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

Chapter Twenty-Four

Thanksgiving sneaked up on Jamie. She woke up one morning, and the day was here. Though Lachlan and Erica celebrated the American holiday, and Calli and Aidan did too, each couple commemorated it in private. Today would be the first MacTaggart family Thanksgiving, in honor of their newest American addition, Emery.

MacTaggart family Thanksgiving? Jamie cringed inside. A week ago, Gavin had confessed to her he felt abandoned and alone, not a part of a family anymore. She'd wanted to assure him it wasn't true, but she couldn't. His sister had left America to marry a Scotsman, and she planned to apply for citizenship as soon as she became eligible. Gavin had good reason to feel abandoned.

Still, she should've said something that day. She should've told him he didn't need to please her brothers because she loved him enough to give up her family to be with him. A part of her balked at making that sort of promise again. She'd been willing to give up everything for Trevor, and he threw it back in her face. She loved Gavin so much more than she'd ever cared for Trevor. If he threw her away…

Had she ever told Gavin how much he meant to her? She'd declared they had no future unless he got along with her brothers. Why had she said that?

Jamie halted with her hand on the knob of the bedroom door. The sounds of family chatting and laughing she'd heard earlier drifting down the hall of the guest wing from the sitting room and the dining room had ceased. Everyone must've tramped upstairs. The dining room hadn't been large enough to accommodate the entire family, so they'd made use of the great hall.

Gavin would be here soon.

Her pulse sped up, excitement fluttered in her chest. She wore her favorite outfit, the one Gavin loved, a flower-print frock with red pumps that matched the tiny red flowers in the print of the dress. The cold and gloomy weather today had inspired her to slip on a cardigan, but she left it hanging open to reveal the low, but not too low, neckline of her dress.

Her question to herself a moment ago echoed in her mind. Though she'd told Gavin she loved him, she didn't think she had ever explained the depth of her feelings for him. Saying three words meant nothing unless she backed them up with the whole truth. He thought he was a coward, but she was the one too afraid to speak up. About her feelings for him. About her desire to be with him, no matter what. About her brothers.

She ought to have told them long ago to stop badgering Gavin. She could take care of herself, thank you very much. Why hadn't she said those words to them? Never before had she been afraid to speak her mind, not even to Rory. Now, she couldn't do it. She'd told Gavin standing up to Trevor had been the first time she'd done such a thing. Though she spoke her mind often, she'd always let her brothers defend her from scunners and cads. These days, she had trouble expressing herself to Gavin, to her brothers, to anyone except Emery.

Well, she could at least summon the nerve to leave this bedroom.

Jamie flung the door inward and marched into the hall.

Mrs. Darroch nearly collided with her.

With a yelp, Jamie veered to the side and slapped a hand on her chest. "Oh, you surprised me."

"Sorry, dearie," the housekeeper said. She pinched Jamie's cheek. "Your man is here. And he looks very braw today, I must say."

"Gavin? Where is he?"

"The darling boy insisted on waiting in the vestibule."

Why on earth would Gavin do that? He'd spent the better part of the past three weeks in this house with her. Of course, today the entire clan was in attendance.

Including her brothers.

No, he wasn't afraid of them. She would never believe that.

"Thank you," Jamie told Mrs. Darroch, and then she rushed down the hall, through the dining room and down the main hall straight to the vestibule.

Gavin waited near the outer door, standing straight and tall, dressed in a dapper gray suit and shiny black loafers. He'd gone sans tie, his shirt collar unbuttoned. Even the colorful garland of paper turkeys and glitter-dusted fall leaves hung over the doorframes and windowsills couldn't detract from his masculine style.

Mrs. Darroch had been spot on. He looked dashing. And sexy as hell.

Jamie crossed the vestibule to greet him. "Happy Thanksgiving."

The greeting came out a touch breathless, but she didn't care. He took her breath away when he stood before her like this, proud and masculine, his lips curved up the slightest bit in a way that suggested he knew exactly what he wanted.

His slight smile broadened into a wickedly sexy grin. "Happy Thanksgiving, Jamie. You look good enough to eat. Who needs turkey when I can feast on you."

"Are you ready for the family? They're all here." A stupid thing to say, but she couldn't think properly with hormones inundating her from her brain to her sex.

