The World is a Stage (40 page)

His stomach rumbled, and his chest clenched.

Moving quickly through the barely cleared path to the back, Michael realized there was a hell of a lot more than a video game waiting for him.

“Rachel? Is that you?”

She looked up from the blanket she’d spread on the ground, the soft glow of candles all around her. The flickers made it hard to see the details about her—the stuff Michael didn’t give a damn about anyway, things like clothes and jewelry or anything about her hair other than the vibrant length of it.
 

But he could still make out the important parts. Her face, illuminated on just one side; her hesitant smile all the greeting a man ever needed. The softness around her mouth and eyes, the direct result of a woman who was finally learning to let go. Not to mention…

“Is that a bucket of chicken between your legs?”

She started to stand to greet him, but Michael sank to the ground in front of her. “Don’t you dare move,” he commanded. “I’ve never seen anything so perfect in my entire life.”

She laughed. It was a sound he hadn’t realized he’d missed so much. “My legs or the chicken?”

“Both.” He leaned in as if for a quick kiss but thought better of it, going for a wing instead. It seemed safer. “What are you doing here?”

“I owe you an apology.”

“You already did that,” he said gruffly. His throat felt sore, and it was painful to hold back all the things he suddenly wanted to say.
 

“No, I didn’t.” Her smile was tentative, unsure—but it was still recognizable as hers and hers alone. “I told you what I did and why I did it. I didn’t tell you how sorry I am for it.”

Her hands came up and cradled each side of his head, her fingers weaving through the threads of his hair. For a moment, he thought she was going to kiss him, but she only held him, keeping their eyes level and locked. “So I want to do this right.”

“Okay.” He braced himself, waiting.

“You scare the crap out of me.”

He laughed, and their foreheads came together with a soft touch. “That’s not an apology.”

“I know,” she said, pulling back but not away. “It’s an explanation. That day on the hill, when we were together…I freaked out.”

“Yes. I’m happy to report that you did.”

“I don’t mean that,” she said, giving his hair a little tug. “I mean no one has ever made me feel like that before.”

“You mean, like a woman?”

Her shoulder came up in a half shrug, and the thin strap of the tank top she wore slipped down over one arm. “I mean, like I matter.”

All jokes fled, and Michael pulled her to him in a crushing embrace. His head rested on top of hers, his hand rubbing up and down her arm, slipping underneath the fallen strap. “Of course you matter,” he murmured into her hair. “You’ve always mattered.”

“It’s going to take me some time, Michael,” she admitted. “I’m just now figuring this stuff out—you know, the feelings. The intimacy.”

Even saying the words signaled a change in her. Michael gripped her shoulders and drew her near. “And I’ll help. But you have to promise you won’t hide yourself from me anymore. I’m a tough guy, and I can take your emotions, Rachel, all of them. Good and bad, scared and happy. Even with your fists swinging. Even if it’s me you’re mad at. I welcome every single one.” He paused. “But know this—it’s never okay to hurt the people I love.”

“I know. I won’t do it ever again.”

He tilted her chin up. “That includes you.”

She let out a sound that was half sniffle, half snort. “Aw, Michael—that was really poetic.”

He dipped Rachel down to the blanket and kissed her, stopping just when it started getting good. “My only love sprung from my only hate.”

She pulled back, her eyes wide, laughter brimming along the edges. “Michael O’Leary, did you just quote Shakespeare at me?”

“Don’t get used to it. It’s the only one I know.”

“That’s okay,” she murmured, snaking a hand around his waist and dipping her fingers just under the band. “I’m not really after you for your brains.”

“Then we’re equal.” Michael leaned over her, pinning her to the ground. She squirmed and squealed underneath him. “Because I’m not really after you for your body.”

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to enjoy every inch of it.

Epilogue

All’s Well that Ends Well

They lost the Top Warrior Race, of course.

Rachel was under strict instructions to use her body in any way possible to distract the other teams from reaching their goals—and it might have worked if the first challenge hadn’t been the mud crawl under fifty yards of barbed wire. By the time Team Win emerged from out of the ooze, it was impossible to tell they were people at all, let alone half-naked people hoping to distract the opposition.

Someone had given Michael a new whistle, which didn’t help matters any. He yelled and blew ineffectually from the sidelines until one of the judges threw him out of the competition for agitating the crowds. He couldn’t even meet up with the team until after the scoring had been finalized and a band of high school students dressed in muddied ninja garb took the first place prize.

“Did you at least win the hand-to-hand combat?” Michael asked, whisking Rachel into a hug near the entrance to the race grounds, where he’d been exiled. Rain fell, brown mud and grass clung to every surface, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so happy.

Rachel slipped and slid against him, putting her muddied hands and arms everywhere. There had been some mention of the probability of two bodies fitting into the compact Airstream shower later.

“Are you kidding?” Peterson said from behind them, his own arms doing a good job of sullying his family. “She nailed it.”

Michael pulled back, surprised. “Really? You won that part?”

“What can I say? I learned from the best.”

Julian clapped a hand on Michael’s back. “I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, Mikey. The team we went up against also had a woman—I think she was dressed up as Super Girl. Maybe Wonder Woman? I can never tell the difference.”

“What are you saying, Jules?”

“In the interest of fairness, the judges put them up against each other.”

Michael’s face fell. “Rachel and another chick? In costume? Fighting in the mud?”

