He explained that he and his girlfriend—as she’d been downgraded from a wife, Annie guessed they must not be as traditional in Oban as they were on Tiree—had been caught unexpectedly in town and didn’t have a reservation.
“You must have been booked on the train to Glasgow,” the woman said with a smile. “You aren’t the first unexpected guests we’ve had tonight. It’s not a problem. We aren’t fully booked. One or two rooms?”
She looked at Dan as she asked, but her gaze slid over to Annie for a second—or maybe passed over Annie for a second was more accurate. Clearly she wasn’t impressed and thought he could do better—i.e., herself.
The woman was in her early twenties, but doing everything she could to look older with thick foundation, heavy eye makeup, and bright red lipstick. Her long hair was pulled back in a bun, but very heavy, long, dark bangs contrasted dramatically with her pale Scottish skin and light blue eyes.
Compared to how done up the woman was, Annie looked as if she’d been camping for a week. All right, she wasn’texactly looking her best, but what part of “girlfriend” did the woman not understand?
“One room will be fine,” Annie said maybe a tad snippily, before Dan could respond.
He gave her a questioning look, which she didn’t answer. But he wasn’t that slow on the uptake. He figured it out and grinned. If the woman hadn’t been watching, Annie would have elbowed him in the gut.
He made it a little better by sliding his arm around her waist, tugging her in tight against him, and pressing a kiss on her head. The feel of his body against hers was still too new not to cause all kinds of tingly reactions.
The woman quoted a price that seemed outrageous for one night, but he paid in twenty-pound notes and she handed over the key—an actual key, not a key card—with a big wooden placard attached that Annie suspected made it difficult to walk off with. The room was on the second floor, which in Brit-speak Annie knew meant the third.
The elevator barely fit the both of them. Clearly these places hadn’t been built with guys sized like him in mind. His shoulders almost spanned the width. He took advantage of the closeness to drag her in against him again. “You don’t have any reason to be jealous.”
The tinge of amusement in his voice made her feel again like elbowing him.
She might have if he hadn’t added, “I haven’t looked at another woman since you landed in my lap.”
Okay, maybe she’d melt instead. She looked up at him, and their eyes met. “Really?”
He shook his head. “Have you taken a look in the mirror lately, Doc? You’re pretty hot.”
Usually a superficial comment like that would be an instant turnoff, but instead it made her obnoxiously happy. He was bringing out all kinds of weird reactions in her. She couldn’t ever recall being jealous before or needing reassurance about her looks. She’d arrived in Scotland a confident, self-possessed, newly minted PhD (admittedly with horrible taste in men),and he’d time-warped her back to high school as a moody teenager in constant need of reassurance. She’d lived throughMean Girlsonce; she didn’t need to do it again.
“Yeah, well, you’re a littletoohot, so you can probably ease up on the smiles and go back to Mr. Stern and No Bullshit. Or grow back the mountain man beard.”
They’d arrived at the door by then, and he just looked at her and laughed. “I’ll remember that. But some women like the beard.”
There was something a little too wicked twinkling in his eye, and she decided she’d better not follow up on that one. It might make her angry—or curious. She couldn’t decide which was worse.
He flipped on the lights, and she sighed so deeply it sounded almost like a moan. The bathroom was enormous and fitted with a huge jetted tub. On rare occasions she enjoyed baths, and this was definitely going to be one of them. She might never get out.
But then she wouldn’t be able to put on the plush robe and slippers. Or use the fancy British Molton Brown toiletries.
“It’s all yours,” he said, obviously noticing her reaction. “I have to make a call.” He paused, giving her a long look. “You doing okay? I won’t go if you don’t want to be alone right now.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.” Surprisingly she was. The numbness and coldness had faded to be replaced by... nothing. She actually felt a little guilty for not feeling horrible and falling to pieces. Wasn’t that what most people—especially women—did in books and movies?
She wasn’t making a feminist statement—although that did drive her nuts—nor was it that she didn’t value human life. She just valued his more. There had been a threat, and she took care of it. There was nothing else she could have done. If she hadn’t acted, he would have been killed. It was as simple as that.
Maybe she had more of her father in her than she wanted to acknowledge. For the first time in a long while, that thought didn’t make her sad. She had him to thank for that.
“Make your call, Tex.” She couldn’t call him Dan anymore.It felt too weird now that she knew that wasn’t his real name. “And you can bring me back that drink you promised. But no whiskey—with or without thee.”
He nodded, smiling at the reference to the Scot spelling of whiskey without theethat they were very particular about. “I remember.” He grimaced. “I have a feeling after this call that I’m going to need it more than you.”
•••
The phone only rang one time before it was answered. No passwords this time. “Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for hours.”
“Busy,” Dean said. The LC might be his commander, but he’d been doing this too long to let him tear him a new asshole—even when it might be deserved. “I had to leave Tiree unexpectedly.”
He could almost hear Taylor narrowing his eyes and giving him the scowl of death through the cell towers. “What do you mean, ‘unexpectedly’?”
