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

Epilogue

Iain

February 15

The door to Rory's office hung open, an invitation to enter. I paused on the threshold to take in the sight before me, the sight of my formerly uptight cousin's office in disarray. Cardboard boxes squatted on the floor in stacks, some taped shut, others open and awaiting more items. Rory hunched behind the large desk fiddling with a dispenser for packaging tape. A strip of the clear tape had gotten stuck on his shirt sleeve, and he yanked it off but fought to keep the stuff from clinging to his fingers.

I ambled inside the room, stopping at the nearest chair, laying my hand on its back. "The office doesn't want to let you go, eh, Rory?"

My younger cousin glanced up in surprise, the tape stuck to his thumb. "You're early."

"No, you've lost track of time." I pointed to the clock on the wall. "It's eleven o'clock."

Rory's eyebrows lifted as he followed my finger-pointing to the clock. "I did lose track of the time."

I took a seat in the chair in front of Rory's desk. "Did that ever happen to you before Emery?"

Rory ripped the tape off his thumb and tossed it onto the floor, then dropped into his leather chair. "You know it didn't. I was obsessed with timeliness and order."

"A good woman cured you of that." I propped my head on my hand, my elbow on the chair's arm. "I've been thinking about the changes in this family over the past few years. You, Lachlan, and Aidan took chances and came out the better for it. I admire the three of you for that. Even Jamie is happily married and pregnant. I have to admit I'm a bit jealous of my cousins."

"Jealous of what? You have more than enough money, you do what you want when you want, and you can have any woman you want."

Therein lay the problem but talking about it made my skin itch. I'd never told a soul about the event that drastically altered the course of my life and left me adrift for far too long. Aidan knew part of the story, the part about the woman I'd lost. I'd never told anyone more of the tale until I met Gavin Douglas. Somehow, his plight had inspired me to open up about the worst time in my life, though even Gavin didn't know the whole story.

I wouldn't tell all of it to Rory either. I couldn't. The shame of what I'd done still tainted me down to the core of my being.

"Aye, any woman I want," I said. "Except the only one who matters."

Rory leaned back in his chair, watching me with that analytical gaze I recognized as quintessentially Rory. "We all know something happened to you in America, but you've never wanted to talk about it."

Still didn't want to. I resisted the urge to fidget in my chair. Unlike Rory, I'd never repressed my fears or my feelings. I'd embraced them, if anything, a bit too fervently and earned the title of notorious. All that was in the past, though, and I needed a fresh start.

I needed her .

Rory toyed with a card lying on the table, a greeting card. He flipped it open, giving me a glimpse of glittery hearts on the front. "Is this about a woman? The MacTaggart grapevine has embellished the story over the years, but it all began with what Kevin Lister claimed he heard you say at a pub one night."

Damn that blethering drunkard. Not that I could complain since I'd been jaked at the time as well.

"Yes," I said calmly though my stomach had started to roil. "I lost a woman. No, that's not quite right. I gave her up without a fight, and I've regretted it ever since."

Rory raised the Valentine's card and turned it so I could see the words his wife had scrawled inside it, large and impossible to miss. Love is a journey from pain to redemption. Never forget how far we've come.

My throat grew tight and thick, but I managed an even tone when I said, "What am I meant to take away from your wife's effusive love for you? It's charming but —"

"Never give up. That's the lesson." Rory set down the card. "Tell me more about your woman."

Sighing, I resigned myself to the conversation I must have with my favorite solicitor. "Gavin keeps telling me it's not too late to try again. I ran away from the problem thirteen years ago. Let a family of bullies chase me out of America and away from the only woman I've ever loved, convinced myself she was better off without me. Every day since, I've regretted that mistake. When Gavin had a similar problem, he fought like the devil, with your help, and never gave up until he found his way back to Jamie. He has more courage than I ever did. Maybe I don't deserve a second chance, but I need to try."

"Of course you deserve a second chance, Iain. Everyone does."

"You have no idea of what I did to the girl." I couldn't suppress the urge anymore and squirmed in my seat. No amount of fidgeting could ease the discomfort, though, because it resided in my soul. "My only consolation was that she went on with her life. Maybe she married and had children. I'm certain she went on to the career in teaching she'd always wanted. She's clever and stubborn, beautiful and feisty, the sort of woman who makes a man want to hold on to her forever."

