Page 78 of Some Like It Scot
My consistent readers usually left tips and comments, but this response well exceeded anything I’d seen so far. In fact, I had a few rather bossy readers giving me their directives about “The Scot.” In short: “Marry him!”
I couldn’t even think long-term like that. I shouldn’t even have been contemplating short-term. But I loved spending time with him.
I’d run my post ideas by Mrs. Lennox first, and she’d approved, with the caveat of no photos of people or real names, except my own, of course.
So now I had a massive online conversation happening about the “fictional” folks of Craighill, an adorable little ginger-headed boy, and a hot Scot. I mean, heishot, so it makes sense to refer to him that way. In my head.
And as I watched him throw some galleon cannonballs from a historical shipwreck while wearing a blue T-shirt, kilt, and a broad smile, well... I may have started envisioning a lot of things about my future I hadn’t thought about before. Especially when paired with his teasing, gentleness, and the feeling of his arm around me during the waltz.
Have mercy, what would a hug from him feel like? I sighed like the hopeless romantic I rarely acknowledged in myself.
I pushed down a swallow of my egg roll sandwich with a big swig of the “fizzy juice” I’d bought at the nearby food tent. Graeme MacKerrow was pure kryptonite for a girl who was running away from home. I should steer clear of him.
My attention landed on his shoulders and skimmed down to his kilt.
With a sudden rush of volcanic heat in my cheeks, I looked up to the sky and offered God a silent apology for ogling like the Scot-struck gal I was.But really, Lord. You made him that way.
And I’m really sure you said, “It was good.”
“Katie!”
I turned to the sound of my name and caught sight of Lachlan and another boy running toward me, Wedge leashed at his side. Lachlan limped only a little, as proof of the quick healing of youth. A sweet warmth replaced the spiked heat from only a moment ago. How could this little boy wiggle his way so deeply into my heart already?
Kind of like his uncle.
And his grandma.
I was surrounded by people who were becoming important to me, when I usually left everyone behind.Stop being ridiculous, Katie.Attraction and friendship did not warrant changing one’s entire life! I kept in contact with several friends I’d met along the way as I traveled. Family members too. None of them had given me reasons to consider altering everything I loved.
Yet the dimpled grin on Lachlan’s face, the way I cared about what happened to him, sent me into pondering the what-ifs like never before.
I met him at the bottom of the hill, near several of the other tents. Some held food, some sold handcrafts, one offered to find your Scottish heritage, a few were empty, but all proclaimed the pride of this heritage.
“This is Jamie.” Lachlan thumbed toward the boy as they neared. “I told him how good you are at getting lost.”
The smile on my face stilled and then... nearly turned into a laugh. I coughed instead. “That’s true.”
“But you’re good with bandages.”
Jamie crossed his arms, examining me with a pair of brilliant green eyes. Next to that disheveled dark hair, he gave off his own kind of faerie vibes. Maybe one of J. M. Barrie’s lost boys?
“And you don’t like Irn-Bru.”
Both boys stared at me, shaking their heads as if beyond disappointed.
“Maybe the taste will grow on me.” I shrugged. I mean, what do you say? Probably not “It tastes like bubble gum.” I got a good tongue-lashing from Maggie of the Stories and Stitches book club when I mentioned my thoughts to her on Irn-Bru.
“But Idolike fishing.”
That won a small grin from the boys, and without hesitation Lachlan grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. “Granny told me to bring you to see the sword dance.”
I didn’t fully comprehend his words because the sweetness of him taking my hand and guiding me somewhere lodged in a special place in my mind. A new significant memory to press back some of the less favorable ones.
“Sword dance?”
“Aye, you’ll have to see it to know,” Lachlan answered. “Uncle Calum’s books are in the book tent too, but you cannae tell anyone he wrote them.”
My brows rose. How did that work? And wasn’t Calum Graeme’s brother? And there was a younger one too, if I recalled. Peter? Who was away at college or something?
