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

Chapter Twenty-One

They drove into Loch Fairbairn in Rory's Mercedes and rented two bicycles at a shop in town. Gavin liked the quaint village in spite of knowing everyone here treated Rory like a superhero, the solicitor who saved them from legal disasters, often without charging a cent. Or a shilling. Or whatever they called it here in Scotland. As part of his plan to get in good with the Three Macs, Gavin kept reminding himself not to grimace every time a village resident waxed poetic about the awesome, amazing, godlike Rory MacTaggart.

Okay, Gavin could admit he still had a problem with Rory. Couldn't explain what it was yet, not completely, but he'd come to the conclusion it wasn't jealousy. He didn't want Rory's life. But sometimes — yeah, fine, often — he felt a weird kind of inferiority complex about Jamie's brother. It didn't help that she worshiped Rory.

Despite his initial skepticism about a bike ride, he found himself relaxing and enjoying it as he and Jamie pedaled their way around the village and then out along a bike trail that skirted the perimeter of the loch that had given the town its name.

"What does the name mean?" Gavin asked while they coasted along a straight stretch, the glassy loch on the right, and on their left, the hulking shape of the mountain that backed Rory's property.

"The name of the loch or the mountain?"

"I meant the loch, but yeah, the mountain too."

Jamie flashed him a smile so sweet it made his heart clench. "Fairbairn means beautiful child."

"And the mountain's name?"

"Beann Dealgach? I think it means mountain of the thorny place."

Gavin tried but failed to stifle a snorting laugh. "Figures Rory would live at the bottom of a mountain called the thorny place."

Jamie frowned, though for only half a second.

"Sorry," Gavin said. "Old habits are hard to bump off, even with a howitzer."

They continued in silence, admiring the scenery, savoring this time in each other's company without anyone else around. When a cute little bird flew by near Jamie's shoulder, she grinned and laughed in a tinkly way that made Gavin's belly do dumb things. He wanted to kiss her but couldn't do it while they were careening down a gently sloping hill.

"Could we stop for a while?" Gavin asked. He nodded toward the soft-sided cooler strapped to her bike. "My stomach's growling for that lunch you packed us."

"Sure," she said with another smile, this one softer and twinkling in her eyes.

They veered off the path onto a grassy area under a stand of trees and propped their bikes against the largest of the elms. In the shade of the tree, Gavin spread out the fleece blanket they'd brought. He lowered his body onto the blanket, legs outstretched, and patted the fleece in invitation.

Jamie sat cross-legged beside him. Her jeans hugged her curvy figure, and the bright-yellow top she wore clung to her breasts without being too tight. He loved knowing how those breasts fit nicely in his hands, not too big and not too small. Her hair spilled over her shoulders, and he longed to slide his fingers into the silky waves.

While she brought out the food items in the cooler, Jamie asked, "Do you have PTSD?"

"Jeez, you could beat around that bush a little bit first."

"It's time for honesty, Gavin." She handed him a sandwich inside a plastic bag, gazing steadily into his eyes. "That means being direct. Do you have PTSD?"

"No. I was screened for it when I came home from Afghanistan, but I'm okay." He unzipped the plastic bag and extricated the sandwich from it, eying the food with less interest than a moment ago. The time had come to share uncomfortable stuff with Jamie. His stomach went sour, so he set the sandwich on his thigh. "I saw stuff over there, watched my friends get blown up, but I dealt with it. Helped I had an awesome family at home to keep me grounded."

"Your parents were still alive then?" Her tone remained mild, her expression too. She plucked up a plastic bag and brought out a sandwich.

"My parents died after I came home." He picked at the crust of his sandwich. "When I was overseas, I Skyped with Calli and my parents almost every day. They'd send me care packages too. Calli was in college then, but she always made time to chat or text or email. She even wrote me actual letters, it was so sweet."

"Your sister loves you very much." Jamie gave him a kind smile. "You really are her hero."