The smile that kinked Rory's lips conveyed humor but also compassion. "You loved her."

"I still do." I twisted my mouth in disgust. "I'm too old to be such an eejit about a girl I knew in the distant past. I'm a dinosaur, she's a butterfly."

Rory chuckled softly. "You are turning into a maudlin codger, aren't ye, Iain? Lachlan's six years younger than you. Does that make him a dinosaur? I must be approaching that status too since I'm forty now."

"I'm fifty." I leaned forward, determined for some odd reason to hammer into his mind that I was too old for this. "And she would be thirty-five now. I'm no stripling lad, I'm a dirty old man."

Rory laughed outright this time, shaking his head. "Bloody hell, you're determined to paint yourself that way. Lachlan thought he was a dirty old man for seducing Erica. She's fourteen years younger than he is. Your girl is fifteen years behind you. Not such an enormous difference, is it? Or do you think Lachlan had no right to marry Erica?"

"Lachlan never did what I did to —"

"For pity's sake, Iain." Rory bent forward, arms on the desk, his gaze sharpening on me. "Lachlan left Erica. He broke her heart, and for two months she refused to see or speak to him. And look what I did to Emery." He scoffed at himself. "A marriage of convenience, a bloody business arrangement with sex as a stipulation. I told her I'd never love her, and even when she was about to walk out on me, I couldn't admit I needed her. Why she took me back, I'll never know."

"What's your point? We MacTaggarts are a bunch of bloody fucking erses?"

Rory stared at me in the stone-cold way that intimidated many people, but not me. I'd known him since the day of his birth — I'd changed his dirty nappies, for Christ's sake — and it was hard to be intimidated by a man whose erse you'd wiped.

"You are not too old," Rory said in an even tone. "You deserve a second chance. If as you say you've learned a lesson from Gavin's experiences, then take this chance. Let's find your woman."

"That's why I came here. But, ah…" I squirmed again. " Hosenscheisser . It's more difficult than I expected. Thinking of doing a thing is easy, taking action is a bleeding terror."

"If you want to curse in German, you could at least inform me of the meaning."

"Trouser-shitter, literally. Cursing at myself. It means I'm a damn coward who's too afraid to take a risk."

Rory drew his head back as if my statement had shocked him. "Iain MacTaggart is admitting to being afraid? I should mark this day on my calendar, so we can commemorate the event every year."

"Have your fun with me, I deserve it." I set my hands on my knees. "But will you help me find her?"

"Of course I will." He cleared his throat in a sardonic manner. "But I will need to know the lassie's name first."

A name I hadn't spoken aloud in more than a decade. I thought her name every day, a hundred times or more, but I hadn't voiced it in far too long. "Rae Everhart."

Rory nodded, then retrieved a pad of paper and a pen from a drawer. He pushed the items across the desk toward me. "Write down everything you know about her."

I picked up the pen, my gaze trained on the blank sheet of paper. "Do you think we can find her?"

"With my legal connections and the help of an investigator I know in America, I'm certain we can. It might take time, but we will find her." Rory tapped a finger on the paper to gain my attention. "You know I never make a promise I can't keep."

"One of your most admirable traits." Unlike me. I'd broken too many vows to count, but now that I'd set my sights on tracking down Rae, I knew this would be one vow I'd keep — with Rory's help.

Pen in hand, I began to document every fact I remembered about Rae Everhart. Memories unreeled in my mind, memories of her auburn hair shining in the sunlight, of the way her sapphire-blue eyes sparkled and captivated me, the delicate melody of her laughter, her throaty moans when I'd made love to her.

My hand froze in the middle of writing a word. Dear God, was I really doing this?

Yes, I was.

To see Rae again after all this time… Would she want to see me? Not knowing the answer used to unnerve me. Today, after resolving to do this at last, I had a different reaction. A sort of excitement I hadn't experienced in years electrified me, and I dove into my writing task with a new fervor.

For the first time in thirteen years, I felt fully alive.

Iain MacTaggart returns in Notorious in a Kilt .