life,” she admitted, another scowl wrinkling her brow. “One path is clearly marked and utterly unfulfilling.”
That sounded eerily familiar, Ewan thought. He took a sip of tea. “And the other path?”
She smiled and let go a whooshing sigh. “That one is completely dark,” she said, laughing. “In fact, I’m not even sure there’s a path there. More like a goat trail.”
He chuckled, sensing a kinship he hadn’t expected. He knew the West Highland Way was a lot of things to a lot of different people, but what were the chances of him finding someone as interesting with the same reason as himself for making the journey? Call it coincidence or fate, he’d been right when he’d thought there was a reason for them meeting.
“What about you?” she asked. “What made you decide to take the walk?”
“I’m dealing with my own goat trail,” he said. “I take it you’ve never been on a hike like this before?”
She smiled and leaned back fully into her chair. She crossed her legs and a slippered foot bobbed up and down, making the bunny ears flop. “Er…no, unless you count hiking from one end of the mall to the other. I’ve walked a lot of Civil War battlefields though, so in a way I guess that has helped. Physically, I can go a lot farther than my feet can, if that makes sense.”
“New shoes?”
She winced adorably. “That was a mistake, wasn’t it? My mother warned me.”
He chuckled. “Look at it this way. They’ll be good and broken in by the time you’ve finished.”
She laughed, the sound soft and husky. “I’ll try to remember that tomorrow night when my blisters burst.”
“It’s the socks,” he told her. “You need merino wool.”
She gasped, feigning outrage. “My father’s a third-generation cotton farmer. He’d have a problem with that.”
“He’d want you to be miserable?”
“No,” she said, laughing. “It was a joke.”
“So your father isn’t a cotton farmer?”
She grinned. “Nope, he’s an accountant. These miraculous socks you speak of, where can I find them?”
“I’ll loan you a pair until we can find a shop that carries them.”
“Much appreciated, thanks.” She looked at him from beneath lowered lashes. “So why didn’t you pass me today? Have you adopted me as your damsel in distress?”
He felt his mouth twitch with a grin and took another sip of tea, wishing it was something stronger. “Something like that, yes.”
She winced. “While appreciated, you really don’t have to do that. I can manage on my own. I’ll stick to the path. Were something to happen, someone would be along soon enough to help me.”
She was right and yet he knew he wouldn’t leave her. For reasons which escaped him, he couldn’t. Since there was no way he could confess that to her—how could he admit something he couldn’t even explain?—he decided to take a different tack. He passed a hand over his face and donned what he hoped resembled an appropriately sheepish expression.
“Unless you object to making the walk with me, I’d rather us stay together. I started this journey on my own and, to be honest, it’s a bit lonelier than I expected.” He essayed a smile. “Evidently I don’t like my own company as much as I thought I did.”
She studied him a minute, a direct gaze that seemed to somehow take his measure, peer directly into his soul. “I don’t object,” she said, and there was an inflection in her voice that alerted him to the fact that she’d just made some sort of decision. “I started this journey with a companion and am now on my own.” She peered at him from beneath a sweep of dark lashes. “Looks like we need each other, doesn’t it?”
Need wasn’t nearly a strong enough word.
He nodded, unable to speak.
“I should probably call it a night,” she said, getting to her feet. “We’ve got an early morning and, if the itinerary I’m following is to be believed, that large conic mountain looming in the distance is Ben More.”
“It is,” he confirmed. “A bit of a steepish climb.” He stood himself.
She paused. “Thanks, Ewan,” she said.
“For what?”
“For making sure that I was all right. It was a nice thing to do.”
“Would I lose your good opinion if I said I had ulterior motives?” he asked, sidling closer to her.
A grin turned the corners of her lips and she chuckled softly, then bent forward and pressed a kiss against his mouth. Blood boiled beneath the surface of his skin and a sensation so exquisite it stopped the breath in his lungs ricocheted through him. Every muscle in his body went rigid, then seemed to liquefy beneath her soft lips. She tasted like tea and strawberry jam and something else…something that was much more substantial.
Just as he finally came to his senses enough to deepen the kiss, she drew back and smiled, her warm eyes sparkling with delight and enough uncertainty to stroke his ego.
“I suspect our motives are the same,” she said. “Goodnight, Ewan.”
Yes, Ewan thought, dazed and ablaze. Yes, it was a good night.
And if he was reading her correctly—and he was relatively certain that he was—he’d make damned sure tomorrow night ended even better.
5
OH, SWEET merciful hell, Gemma thought as she wobbled shakily up the stairs to her room. That kiss…
Wow. Just wow.
She let herself into her room, then stripped down and moved immediately to the shower. Actually, knowing that she desperately needed to bathe and remove the hair from her thorny legs was the only thing that had prevented her from taking that kiss a whole helluva lot further. She was all in favor of dirty sex, but preferred to be clean while she was doing it. She adjusted the tap. Cave people must have had a keener sex drive to compensate for the odor, Gemma thought absently, otherwise she didn’t see how the human race would have survived. She lathered up with her scented soap and sighed. She would have been a terrible cave woman.
But that didn’t keep her from having Neanderthal fantasies about Ewan MacKinnon. Actually, the idea of dragging him into her bedroom held an infinite amount of appeal. She’d light a candle—her hat-tip to fire—and have her wicked way with him. Repeatedly.
And she knew he’d let her.
That was probably as intoxicating as the idea itself.
He wanted her and, despite his excuse about not enjoying his own company as much as he thought he would, she knew that he was every bit as enthralled with her as she was with him. And given the state of her hormones—the ones he’d kept at fever pitch for the past
