Page 78 of Wild Scottish Beauty

This is not a good side of you, Willow.

But I couldn’t help that every time he casually picked me up, and moved me around at his will, a baser side of my self went all fluttery and faint like a damsel in the days of yore. It shouldn’t be so hot, the sheer strength and grumpiness of this man, and yet here I was. Lusting after Ramsay once again.

He dropped me unceremoniously to my feet, and then brushed past me, leaving me with my eyebrows raised. I virtually skipped after him, bouncing into the narrow kitchen as he put the kettle on. “Oh, for feck’s sake.”

“I’m just gonna bug you until you tell me.” I was pulling out every annoying little sister trick, and I went over to him, poking him several times in the back until he turned to glare at me.

“Has anyone told you how annoying you are?”

“It’s part of my charm.”

Ramsay inhaled, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Och, you’re not going to leave this alone, are you?”

“Nope.” I mean I would have, if he’d really wanted me to, but since I sensed he was weakening, I pressed my advantage.

“Fine. I had a fight with my brother.”

“Ah, yes, I’m familiar with those. Sucks, huh?”

“You could say that.” Ramsay gritted his teeth and pulled out a canister covered in cheerful daisies. Opening it,he pulled some teabags out and dropped them in a pot, and the electric kettle clicked off. “He was at my parents’. Harassing my dad. I wasn’t nice about it.”

“I don’t blame you.” I knew he’d had some falling out with his brother years ago, something to do with stolen money, and I wished I could remember more about his family from the times we’d visited when I was a child. Honestly, those recollections just blurred together as childhood memories often did, and I truly couldn’t remember his family at all. I just remembered Ramsay and Miles, thick as thieves, and lovely summer days by the loch. “I probably wouldn’t have been nice about it either.”

“You don’t have to excuse my behavior.”

“I’m not excusing it. I’m just saying that I might have done the same.”

Ramsay nudged me back as he bent to open the under-counter fridge for milk. I gave him the space, moving to sit at a tiny banquet table tucked under a paned window that looked out over a small stand of trees whose branches currently clung to their trunks like my hair plastered against my face after a shower. Calvin appeared at the door and padded across the floor. He hesitated briefly before jumping up on the counter and bumping his head against Ramsay’s arm. Ramsay scratched his ears idly, waiting for the kettle to click off.

“He used to be my best friend.”

At that I almost went to him, but the way he held himself, rigid against the counter, his eyes trained on the kettle, I suspected he’d reject any advance from me.

“Family’s complicated. It’s hard to lose someone you care about.”

Ramsay’s eyes closed briefly.

“Here I am moaning about my brother being a fecking eejit when you’ve lost a mother.”

“It’s okay. I barely remember her.” I shrugged, not wanting the focus on me when he was the one hurting. “One loss doesn’t diminish another, Ramsay. Do you know I looked up the meaning of a willow tree the other day?”

“The meaning?” Ramsay raised an eyebrow at me as he brought the pot of tea over to the table, settling across from me. The table was so small that our knees touched, but I didn’t try to move away and neither did he.

“Yeah, like the spiritual meaning, you know? How people look for signs in things. My mother’s name was Willow as well. I don’t know, I just looked it up. Know what I found out?”

“That the lads used to whip the lassies with pussy willow branches?”

“Wait, what?” Pausing I gave him an incredulous look. “Why would they do that?”

“Anything to torment the lasses, I suppose.”

“Ugh, boys are the worst. You and Miles used to take me into the woods and pretend to lose me.”

“Did we? God, I’d forgotten that.” A ghost of a smile crossed Ramsay’s face as he leaned back, his hand at his chin.

“It sucked. I was convinced a troll was going to eat me.”

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