Unwrapped Bundle with You Don't Know Jack & Bad Boys in Kilts

by Erin McCarthy

  “And,” he added, “she’d have no patience for the way yer still caterwauling about over Brodie Chisholm all these years later.”

  “Shh,” Kat warned, looking over her shoulder. As if Brodie could actually overhear them from across the square. “I’m not caterwauling.”

  “Mooning, then.”

  She glanced across the street, wondering what was going on behind that closed door. “I’m, uh, I’m merely looking out for the best interests of a good friend. After all, what do we really know about her other than she’s Maude’s great niece, come from America to start a new life. For all we know, she’s running from a husband and a brood of children. Or…or worse. Maude never spoke of her.”

  Her father rolled out just far enough to give her a look of reproach. “Maude never spoke much at all about anything in her personal life. Kept to herself, that one. And you’d do better to simply own up to your role in this and stop trying to pin it on some innocent bystander.”

  Kat huffed out a sigh. “Okay, fine. So I had kind of a crush on him that summer after I finished my sixth-year highers, before Mum passed, when we were, what, seventeen? That was over ten years ago. We were solid friends way before then and have been ever since. So, am I wrong to worry that he’ll get caught up in some passing fancy with the American? Honestly, how do we know she’s not here on some whim? Thinking it a lark to take on her inheritance herself. As if running a shop in a small highland town is a game to be played at.”

  “And you know all this about our newcomer because you’ve sat across from her so many mornings over tea?” Her father wasn’t much for sarcasm, and even now, his words were laced with affection.

  Kat’s cheeks grew a bit pink. “I’m only sayin’ that he might want to be a bit more circumspect, is all. Until we know what she’s about.”

  “And I’m sayin’ that it’s a sad day when a Henderson wants something and doesn’t go after it. I’ve the patience of a saint, which is a good damn thing considering this son of a bitching bastard is about clapped out and I promised Hinky I’d find a way to keep it going. But even I’m about out of patience with you on this matter.”

  “I didn’t come running to you for advice now, did I?”

  “I’m just sayin’ that I don’t know why you didn’t play your hand when you were the only game in town. No, ye go faffing about until another woman shows up, making all the lads come sniffin’ ’round, then ye start mooning over what might have been and lost chances and the like.” He rolled out from under the car. “There are no lost chances, only missed opportunities. And you know what I always say about that.”

  “Opportunities are the chances you make for yourself,” Kat repeated with him. She tossed the rag at him as he sat up.

  Her father dabbed the rag to his forehead, blotting off the beads of sweat but leaving a bigger smear of grime behind. “You can pull the wool over everyone else’s eyes, Kat-o-mine, but no one knows ye like your papa. You and I both know you’ve wanted Brodie Chisholm for so long that you grew comfortable with it, accepted it for what it was, thinking at some point perhaps you’d press for more. Now there’s someone who might compete with you for that spot in his heart and suddenly you’re all concerned, claiming you’re looking after his best interests. All I’m saying to you is that for once, you might want to look after your own.”

  Her father was right and they both knew it. “You think I’m being silly.” She gestured at herself. “But look at me, Papa. Daisy is as fresh and pretty as her name. I’m—”

  “Solid as a rock and the best damn thing going in this town,” Alastair answered automatically.

  It was silly, but his instant and unwavering defense made her eyes water a little. She quickly recovered by glancing back across the square again. Brodie was in there right now with Daisy. And here she was, just standing in the shadows, watching. Knowing, as she’d always known, that this one would be like all the rest, just another passing fancy for him. Only this time she wasn’t so sure. Daisy might not be a true Glenbuie villager quite yet, but she wasn’t some tourist passing through town, either.

  And Kat knew she wasn’t the only one feeling the changes that came with time. Brodie came from a strong family, as did she, each of them with ties to Glenbuie that went back several hundred years. Despite his playboy ways, he’d want his own family someday. Had said so to her more than once, hadn’t he? Of course it had been in that dreamy, can’t-imagine-it-now kind of way, but the longing was there nonetheless. She understood it as she’d begun to feel that same longing a wee bit herself.

