Long Shot (24 page)

“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.”

* * *

A
t 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.

Chapter

20

I
n no way did Leith want to know where, when, or on whom Jen had learned to give head like this. He literally had to bite his tongue to not shout out. The sensations were plenty amazing—the hard suck and the stroke of her gentle hands drawing every drop of blood to where he needed it most—but it was the sight of her that shoved him hard against the wall of insanity.

He hadn’t meant to look down. Hadn’t meant to slit open his eyes to see her mouth surrounding him, her eyelids closed tightly over the green emeralds he adored. Hadn’t meant to see how her thighs were spread, and how her hips undulated with every pull of her mouth on his dick.

The need for her would never go away. It would always be there, a constant thing, ready and waiting. She held his desire in her fists, and to release it all she had to do was open her fingers. It was that simple. It was that potent.

He forgot where he was—in what town, in which state, on what planet. His eyes rolled back in his head. She was picking up the pace, taking some sort of coaching advice he must have been wordlessly feeding her, because she was doing it absolutely perfectly. Hand still wrapped in the smooth silk of her hair, his thighs started to shake.

All the emotion he’d ever owned fled from every corner of his body, rushing, rushing toward his groin and pushing into his cock. The power of the pleasure stole his brain and sent him flying into the heavens. He came in her mouth, unable to hold back his sounds anymore. He couldn’t hear himself, didn’t know what sort of gibberish she’d reduced him to.

Then she pulled off him and sat back on her heels, and . . . smiled. Leith wasn’t really capable of reaction just then. Even the feel of his kilt drifting down and touching him was too much, and he winced. But she somehow got him dressed again, T-shirt tucked back in and everything, and he could stand without having to lean against the stranger’s van.

He touched her face. “Seems a bit uneven, wouldn’t you say?”

Her smile was brilliant and confident, and he loved the knot he’d made in her hair by her ear.

“You’ll get me later,” she said.

He kissed her and said against her lips, “Yes. I will.”

“But now I have to get back. Thanks for the cigarette break.”

He barked out a laugh. “You’re thanking
me
? I’m the one who needs the cigarette.”

“Taste of whiskey instead? I need to check in on Shea.”

This time it was he who reached for her hand and pulled her gently through the maze of cars. The band’s music got louder and louder as they made their way back to the grounds. Chris sounded excellent on his fiddle, as usual. The kid really needed to play more solo, maybe even ditch the other guys. Scott, the drummer, didn’t look so good, like maybe he’d fallen off the wagon, which might explain why Chris had been on edge the past couple of days. Jeremy, the piper, was giving the rest of his bandmates hard looks. There were people dancing though, and the beer and whiskey tents had turned raucous, so maybe no one else noticed.

Just hold it together for this weekend, guys, Leith thought. No bullshit tonight or tomorrow. For Jen. For Gleann.

As he and Jen ducked into the whiskey tent, Shea jumped up onto the bar to a chorus of whistles and cheers, which faded when she gave the offending whistlers a withering glare.

“Supposedly it’s my duty,” she called out over the heads, “to hand over this case of whiskey, handpicked by yours truly, to the winning tug-of-war team: Manhattan Rugby.”

A great hoot went up from a mess of about ten guys wearing red and black striped T-shirts. One of them, a big guy with a haircut that had Manhattan written all over it, his body half-covered with mud, and already a little red-faced from drinking, came forward to accept the case. He took an awful long time sliding it from Shea’s hands, staring at her with a look Leith knew all too well. The rugby player tried to chat her up, but she just gave him a polite nod and went back behind the bar.

“Dougall! Holy fuck, I thought that was you!”

Leith turned to find three of his old throwing buddies weaving around the crowded tables toward him. Damn but it was good to see them, a blast of the not-too-distant past that somehow felt forever ago.

“You just dropped off the face of the earth,” Ward said with a sauced grin. “Not even on the online forums or anything anymore. What the hell have you been doing?”

“Throwing for a PR tomorrow?” Leith said, changing the subject with a laugh, and clapping Ward hard on the back. “Because there’s no fucking way you’re winning if Duncan’s throwing. He’s pretty sick right now.”

Ward guffawed. “No shit. He twisted my arm into coming. Haven’t been back here since I took second to your scrawny ass.”

“Thanks for coming and competing on such short notice,” Jen piped in, stepping to Leith’s side. “It’ll be a great day tomorrow. I promise.”

Leith looked down at her with pride, loving how new people and situations didn’t scare her at all. He introduced Jen to the athletes and they all shot the shit for a while, the old camaraderie coming back to him. Once Duncan found them, he did a couple of quick shots and the volume of the party jumped up several notches. Leith fell into the easy rhythm of competition talk, and found himself eager to know how all the other guys had been doing on the circuit.

He could admit it now. He missed this.

Jen touched his waist. “I think Shea is beckoning to me.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said, wanting to say hi to her, too. To the guys he added, “I’m announcing tomorrow. See you then.”

Ward threw a knowing look at Jen and nodded. Leith just smiled, not hiding a damn thing.

“I recognize a lot of the people in here. Not just the other athletes,” Leith said to her as they made their way to the bar.

“You should,” Jen said proudly. “Old Hemmertex employees. I marketed the new format of the games and Shea’s presence in their new headquarters, gave them a good reason to come back for the weekend.”