He considered his sandwich, squirming because he suddenly couldn't get comfortable. "I don't deserve to be her hero. I let Calli down so badly. If I'd sucked it up and kept it together, she would never have married that creep Rade."

"She doesn't blame you."

"Well, she should."

Jamie took a dainty bite of her sandwich and chewed it up before speaking again, though her gaze never wavered from him. "Have you spoken to Calli about this?"

"Sort of."

"I'm fluent in Gavin-speak," Jamie said in a lightly teasing tone. "I know that means you haven't told Calli how you feel."

"I'm a guy, what do you expect?" He focused on the sandwich balanced on his thigh, unable to meet her gaze and see the sympathy and concern in her eyes. He nabbed the empty plastic bag and crumpled it in his hand. "I'd rather not talk about my sister anymore."

"Aye, you'd rather not." She set down her sandwich and wriggled her butt to get closer to him. When she leaned in, waves of her hair coasted over his cheek. "We need to talk about all of it. Calli, your parents, your wife, my brothers. Everything."

Gavin bit off a big mouthful of his sandwich, gnawing on it as an excuse not to get into this discussion. Ham and cheese with dill pickle and spicy mayonnaise was his favorite, but today, it tasted like cardboard. She was right. Ignoring the problems had only made things worse. He had to deal with all of it head-on.

He swallowed the bite of food, but it hit his stomach like a cold stone.

"Okay," he said, returning the sandwich to his thigh. "You're right. We need to talk about it, but I've never been good at, you know, that opening-up-and-sharing crap."

"Maybe you'd have an easier time of it if you stopped calling it 'that opening-up-and-sharing crap.' If you really want our relationship to work, you have to tell me everything."

"I get that, I do." He scrutinized the grass between his feet. His gut twisted, his stomach boiled with acid despite the cold lump inside it. "Calli tried to get me to talk about this stuff years ago, right after our parents died. I couldn't do it then, and I'm not sure I can do it today."

"You're not talking to your sister. This is me, the woman you say you love." She laid her hand over his where it rested on his thigh, where his fingers curled into his flesh. "If Rory could tell Emery about what happened with his first three wives, things none of the rest of us know, then you can tell me about this."

He bristled at the mention of Rory, and a snarky comment rose in his throat. Gavin bit it back. Much as he hated it every time Jamie used her brothers as examples of perfect boyfriend behavior, snapping at her about it wouldn't help anything.

Pulling in a deep breath, he tried to fortify himself for the ordeal ahead.

He focused on their hands, his beneath hers, warmed by her soft skin. Could she understand if he told her? She'd never lost anyone. He was glad she didn't have to go through that, but it made this harder to explain. Sharing his weakness, admitting to being a messed-up jerk who abandoned his little sister… He didn't want Jamie to see him that way.

Gavin shook off her hands. "Isn't that enough for today?"

Jamie snapped bolt upright. "Enough? You haven't told me anything."

"Told you how I bailed on my sister. You think that was easy to say?"

Her shoulders relaxed, her mouth too, but she still seemed unhappy. "No, of course not. And I appreciate you sharing that with me, I do. But you said yourself it's not the root of what's going on with you. Please tell me the rest."

Gavin averted his gaze to the loch, his throat suddenly tight.

"Please," Jamie said. "It's important, Gavin, important for us."

She was right, and he knew it.

His gut hurt like it had razor wire twisted around it. His mouth had gone dry, but his hands were clammy.

Jamie splayed a palm on his cheek, her fingertips tickling his ear.

He couldn't look at her. Couldn't move. Couldn't hear anything except the pounding of his pulse in his ears.

She spread her other palm across the opposite cheek and exerted the lightest pressure necessary to encourage him to turn his face toward her. When their eyes met, she gazed at him with a love and compassion that tore at his heart.

"Please tell me," she said, her voice soft and sweet.

He pulled in a shaky breath. "After our parents died, I abandoned Calli. She needed me, and I ran away."

"I'm sure you're exaggerating."