"I can handle them." He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her snug against him. "Maybe we should express our thankfulness to each other in private first."

Oh, yes . That sounded wonderful.

Jamie flattened her palms on his chest, leaning in, her mind and body set on tasting that mouth, the one kinked in an erotic smirk.

Footsteps clomped down the vestibule stairs.

Gavin's brows shot up, but then relaxed as he focused on the person on the stairs.

Jamie twisted around in Gavin's embrace.

Aidan had stopped on the last step, a few feet away from Jamie and Gavin. He pinched his lips together, clearly trying not to laugh. "Ah, Lachie sent me to find you two. Emery and Rory will be bringing in the turkey any minute now."

"Oh," Jamie said, tearing herself away from Gavin.

Her brother sighed with enough melodrama to win him an award for worst actor on earth. "You two managed to avoid helping with the preparations. The rest of us had to lay out the silver and china all by ourselves."

Gavin feigned irritation with equally bad acting. "I'm sure it was real hard to get the job done with only a gazillion of you MacTaggarts around to help."

It was true, Jamie realized with a start. Aidan and Gavin had become friends.

She bounced on her toes, smiling at each man in turn.

Aidan waved for them to follow. "Come on, or you'll miss the meal."

Gavin clasped Jamie's hand and led her up the stairs behind Aidan.

As they mounted the stairs side by side, Jamie glanced at Gavin sideways. He acted like nothing had gone on between them two weeks ago, but she supposed he didn't want to ruin Thanksgiving by bringing up their rammy.

Yesterday, Trevor had knocked on the door of Dùndubhan. Mrs. Darroch had answered the summons and promptly retrieved Jamie from the sitting room where she'd been thumbing through a boring legal journal to avoid thinking about Gavin. It hadn't worked, of course. When Mrs. Darroch tromped into the room, her chin high and wearing her best disapproving look, Jamie had known what the housekeeper would say.

" He is here," Mrs. Darroch told her.

Jamie set the journal on the table, sliding forward until her feet cleared the sofa and touched the floor. "Who?"

"Him. The scunner who wants to come between you and your leannan ."

Trevor would be the scunner, and she couldn't argue the man had become a right nuisance lately. Her leannan would be Gavin, though Jamie wasn't sure if he was still her sweetheart after the rammy they'd had. Though they'd enjoyed good times together since, the issues raised by their argument hadn't been resolved, or mentioned at all, since that day.

Jamie rose with an unladylike groan. "Guess I'd better see him. Where did you leave Trevor?"

"In the vestibule." Mrs. Darroch spoke the statement as if she would never have left Trevor anywhere else.

"All right," Jamie said. "I'll deal with Trevor. Thank you, Mrs. Darroch."

"If you need help getting rid of the scunner, give a shout. I'll be in the kitchen."

With that, Mrs. Darroch exited the sitting room.

Jamie wandered through the house to the vestibule where she found Trevor leaning against the railing of the spiral staircase. He had one hip cocked, one arm draped over the railing while the other arm hung loose at his side.

"There you are, lovey," he said when she entered the vestibule.

"I'm not your lovey." She halted barely inside the door with the width of the entryway between them. "What do you want today?"

"To make an offer."

She didn't even try to hold back her annoyed grumble. "We are not getting back together. I'm with Gavin."

"I'm not here about that."

A sense of impending disaster weighed down on her as she wondered what he was here to discuss, what kind of offer he intended to make. She ought to shove him out the door and order him never to come back. She'd done that repeatedly, though, and he kept coming back. Her curiosity got the better of her this time.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"I told you, to make an offer." He held up a hand to silence her before she spoke again. Pushing away from the railing, he ambled across the vestibule to her. "I've mentioned to you I'm buying an old distillery. The sale went through, and I am now the owner of the former Loch Fairbairn Whisky Works. I intend to refurbish the property and reopen it as a tourist attraction, a museum of Scottish whisky history."

"Bully for you."

He reached for her hand.

She yanked it away.

With a soft laugh, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants. "I want you to be my general manager."

Jamie blinked rapidly, certain she'd misheard him. "What? I know nothing about running a museum. You should ask Iain or Catriona, they're the historians in the family."

