Page 81 of Kilt Trip

She didn’t say anything at all.

They checked into the hotel and used a brass key to unlock their door. The curtains were pulled to the sides of the bay window, letting in the starlight, but the room didn’t feel like the hideaway he’d imagined.

His pulse grew heavy, like a tug-of-war in his veins. He couldn’t know what she’d been through, couldn’t understand why she kept to herself, but he’d tried to show her he could be counted on in every way he knew how. If he could carry some of her hurt, give her comfort and a place to call home, he would do it in a heartbeat. It wouldn’t be completely selfless. He wanted this woman more than he’d wanted that first tour with his dad.

More than a return to the way things had been.

But it wasn’t his choice. She had to choose to let him in.

32

The hotel room was a Highland fantasy getaway. Two cozy chairs flanked an honest-to-god fireplace, wooden mantel and all. Gold-medallioned wallpaper covered the walls, and blue-and-green tartan curtains hung from the window. Wrapped in a tan-plaid blanket, Addie sat cross-legged on the bench at the foot of the ornately carved four-poster bed.

Logan set to work building a fire, crouched on his heels, adding splintered logs to the grate. He slid kindling into the gaps, grabbed the matchbook off the mantelpiece, and struck it, waiting for the wood to catch.

Once a flame flickered in the grate, he stood and brushed his hands off along his jeans. “How are you feeling?”

Addie didn’t know. Too many things filled her mind at once. Unraveling the specific threads of her emotions was harder than pulling apart old, tangled, silver chains. “Overwhelmed.” She adjusted the blanket over her shoulders. “I’m not sure how to put it all into words.”

“Try.” His voice rasped over the word, almost desperate, and her eyes snapped up to his. Hurt clung to the edges. Maybe a bit of betrayal.

Her breath left with a whoosh.

Logan connected through stories, and she’d withheld hers.

Her stomach clenched around the truth: she’d put that pain on his face, on his heart.

She couldn’t convince a jury she had no idea he needed more from her. She’d never met someone who wanted to know her the way Logan did. But today shed light on another truth: she was stronger than she thought. She could give Logan her stories.

Addie swallowed. “Okay.”

Logan knelt in front of her, the breadth of his shoulders blocking out all but the glow of the fire behind him. She leaned forward, tracing the hidden smile lines under his stubble with her thumbs. “When you took me to the Kyle of Sutherland and told me how the land and the water and the sky were in your bones and your blood, I believed you. But I wasn’t sure I could feel that strongly anymore. Seeing these places I have some claim to, that I get to call my own because of the people who came before me...it’s more powerful than I realized.”

Knowing she was part of a chain stretching back to the beginning comforted her, like she could never be all alone again. Like she’d never been alone at all.

“I’ve seen some of humanity’s greatest achievements, all the wonders of the world, but I haven’t felt that tires-in-the-driveway feeling.”

Sometimes she thought it settled around her when Jack let her have the chair by the window and they read in companionable silence. At the Sutherlands’ with holiday music and good food and people who embraced every time they saw each other. And right now, sitting in front of a glowing fireplace with Logan.

“Lass,” he said in a low voice, looking up at her with those limitless ocean eyes. He tucked a strand of hair around her ear, and the tenderness of his fingertips along her sensitive skin stole her breath.

“I’ve explored the whole world but never a place I can claim. Never a place where I wanted to take a picture so I could remember how I felt in that moment.”

Logan shifted and slid his phone out of his pocket, pulling up the picture he’d taken today.

The mountains stood proud in the distance, and Addie’s hair twisted in the wind, golden against the bright yellow of her coat. With her arms spread out and her head tipped back, she looked...free.

After a minute of tracing the curve of her smile and letting that feeling settle on her heart, she handed the phone back to Logan.

His fingers closed around hers. His lips parted, like he wanted to say something else. Then his gaze fell to the phone, and his thumb swiped. “There are others.”

She grinned. He probably had a whole montage of her throwing her arms back and staring up at the sky. He handed the phone back, and she nearly dropped it.

Addie’s heart slammed against her rib cage. Not a picture from today.

Older.

Beside a different body of water.

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