Page 21 of Kilt Trip

She picked up a dart and spun it like a top, glee a giddy sparkler in her chest. She could almost hear his teeth grinding.

Addie, 1 point.

“And what about their expertise?” She held up five fingers and nodded to Logan, giving him a thumbs-up. He flipped her off.

“Ease of communication?” She wrapped the curly phone cord around her finger. Logan could take it as a metaphor for Alasdair, who was happily reporting every detail of their partnership.

She straightened. “Sorry, did you say they fax you reservations? I will make that my number-one priority.” She was shocked Elyse hadn’t mentioned it already.

A dial tone blared in her ear, and she pulled the receiver away, staring at it, until she noticed Logan’s pointer finger pressing down the switch hook.

“You have no right calling our vendors,” Logan growled.

“I thought you’d approve of me getting to know the locals,” she said with mock innocence.

“Let’s get something straight.”

“Please.” She steepled her fingers under her chin.

Riling him up past cold disdain—Addie, 1 point.

Logan braced his hands on the desk and leaned over the small surface. “This is my company. My tours. My vendors. If you need something, come and talk to me first.”

“Because that’s been going so well.”

He winced like he realized how ridiculous he sounded after his elaborate attempts to derail her.

Comeuppance had never tasted so sweet. Addie crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. “I’d love your itineraries.”

The muscle in Logan’s jaw jumped. He stalked to her side of the desk, pressing into her personal space as he dropped into a crouch.

“What are you—” Her attention snagged on his thick thighs, the way his fingers splayed across jeans that were three seconds from busting the seams. The leather band wrapped twice around his wrist lent him an air of rebelliousness like vacation crushes and swimming in the ocean at night.

She looked into stormy eyes rimmed with dark lashes. Even if she’d wanted to look away—which she didn’t, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction—she was trapped in his gaze, in the heat, in the flicker of longing hiding in the depths.

Her heartbeat settled between her collarbones.

In quick succession, his eyebrow rose, a half smile formed, and a dimple appeared off the coast of his full lips. “Do you mind?” He gestured to the drawer she was blocking with her foot.

Her cheeks turned molten, and she tore her gaze away from his arrogant like-what-you-see? look, searching desperately for something else to focus on or, at the very least, a stack of manila folders to build a barricade around herself.

She pushed back in the rolling chair as he rummaged around in the drawer for half a century while she drowned in his pine and leather scent wafting her way.

How was she still affected by this?

Probably because that damn dimple reminded her of the real smile he had turned on her at the pub. It would be much easier to hate Logan if her mind would stop pulling up Exhibit A: Grinning in the Firelight over a Drink as proof that he had once been genuine and earnest and not a complete dickwad. Shouldn’t there be an off switch for any lingering attraction she still felt for him?

She was a professional, dammit.

Logan unfurled to his full height, his eyes gleaming, as he handed her a stack of maps printed from MapQuest, the routes hand-drawn in red marker.

Unbelievable. He was truly planning to block her at every step. Children running down a hotel hallway at two in the morning were less infuriating. “Sorry, is this a crayon drawing of the Hundred Acre Wood?”

Logan only smirked, crossing his arms like a self-satisfied bodyguard knowing Addie couldn’t get past him.

She looked away from his chest muscles, irritatingly sculpted in that pose, and turned her attention to the top map and a dot way out of alignment with the rest of the loop. Addie stood and pointed to it. “Here’s a great example. Castle Storn? No one’s ever heard of it. The draw has to warrant the drive time, and this is wildly out of the way.”

Logan’s itineraries were a huge liability. Tourists might visit this random castle and—like in the desert—feel nothing. Hot spots fostered connections and never failed to disappoint.

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