When a Scot Ties the Knot

Maddie squirmed out from under him. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I know this is supposed to be physical. Impersonal. It’s only that I keep thinking of lobsters.”

He flipped onto his back and lay there, blinking up at the ceiling. “Until just now, I would have said there was nothing remaining that could surprise me in bed. I was wrong.”

Maddie squirmed out from under him. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I know this is supposed to be physical. Impersonal. It’s only that I keep thinking of lobsters.”

He flipped onto his back and lay there, blinking up at the ceiling. “Until just now, I would have said there was nothing remaining that could surprise me in bed. I was wrong.”

Logan MacKenzie. Suddenly her not-­real suitor had a name. By the end of the afternoon, he had hair (brown), eyes (blue), a voice (deep, with a Highland burr), a rank (captain), and a personality (firm, but intelligent and kind).

My dear imaginary Captain MacKenzie, you are not real and never will be. I, however, am a true and eternal fool.

Here, have a drawing of a snail.

His hair was overlong (mostly brown, with hints of ginger), and his squared jaw sported several days’ growth of whiskers (mostly ginger, with hints of brown). Broad shoulders tapered to a trim torso. A simple black sporran was slung low around his waist, and a sheathed dirk rode his hip. Below the fall of his kilt, muscled, hairy legs disappeared into white hose and scuffed black boots.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When the regiment had landed at Dover last autumn, they’d been greeted as triumphant heroes in London. Then they’d marched north. Home, to the Highlands. And he’d watched his men’s lives and dreams fall apart at the seams, one by one.

Callum wasn’t the only one. The men gathered around him represented the last of his discharged soldiers, and the worst off: the homeless, the wounded, the left behind.

They’d fought bravely, survived battle, won the war for England on the promise of coming home to their families and sweethearts—­only to find their families, homes, and sweethearts gone. Pushed off the lands they’d inhabited for centuries by the same greedy English landlords who’d asked them to fight.

And Logan couldn’t do a damned thing about it. Until today.

Maddie had always been different from other girls, and she had always known it. For example, she was certain she was the only bride to ever write the following to-­do list on her wedding day:
• Bath
• Coiffure
• Dress
• Lobsters

A realization struck her like a lightning bolt. She now had a confidant. A conspirator. Someone who knew everything. All her secrets. He didn’t love her for them, but he hadn’t run screaming from her, either.

This ruthless, kilted stranger she’d married might be the closest thing on earth Maddie had to a true friend.

“Were I a bird, I’d sing for thee.
Were I a bee, I’d sting for thee.
Were I a peak, I’d tower for thee.
Were I a tree, I’d flower for thee.
Were I a flute—­”

The reading was interrupted as Callum began to cough with alarming violence. Rabbie slapped him on the back with vigor.
“Do I need to stop?” Logan asked. “Are you dying?”

Callum shook his head.

“Because I wouldna mind it if you were dying.”

“No, no.” At length Callum looked up with a reddened face and choked out, “Dinna mind me. Do go on.”
“Were I a flute, I’d play for thee.
Were I a steed, I’d neigh for thee.”

And now, despite all her best attempts to avoid it, here it came.
Her heart started telling her a dangerous, dangerous tale. The story of a decent, loyal man who’d treasured her letters, dreamed of her nightly, survived battles and marched across continents to come home—­not to a castle or a glen but to her. And even now, when he held her in his arms, he lacked the words to explain all the emotion in his heart.
It was nothing but a silly fiction.
It had to be.

Rabbie hunched over to whisper. “She’s got to see him with his kit off. Shirt, plaid, all of it.”

A coarse whoop rose up from the men.

“No, I mean it,” Rabbie said, standing up. “Here’s how it goes. You rise early one morning, Captain. Choose a misty one, when the gloom’s settled like a blanket over the valley.”

He waved his flattened hand before them like an artist painting a landscape. “You strip down to your skin, and then you have a dip in the loch. Wait until she comes looking for you. Because she will. They always do. But pretend not to notice when she does. And then—­just when she’s close enough to see and she’s been watching for a while, you rise up out of the water. Like a dolphin. Or a mermaid. Shooting up through the mist and pushing your hair back with both hands”—­Rabbie thrust both hands through his hair to demonstrate—­“with all the little beads of water trickling down over the ridges of your shoulders and chest.” He danced his fingers down his belly. “Like so.”