Working It (29 page)

I sink to the ground, rest my back against the stone, pull my knees close to my chest, and huddle in my makeshift shelter.

I don’t know what I thought would happen when I finally tracked Calder down, but I didn’t think I would be covered in mud and animal excrement, reeking of foul beast, and dripping wet.

The bitter irony of my pathetic situation is not lost on me. Last year, before meeting Vivia in Edinburgh, I binge watched
Outlander
, a television show based on Diana Gabaldon’s romantic novels about a British nurse named Claire, who walks between standing stones, travels back in time, and falls in love with a Scottish warrior named Jamie Fraser. I fantasized about walking through some standing stones and finding my own Jamie Fraser. I don’t read romance novels, and I don’t typically fantasize about Scottish warriors, but Sam Heughan, the actor who played Jamie, was crazy hot.

What an idiot.

Now, remembering my ridiculous fantasy, hot humiliating tears sting my eyes and slide down my cheeks. I found my own Scottish hottie—a hottie who is way hotter than Sam Heughan—and I blew it.

I bury my face in my hands and sob.

“Why are you crying?”

I look up and Calder is standing over me, the light of the setting sun turning his hair a coppery hue. My heart skips a beat, and another, and another. He looks so gorgeous, so strong and perfect. It makes me cry even more because I realize what I lost, what I will never regain.

He squats down until we are nearly on the same level.

“Why are you crying,
banfhlath
? Are ye hurt?”

There was a time I despised terms of endearment, when just the sound of a man calling me babe, sweetie, or honey made me want to vomit, but hearing Calder call me princess in Gaelic is the sweetest thing I have ever heard. It gives me the courage to tell him why I have come to Scotland, why I risked life and limb on an evil horse, why I am sitting in the middle of ancient stones sobbing like a baby.

“I am crying because I like you. I really, really like you.” I lift my chin and my bottom lip begins to tremble. “No, that’s not true. I don’t like you.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, I didn’t like you.” I bat the tears from my cheeks with the backs of my hands like a five year old. “I love you.”

Calder grins. “Aye, I ken ye love me.”

“You do?”

He nods and keeps on grinning.

I frown. “Because all the ladies love you?”

“Aye,” he winks, “That, and because I love you something fierce, and I don’t believe God would let a love like mine go unrequited.”

“Really?”

“Aye.”

He pulls me into his big, brawny, badass arms and kisses me the way only a big, brawny, badass Scot can kiss a woman, completely and with his whole being.

I am standing in my new boutique in an old Victorian in Strathpeffer, a turn of the century spa town a few kilometers from MacFarlane Farm, when my iPhone rings. I grab my phone and read the text.

Text from Vivia Perpetua Grant:

Have you changed your mind about having your wedding in Scotland? After all, Chateau de Caumont would be the perfect setting for a fairytale wedding, banfhlath. LOL

Text to Vivia:

Nope. Small wedding, only family and close friends, between the standing stones.

Text from Vivia:

Okay, but I might not be able to make it.

Text to Vivia Perpetua Grant:

Shut up.

Text from Vivia Perpetua Grant:

I am serious.

Text to Vivia Perpetua Grant:

If you tell me you have some assignment interviewing Zac Efron in Rome or partying with Prince William in London, you will lose your position as my best friend.

Text from Vivia Perpetua Grant:

LOL. There isn’t an assignment juicy enough to keep me from being by your side as you shackle yourself to the Cocky Cowboy.

Text to Vivia Perpetua Grant:

What is it then?

I wait, but Vivia doesn’t respond. What reason could she possibly have for missing my wedding? Vivia isn’t the type to shirk her BFF duties. And then it hits me.

Text to Vivia Perpetua Grant:

OMG! Vivia? Are you pregnant?

Leah Marie Brown has worked as a journalist and photographer. An avid traveler, she has had adventures and mishaps from Paris to Tokyo. She doesn't buy cheesy tee-shirts or useless bric-a-brac, but prefers friendships and memories as souvenirs from her travels. She lives a bike ride away from the white sand beaches of Florida’s Emerald Coast with her husband, children, and pampered poodles. She is hard at work on the next novel in the It Girls series, but loves to hear from readers. Please visit her website at www.leahmariebrown.com. You can also visit her blogs: leahmariebrownhistoricals.blogspot.com and

leahmariebrown.blogspot.com, and follow her on Twitter @18thCFrance and @leahmariebrown.