Page 6 of Kilt Trip

Jack and Logan had met him the first time they’d come in. They knew all about the anxiety Gavin dealt with keeping his family business afloat while supporting his ailing father living upstairs.

Heather settled her chin on her fist and studied him. “How long have you been guiding?” she asked.

“Och, it feels like forever.”

Since the early days on their dad’s tours, when they could barely see out the window of the coach, he and his brothers had planned to run The Heart of the Highlands together. Carry on the family legacy. Logan never questioned their future.

But Jack and Reid had.

If Logan hadn’t wanted to leave his mark on the family business, if he hadn’t pushed them to invest in whisky tours, if he hadn’t stepped out of line... He scrubbed a hand over his face. Stewing over his mistakes and why his brothers left him to fail alone got him nowhere.

“Did you grow up around here?” she asked.

He didn’t quite know what to make of the interview questions. From someone else, he’d assume she was a bit nervous, but that didn’t fit the woman in front of him. Her posture exuded confidence, her bright eyes discerning.

“Born and raised in Edinburgh. My family’s all here.” But he didn’t want to talk about the lot of them at the moment. Logan lifted his chin to the pile of postcards she’d been shuffling. “What have you got there?”

“I send my best friend postcards from every place I visit.” Her eyes glimmered with humor as she turned the stack toward Logan. “What do you think?”

The plaid-printed card read Kilt: It’s what happened to the last bloke who called it a skirt.

Logan narrowed his eyes at the card and then at her. “Clever,” he said dryly, playing her game, and the corners of her lips tipped up.

She flipped to the next card featuring a cartoon bagpiper captioned Pack Yer Bags.

“A highly overrated instrument, if I’m being honest.”

“Mr. Scotland himself doesn’t like bagpipes,” she said, shaking her head and tsking.

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling as she slid the card behind the rest. “The haggis is offal good?” he read, furrowing his eyebrows just to see her grin. He couldn’t deny the warmth spreading through him was from more than the whisky.

“It sounds even better when you say it.”

With an amused grunt, Logan swiped the stack of postcards from Heather’s grasp. “Give me those.” He turned the card so she could see the two kilted men tossing bread in a lake for Nessie and leveled her with a mock-chastening scowl.

“What, they have it all wrong? She only eats canned shrimp?”

“And irreverent tourists who wander too close to the water.”

Heather’s cheeks pulled up into a hidden smile, and perfectly straight teeth pressed down into the curve of her full bottom lip. A primal urge to do the same coursed through him. Logan pushed the irrational desire away, focusing all his attention on thumbing through the remaining cards.

He Frisbeed one across the table with a huff, and she caught the paper-doll Scotsman before it slipped to the floor. Naked but for a fig leaf and two socks, the card provided punch-out clothes and accessories including a pint, a tam-o’-shanter, and a black Scottie dog.

“I agree. It’s the clear winner.”

“That’s a fine representation of Scotland you have there, lass.” Logan tapped the cards into a stack against the table and slid them to her. “You can send these, but the Royal Mail will most likely destroy them. Might as well use them as fuel,” he teased.

Waving the paper doll, she said, “Maybe I’ll keep it. I always was partial to a man with a sporran.”

The wooden bench creaked as Logan shifted to ease the expansiveness ballooning in his chest. He’d been initiated in the ways of flirtatious travelers ages ago. It came with the territory and the kilt. Starring in some American girl’s Outlander fantasy imploded when she inevitably went back home—he’d learned that the hard way at nineteen and hadn’t dallied with a guest since—and yet there was something different about Heather that made him linger.

She made him feel light. Reminded him why he loved this job when most days it felt like the weight of the business on his shoulders might crush him.

Between her raincoat and her smile, she was sunshine. And sunshine never went unnoticed in Scotland.

“Can I buy you a drink?” He wouldn’t get carried away, but he was undeniably intrigued.

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