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

Chapter Thirty-Three

When Gavin turned up at Dùndubhan that afternoon, he discovered a boatload of cars parked inside the walls on the gravel area behind the castle. More cars lined the driveway outside the walls, leaving barely enough room for Gavin to get the Jag through the gate. He located the last unoccupied bit of real estate inside the compound and stashed the car there.

Gavin and Jamie had bumped into Calli and Aidan in the village, and the couple mentioned they were heading this way to attend the mysterious event. Even his damn sister wouldn't clue Gavin in to the nature of the "test." Not even one tiny hint.

The sound of the passenger door opening yanked Gavin back to the present.

Jamie leaped out of the Jag, bending over to duck her head inside long enough to say, "I want to speak to Emery before the whatever-this-is starts. Are you all right on your own?"

"Sure, I'm a big boy." He gave her a sardonic half smile. "I can tie my own shoes and everything."

Jamie rolled her eyes the way Rory often did. "Sure you don't want to change your shirt?"

"Positive. This big boy can handle any amount of MacTaggart family harassment."

"I know you can." She shut the door and trotted toward the house.

He waited until she'd gone inside, mostly because he enjoyed the view of her backside. When the vestibule door closed behind her, he climbed out of the borrowed sports car. He really needed to buy his own wheels, considering he'd resolved to live in this country. Somehow, he'd make that happen. For Jamie. For their relationship. For their future.

No more shying away from humiliation. Iain was right, the path of pride led to nowhere. If he wanted a life with Jamie, he had to go straight down the road to potential disgrace and be prepared to prostrate himself before Rory the Magnificent, the superhero of Loch Fairbairn.

Cheers erupted from behind the castle compound, outside the walls.

What on earth was going on out there?

Rory had said Mrs. Darroch would tell him where to go. Gavin headed for the main door of the house, the one Jamie had disappeared into a minute ago. He pushed the doorbell button, knowing it would ring inside the kitchen. He expected to wait a few minutes for Mrs. Darroch to make her way to the door.

Two seconds after he rang the bell, she swung the door open.

"Gavin, mo luran ," she said with a warm smile. "Rory told me to expect you. Everyone's out on the green."

Everyone? How many people had been invited to witness his humiliation?

Suck it up and do whatever it takes, remember?

He squared his shoulders. "The green. That's outside the walls, right?"

"Through the garden, out the door behind the hydrangeas."

"Got it."

"Have fun. And good luck, gràidh ."

"Thanks."

Gavin marched through the garden, past the now-withered plants that in summer created a lush and colorful paradise within the garden walls. It was December, but a minor heat wave had raised the temperature into the fifties today. At the back of the garden, he found the old door in the castle wall, heaved it open despite the thing fighting back, and stepped out onto the expanse of wilting grass. The small field was known as the green, though it earned that moniker only in the summer. A multitude of MacTaggarts loitered around the periphery, some near the wall, others gathered near the left-hand end of the field.

Cabers, essentially tree trunks without their branches, lay in a pile on the opposite side from the wall.

Gavin halted a few feet outside the door, his attention snagged by the man facing the crowd with his back to the green. He held onto a four-foot-long wooden handle attached to a metal ball. A hammer, Gavin realized. Lachlan MacTaggart was engaged in the sport known as the hammer throw.

Lachlan began to swing the hammer, whirling it in a big circle from low to the ground up above his head. His heels came up off the ground with each upswing. On the fourth rotation, he released the handle, and the hammer flew through the air to smack down at least fifty feet away.

Cheers. Clapping.

Erica gazed at her husband like he'd hurled the sun into the sky for her. She trotted up to him, flung her arms around his neck, and raised onto her tiptoes to plant a whopper of a kiss on him. He hugged Erica, and their kiss turned more passionate.

A catcall echoed across the green.

Every MacTaggart male wore a kilt fashioned from the clan tartan. The Three Macs and Iain wore blue T-shirts, while four other men wore red T-shirts, and the rest wore different types of shirts. Teams, Gavin realized. The blue and red shirts indicated two teams competing.

Gavin caught sight of Aidan standing a little ways from Lachlan and Erica, his arm around Calli, who held Sarah to her shoulder. The baby studied her surroundings with what seemed like a mixture of confusion and excitement. Calli was grinning and elbowing her husband, no doubt trying to get him to shut up. Aidan could out-gab the gabbiest women.

When Lachlan and Erica finally separated, they moseyed toward the crowd at the end of the field.

Aidan called out to his oldest brother. "Bit off today, eh, Lachie? Used to throw twice that distance. Gotten soft in your old age."

"I'm letting Rory win today," Lachlan said, smirking at someone behind Aidan. "He's newly married and needs to impress his bride."

