Текст книги "Long Shot"

Автор книги: Hanna Martine

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Across the hall stood his old bedroom door, and he looked at it only for a moment before opening it and stepping inside. Jen had come in here. He could see a fresh set of footprints in the dust coating the carpet. She’d already known that Leith and his father were more brothers than father and son, and that Da had been Leith’s hero, but her seeing this, finally realizing all that Leith had shut away, she would know how bad he’d been hurting in order to do that.

He needed to stop ignoring the hurt.

There was a laundry basket still sitting at the bottom of his old, empty closet. Dragging it out, he took down all the photos of him and Da and placed them carefully in the bottom. He laid the cane and hat and kilt on top, then went to the living room and took the afghan of his mother’s. Then he carried it all out into the bright sunshine.

“Now?” Duncan asked.

Leith slid the basket onto the truck bed. “Leave the hutch in the living room, I still have to go through it. But everything else can go.”

Chris slapped a pair of work gloves into Leith’s hand. As he pulled them on, Duncan walked into the open garage and flipped on the old boom box Da had kept there to listen to baseball games, and that Leith had used when he worked out. How about that? The damn batteries still worked, as though Da had changed them yesterday. The blare of guitar-heavy rock filled the once silent house and yard. Duncan cracked some joke Leith couldn’t hear and Chris laughed, and the whole place was washed in a light atmosphere Leith hadn’t expected to feel here again.

Leith reached into his truck and pulled down the cooler. Snatching three beers from the pile of ice inside, he snapped off the caps and handed them to the other guys. They clinked bottle necks.

“Thanks,” he told them.

“To old man MacDougall,” said Duncan.

As the cold beer slid down his throat, Leith turned to look again at the house, its doors and windows thrown open, all saying good-bye.

To old man MacDougall indeed.

Eight hours later, the shitty furniture and worthless household goods mounded over the lip of the Dumpster. The garage was stacked with other things to be donated. The men lounged on lawn chairs in the gravel drive as the sun finally disappeared, the last of the beers in their hands.

Leith glanced up at Da’s kilt peeking out of the laundry basket. He realized that none of this would have happened without Jen, if she hadn’t come here, if she hadn’t unknowingly given him this final push.

“Hey, Duncan?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

“You, ah, need an announcer for Saturday?”

Duncan finished his beer with a smack of his lips and grinned, showing a missing tooth on one side. “Fuck yeah, man.”

Leith still wasn’t sure he could throw—out of practice and still some lingering ghosts—but he could still participate in the games. Still honor Da’s memory in that way and give one final good-bye to Gleann.

Leith whipped out his phone and dialed. She answered on the second ring. “Jen? I have some news I think you’re going to like.”

Chapter

19

Jen stood in the middle of heaven. The sun speared the last of its gold light through the trees on the western hills, a warm breeze blew across what used to be Hemmertex’s side lawn, and everywhere mingled smiling, laughing people, come to enjoy Gleann’s opening party before tomorrow’s Highland Games.

The parking lot was already half-full, and couples and families were making their way up the Hemmertex drive from town, pulling their kids in wagons decorated with Scottish flags. The locals wore all kinds of tartans in all sorts of manners: full kilts, T-shirts declaring their clans, hats. Jen even saw a scarf, though it was pushing eighty degrees.

She had enhanced the long entrance from Route 6 by draping flags along the Highland cattle fence. The hairy beasts had eyed her and she’d tried to talk to them as she did it, assuring them the things would be gone in twenty-four hours and they could have their unobstructed view back. But they still didn’t look too pleased over having so many people this close to their domain. Loughlin, the old farmer and landowner, had stood in the center of his field with his border collies, watching her the whole time in that hard, wordless way, looking like he shared his cattle’s feelings.

None of them were used to crowds, after all.

From inside the giant music tent streamed the first low, sexy draws of Chris’s fiddle. The rest of his band had yet to show up for sound check, but he’d arrived early and was going through his own practice with an admirable enthusiasm. His hair brushed and pulled back in a low, loose ponytail, he made the kind of music that no recording could capture. She guessed he’d be getting his pick of the girls that night.

