Chapter 6
Dev dressed quickly in the bathroom. Normally, he'd drop towel and pull on shorts in the main room and then have a bite to eat before driving back to the farm house. Sometimes, if he worked late, he'd just spend the night here.
As he zipped his fly and pulled on a clean T-shirt, he thought about Kate's suspicions about Hildie and the way Hildie behaved when she saw the terrier.
She was happy. And it made him feel strangely inadequate.
He couldn't shake the feeling he was losing her.
And maybe that was the problem. Maybe they'd grown too attached.
Kate might be right. His need to cling to Hildie, to not let go of the past, could be a huge burden on the dog, one he hadn't meant to create.
God knew she was a sensitive creature. Very tuned into his emotions. ..
"Now you're losing it," he muttered to his reflection in the old mirror. Psychobabble wasn't his thing. He shoved the worries aside. Everything would be fine.
Fine, damn it. Just fine.
He swiped his fingers through his wet hair, and decided to focus on the present.
On a pretty girl wound up so tight, he wanted to unwind her one hot inch at a time.
The attraction between them was undeniable.
Powerful and potent. The way her eyes followed him, hungry and thoughtful.
The way she licked and then bit her lip and didn't even realize she was doing it.
He walked out of the bathroom with his blood pounding through his ears. Christ. He had it bad. So bad, he was considering putting her in his truck and driving her back to the cottage before things got out of hand. Because things would get out of hand.
"You've got a pretty nice spread here," Kate commented on the food as he entered the kitchen.
She was sitting on the plaid quilt by the windows, cross legged.
The sides of her black hair were pinned behind her head, the rest falling over her shoulder in waves.
Her blue eyes were big and welcoming. He wished they weren't. From the window, he saw the dogs were laying flat out on the patio outside, their bodies heaving, tongues lolling.
The slight pang in his chest made him grit his teeth and refocus. He sat on the blanket.
"You make all this yourself?" she asked.
Dev eyed the cold smoked salmon, roast beef, fresh bread and cheese. "Fran makes it. I stock up in the morning. Made the bread, though."
She looked surprised. "Really? You bake?"
He wanted to squirm. He shouldn't have said anything. Of course, the first thing she did was break off a chunk and shove it into her mouth, smiling at his discomfort as she chewed. "Very good. You're an interesting guy."
Dev filled a paper plate.
"Military man, carpenter, farmer, baker…" she went on.
"Just carpenter," he said. "Farming is Jamie's thing. I'm just doing what I can until he gets home."
She digested that and then asked, "So what else can you bake?"
Her challenging look and the small smile on her lips made him turn the tables. "What can you bake?"
Her smile went wider. "Not a damn thing."
Dev laughed. "We all have our strengths I guess."
"True," she said, continuing to eat. She wasn't shy about it either, and he liked that about her.
If he had to guess Kate did everything wholeheartedly.
She spoke her mind. And wasn't put off by the fact that he wasn't much of a talker.
Probably because she was just as good at reading people as she was at reading dogs.
"You always been interested in dogs?"
She nodded. "Pretty much. Always was drawn to them. Always felt like I—" she glanced down.
"What?"
"I don't know. It's kind of weird-sounding." She drew in a deep breath, rolling her eyes. "I always felt like I could communicate with them. Not like telepathy or anything. Just that I could sense their mood better than most is all."
It embarrassed her to admit it, and it made Dev curious. "So you went into dog walking and grooming. Why not training?"
"Everyone asks me that. That was going to be the next step. I don't have any formal training. I'm not qualified."
"I don't have a degree in carpentry. Yet," he glanced around the room.
"Your work speaks for itself," she finished his thought.
"So train a few dogs. Train a few more. Word gets out. And presto, you've got work that speaks for itself."
She thought it over, eyeing him straight on with a slightly bemused tilt to her mouth. Not a lot of people looked at him head on like that, like they weren't afraid to see into the darkest parts of his soul. "Suppose now that I'm broke and starting over," she said, "I'll have to do just that."
He offered her the last chunk of bread, but she gestured for him to take it. He chewed, wanting to change the subject and redirect his thoughts. "Where'd you find the terrier?"
"He found me. A stray, I think. You haven't seen him before?"
"No. Apparently Hildie has…"
"She likes him." Kate smiled and wiggled her eyebrows at him.
"I wouldn't go that far," he muttered.
She laughed. "You sound like a protective father. He's not going to run away with her and knock her up."
Dev rolled his eyes. Kate leaned across the food and placed her hand on his bare knee. Her palm was warm and soft. "I'm serious, though. You're not going to lose her. But there is room in her life for a canine friend."
