He’ll owe me for that, later,” she added wryly. “But I came by because I wanted to tell you that I have the mock-up of the new home page done for the site, with the details about the calendar, and I wanted to know if you’d like to give it a look.”
Katie’s background had been in management for her family’s ship-and-yacht-building empire, but her heart was in marketing and graphic design. She had quickly found a niche on Kinloch as his much needed creative consultant. She had already contributed several fresh ideas to the promotion he did for the island economy, which centered on the artisan baskets that were woven exclusively on Kinloch and sold worldwide.
“Pretty confident. We haven’t even developed the photos as yet,” he said with a laugh, while also trying not to cringe at the thought that he was the featured attraction of at least some of them. Surely the other blokes on the island who had already posed for Tessa would provide plenty of shots for her to work with. “We’re a long way from advertising the thing. We need to win a spot in it first.”
She just smiled up at him. “I’m a believer. I’ve looked back at everything you’ve done here. In the past five years your accomplishments in getting the baskets to a more global market have been nothing short of incredible, given the limited set of tools you have to work with. When you set your mind to something, you get results. I know folks are grateful, but I don’t think everyone realizes just how much you do, because you don’t toot your own horn.”
“Well, I’d love nothing more than toot my horn, but word is you’re already taken.”
She just rolled her eyes.
“But that’s okay. I’ve accepted my singular future. I’m thinking of getting a few cats, actually,” he went on, adopting a rather pious expression, “and looking onward to a life dedicated to the service of others.”
“Give me a break. If Kira would so much as blink in your direction, you’d be happily servicing your own needs with her a heartbeat later.”
He was used to her ribald comebacks by now, but he’d rarely been the source of one, so he choked a little. First Graham, now her. “I dinnae ken where ye got that idea,” he said, even though he knew she was too keenly observant not to see right through his protestations. “I’ll die a monk, writing sonnets to your ethereal beauty, and pine for the perfect love that I can only observe, but am destined never to have for my own.”
“I dinnae know how ‘tis that the lovely villagers of Kinloch put up with yer multitudinous mountains of crap.” She laughed, her accent dead on despite her brief tenure on the island. “But I certainly won’t. So ask her out already. Sheesh. It’s pathetic watching a grown man pine for no good reason.”
“I pine only for you.”
She had the most feminine snort. “Who did you use as your front woman before I came along? Seriously, Roan, I don’t know what you’re waiting for. She’s not attached and—”
“And presently letting Morgan le Fay live under the same roof with her.” He gave a shudder that wasn’t entirely feigned. “No thanks. I’ll wait until Tessa’s taken her leave.”
“Aha! So you admit it then. Well, that’s a start.” She patted him on the arm. “But I know you, you’ll only find some other excuse entirely. You don’t strike me as a chicken, Roan, so seriously, man up.”
“I’m no’ a chicken, as you put it. And my manhood isn’t in question.” He waggled his brows. “You’ve seen my sword?” He lifted it, then stowed it in the back of the lorry when she merely shook her head and gave him a sad, pitying look.
“Don’t think you’re going to charm me into forgetting this conversation,” she warned, unwittingly echoing the same dire warning as issued by her fiancé earlier. “I’m on to you, Roan McAuley. You run around this island, being roguishly adorable and making everyone else feel good about themselves. It’s about time you got some of that love back.”
He shot her an affronted look. “I’ll have you know I’m beloved by all here. Treated like a veritable prince. What more could a man ask than the admiration and love of his people?”
“A warm bed and an open heart,” she said, quite a bit more sincerely than he’d have anticipated. “One that’s accepting of yours.”
He didn’t have a quick rejoinder for that.
“You have so much to give the right person,” she went on as they trundled toward town. “And she’s right here, all but on your doorstep. What is it that’s holding you back?”
His smile faded a bit. “It’s a complex tale, Katie.”
“It couldn’t be. You’re a man. And therefore too one dimensional for complexity.”
He barked a laugh, though a quick glance at her proved that while she was willing to keep things light, she was far from letting it go.
“Speaking of our one-dimensional capacity,” he said, changing the subject back to work, “what integrity-challenging marketing campaign has that wickedly brilliant brain of yours devised? Despite what you think, we men like to think we’re more than just the sum of our manly parts. We’re sensitive blokes, you know, with fragile egos. We need them stroked.” He glanced at her and grinned. “And stroked often.”
“Oh, brother.”
“Roguishly adorable, I believe you said.”
“And already regretting it.”
They laughed together as he drove the rest of the way into town, but his thoughts remained partly on his conflicted feelings for Kira … and far more annoying, his apparent inability to stop thinking about her temperamental houseguest.
“Well, doesn’t that just bite.” With a disgusted snort, Tessa clipped up the final series of shots on the cotton cord she’d strung inside Kira’s narrow pantry, which temporarily doubled as her dark room. It was cramped and the juryrigged lighting sucked, but she’d operated in far, far worse conditions. “Figures.”
She wasn’t surprised. Not really. She’d known exactly what she was getting when she’d started running the shutter. She’d just hoped that maybe, for the first time, her illustrious eye for things might have failed her.
So much for that.
With the last of the film processed, she needed to clean up so Kira could have her pantry back before breakfast. But she couldn’t seem to stop staring at the last half dozen shots she’d taken.
She could tell herself she was interested in the integrity of the shot, the point of view she’d chosen, and how the angle allowed the sun to perfectly filter the light across the tops of the mountains and spill down over the fortress tucked between the peaks. She had an affinity for capturing the natural beauty of any landscape in her scope of vision, and had done it for so long it was second nature to her.
Of course, what had always drawn her was the juxtaposition of the staggering splendor of nature’s bounty … contrary to the horrifying atrocities committed by man.
She closed her eyes briefly against any threat of invading