A short bus rattled its way up the drive and into the staging area, the product of Jen’s marketing the bus service in Westbury last week. Jen held her breath, watching to see how many people would get off. The tinted windows showed nothing. The doors opened. An older couple staggered to the ground, then no one else. Crap.

Wait. Another couple—this one in their midforties—got off, then another. The four were laughing together, looking around, and then the man with salt-and-pepper hair pointed at the warm, white tent decorated with the Amber Lounge logo. They’d come for Shea and they’d found her. Perfect.

More and more people streamed off the Westbury bus. The beautiful thing had been full. Some trailed the first four to the Amber tent, some families wandered toward the Highland dance exhibition set up in the Hemmertex amphitheater. Others trickled off toward the tug-of-war competition already underway.

Raised voices shot out from the music tent and Jen hurried over, in tune with the sound of panic and impending event trouble. Three more guys had joined Chris on stage, one shouldering a guitar, another with a set of bagpipes under his arm, and the last lazily twirling a drumstick. Chris was laying into the drummer, and as Jen drew closer, she noticed that the drummer didn’t give a shit as he rolled his head in every direction but at the guy yelling at him.

She walked right up to them and tapped the stage with authority, silencing the fight. “Everything okay, guys?”

The drummer swung his head toward her, his eyes bloodshot, his body swaying. Chris stepped between her and the drummer and pushed a wan smile onto his face. “Everything’s great, Jen. We’re still on at nine, right?”

She laid a long, long stare on the drummer. “You better be. Pay depends on it.”

Chris picked up his fiddle and said, “No worries. No worries at all.” But as she turned away, she heard Chris hiss, “For fuck’s sake, Scotty. Get it together.”

As she exited the music tent, a chorus of sound erupted from the tug-of-war competition. She’d gotten the idea to organize one after looking at Mr. MacDougall’s scrapbooks. Though other American Highland games had adopted the concept, she really wanted to make it into an event, a true competition with the prize of some pretty serious Scotch.

She’d pounded the pavement to recruit local businesses to field tugging teams, and when the response had been less than expected, she’d appealed to the rugby teams who would be competing in the tournament tomorrow. Another level of competition seemed to entice the baser instincts of the bruiser males who liked to shove each other around a field, and they’d jumped at the chance.

From what she heard, her idea was delivering.

An enthusiastic crowd had gathered in a long line down the rope. They cheered their friends or husbands or coworkers. Jen didn’t care, as long as they were cheering. As she drew closer she could glimpse the teams through spaces in the crowd. They synchronized their grips and tugs, planted their boots hard into the dirt, and leaned back, almost horizontal to the ground. Their timed shouts and grunts rose and rose as one team made their move, giving the rope all they had, making their opponents fight for it. Finally the judge’s whistle blew, and one half of the crowd whooped. The victors of this round, wearing purple rugby jerseys, jumped up, red-faced and beaming, clapping each other on their backs.

Jen gave herself an inward nod of approval and moved on.

On the other side of the heritage tent, where the historical society had set up information about Scottish genealogy and displayed a fine assortment of tartans, spread the heavy athletic field. Leith was over there with Duncan, looking things over for tomorrow’s competition.

Leith had told everyone in Gleann that he’d decided to stay for the games as his final good-bye. But privately, he’d told her: “I’m staying for Da. And for you.”

He wasn’t throwing but he was acting as the announcer, describing each event as it came up, highlighting each competitor, and calling scores and placement. The crowd was going to love him.

“Aunt Jen!”

The little voice made Jen smile before she even turned. Ainsley was weaving through the dispersing tug-of-war watchers. “Hey, Tartan McGee.” Jen went to touch Ainsley’s plaid headband, but the girl ducked away and fluffed her hair. “Whose clan is that?”

Jen remembered that you didn’t just choose a random tartan to wear when living in Gleann. Oh no. You may as well declare war for a side when you picked what colors and pattern to wear.

“T’s family. Melissa is a Campbell.”

“Oh.” Jen struggled not to cringe, choosing to smile instead. “Where’s your mom?”

“She said to come stand by you until I ran into T and Lacey. They said they’d watch the next round of tug-of-war with me, but I can’t find them.”

Of course they did. Teenage girls made all sorts of promises to tweens, who would hold their word as that of God and then be devastated when those words proved false. And what the hell was Aimee doing that she couldn’t be with Ainsley tonight of all nights, when she’d been the one to beg Jen to come in the first place?