"I'm asking you."

She took a step back since he'd edged closer, too close. "I'm not qualified."

"Yes, you are." He gave her an exasperated smile. "Honestly, love, you underestimate yourself. You are the office manager for MacTaggart Construction. You're also clever and hard working."

"I do paperwork for Aidan. I wouldn't know what to do with a museum."

"You'll figure it out."

He leaned in, aiming for her lips.

She smacked a hand on his chest and pushed him back. "No, Trevor. No to the kiss, no to the job offer, no to you in general."

He sighed, shrugged, and moved toward the door. With his hand on the knob, he paused to glance back at her. "Think about it, Jamie. The offer will be open indefinitely."

Before she could inform him to close that offer this instant, he swung the door open and stepped outside.

"What the hell are you doing here?" snarled a familiar voice.

Jamie rushed to the doorway.

Gavin stood tall and imposing on the gravel path to the house, several feet away from Trevor. The ex-Marine wore his best steely glare. It outperformed even Rory's flintiest expression.

The Englishman, positioned between Jamie and Gavin, aimed a genial smile at the American even as he backed up half a step. "Good day, Gavin. Jamie's all yours — for today. I'm sure she'd love to tell you about the offer I've made her."

"Run back to your cesspool," Gavin said. "That's where slime belongs."

Trevor sniggered as he strolled past Gavin and thumped his shoulder.

Once the English Ass had left in his Bentley, Gavin stalked up to her where she lingered in the doorway. The sunlight shimmered behind him, casting his face in shadows.

"What the hell does he mean about an offer?" Gavin asked.

"Trevor offered me a job working at the distillery he bought, the one he wants to turn into a museum."

"Did you take the job?"

"Of course not."

He turned sideways, and the light slashed across his cheek. One golden-brown eye ignited in the sunshine. "Don't turn it down on my account. If you want to work with Trevor —"

"I don't. Not ever. Understand?"

"Maybe you should. He'd probably pay you a shitload of money."

"Why would I want a load of shit from anyone?"

"You know what I mean." He hunched his shoulders. "I'm grateful Aidan gave me a job, but we're shutting down for the winter. That means I'm unemployed again. If Trevor can give you a good living, you should take it."

This had been Trevor's plan, she suddenly realized. Her ex wanted to cause trouble between her and Gavin by making Gavin feel inferior.

"I am not working for Trevor." She grasped Gavin's face and forced him to look at her. "I don't trust him, for one. He says he's not trying to get me back, but I don't believe it. And I would never betray you by accepting a job from my ex when he's determined to come between us. I don't care if you're skint. How could I be upset about that when you spent all that money sending me gifts? Besides, money doesn't make a man, and you are ten thousand times the man Trevor is."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. He held motionless, his gaze drilling into her.

She spoke in the most authoritative voice she could muster. "I do not want anything to do with Trevor."

With a crisp nod, he said, "Good to know."

Gavin swept her into his arms and carried her to her bedroom. For the next hour, he made her forget Trevor Langley even existed.

Jamie's thoughts returned to the present, in which Gavin held her hand for the journey up the staircase. They hadn't spoken after the Trevor incident. Gavin had made love to her with an odd intensity like he needed to brand her with his body. Afterward, he kissed her cheek and left.

Today, he showed up in a good mood, smiling and holding her hand.

She would never understand men.

Aidan ushered them out of the stairwell and into the great hall. A long wooden table occupied the center of the room with the MacTaggart clan arrayed on either side of it, seated in high-backed wooden chairs with posh silver and china in front of them. Mrs. Darroch sat at a smaller table positioned near the tall windows, babysitting the bairns with help from her new love, Tavish the gardener. Lachlan and Erica's son, Nicholas, perched in a high chair with his feet dangling while Mrs. Darroch cradled baby Sarah, Aidan and Calli's daughter, in her arms. A bassinet had been placed beside the table in case Sarah needed a nap. Tavish, on the opposite side of the small table from Mrs. Darroch, wrangled Madison and Mackenzie, Emery's twin nieces.