"Listen, I didn't just abandon her emotionally. I ran away to Detroit." He shut his eyes, knowing Jamie might not be so understanding once she heard the rest. "Leanne, my wife, she tried to talk me out of it, but I had to get away from everything, I couldn't deal with it. I begged Leanne to come with me to Detroit. I had a friend there, somebody I served with, and he let us stay in his house while he was visiting family in Florida. I didn't even call Calli for a month. By the time I bothered to go home, two months after the accident, she'd already dealt with everything. I didn't find out until last year she'd married that creep Rade so he would pay all the bills that fell in her lap after our parents died."

Jamie withdrew one hand but kept the other on his cheek.

He leaned into her touch, grateful for the support. She had always supported him, in every way, even when he strung her along for eighteen months only to botch his proposal. He had to keep talking, to help her understand — to help him understand. The more he said, the more he got the feeling his parents' deaths had affected him more than he'd wanted to admit.

For Jamie, for himself, he forged ahead. "I'd been back for eight months when the accident happened. One minute my parents were here, the next they were gone. No warning. No reason for it. Dad lost control of the car, nobody knew why, and they slammed into a tree. Died instantly. It was a total shock, like getting sucker punched and thrown off a cliff. I mean, I can't even explain how I felt right after I heard about it. Numb. Off balance. Kept thinking it wasn't real, and I'd wake up any second to find out everything was okay. But it wasn't."

Jamie stroked his skin with her fingers, her palm still flat on his cheek. "I'm so sorry, Gavin."

"We got another shock after that. Turned out my dad got laid off, and he and my mom had been on their way to Wausau for a job interview when the accident happened." Gavin closed his eyes, wishing the warmth of Jamie's hand could banish the coldness of the memories, but it couldn't. "They'd been in debt, big time. Never told me or Calli. They must've thought they'd get things sorted out, and we'd never need to hear about it. All that debt… They were behind on their mortgage payments too, so the house had to be sold. I wanted to help pay off the debts, and Leanne agreed we should give Calli all the money we had in our savings account. It wasn't enough. I had no idea what Calli did to settle those debts."

"She chose not to tell you. It wasn't your fault you didn't know."

"Yes it was." He opened his eyes, boring his gaze into hers. "I'm her big brother. I should've taken charge and protected her. All Calli told me was she found a way, and I was too selfishly caught up in my own grief to ask questions. She married a man she didn't love, got handcuffed to him for five years, all to pay off our parents' debts. For years, my baby sister was terrified of getting arrested for marriage fraud and I had no frigging clue. I didn't want to see it. Calli should hate me. I failed her."

Jamie combed her fingers through his hair. "That's not what Calli says. She understood why you couldn't handle things. She feels guilty for not taking the time to help you through the ordeal."

Gavin jerked his head back. "Calli what? No, that's crazy. Why would she feel guilty?"

Jamie closed her hand over his. "She never told you she felt that way, did she? Oh Gavin, you and your sister need to have an honest discussion. You're both holding on to guilt for things that weren't your fault."

"Did she use the word ordeal? I mean, did she really think my problems were worse than hers?"

"Talk to Calli." Jamie touched her lips to his. "I think it will help both of you."

Sure, talking to his sister sounded easier than making friends with Rory, but it wasn't. He loved Calli, but they'd never been best friends. He hadn't known she got roped into a green-card marriage. He hadn't known that was how she paid off her student loans and the rest of the debts. Gavin had given her everything he had in the bank, but it hadn't been enough. And like the coward he was, he'd wired her the money instead of going home to help her out.

"Tell me about your wife," Jamie said.

Oh yeah, there was another subject he didn't want to get into — especially right after he'd confessed to being a total jerk and a loser. He evaded the question the only way he could think of, by asking Jamie one.

"Later," he said. "First, how about a little quid pro quo? What's the deal with you and Trevor?"

She yanked her hand away. "Ahmno interested in Trevor."

"Not what I was asking." Gavin slanted forward, planted a hand on the ground beside her hip, and stared into her hazel eyes. "You were serious about him. What happened? And why didn't you ever tell me you'd been engaged before?"