“You want to come and watch me order around a bunch of men?” Jen asked Ainsley. “Maybe you’ll run into the older girls later.”

Ainsley’s nose crinkled, then she caught herself. “But I want to sit with T.”

“Okay.” Jen laughed. “Can’t help feeling a bit rejected, but okay.”

Suddenly Ainsley’s whole face brightened and she thrust out a finger. “There they are!”

Jen turned. The two girls were ambling toward the tug-of-war field. The younger one, Lacey, was chewing gum and thumbing away on a phone. T had put blue streaks in her hair. Ainsley was touching her own hair, as though contemplating the color herself.

Ainsley called out to the girls just as a piper blasted a warm-up chord near the music tent. Ainsley called again. The girls didn’t hear. Or didn’t want to hear.

Jen turned to Ainsley. Oh, boy. Here comes the disappointment, the disillusionment. She prepared for the distraction, ready to sweep Ainsley off toward the tug-of-war. Damn Aimee for—

T swiveled then, seeing Ainsley. She swatted her sister, who slid the phone into a pocket. Shit, they were actually going to look right at Ainsley then walk the other way . . . no. Wait. They started to come over.

“Hey, squirt,” T said to Ainsley with a genuine grin.

Lacey reached out to ruffle Ainsley’s hair—with Ainsley actually letting her—then caught sight of the tartan wrapped around it. “Nice, kiddo.” Lacey flashed a shiny set of braces, then wrapped her lips around them again.

Both girls were tall, taking after their dad, and Jen wanted to knuckle their backs to get them to stand up straighter. With a secret smile, she remembered that at one point, when she and Leith had been eleven, she’d been an inch taller than him.

“How’s it going?” T said to Jen, knocking her out of her memories. “I mean, I can tell this was a lot of work. Seems like a pretty cool party so far.”

Jen blinked at her. “Thanks.”

Ainsley’s big eyes danced between the two older girls like they wore halos. “Are we still going to watch the tug-of-war?”

“Absolutely, squirt.” T patted the backpack dangling over one shoulder. “Got the blanket and everything.”

Ainsley peered around Jen and called, “Hey, Mom, can I have some money?”

The piper chose that moment to start his set, marching around the grounds to heighten the atmosphere, as she’d hired him to do, so when Jen turned around to find Aimee, the piper blocked the person walking with her sister. A moment of panic set Jen’s heart pounding. Yeah, the girls were being cool to Ainsley, but what if Aimee was walking arm in arm with Owen out where everyone could see? Right in front of their children? She’d witnessed enough sidelong looks and heard enough whispers to know it wasn’t something the town wanted to see. What if this was the start to the scene Jen feared from her own childhood? On tonight of all nights?

Jen glanced fearfully at T and Lacey, imprinting her and Aimee’s faces onto theirs, remembering the day they’d had to intercept their mom in the grocery store when she’d clawed after some woman she’d caught sleeping with Frank.

The girls wore no similar look of disgust.

Even odder, when the piper moved on, his absence revealed that Aimee wasn’t actually walking with Owen, but Melissa. They walked close enough to touch, their heads bent together, Melissa saying something with very fervent hand gestures. And they were smiling.

Aimee saw Jen and steered Melissa over to make introductions. Melissa had a strong, confident handshake and a raspy voice. “Great to finally meet you, Jen.”

And it was Jen, for once, who had to struggle to find equilibrium in this strangest of strange situations, when usually she could fake it pretty well.

Then Melissa did the most surprising thing. She reached for Ainsley, giving her arm a quick, affectionate squeeze paired with a brilliant smile. It couldn’t possibly mean anything other than I like you, kid.

“Mom,” Ainsley said, eyes bright, “T just told me there’s a whole ’nother town under the lake. That when they made the dam, they covered the first Gleann with water. Is that true?”

T and Lacey were giggling as Melissa rolled her eyes. “Stop telling people that, Tamara Jean. Especially the younger kids. You’ll get one of them drowned when they go to swim for it. Your dad made that story up ages ago to get you to go to sleep.”

“I’m not a kid. Lacey’s only three years older than me,” Ainsley protested to deaf ears.