A plethora of ornaments decorated the room. The American Wives Club had insisted on festooning the great hall and the table with harvest-oriented decor and Thanksgiving-specific items too. More garlands like the one in the vestibule draped over the windows and hung from the sides of the table. Baskets placed at intervals on the table held fake but realistic decorations — fall foliage, pumpkins, apples, pine cones, and a tiny scarecrow at the center of each arrangement. The tablecloth featured fall-colored plaid.

"Take your seats," Aidan said, waving toward two empty chairs.

On opposite sides of the table, three chairs away from each other.

Jamie gave her brother a questioning look.

Aidan shrugged. "Emery thought it would be fun to jumble us up. That way, we'll have to be sociable with everyone."

Emery would cook up a scheme like this.

While Aidan took his seat, Gavin made his way around the table to the seat designated with a folded card that had his name scrawled on it in elegant script. Two chairs were empty — the one at the end, across from Gavin and one spot over, and the chair at the head of the table.

Jamie sank into the seat designated as hers, right next to Aidan's chair. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach, a recurrence of that sense of impending disaster. Emery had gotten up to something, and Jamie wasn't sure she wanted to find out what.

"Our first Thanksgiving, eh?"

She looked up at the man who'd spoken.

From his seat directly across the table, Iain nodded at her. His lips twitched upward the slightest bit. "Relax, lass. We won't starve like the Mayflower pilgrims did in their first winter."

"Not starvation that worries me."

He threw a significant glance in the direction of Gavin and the conspicuously empty chairs at the end of the table. "Imagine it's the seating arrangements fashing you."

Emery and Rory were the only ones not here, which meant the empty seats belonged to them. Emery had positioned Gavin close to Rory with only one chair between them. Jamie surveyed the length of the table, noting the seemingly random placement of each adult. To her left sat Cole, husband of Emery's sister, and beyond him Jamie spotted her father and her sisters. On the other side of the table, beginning at the far end, she counted Erica's father, Calli, Emery's father, Erica, Iain, Emery's mother, Erica's mother, Gavin, and Sorcha MacTaggart. The matriarch of the clan caught her daughter's gaze as Jamie reached the table's end in her visual survey.

Her mother winked.

Jamie had no bloody clue what that meant.

She continued her survey, skipping over the empty chair at the head of the table and the one next to it on this side of the table. Beside Emery's empty chair, Lachlan was engaged in conversation with Hadley, Emery's sister. Aidan sat between Jamie and Hadley, though he gazed longingly at his wife seated near the opposite end of the table.

Aidan sighed with mock wistfulness. "Why did Emery have to put Calli way over there? Cannae kiss my wife while we celebrate our first family Thanksgiving."

"You'll survive," Jamie said, giving him a sarcastic pat on the arm.

Iain nodded with mock solemnity. "Aye, and some of us don't care to watch you ravish your wife right here on the table."

As the men launched into pseudo-taunts about their love lives, Jamie's attention drifted down the table to Gavin and the ominous empty chair at the table's end.

"Don't worry about Rory," Erica said from her position at Iain's right. "He won't wreck Thanksgiving. His wife would not be happy about that, and Rory values Emery's happiness over everything else."

True, but Jamie couldn't shake the unease that had taken root inside her.

A sharp whistle pierced the din of conversation.

Every gaze swerved to the doorway.

Rory held a silver platter with a giant turkey on it while his wife removed her fingers from her mouth, her whistle having done its job.

Aidan raised his hand. "Is that one bird enough for twenty-one people and four bairns? Donnae know about you, Rory, but I'm famished."

"No you're not," Calli said. "You ate five waffles for breakfast, not to mention all the sausage patties and bacon."

Her husband lifted his shoulders, attempting to spread his hands but unable to do so without smacking Jamie and Hadley. "It's a holiday."

Emery whistled again. "We've got two more turkeys in the oven. Don't worry, Aidan, you can stuff your face until your wife is too disgusted to touch you."

Aidan and Calli spoke in unison. "That will never happen."

Rory was frowning.

Emery whispered something in his ear, and he perked up. He ferried the platter to the far end of the table and set it in front of his place setting. Then he pulled out Emery's chair, pushing it in once she'd settled onto the cushioned seat. She aimed an adoring look at him, and he reciprocated with the exact same expression.

Rory claimed his seat at the head of the table — and shot Gavin a sharp look.

Oh aye, disaster ahead.