That's when Gavin spotted Rory. He stood at the front of the crowd with Emery beside him. Well, "beside" was kind of a misnomer. Dressed in a miniskirt kilt made from the clan tartan, she had her body plastered to his side with both arms slung around his neck — and she was nibbling his throat. In addition to her kilt, Emery wore a sparkly red shirt emblazoned with an elaborate image of Santa in his sleigh with eight reindeer towing it across the sky while on the ground woodland critters observed. Though she'd changed her shirt since this morning, the same Santa hat perched on her head, no doubt held in place by bobby pins given its precarious tilt. The jingle-bell earrings had been replaced with big earrings shaped like round ornaments. A necklace consisting of flashing red-and-green lights draped around her throat.

Emery didn't give a damn what anyone thought of her. Gavin sometimes envied her for that freedom.

Not anymore. He had no shame either, and he would do anything to get in good with Rory if that was the price of making Jamie happy.

Rory gave his wife a lingering, steamy kiss and then disentangled himself from her, looking for all the world like he would've loved to do her right there in front of the whole family.

The presence of kids might've been all that stopped him. Not that it had on Thanksgiving.

Superhero Rory sauntered across the green to where the hammer had fallen when Lachlan chucked it. Rory snatched up the large, and no doubt very heavy, hammer like it weighed nothing. Hammer in hand, he strode back to the starting line, delineated with white chalk.

Now or never , Gavin told himself. He rolled his shoulders back and marched toward Rory.

The solicitor was swinging the hammer left and right as if gauging its weight. He froze when he noticed Gavin approaching.

Rory raised his brows and let the hammer hang at his side with his fist clenched around the handle. "You're early."

"Thirty seconds, maybe."

Checking his watch, Rory said, "Ninety seconds. We'll call it on time. Are you ready for the test?"

Gavin surveyed the green, taking in the throng of MacTaggarts before settling his attention on Rory again. "Let's do it."

Rory swung the hammer up between them and let it fall again. "That's an odd choice of attire for a Highland games tournament."

With a shrug, Gavin hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. "You got a problem with holiday spirit?"

"On the contrary, I appreciate the history and tradition of Santa Claus." Rory thumped the hammer on his palm. "And I admire your bravery in standing before the entire family dressed that way."

Gavin nodded toward Emery. "Your wife is dressed like a Times Square billboard on Christmas Eve."

"Emery is the bravest person I've ever known."

"No argument here." Gavin folded his arms over his chest, partly obscuring Santa's face. "Whatever you need to do to me today, go on and do it. I'm in this one hundred percent."

Jamie raced out of the garden door to Gavin, breathing hard like she'd run to get here. "I missed Emery in the house. Has the test started yet?"

"Not yet. Your brother's too busy mocking my Christmas spirit."

Rory twirled the hammer. "If ye cannae handle a bit of mocking, ye'll never survive in this family."

"Oh, I can handle it."

Jamie's eyes flitted from Gavin to Rory and back again. "Gavin, I told you before, you don't have to do this for me."

"I'm doing this for me." Gavin looked Rory square in the eyes. "Ball's in your court."

Rory squinted at Gavin, twirling the hammer in a circle again, almost like a gunfighter.

The action was supposed to intimidate Gavin, but he was so beyond intimidating these days. He'd come to terms with his past, with Jamie's patient and loving help, which left one task on his to-do list. Make peace with Rory. It would be done today even if Gavin wound up bloodied and disgraced.

Emery sprinted up to her husband, laying a hand on his arm. "Put down the dangerous implement, please."

Rory cast her a sidelong look, one brow arched. "Why? He seems to want me to skelp him good."

Emery sighed and leaned in to press her body against his. She murmured, "If Rory baby wants to get lucky tonight, he'd better stop threatening to beat his sister's soul mate into a bloody pulp. That's not part of the test."

Rory baby? Gavin snickered. Tried not to, really, but he couldn't help it.

Okay, maybe he hadn't tried that hard.

Rory's lips twisted into an approximation of a smile — a reluctant one. He dropped the hammer onto the ground.

Emery kissed his cheek. "Good hubby."

Her "hubby" rolled his eyes, barred his arms over his chest, and faced Gavin. "You said anything I want."

"That's right."

Peripherally, Gavin spied Jamie's worried gaze trained on him.

Rory's lips arched upward in an expression laced with menacing glee. "The games it is, then."

"Don't forget," Emery told her husband, "Gavin's never thrown a hammer or tossed a caber before."

"He said he'd do whatever I want." Rory picked up the hammer. "This is what I want. Are you suggesting I go easy on him because he's an American?"

Rory must've realized the instant he said it he'd made a grievous mistake using the word American as an insult. His wife punched him in the arm, though the action proved ineffectual. Her slender hand couldn't make a dent in her husband's massive bicep. Still, Rory aimed a chagrined look at her.

Emery whispered something in his ear.

His lips formed an expression Gavin could describe only as supreme amusement mixed with steely menace. This must've been what Iain meant when he said Gavin might wish he hadn't come up against Rory's sense of humor when the man finally unleashed it.

Rory MacTaggart wanted to demean Gavin by whooping his ass at these cockamamie games. Fine, Gavin would let him. Maybe he'd even score a few points against the superhero solicitor.

Gavin thrust a hand out to Rory. "You're on."

Rory clasped his hand and gave it a single firm shake. "And you're in for it."