“Oh, look, there’s George,” Melissa said, “getting ready for the tug-of-war. Team Highway Repair and Roadkill Pickup. Wouldn’t want to miss them pulling against those massive rugby guys you had bussed in, Jen.” With a wink, she turned back to Aimee. “So, we’re meeting with Sue on Monday at ten? At the Kafe?”

“Yep.” Aimee smiled. “Have you seen Owen?”

Melissa squinted at the whiskey tent. “In there. Trying to relive his youth. Don’t let him drive home if that’s the case. Girls, Ainsley is yours for the night. You understand?”

Solemn nods all around.

Jen watched Melissa approach a telephone pole of a man dressed in jeans and a plaid T-shirt—no discerning tartan—with New Hampshire Department of Transportation stamped on the back. Melissa melted into his arms, having to stand on her tippiest of toes as he gave her a deep, closed-mouth kiss.

T and Lacey made faces appropriate to seeing their mom kissing, and then turned away, but otherwise showed no disapproval. A small group of men and women nudged each other in speculation, but Melissa and George didn’t care.

“Here’s a twenty.” Aimee passed the wrinkled bill to T. “Keep any change.”

“The sign-up for tomorrow morning’s foot races is over at the heritage tent,” Jen said to Ainsley. “Didn’t you say you wanted to do the Kid Sprint around the grounds?”

Lacey slapped her sister’s arm. “Oh, let’s do that. First prize is fifty bucks.”

The girls wandered off, and Jen resisted jumping up and down over their enthusiasm and participation.

She and Aimee looked at each other, the pall of their tense, honest conversation back in the Thistle still hanging over them.

“Melissa and I are opening a B&B,” Aimee said abruptly. “Together.”

Jen boggled, her mouth hanging open.

“That’s what the Monday meeting is about, because I know you’re wondering. We’ve already approached one of the old Hemmertex families with a huge empty house up for sale about going in with us, joining as a part owner, letting us run it from here. Melissa’s got the start-up money—her family is the oldest in the valley—and I’ve got the skills in running an inn. It’s going to be the first of many, Jen. I thought you should be one of the first to know.”

“Wow, I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

The piper had trailed back by the beer tent, bleating out an up-tempo song.

Aimee stepped closer. “Say you’re proud of me.”

“God, Aim. I am. I really am.”

There was no I told you so. No I don’t need you. Just absolute proof, exactly as Aimee said she’d give. The world suddenly felt a little bit lighter.

Aimee’s gaze flicked over Jen’s shoulder. She said, all casual, “Oh, I see Owen. Better go tend to the whiskey consumption. It’s already a great night, Jen. Tomorrow’s going to be even better. I know it will.” She started to walk off, then stopped. “I also thought you’d like to know that Owen filed for divorce this morning. Melissa says the papers will be signed in record time.”

Aimee had put a good twenty feet between them before Jen finally processed it all, gathered herself, and called after her sister, “You know what would be good?”

Aimee turned around. “What?”

“Starting an association of inn owners in the valley. There are some in Westbury, you know. Maybe you could band together, use each other to help market the area. Just a thought.”

Aimee beamed. “And it’s a great one. Thank you.” She took a long, happy look around the grounds and came back to meet Jen’s eyes. “For everything.”

* * *

At last the sun dipped behind the hills in a perfect New Hampshire sunset, the kind she remembered, the kind she occasionally, futilely wished for while in the city. The fairy lights kicked on, and all the tents became outlined in strings of white. The murmurs of approval made her glow.

Big pockets of people milled around the beer tent, and the whiskey tent was so full Shea had tied back the flaps to accommodate everyone. Drinkers spilled out onto the grass slope leading down to the parking lot. Chris’s band was finally ready to go on, and it seemed like the tension that had cut through their earlier sound check had been smoothed over. Or at least shoved onto the back burner, which was all that Jen cared about at this point. In the meantime, the Scottish Highland dance exhibition was concluding, the last notes of the sole accompanying piper floating across the grounds.

The party would go on as long as it was successful and fun . . . or until eleven, according to Sue McCurdy. Whichever came first. For now, Jen stood in the shadows just outside the music tent, surveying her success, feeling proud but not remotely smug.