Rachel put her arm around Michael and gave him a strong squeeze. “You should have seen the way I pinned her down, sweetie. It was just like the way you—”

Michael clapped a hand over her mouth and glowered at his friends. “You’re paying for this. All of you. I am officially promoting myself to Scottish Highland Games trainer, and we start Monday. No excuses.”

A universal groan went up, but Michael knew he could count on them all to show up. He was Michael O’Leary. He wore a skirt, and he smiled in the face of the woman he loved. He stood by his friends, and they stood by him too.
 

These were the things he knew to be true.

About the Author

Tamara Morgan is a romance writer and unabashed lover of historical reenactments—the more elaborate and geeky the costume requirements, the better. In her quest for modern-day history and intrigue, she has taken fencing classes, forced her child into Highland dancing, and, of course, journeyed annually to the local Renaissance Fair. These feats are matched by a universal love of men in tights, of both the superhero and codpiece variety.

Visit her online at
www.tamaramorgan.com
or come say hello on Twitter at
@Tamara_Morgan
.

Look for these titles by Tamara Morgan

Games of Love

Love is a Battlefield

It takes a real man to wear a kilt. And a real woman to charm him out of it.

Love is a Battlefied

© 2012 Tamara Morgan

Games of Love, Book 1

It might be modern times, but Kate Simmons isn’t willing to live a life without at least the illusion of the perfect English romance. A proud member of the Jane Austen Regency Re-Enactment Society, Kate fulfills her passion for courtliness and high-waisted gowns in the company of a few women who share her love of all things heaving.

Then she encounters Julian Wallace, a professional Highland Games athlete who could have stepped right off the covers of her favorite novels. He’s everything brooding, masculine, and, well, heaving. The perfect example of a man who knows just how to wear his high sense of honor—and his kilt.

Confronted with a beautiful woman with a tongue as sharp as his
sgian dubh
, Julian and his band of merry men aren’t about to simply step aside and let Kate and her gaggle of tea-sippers use his land for their annual convention. Never mind that “his land” is a state park—Julian was here first, and he never backs down from a challenge.
 

Unless that challenge is a woman unafraid to fight for what she wants…and whose wants are suddenly the only thing he can think about.

Warning: The historical re-enactments in this story contain very little actual history. Battle chess and ninja stars may apply.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Love is a Battlefield:

“You came!” Kate smiled up at him as they approached, and Julian had to remind himself to smile back. Flash teeth and relax. Laugh and flirt. The serious, competitive warrior he was on the field had a tendency to take over even when the situation didn’t call for it. And this situation, with a woman like that looking up at him with genuine pleasure in her hazel eyes, most definitely didn’t call for it. She was everything he didn’t know he found attractive in a woman, with a small and delicate build, a nose that turned up just a little at the tip and the kind of softness that normally put him on his guard. Cute but not obvious. Quiet but not shy. He wouldn’t have gone so far as to say she brought out his territorial instincts, but there was a definite urge to protect and serve.

So he smiled, pleased to find it didn’t feel quite as forced as he expected it to. “Sorry we’re late. Michael wanted to do his hair.”

Michael, whose longish, wavy hair almost always looked like it had been lifted straight off the pillow, grinned widely. “What can I say? I’m a vain man.”

The women scooted their chairs to make room for them. Julian sat next to Kate—so close he could smell her slightly floral perfume. She was still wearing the tiny slip of a dress from before, but she’d allowed her brownish-blonde hair to fall down in soft waves almost to the middle of her back and changed to a pair of gold sandals with bands going halfway up her calf, winding and hugging her flesh in ways that seemed almost indecent.

He had a hard time looking away. If it was possible to slap sex on a pair of legs, she’d done it.

“Do you guys want something to drink?” Kate asked, dangling one of those perfect legs close to his own without even seeming to realize what she was doing.

Her friend, Jada, on the other hand, leaned over the table, angling to give both him and Michael a clear view down the top of her bright red dress.

“I’m going to bet you two are Scotch men. Neat?”

He let Michael argue the finer points of ice in a drink with her. Jada was the type of woman Michael lived for—flashy, obvious. Julian had dated those types of women before, usually when he was on the job down in Arizona or on the road for the Games. For all their superficial trappings, women like that made great companions for the short term. But right now, a one-night stand was the last thing on his mind. His body was definitely warming for something a bit softer. A bit more real.

He turned to Kate. “I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

She shrugged, and the thin strap of her dress fell along the gentle curve of her shoulder. He watched it, mesmerized.

“A few minutes. It’s not a big deal. There was a blues singer on before the pianos started.”

“Oh, it’s too bad we missed it.”

Kate wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry about this place. It’s probably not your thing, pianos, is it?”

Julian laughed. People always took one look at him and assumed the worst. “I’m a large man, Kate, but that doesn’t mean I’m a barbarian. A little jazz isn’t going to kill me.”

“You never know. Jada is her own force of nature, and I thought maybe you guys got caught up in it against your will. Lord knows she’s made me do one or two things I regretted later.”

Julian’s pulse picked up, and he leaned forward. That was a topic he could warm to. “’Like what?”

Kate shook her head firmly. “No way. I’m going to need a few more drinks before those secrets start spilling.”

“She’s being modest,” Jada interrupted, watching them both with a smile. “Kate here once drove an entire rugby team off the road. Their van tipped over into a ditch.”

“They deserved it!” Kate declared, her eyes dancing. “Don’t believe a word she says. They were trying to cut in line after the rest of us had been waiting for hours to get through a single lane of traffic. I just blocked them from doing it, and they drove themselves off the road. What’s the point of driving a nice big Cadillac if you can’t use it for good?”