Gift-Wrapped in a Kilt (Hot Scots #4)

Chapter Seven

The sun had dipped low in the sky, descending through twilight toward night, by the time Gavin pulled up to Calli and Aidan's house in the pickup he'd borrowed from Calli that morning. No rental car for him. That would've been too comfortable. Given his current financial situation, he had no recourse except to let his sister take care of him.

And Calli wondered why he felt like a useless lump.

Gavin parked beside another vehicle, a rusty old Range Rover, and climbed out of Calli's pickup — a nice, new Ford Ranger she'd gotten her husband to buy because she wanted something American in their lives. Shutting the door, Gavin ambled toward the front door of the modest-size, two-story house. Aidan and Calli had bought it with the money she'd gotten in her divorce settlement when her jerk of a first husband finally released her from their green-card marriage. His baby sister, one of the two smartest people he knew, had married a man she didn't love so he could get citizenship. She'd committed marriage fraud, a crime in the US Gavin hadn't known a thing about it until Aidan came along, and Calli had to reveal all.

Her ex-husband had taken advantage of her kindness in the wake of their parents' deaths. Gavin should've been there for her, to make sure she didn't do anything reckless like that, but he'd been too consumed by his own grief to be any good to her. He'd failed Calli. How could he know for sure he'd handle marriage to Jamie any better? If things got tough, would he fall apart again?

Jamie deserved so much better.

But he couldn't live without her.

The front door of the white house swung open at the instant Gavin reached the wooden steps that led up to the door. Calli walked out, smiling with that sparkle she'd acquired since marrying Aidan.

A strange man followed her out the door.

Gavin scrunched his eyebrows at his sister.

She and the stranger stepped down onto the gravel path that connected with the driveway. Calli asked, "How'd it go with Jamie?"

"Uh…" I dumped her, after she'd already dumped me, and she dumped me again. So, fantastic, yeah. His gaze zipped to the unknown man standing beside Calli. "Rather not talk in front of a stranger. No offense, man."

"None taken," the stranger said. His lips spread in a low-key smile that revealed a glimpse of his teeth. Although they were nice and straight, they weren't perfectly white like he'd had work done on them. No, they struck Gavin as natural teeth — unlike Trevor's laser-bright smile. The man had a hook nose that somehow looked rugged on him instead of harsh, and his eyes were as pale blue as Lachlan's. His brown hair resembled Rory's and Jamie's, though with a few strands of gray in it. The man stood almost as tall as the three MacTaggart brothers.

Gavin drew his head back, surprised by a revelation, so surprised he blurted it out before thinking. "You're a MacTaggart, aren't you?"

"Aye," the man said, seeming surprised in return. He proffered a callused hand to Gavin. "Iain MacTaggart, first cousin to the Three Macs."

"The who now?"

Iain chuckled. "The Three Macs. That's what I call the three brothers — Lachlan, Rory, and Aidan. They're a family unit all by themselves. And of course, they think they're the bosses of all the other MacTaggarts, even those of us who are considerably older."

The glint in his eyes and the way one side of his mouth kicked up slightly told Gavin the guy had a sense of humor.

Gavin shook Iain's hand. "I'm Gavin Douglas, Calli's brother."

"Oh, I know all about you." Iain winked and smirked in a very Aidan-like way. "Calli told me you need a place to stay."

She laid a hand on Gavin's arm. "Iain has graciously agreed to put you up for a while."

"Long as ye need," Iain confirmed.

Gavin studied his sister, struggling to figure out her game here. Because, yeah, his sister definitely had an ulterior motive. He hadn't figured out what it was yet, but he'd bet a million bucks he didn't have that Emery was the instigator.

Rory's wife had a whacked-out plan for Halloween, and she'd called Gavin to pester him until he'd agreed to cooperate. He knew only his part of the cockamamie scheme, though he was pretty sure Emery had gotten Jamie involved too. A recipe for disaster, he thought, but desperation made him, uh… desperate.