There was a silent tug on her awareness, something pulling at her from the side. It was a warm feeling in her heart, a little dance in her belly, and she knew its source before she turned.

Leith was crossing the grass beneath the strings of fairy lights connecting the tents. She hadn’t seen him all evening, word being that Duncan had asked him to run back to Westbury for some needed equipment. The sight of him now, here at the games where she’d wanted him from the beginning, more than made up for his absence.

He smiled with only his eyes, but it was a potent look, enhanced by the glitter from the overhead lights. His chin was set in hard determination, and she realized, with a great shiver, that she was his focus. His goal.

He wore a black T-shirt with a beer logo. It clung to his chest and waist, and fit snugly around his great arms. And then there was the kilt.

Holy mother of God.

No photo could have done him justice, no memory strong enough. She let herself enjoy watching him approach, noting with pleasure the way his mighty thighs kicked out the kilt, the way his big boots struck the ground. Each step brought him closer. Each step got her a little hotter.

“Hi,” he said when he reached her, and she loved how even if her eyes were closed, she would have been able to tell he was smiling.

“Hi, yourself. How’s it going over there? Everything set and all right? Do I need to talk to Duncan?”

He shook his head at the ground, sweat-dampened shag drifting over his ears and eyes, but he was grinning. “Always work with you first, isn’t it? I can’t even get in a flirt edgewise.”

She let out a huff of exasperation. “Leith, I—”

“I’m kidding.” He slid both hands around the nape of her neck, thumbs resting gently on her throat. “Everything’s great. Although Duncan’s canceling the hammer. Not quite enough room, unless you want to chance a broken window in the Hemmertex building or a hammer landing in the middle of the rugby field.”

“No, I trust you guys. Whatever you say will work.” She exhaled. “Good, good.”

“Dougall!” came some drunken bellow from outside the beer tent. “Just throw, damn it!” Sporadic laughter, followed by cheers.

Leith’s hands slid from Jen’s neck. He raised an arm toward the tent and gave the drunk a tight-lipped smile. When his head swiveled back to her, the heat had left his eyes, but not the easy joy she’d noticed in him since that evening a few days ago when he’d called her out of the blue to say he’d stay through the weekend. They stared at each other for who knows how long, their primal connection eviscerating the shadows between them.

“I just have to tell you,” she finally said, “you look so hot I can’t even stand it.”

“Funny”—he dragged a long, slow appraisal over her white tank top, jeans, and riding boots—“was going to say the same about you.” Then he gave her a confused look. “You’ve seen me in a kilt before.”

A nervous laugh escaped and she held up a hand. “Yeah, teenage Leith. Not the same thing. Not by a long shot.”

Hands coming to his hips, he turned solemn and said, “It was Da’s.”

She’d recognized the red MacDougall tartan of course, but she hadn’t noticed the slightly ratty hems and dulled fabric until he mentioned it. Deep lines crossed his forehead, and his chin dipped low. She finally understood what he didn’t say, and gasped. “You went inside.”

He nodded. “Duncan and Chris helped me clear it out. I’m going to put it on the market when things get a little better around here. Mayor Sue says they will, and if you’ve had a hand in turning this place around, I’ll believe it.”

She reached up to brush a piece of hair off his temple. “If you’d called me, I would’ve gone in with you. I would’ve helped, too.”

“I know. And I did call. Only after.”

She touched her lips, comprehending. “So that’s what changed your mind about staying.”

He took a few huge gulps of air and still didn’t meet her eyes. “Da is everywhere in the valley, in Gleann. He and I are . . . everywhere. I never let him go; I never let myself grieve. Always too much to do, always a million other ways to push aside what I didn’t want to accept.” His great shoulders hunched for his ears, stayed there. “It’s why I need to leave, Jen. It’s why I won’t throw. Because the games—any games, not just these—have always been about him. I can’t do it and not have him there where I can see him.” Those shoulders fell. “I realized, as I was taking out his stuff, the things he really, truly loved, that I needed to say good-bye to him. And I needed to stay this weekend to do it. So I called Rory in Connecticut and told her I wouldn’t make it back until next week.”