  Her father was right about another thing, too. A Henderson didn’t sit idly by and let others take what was theirs. Shamed as she was to admit it, it would serve her right if Brodie found the one who settled him down, and Kat hadn’t done anything to let him know she fancied herself as that woman. It was supposed to be her. That it was always supposed to be her.

  “Thanks, Papa,” she said, “your defense is well noted and appreciated. It’s only that I can’t help but think he’s had plenty of time to notice me in that way, and he’s never once so much as hinted at it.”

  “Brodie Chisholm might enjoy playing as much as he enjoys laboring, but the lad is anything but an idiot. Hagg’s Pub was never so profitable or popular when the old cuss ran it. Brodie’s a scamp and a scoundrel for certain, but his heart is fully meshed with Glenbuie and all who reside here. It’s that love and respect for his past that auld Finny Chisholm instilled in all his grandsons that makes Brodie good at what he does. Hagg’s is now the heart and soul of this village because Brodie has made it the heart and soul of this village.” He pushed to a stand and moved beside her. “Your heart runs just as deep and true, lassie. He knows that. It’s why ye have that special bond between you that you do.” He leaned down and bussed her forehead, then favored her with a wink. “You should have more faith.”

  Kat leaned into him, pressing her shoulder against his, but her gaze shifted back to the door of the stationer’s shop. “I have faith in a lot of things,” she said after a moment or two. But my ability to attract a man, especially one who is all man like Brodie Chisholm, isn’t one of them, she thought, not putting her biggest fear to words. Knowing her father, she didn’t have to, anyway. He was the only one who saw past the tough-as-nails, tomboy exterior to the vulnerable woman beneath.

  Proving the truth in that, he gently chided her. “So go clean yourself up and walk over there and buy a card or something. Give you a chance to size up your competition, and something to use to get a little attention.”

  “Buy a card for Brodie? It’s not his birthday and the closest holiday is months off.”

  Alastair sighed and looked up to the heavens as he shook his head. “Where did we go wrong, Maddy mine? Our girl has not a speck of the romantic fool in her.”

  “A fool is exactly what I’m afraid I’m going to make out of myself.”

  He was grinning broadly as he looked at his daughter. “Och, lass, where love is involved, you not only have to be willin’ to risk looking the fool, you have to embrace the inevitability of it. Cupid forgives those who make fools of themselves for love, you know. As do the targets of his arrows…if they’re worthy.”

  Kat knew when she was beat. So she did the only thing she could do. She turned the tables. She snagged the rag from her father’s hands and snapped it playfully, a devilish smile ghosting her lips. “So why havena I seen you at Maude’s shop, buying a card or perhaps a few posies for Miss Eleanor?”

  She had the distinct pleasure of watching her father’s already ruddy complexion turn a far more serious shade of red. “What I do and who I do or don’t buy posies for is my own particular business,” he blustered, snatching the rag back and turning once again to Hinky’s recalcitrant Cooper, which still awaited his magic mechanical touch. “Don’t recall asking for your advice either,” he grumbled.

  “And there ye have it, my point exactly. But that didn’t stop you—”

  “I don’t go mooning about over Elea
nor Walth, daydreamin’ about things I’m too afraid to go after, when I’m supposed to be working.”

  Kat batted her eyelashes and folded her hands under her chin. “Would that explain why ye almost burnt the place down the other night then? When you forgot to take the water from the stove after a certain someone stopped in to see about getting her brakes fixed? A double entendre if I ever heard one, ask me.”

  “No one is asking you. And you can forget I ever mentioned anything. If you want to go on standing there and watching from the sidelines while that Yank snatches what you want right directly from under your nose, without even so much as making an effort after it, well, then I suppose you deserve the heartache you claim to be havin’. I’ll leave you to explain in your prayers to your sainted mum, why you’re content to let her see her one and only not so much as lift a finger to go after what she wants.”