"Can I talk to you alone, C?" Gavin asked.

Iain waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry, Gavin. I'm a neutral third party."

"How can that be? You're related to the three guys who hate me."

The Scot made a dismissive noise rather than flapping his hand again. "The Three Macs are their own little mafia, yes, but don't take them seriously. Everyone in their branch of the family tree sees it as their right and duty to suffocate poor Jamie with overprotectiveness. I play shinty with the Three Macs, but I have no particular stake in Jamie's personal matters."

Gavin glanced at Calli, who smiled a little too brightly. If his red ears gave away his lies, her phony smile gave away her ulterior motives. "You're working with Emery on this, aren't you? Moving me around like a pawn on your chessboard of meddling. What's Iain got to do with it? Is he supposed to report back to you and Emery about what I say and do?"

"No," Calli said, trying a little too hard to sound offended. "I'm helping you find a place to crash, that's all."

Iain raised a hand. "Told ye, I'm a neutral party."

The Scot seemed sincere, and Gavin couldn't blame him for the shenanigans of the American Wives Club. Erica would be involved soon too, no doubt, if she wasn't already. Rory and Lachlan must love this turn of events. They were probably apoplectic over it.

The thought of Rory's response to his wife's meddling made Gavin's lips tighten and inch upward a smidgen.

"Your bags are already in Iain's car," Calli said, pointing at the rusty Range Rover.

"Jeez," Gavin said, "you packed my stuff? Way to be bossy, C."

A baby cried inside the house.

Calli pecked him on the cheek again and turned to go back inside. "Have fun at Iain's. I'll see you Wednesday night at Dùndubhan."

The castle. Where Rory and Emery lived. Where Jamie was staying.

In two days, the castle would host a wacky scheme dreamed up by his sister and her sisters-in-law. Yep, things just kept getting awesomer.

"Let's go," Iain said, clapping Gavin on the shoulder. He led Gavin toward the Rover, to its passenger door. "Relax, laddie. I have no intention of murdering you in your sleep."

"Gee, thanks." Gavin sighed, his shoulders flagging. "I really am grateful for this. Thanks, Iain."

When his new best friend swung the passenger door open, Gavin settled into the seat and shut the door, waiting while Iain strode around to the driver's door and got in. The Rover looked ramshackle from the outside, but the interior was clean and well-maintained. The seats featured pale-tan fabric that seemed almost as good as new.

"Fasten your seatbelt," Iain instructed.

Gavin asked a question while he did up the seatbelt. "Why don't you fix up the outside of this thing?"

"Not worth the bother."

He supposed that was all his host would tell him, and it wasn't really his business, anyway.

Calli had gotten him a roommate. He was staying with a MacTaggart. Sure, Iain swore he had no stake in the Jamie thing, but it still felt weird to bunk with a member of the family headed by two men who hated him and a third who tolerated him but wasn't his bud.

The Rover jounced along the dirt road, its bones rattling. The headlights speared the ever-increasing darkness ahead.

"How ancient is this car?" Gavin asked.

"Not as old as I am," Iain said. He patted the center console. "She'll get us there."

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Anything you like. Ask away."

They hit a pothole, and Gavin's teeth clacked together. "What do you do for a living?"

Iain shrugged one shoulder. "I have a PhD in archaeology, and I used to teach at university, but that ended a long time ago. These days, I volunteer at digs on occasion, sometimes with my cousin Catriona. She couldn't make much use of her archaeology degree either, so we commiserate about our lack of higher-level employment."

"You're unemployed?"

"No." Iain said. "I work with Aidan."

"Thought you were a neutral third party."

"I am, yes." Iain leaned back into his seat, holding the wheel negligently with one hand. "I don't care either way if you cozy up to the Three Macs, or if they toss your corpse out in the middle of the nearest muir."

"What's a muir?"

"A moor, laddie. High, flat grassland."

Gavin shot his new roomie a sardonic half frown. "My name's not 'laddie', it's Gavin."

