Page 15 of Kilt Trip

Logan’s pulse pounded in his temples. She can’t do that.

“I agree,” Neil said. “Most of our trips haven’t changed since Logan and his brothers were coming with me on school holidays.” The caterpillar straightened over Neil’s teeth in confession like it was a bad thing. Only the whisky tours were brand-new, and they all knew how that ended.

Logan tried to force some calm into his voice. “I won’t let The Heart become one of a hundred other tour providers with gimmicks and lackluster destinations. A hairy-coo logo is no victory. We know the land, the history, the secret places that leave a lasting memory, and it gives our tours a richness and complexity.”

“These two talk about Scotland as if it’s a single malt,” Elyse said, writing Itineraries on the board, as Neil chuckled. Logan glared at the back of her head.

“I love the sentiment, but this is business.” Addie’s soft and conciliatory tone didn’t disguise her true implication that his memories with his dad and brothers were wistful and had no place in her world.

Logan couldn’t think of an appropriate retort through all the red in his brain. “The castles and cities don’t change much around here.”

“But the interest in them does. You have something like Outlander come out and people want to say they went to Castle Leoch.”

“Same set as Winterfell in Game of Thrones, by the way,” Elyse added.

“Those aren’t real,” he bit out.

Neil turned a sit-down-and-stay-quiet look on Logan that was remarkably similar to his mum’s. He repressed the impulse to swing his feet like an admonished child.

“People want a connection to their interests, and regardless of how inauthentic that is to you, it holds marketing weight.” Addie pinned him with a hard stare. “That’s your goal, right? Marketing?”

Her eyes held a challenge, more of an order, really, to back down. But Logan couldn’t heed that warning. Not when her changes threatened to destroy what was special about their tours. Loathing welled up inside him.

Her gaze shifted past him, and she rolled her lips inward.

Logan turned to find Elyse adding the final touches on a hairy-coo cartoon that took up three-quarters of the whiteboard. The Highland cow’s tongue reached up to its snout, and orange hair covered its eyes. She wrote Moo with a flourish and stepped back to beam at him, then winked at Addie.

Neil straightened the lapels of his jacket. “We have to adapt, lad.”

Logan swallowed down a tsunami of resentment. Everyone was abandoning him.

He ignored his dad and that damn smirking coo and turned to Addie. “How much time have you spent in Scotland?”

Her cheeks flushed at his barely veiled implication of incompetence. “I know what clients want out of their vaca—”

“Do you, now?” Logan stood, bracing his hands on the table. “Have you ever seen Ben Nevis when the rising sun paints the snowcap pink? Or felt the world fade away when the mist settles in a glen? There’s magic in this country, and it’s to be found in all manner of places, whether it ranks in your spreadsheets or not.”

Addie rose to her feet and tipped her chin up to meet his eyes. “If only painted-pink snowcaps paid the bills.”

Neil stood and gripped Logan’s shoulder, pressing him back in his seat. “We’ll defer to the expert. Addie, Elyse can get you settled. Logan’s guiding most days, so you can share his desk—”

“My de—” Was nothing sacred around here?

“Please don’t hesitate to ask for anything you need. We’ll look forward to your recommendations.”

Logan rolled his shoulders and pushed out a slow breath through his nose. Addie may have come here expecting the Highland games, but this meant all-out war.

Logan scowled at Addie where she sat across his desk, looking particularly comfortable in his chair, while he had to twist sideways to work on his computer, his thigh pressed against the wooden back panel.

Granted, he shouldn’t have been in the office this week, but Harris had been more than happy to take Logan’s four-night Orkney tour so he could stay here and fight the good fight. Unfortunately, Logan’s plan to hinder Addie’s every move was not without its flaws. Namely that he had grossly underestimated not only her tenacity in acquiring details about their tours but also her ability to charm his employees.

That first day, Agnes, their one-woman HR department, had pulled Addie into her office—cordoned off by the potted plants Elyse filled the office with—and immediately started in on stories from her thirty-year tenure at The Heart, the most prominent featuring Logan as an overeager lad.

Keith, who stopped by everyone’s desk before taking the wheel on his day trips out of Edinburgh, had included Addie in his morning rounds each of the last four days, as if she fit seamlessly into this office.

Logan could have anticipated Harris and Brandon—two of his newer guides—falling all over themselves around Addie, desperate to tell her about their favorite trips and bits of Scotland, if only to steal a minute of her attention. He couldn’t blame them. He’d felt the same pull, after all. But Big Mac and Margaret going out of their way to make her feel welcome? That stung.

Elyse crossed the room with her dueling teacups and sat in the tattered emerald chair, the wheels whooshing along the carpet as she rolled up to Addie’s side of his desk and peeked at her computer. “Golly gee,” Elyse said, drawing out the vowels as only Americans do.

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