  “Don’t play Mum into this to distract me from my topic,” Kat said, partly to tweak him and partly because his words now were having a far bigger impact on her than his loving defense of her had earlier.

  “I’ll stoop to whatever means necessary,” her father said, wholly unrepentant. “How do you think we Hendersons come to still be here, three hundred and a quarter years after first setting foot into Glenbuie?”

  Kat mouthed the words with him, so often had she heard them, then leaned over and bussed him loudly on his still-red cheek. “I’m going to head down to Plough’s for some sandwiches. You want your regular?”

  “When don’t I?” he said gruffly, but then he tugged at one of her braided ponytails. “Bring me an extra orange cream while you’re at it.”

  “When haven’t I?” she shot back, glad they were back on even footing once again. She loved her father dearly, didn’t know what she’d do without him, but he knew her all too well. And she knew she’d chew over his comments far longer than she’d chew on one of Plough’s hard rolls. Which was saying something.

  She went into the small washroom in the back and scrubbed at her hands, her thoughts already running back over their conversation as she let herself out of the side door of their corner shop a moment later…only to bang directly into the subject of that conversation himself.

  Chapter 2

  Brodie grabbed Kat by her shoulders to keep them both from going down on the cobblestones. “Have to love a woman on a mission,” he told her with a laugh, as she tugged free from his grasp.

  “Aye. Going to Plough’s.”

  He stepped aside and waved his arm in a courtly fashion. “Never stand between a woman and food, I always say.”

  “And you always say the sweetest things,” she retorted, batting her eyelashes in a cynical fashion before pushing past him.

  She took two strides before he snagged one of her braids and tugged on it, making her turn back. “What’s wrong with you? A little engine trouble?”

  She glared at him before flipping the braid over her shoulder, pointedly out of his reach. “You might say that.”

  Now he frowned. Had he missed something here? “Am I in trouble? You’re not still fashed because Pitts beat you at darts the other night? Everyone has an off night—I told you that. And I know he’s been a bit of a sod, gloatin’ as he does. But I still say if you’d just listened to me, and balanced the weight further back on the—”

  She shrugged out of his grasp. “It was a game. I’m over it. Besides, we both know I can get back what’s mine the next time he gets paid. Now, if you don’t mind—”

  She went to push past him, and again he tugged her back, knowing it would just rile her further and fine with that. Seeing as he had no idea what he’d done to earn her ire in the first place, he was willing to risk a little wrath to find out what was going on.

  She glared straight through him as she blew the hair off her forehead with a little huff. Most women staring down thirty would look silly in braids, he found himself thinking. Not Kat. They looked as normal on her as did the grease-stained dungarees she wore. He couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t, and he’d known her since they were both six years old and in primary school together.

  Might be it was the freckles sprinkled across her nose, the very same ones that had been there more than two decades ago. Or that fringe of blond wisps across her forehead that was forever needing trimmed, always tickling her eyebrows and making her chuff them away. Always defiant, his Kat. It was her never-say-die attitude that had drawn them together that long-ago fall day when they’d partnered up in Miss McKee’s P1 class, knowing they’d met a like soul from the moment they spied the mischievous twinkle in each other’s eyes.

  But this chuff, while definitely defiant, seemed a bit different. It was a loaded chuff if ever he’d heard one. And he’d heard one or two in his day.

  “I do mind,” he said mildly. “I mind that you’re snarling at me like a rabid fox, and I’ve yet to discover my crime. Don’t I deserve to at least know what I’ve done to put you in such high dander?”

  She cocked her head. “You’re in the doghouse with at least three-quarters of the women in your acquaintance at any given moment in time, and you seem to suffer through that without much remorse. Why should one more or less matter to you?”