"My mistake. Gavin." Iain spun the wheel with one hand, veering around a squirrel that had dashed out into the road. The little critter scurried away unscathed. "What is your profession?"

Gavin snorted. "At the moment, unemployed loser. Before that, I was in sales."

"Selling what?"

"Restoration services." Gavin gripped the seat as Iain hit the gas and the Rover rocketed over the bumpy road. "People whose homes got wrecked in a natural disaster or flooded by a burst pipe, whatever. I sold them the company's services."

"Fascinating."

"You almost sound like you mean that. Trust me, it was boring as hell." Gavin held on as Iain swerved the car around a corner onto a paved road. "But it paid well. Until they laid me off. Budget cutbacks."

"Now you've lost your career and your woman." Iain clucked his tongue. "Dead awful situation. I know how that feels."

"Losing the job or the woman?"

"Both." The Scot grasped the steering wheel in both hands, easing up on the accelerator. "At the same time."

Iain had told Gavin about losing his archaeologist job. He'd lost a woman too? Gavin had never been nosy, but he couldn't help asking. "What happened with the girl?"

The other man fell silent, his expression grim. He focused on the road ahead like it held all the answers to the world's problems but dangled them an inch beyond his reach. When he finally spoke, the humor had left his voice. "I had been deep into field research, excavations and what have you, but I was offered a teaching position at a private American college. I accepted and moved across the pond. That's when I met her. She was twenty-two, bonnie, clever, and I… fell in love with her. She was a student, though, and such things aren't allowed. Particularly when the teacher is fifteen years older than the student."

For some weird reason, hearing the private story of a man he'd met today perked Gavin up. Maybe knowing a muscle-bound MacTaggart had girl problems made him feel less like the black sheep of this extended family. "You slept with her."

"Sleeping would've been better, less destructive. No, I seduced her." Iain grimaced. "Never saw her again after that."

"It was that bad?"

The Scot shook his head, and a note of misery tainted his voice. "It was perfect, but someone ratted on us. The next morning, I was summarily fired and told to leave the country immediately. I never saw the girl again."

"You still think about her."

Iain gave a sharp nod and cleared his throat. "I've been with other women since, but none of them measures up to her. What a dunderhead, eh? Pining for a woman I made love to once, a lifetime ago."

Gavin sat there for a moment, considering what this man had shared with him. "Why are you telling me about your lost love?"

"As a warning. I gave up on the love of my life because I was ashamed of what happened. Never could get another teaching position, but losing her was worse than losing my career." Iain eyed Gavin sideways. "Don't let your pride keep you from doing whatever it takes to be with Jamie, if she's the one woman for you."

"She is."

Maybe this revelation explained why Calli and Emery had wanted Gavin to stay with Iain. Emery and Calli's master plan might involve Iain showing Gavin the error of his prideful ways. Those women needed to take up knitting or something. Interfering in his love life was god-awful irritating.

"Take my word for it," Iain said. "Losing the only woman who's meant everything to you is not a good way to live."

"Did my sister put you up to this? The male-bonding share-fest, I mean."

"No one puts me up to anything. I do what I please when I please."

"Good to know." In spite of what Iain said, Gavin couldn't shake the conviction the American Wives Club had selected his new roommate for this specific purpose. "How many people know your sad-sack story?"

Iain chuckled. "Sad sack? I suppose I am, at times. Only Aidan knows the story."

Ah-ha . Calli's husband must've told her. His meddling sister had made use of the information to connive a way for Gavin and Iain to meet. Calli had turned into a sneak. Gavin couldn't summon any anger about it, though, because she'd done it out of love. She might've joined a new family and left him behind, but his sister would always want to help him out.

Left behind? Was that how he felt? Twice today, he'd thought of himself that way. Alone. Abandoned. Christ, he was like an orphan begging for attention in the street.

"Remember what I said," Iain told him. "Don't let your pride ruin the best thing in your life."

For the rest of the ride to Iain's home, Gavin chewed on that advice.