Page 7 of Gift-Wrapped in a Kilt

Calli stepped aside, chewing her lower lip. "Gavin? Are you okay?"

"No, not even a little bit." It was the most honest thing he'd said all day.

"Find Jamie. Talk to her."

He pushed up out of the chair, shaking his head. "You were right, C. I have no goddamn idea what I'm feeling or why. I can't work this out with Jamie, if it can be worked out, until I sort out my own shit."

Calli laid a hand on his arm. "Can I help?"

Gavin rolled his eyes heavenward. "I need therapy from my sister. This keeps getting better."

She nudged his arm with her fist. "You're still my hero, Gav."

He grunted.

"My advice stands," she said. "You should talk to Jamie today. Let her know you'll be sticking around instead of flying back to America tomorrow."

"Since when am I sticking around?"

Calli grinned. "Since I told you to."

"You sure have gotten snarky since you married Aidan. I think he's a bad influence." Gavin swung his arms and clapped his hands together. "I can't afford the hotel anymore, so —"

"Oh please, like that's an insurmountable problem. You can stay with me and Aidan, or with Lachlan and Erica, or…" Her smile turned impish. "You could stay with Emery and Rory."

Gavin threw his hands up. "Uh-uh, no way, no how. Rory would probably sneak a rattlesnake into my bed."

"There are no rattlesnakes in Scotland."

"He'll find something else awful and excruciatingly painful to kill me with, then." He raised one hand to silence her impending comment. "And I'm not staying with Lachlan or Aidan either. Lachlan hates me almost as bad as Rory does, and you and Aidan have Jamie with you."

"I'll find you a place to stay, don't worry about that." She slapped his arm. "You go talk to Jamie while I call every MacTaggart from the parents on down to the cousins."

Bunking with a MacTaggart, knowing every single one of them loved Jamie and would take her side, sounded like the awesomest plan ever. Theyshouldtake her side, of course. But that didn't make it any easier for him to accept charity from them.

One thing he knew for sure. He could not talk his pigheaded sister out of an idea once she'd decided it wastheplan.

"Fine," he said with all the resignation of a man sentenced to death row. "I'll go with your plan. Got any idea where Jamie might be?"

"Nope." She poked a finger into his chest. "You get to call Rory and ask him."

Yep, this day just kept getting better.

Chapter Five

Jamie slumped on the sofa in the sitting room of Dùndubhan, gazing out the windows into the walled courtyard of the castle. She didn't really see anything, though. Her focus had retreated inside herself, to the pain in her chest and the burning in her gut and the image of that blasted credit card. What in the world had Gavin been thinking? Did she mean so little to him?

Emery occupied the chair by the window, the one where Rory usually sat. She kept eying Jamie with a strange expression. This was the look Rory said meant Emery was scheming to meddle in someone else's life.

"I've seen it often enough," he'd told Jamie, "when my wife was meddling in my affairs. She does it gently, and there's no stopping her when you become the object of her mission."

Jamie's life was a mess. Maybe she needed someone to gently interfere.

The monster-movie figurines on the windowsills — Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, and a zombie — might once have seemed out of place in the home of the most uptight MacTaggart. This year, thanks to Emery, Rory had embraced Halloween.

"Go on," Jamie said, "tell me how you think I should get Gavin back."

She didn't like the sharp edge in her voice, but her emotions seemed to have shut down her brain. No one had ever called her tough. Sweet, cheerful, happy, even naive. Never tough.

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