His blood pressure rose. He knew he wasn't going to lose her. He didn't need some know-it-all coming in and butting her nose into his life and acting like she knew all about it.
But . . . what if he did lose Hildie? What if she got hurt? Lost? Oh God. What if he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
"Hey. Devin…"
He was dimly aware Kate was speaking. He could hear the concern, even understand that she'd shoved the food away from them and had scooted closer to kneel in front of him. He heard Hildie scratch at the door and bark. No. He wasn't going to do this now. Not in front of her.
Goddamn it. Not in front of her.
He squeezed his eyelids closed and then blinked a few times, trying to clear the haze of anxiety.
Kate's soft hands cupped his cheeks. She was muttering words. She didn't know what to do; he could hear it in the slight panic in her voice. In the "fuck," she uttered right before she kissed him.
Time stopped.
It all just stopped, like someone hit the pause button.
Then, slowly, the anxiety ebbed. His senses returned. Her hair smelled like apples. Apples. He loved apples. Her lips, soft. Her breath softer as she eased away from him. "No," he whispered immediately. "Please." Part of him winced at that, how desperate and weak it sounded.
Her arms came around him and she was in his lap, pressing her lips against his, her hands still cupping his face.
Lust detonated, wiping out every last trace of darkness inside of him and replacing it with the best kind of ache.
A hard, hot ache. Dev was lost. He grabbed the sides of her face, angled his head, and took her mouth in a slow, blistering kiss that magnified his ache by a thousand.
When they broke apart, he could barely breathe, his heart hammering so fast, he felt dizzy.
Finally his sight cleared. Kate was kneeling back, a shell-shocked look in her wide eyes, her lips swollen and parted. Breathing heavy, too.
Claws hit the floor as Hildie raced in from the main hall.
She'd gone to the front of the house in order to get to him.
She slid to a stop in the kitchen. The hairs on the back of her neck rose.
She was confused. This wasn't normally how his anxiety attacks went.
She must be sensing the difference in him.
No doubt, Kate was putting off the same vibes as he was.
"I'm so sorry," Kate said, eyes on Hildie and then back on him. His chest went tight. They were glassy, her eyes.
Damn it.
She backed away from him, not wanting to upset Hildie. "She's confused," Kate said, her voice thick. "I'm just. I'm sorry…" She fled out the back door.
Still reeling, Dev fell onto his back. He rubbed both hands down his face and groaned. Hildie jumped him, licking his hands and face, tail wagging, whining. Dev sat up and hugged her, giving her coat a good rubbing, and telling her what a good girl she was.
Just him and Hildie. The way it usually was.
For months he'd told himself it was enough, being alone. Him and Hildie, dealing with being veterans together. But as he stared at the open door, he knew it wasn't enough. For neither one of them. He was beginning to understand that now.
Knowing he needed to calm his heart rate and make sure he was good to go before he went after Kate, Dev remained on the blanket for a few minutes. Once he was up, he headed outside, looked around for Kate and then went for his truck. He was pretty sure she was on the road back to the cottage.
Only problem, the truck wouldn't start.
Undeterred, he lifted the hood and found the spark plugs gone.
Hamish.
Dev was sure that wily ole matchmaker had stolen his spark plugs in an effort to strand him and Kate together.
Devin shut the hood and stood there a moment, amazed at the lengths Hamish would go.
Ever since Ian had found Lucy, Hamish and Fran had turned their attention on him.
Mostly, he ignored their efforts to set him up with whatever girl in the village or someone's daughter or niece, or have someone conveniently over for dinner.
Shaking his head, he returned to the lodge with a smile on his face.
He loved that old man and couldn't fault him for trying.
While Dev and his brothers loved their Scottish grandparents and spending their summers here on estate, it was the Grahams who cared for them.
Fran filled them with food, made sure they were bathed, and had clean sheets on the bed.
Hamish taught them things they hadn't learned from their father back on their North Carolina farm, like how to fly fish, smoke salmon, wear a kilt, and jump buck ass naked into the loch—a rite of summer passage Hamish called it.
When their grandfather had died and left the boys the estate, Devin had jumped at the opportunity.
He loved it back home in the States where he was raised by his Scottish father and American mother.
But he loved Scotland even more. Loved his roots.
Even their mother had roots that originated in the Highlands.
Finding his boots, he pulled them on and tied the laces. "They're gonna get way ahead of us girl," he told Hildie as she waited with expectation. "Yeah, I know. Piece of cake." Going for a run in the Scottish summer in shorts was nothing compared to the lengths he'd traveled in war.