  Brodie frowned. He knew Kat Henderson better than he knew pretty much anyone, save his own brothers. Sure, the two of them bickered on occasion, but there was always an affectionate edge. Today she was all prickly female and there didn’t seem to be anything affectionate or familial about it. On someone else, he’d blame the monthlies, but not on Kat. She was too ornery to put up with something as lowering and generic as PMS.

  “Alastair doing okay?” It was the only other thing he could think of that would put her in this kind of mood. He’d only just walked past the open bay door to their motor repair shop and had seen the old man’s legs sticking out from under Hinky’s ancient Cooper, heard him cursing up a storm. All perfectly normal, or so he’d thought. “You two argue about something?”

  She planted her hands on her hips, eyes narrowed. “What makes you think that? He’s been nothing but wonderful to me.”

  Brodie realized he’d somehow managed to cross into that netherworld of a woman’s logic in which he had no prayer of exiting unscathed. Better to cut his losses now. It was a small village. If it was anything important, he’d hear about it at the pub over ales. Or Kat would eventually tell him herself. They weren’t cut out to keep secrets from each other. Not important ones, anyway.

  He lifted his hands, backed up a step. “Fine, fine. Sorry I asked. Ye seemed a wee bit on edge and I was only wantin’ to help out if I could.”

  “Because that’s you, Brodie, helpful to a fault.” She jerked her chin toward the opposite corner of the town square. “Is that what you were doing in Maude’s earlier? Helping out?”

  Now he was frowning. “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “I don’t see any packages in your hands, so I’m supposing you weren’t in there shopping. Or maybe you were, but it wasn’t the kind of purchase that gets rung up at the register, if you catch my meaning.”

  Now he cocked his head. She did look a little pale. Save the twin spots of heat on her cheeks. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten? Did you skip breakfast again?”

  She threw up her hands. “Fine. Dodge the question.”

  He hadn’t even heard a question.

  “I don’t have time to stand here playing silly games,” she went on. “Games are supposed to involve darts or a pool cue. Life, on the other hand, is serious business, Brodie. You can’t just play at it.”

  “At the risk of angering you further, I respectfully say I have no idea what you’re talking about. I went to Maude’s because Daisy stopped by the pub when I was out yesterday, looking for me.”

  “Daisy is it now? And I bet she did,” Kat muttered.

  “Huh?” Brodie shook his head. “Did something happen between you two? You want to fill me in? Because I have no idea—”

  “This isn’t about what�
�s going on between the Yank and me,” she retorted, giving him a pointed look that only perplexed him further.

  Brodie’s patience finally grew thin. Women. He’d never been one to lump Kat Henderson into that confusing and oftentimes frustrating category. Not that she wasn’t a woman, but she was different. A straight shooter who told it like it was and didn’t mess with his head on a regular basis. He could always count on Kat. He always knew where he stood with her.

  Except for right now.

  At the moment, where he stood appeared to be atop a very high cliff. And he was much closer to the crumbling edge than he’d like to be. All he wanted to know was how the hell he’d gotten there in the first place. He planted his hands on his hips. “Why don’t you tell me what is going on, then? I’d at least like to know what I’ve done to piss off her royal highness here before she lops off my head.”

  “Men,” Kat fumed. “Everything has to be a game with you. A contest. With rules. And some kind of scoring system. And a clear winner in the end. So fine.”

  She surprised him then by smiling. And it was something to behold, but not for a good reason. It was almost…feral. She moved closer and he had to fight the urge to retreat a step.

  “Let’s say, then, that this is like a rousing good game of darts.” She poked him in the chest, right in the heart.

  “This what? What this?” He was completely flummoxed. Not that it mattered, apparently, as she went right on without so much as pausing.

  “The rules of play are, she who hits the bull’s-eye and sticks there for good wins the prize.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her what that prize might be, but at the moment, he honestly wasn’t sure he wanted to know. There was something…different in the way she was looking at him now. As if she hadn’t eaten in a very long time—which he still suspected might be the problem here—and he was a perfect steak. It just didn’t make any sense.