dog bed lay off to one side containing Bandit, who pricked up his ears as they entered, and trotted over to say hello. Zoe scratched behind his ears as he pushed against her leg.

  On the largest workbench in the centre of the room was a heavy oak door, the door she presumed he was making for the cabin. She walked over with Bandit by her side. The wood was already thick, but she could see he was making it double skinned to maximise the insulation. It was a door that mirrored its creator. Built to withstand everything from the weather to invading Viking hordes.

  She marvelled at how quickly he had made it. She ran her fingers across the surface. It was as smooth as glass, like silky skin.

  ‘It’ll be ready soon.’

  Zoe jumped at the sound of his voice behind her, her breath quickening.

  ‘I’m going to put in a triple glazed panel to give you more light.’

&nb
sp; She scooted away from the bench with the pretence of looking around the rest of the workshop at the half-finished projects. Rory followed her, keeping his body between Zoe and his work, preventing her getting too close. She got to the far end of the building and noticed something. Unconsciously she pushed past him and knelt down.

  ‘This is incredible!’

  There were big carved pieces of dark wood resting against the wall. She pulled them out, propping them next to each other so she could see them better. ‘Did you make this?’

  Rory nodded, his features hard.

  ‘It’s unbelievable,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a bedframe?’

  She felt over the wood, as if reading braille. It was carved like a tree in the landscape, with the four legs as thick trunks, the branches weaving up along the sides of the bed. There was a footboard, which depicted grassland, heather and animals, with the loch in the distance. The animals seemed suspended in the moment, ready to go back to their day when she looked away. She traced the outline of a powerful stag, its head raised and alert, and the tiny bodies of field mice nibbling at wheat kernels. The headboard was fit for a woodland king, the branches of the tree bursting with leaves and life. Each leaf, each twig, a work of art. There were birds hidden amongst the leaves, a nest with baby chicks, a delicately carved worm held between the beak of a parent, butterflies and insects. It was a carving of constant discovery and wonder. In the centre, in the tree canopy was a round plain space, about the size of a dinner plate, still uncarved, with pencil markings on it, unfinished and waiting.

  It was the most beautiful thing Zoe had ever seen, created by the most beautiful man she had ever met. She saw the mastery of his craft, the care he had put in, his humour, his mind, his soul. Her feelings ran so deep for a man she would never have. She stood up, facing away from him, her eyes compressed tightly shut. She wouldn’t cry, she just couldn’t.

  ‘Zoe?’ His voice was right behind her, deep and soft. He sounded concerned. She held her breath, trying to stem the tide of her emotions until she couldn’t hold it any more and the dam burst. She shuddered out a sob. His hands came to her shoulders, turning her towards him. She stared at the floor, violently shaking her head, shedding more tears.