Page 25 of Kilt Trip

“Gigi. My GPS,” she clarified. “She hates Scotland.”

His full-throated chuckle would have captured her attention the first time they met, but now she ground her teeth in response. “Could have used my map after all.”

Hot coals burned under her skin. The audacity of this man. “Go ahead. Gloat.”

“I’ll wait to do it in person. I’m on my way...any second.”

He’d probably leave her for hours. Addie tossed her phone into the passenger seat where it landed with a thud on top of her pictures.

She hadn’t even wanted to go to Macrae lands. Drafty European castles were indistinguishable from one another. It wasn’t like she’d feel her mom’s spirit inside a centuries-old rock wall or standing in front of a random mountain. She’d been lulled into some kind of stupor by thoughts of a trip that never happened.

Addie was all alone in a van she didn’t know how to drive, in a country she’d resolutely avoided, dreaming of the one life she could never have again.

No amount of pretending would bring Heather back.

Apparently Addie had to learn that one last time.

She bit and yanked a wannabe Twizzler with a satisfying snap. Damn Logan for pushing her into this. She never should’ve told him about her past. So what if she wasn’t spending every free moment tracking down her ancestors? What did he know about it, anyway? He had the perfect family.

He didn’t know how much it hurt to go chasing down ghosts.

9

When Logan told Addie that day in the pub to call if she got lost again, he hadn’t pictured his dad being with them. Or quite so much accusation lurking in her selkie eyes—even diluted through the van’s windshield.

His feet squelched in the mud as he shooed the sheep. They bleated in response and carried on with their lunch.

Addie rolled down the window. “If the horn didn’t work, you swatting at them certainly won’t.”

“What about the glare?” Logan twirled a finger to encompass Addie’s narrowing eyes. “Aye, that’s the one,” he said, resting his arm on the open window.

Her lips pursed into her typical unimpressed frown. At a minimum, Logan wanted to grin in the face of her misfortune. Preferably dance a Highland jig around the van. Only...her eyes were a tad watery, and her hair curled wildly around her face.

She looked downright ruffled.

A tiny seed of guilt unfurled inside him. He’d taunted her into this drive, thinking she’d be more open to his ideas if she left the office and saw the land for herself. And...a bit to torture her. But he hadn’t accounted for the sheep. Arseholes, the lot of them.

If Addie gave up now and headed straight back to Edinburgh, he knew how this would play out. She would write off the whole country and recommend he invest in a fifty-passenger bus and only allow them to stop at Stirling Castle and Loch Ness.

The Heart bore a responsibility to the community they supported—the quiet bits of land they returned to, the friends who welcomed them into their restaurants and B and Bs, tour after tour. They would suffer if The Heart went elsewhere.

Logan couldn’t bear to be the reason for that kind of hardship for someone else. He carried the suffocating weight of it himself.

He had no other choice but to show Addie the colors and beauty she was intent on missing. Why these places she deemed obscure mattered for their tours. Why they set them apart.

Logan could salvage this. He tapped the inside of the car door twice. “I’ll get you hooked up, and we’ll be on our way in no time.”

She handed him her floor mat when he asked, and he grabbed the one from the passenger side, sliding them under the wheels. His boots sank into the mud as he connected the cars, but at least the rain had slowed to a quiet mist. He gave Neil a thumbs-up and told Addie to accelerate. The van groaned before lurching onto the shoulder.

Logan collected the chain and sloppy mats and tossed them into the back of the truck, waving his dad off.

Addie leaned halfway out the window. “Who was that?”

“My dad.”

She made a grumbly whine in the back of her throat. “He knows, too? Wait. Why is he leaving?” Neil’s car pulled past them, heading back to Edinburgh.

Convincing a Disillusioned Addie to accept his tours would be an even bigger challenge than convincing Obstinate Addie. “I’ll come with you and show you some sights.”

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