Though it seemed there was something else he wasn’t telling her—about the house or his dad or work, she couldn’t be sure—he wasn’t dwelling on it, and neither would she. This was a huge step, and an overwhelming sense of pride overtook her. That energy swept through her again, starting in her toes, climbing its way up her legs and making them tingle. It sent her body surging forward, her fingers grasping that beer T-shirt and balling it in tight fists. She yanked him down to her level, and if he was thrown off guard it was only for a moment, because she was distinctly aware of his lips parting before their mouths met in an unrelenting kiss that had her feet rising off the ground. No, it was him lifting her up, his arms wrapped tightly around her back in one of those grips that wordlessly said he owned her.

Because he did.

The thought, for once, didn’t deter her. Didn’t send her mind spinning away in panic. Didn’t make her think she was losing ground—because now, she was most definitely gaining.

She’d also gone dizzy, her toes dragging in the dirt, her body swaying out of her control. Something hit her back, then there was faint laughter and a stranger said, “Hey, what’s going on out there?” She opened her eyes to find Leith had backed her up against one of the tent poles, making the corner shake. The drunk, laughing man had peeked his head around the opening to watch them.

She struggled away from Leith even as he kept reaching for her. Her body called her a traitor, because it was absolutely on fire for him. She was ridiculously wet—she could feel it beneath her jeans, their tight fit driving her insane—but there was no time for sex, not with a couple of hours left on her clock. It made her want to cry.

He licked his lips. Stared at hers. “What do you want?”

She glanced down at his kilt, very nearly salivating. “I want that.”

“Want what, exactly?” God, his voice was so deep, like fingers stroking her soul.

“Don’t make me say it.”

“Not making you say or do anything. But let me just tell you that I want you, too. Right now.”

She released a groan of frustration to the sky. “Can’t happen. Not now, anyway.” Not for her, maybe. But there was something she wanted to do to him, and right now seemed a better time than any, given their circumstances.

Given what he was wearing.

“Come with me.” She took his hand and dragged him away from the party, away from the strings of fairy lights and the stage, deep into the dark canyons of parked cars along the fairground edge. In the distance the charred skeleton of Loughlin’s barn blocked out stripes of stars.

“I know where we could go,” he offered, the suggestion mixing with the exquisite pressure of her jeans, rubbing her right between the legs.

She glanced playfully over her shoulder. “Do not say the back of your truck. I’m a classy New Yorker now. I only go down on guys in alleys and in the bathrooms of nightclubs.”

She was kidding, of course, but he answered after a slight pause. “Oh, is that what’s going to happen?”

When they’d gotten far enough away from the party, all the cars black and silent, the voices turned to a distant, dull hum, she finally stopped. Whirled around. He was grinning like a madman, but also a very turned-on madman. He reached for her, getting that openmouthed I’m going to kiss the hell out of you look.

She slammed a hand into his chest, stopping him. Because she knew if he did that, if he got her going in the way only his mouth could, they’d be out here all night. She’d be draped across the hood of that yellow hatchback over there, and she’d never go back to the party where she should be right now.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice gone all throaty. “That’s what’s going to happen. And I’m adding parking lots to my repertoire.”

She pushed him into the side of a conversion van, the closest vehicle that could take his height and build. A metallic boom rang down the line of cars, but no one was around to hear. She dropped to her knees, the asphalt and gravel biting. She’d worry about what her jeans might look like later. Or maybe not.

“Jesus, Jen. Is this you and your control issues?”

Leith’s hand threaded through her hair and she flipped her eyes up to see that his grin had vanished, replaced by such a fierce expression of lust that it made her stop and stare, reveling in it. But only for a second.

“No.” Okay, maybe it was, but she wasn’t going to admit that. Not now. “This is me wanting you. Just like this.”

One side of his mouth tilted up. “Another first for us.”

Wow, she guessed it was.

Just as she shoved up his kilt, yanked down his underwear, and sucked him into her mouth, Chris’s fiddle struck its first long notes on stage. The drums came in, nice and steady, followed by the pipes and guitar. Music filled the valley as she worked her way down Leith, tasting and licking him, dragging her tongue and the inside of her cheeks all over him. He was hers right then, and the whole valley belonged to them.

Leith’s head fell back with a crack against the van, and it might have been one of the best sounds she’d ever heard.