Page 97 of Gift-Wrapped in a Kilt

Suck it up and do whatever it takes, remember?

He squared his shoulders. "The green. That's outside the walls, right?"

"Through the garden, out the door behind the hydrangeas."

"Got it."

"Have fun. And good luck,gràidh."

"Thanks."

Gavin marched through the garden, past the now-withered plants that in summer created a lush and colorful paradise within the garden walls. It was December, but a minor heat wave had raised the temperature into the fifties today. At the back of the garden, he found the old door in the castle wall, heaved it open despite the thing fighting back, and stepped out onto the expanse of wilting grass. The small field was known as the green, though it earned that moniker only in the summer. A multitude of MacTaggarts loitered around the periphery, some near the wall, others gathered near the left-hand end of the field.

Cabers, essentially tree trunks without their branches, lay in a pile on the opposite side from the wall.

Gavin halted a few feet outside the door, his attention snagged by the man facing the crowd with his back to the green. He held onto a four-foot-long wooden handle attached to a metal ball. A hammer, Gavin realized. Lachlan MacTaggart was engaged in the sport known as the hammer throw.

Lachlan began to swing the hammer, whirling it in a big circle from low to the ground up above his head. His heels came up off the ground with each upswing. On the fourth rotation, he released the handle, and the hammer flew through the air to smack down at least fifty feet away.

Cheers. Clapping.

Erica gazed at her husband like he'd hurled the sun into the sky for her. She trotted up to him, flung her arms around his neck, and raised onto her tiptoes to plant a whopper of a kiss on him. He hugged Erica, and their kiss turned more passionate.

A catcall echoed across the green.

Every MacTaggart male wore a kilt fashioned from the clan tartan. The Three Macs and Iain wore blue T-shirts, while four other men wore red T-shirts, and the rest wore different types of shirts. Teams, Gavin realized. The blue and red shirts indicated two teams competing.

Gavin caught sight of Aidan standing a little ways from Lachlan and Erica, his arm around Calli, who held Sarah to her shoulder. The baby studied her surroundings with what seemed like a mixture of confusion and excitement. Calli was grinning and elbowing her husband, no doubt trying to get him to shut up. Aidan could out-gab the gabbiest women.

When Lachlan and Erica finally separated, they moseyed toward the crowd at the end of the field.

Aidan called out to his oldest brother. "Bit off today, eh, Lachie? Used to throw twice that distance. Gotten soft in your old age."

"I'm letting Rory win today," Lachlan said, smirking at someone behind Aidan. "He's newly married and needs to impress his bride."

That's when Gavin spotted Rory. He stood at the front of the crowd with Emery beside him. Well, "beside" was kind of a misnomer. Dressed in a miniskirt kilt made from the clan tartan, she had her body plastered to his side with both arms slung around his neck — and she was nibbling his throat. In addition to her kilt, Emery wore a sparkly red shirt emblazoned with an elaborate image of Santa in his sleigh with eight reindeer towing it across the sky while on the ground woodland critters observed. Though she'd changed her shirt since this morning, the same Santa hat perched on her head, no doubt held in place by bobby pins given its precarious tilt. The jingle-bell earrings had been replaced with big earrings shaped like round ornaments. A necklace consisting of flashing red-and-green lights draped around her throat.

Emery didn't give a damn what anyone thought of her. Gavin sometimes envied her for that freedom.

Not anymore. He had no shame either, and he would do anything to get in good with Rory if that was the price of making Jamie happy.

Rory gave his wife a lingering, steamy kiss and then disentangled himself from her, looking for all the world like he would've loved to do her right there in front of the whole family.

The presence of kids might've been all that stopped him. Not that it had on Thanksgiving.

Superhero Rory sauntered across the green to where the hammer had fallen when Lachlan chucked it. Rory snatched up the large, and no doubt very heavy, hammer like it weighed nothing. Hammer in hand, he strode back to the starting line, delineated with white chalk.

Now or never, Gavin told himself. He rolled his shoulders back and marched toward Rory.

The solicitor was swinging the hammer left and right as if gauging its weight. He froze when he noticed Gavin approaching.

Rory raised his brows and let the hammer hang at his side with his fist clenched around the handle. "You're early."

"Thirty seconds, maybe."

Checking his watch, Rory said, "Ninety seconds. We'll call it on time. Are you ready for the test?"

Gavin surveyed the green, taking in the throng of MacTaggarts before settling his attention on Rory again. "Let's do it."

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