Leith rubbed his face. “Damn smart of you.”

She batted her eyelashes and gave him a faux-coy look over her shoulder. “I know.”

They passed by two tug-of-war teams who were reliving the tournament and making challenges for next year. Hearing that, Jen pressed her lips together in a small, confident smile.

“How’s it going?” Jen asked Shea. “Need anything?”

Shea smoothed back her nearly white hair as she surveyed the stacks of empty boxes of whiskey bottles teetering behind her. “Yeah, cups and napkins, if tonight is any indication of what tomorrow will be like.”

Jen had her phone in hand before Shea even finished. Even late on a Friday night, she could get stuff done. The woman pretty much blew his mind.

Shea pulled out two new tasting cups and set them in front of Leith and Jen. With a stone face, she dragged up a bottle of whiskey from underneath her makeshift bar, one that she hadn’t been tilting for the masses.

“If you’re pouring,” said a man’s voice on the other side of Jen, “I’m drinking.”

Both Leith and Shea looked up to find the rugby player/tug-of-war champ/hopeful flirter leaning both elbows on the bar, his plastic tasting glass extended toward her. Shea just glanced at his glass. He gave her the kind of smile that guys reserved for girls they wanted to see naked.

“This is a special bottle,” Shea said in a tone that might have been taken for flirting if not for the severe arch of a single eyebrow, “reserved for the games organizer.”

Then without breaking eye contact with the new guy, she splashed the whiskey into two glasses and pushed them across to Jen and Leith.

The guy straightened, his smile fading but not disappearing. A new glimmer came to his eye though, and Leith knew full well that Rugby believed he’d just been given a challenge he was ready and willing to accept. Rugby turned away with a nod and a toast of his empty glass to the whiskey expert.

“Nice rejection,” Jen said to Shea as she tapped off her phone. “You’re quite the pro.”

Shea shrugged and swiped a damp towel across the table. “When I’m on this side of the bar, I talk about the good stuff only. It’s just my rule. If someone wants to chat me up, here isn’t the place.”

Leith hid a grin in his glass. Thank God Jen didn’t have that rule.

He took a sniff and a sip. Damn. Shea really knew her stuff. She’d poured them a smooth, peaty mouthful that he savored.

Jen also drank and groaned in approval. “I don’t know; it sounded to me like he wanted to talk whiskey.”

“No, he didn’t,” Leith and Shea said at the same time.

Jen laughed. “Maybe you’re right. He’s standing over there now, trying to make it seem like he’s not looking at you.”

Sure as hell, that’s exactly what the guy was doing. Only when Shea followed Jen’s finger, Rugby turned and gave Shea a smile that said he didn’t really care that she’d turned him down before. He was coming for her, and the both of them were going to enjoy the chase. Then he gave her his back, leaving her wide-eyed and, if Leith dared to say it, intrigued.
Well played, Rugby. Well played.

Jen told Shea, “Well, when you’re done here you should go for it. He’s hot.” She took Leith’s hand. “Come with me to the beer tent and listen to some music.”

“Yes ma’am.”

They bid Shea good-bye; she was still blinking at Rugby as though she was equal parts offended and interested. Maybe she’d let her rule go lax tonight; maybe she wouldn’t.

The band sounded like it had found its groove, and Leith breathed a sigh of relief to see that all four members had loosened up. Chris’s fiddle transcended everything, and every time a solo of his came up, the crowd erupted in applause. He played with his eyes closed, one shoulder to the audience. He really didn’t know how good he was.

As Jen texted someone, Leith went over to grab two beers. Both hands holding cold plastic cups of the Stone’s stout, he turned around to head back to Jen. In one eyeful, he took in all that she’d accomplished in such a short time . . . and froze.

The old Gleann Highland Games were gone, replaced by this fun, classy, but simple affair that seemed to have breathed new life into everyone. No more rickety, cheesy castle decorations. No more warm beer hand-pumped out of kegs by old ladies. No more terrible athletes who couldn’t turn a caber.

Locals mingled with people from across the lake and, hell, rugby teams from New York. This was his town and he barely recognized it.

Correction: it
used
to be his town.

Gleann had exhaled, shaking off its bad times. Or maybe that was Jen. She’d succeeded where DeeDee and even Hemmertex hadn’t. All this in two weeks. All this to help a town that had been left to rot. She hadn’t been born here, but now that he knew her history, she considered this place home. She was part of Gleann.

She’d started something exciting here that he was positive would bloom even after the two of them were long gone.

The crowd parted and, for a split second, he thought he glimpsed an older man wearing the same kilt Leith wore, pipe clamped between his teeth, flat gray cap slightly crooked on his thinning hair, cane held between his legs, as he sat tapping his heel to the music.

But then the crowd shifted again and the man was gone.

Shaking off the moment, he started back for Jen.

It took a little while for him to recognize Mayor Sue. She wasn’t wearing Syracuse regalia, but instead a blue long-sleeved T-shirt with
Edinburgh
done in some sort of stitching across her giant boobs, and she was making a beeline for Jen. A man with a scraggly, mostly white beard and the most impressive gut Leith had ever seen trailed the mayor.

Leith reached Jen just as the man was saying something to her about the Scottish Society board reconsidering withdrawing their funding of this event for next year. “If this is what you did with tonight,” he told her, his whiskers dancing, “I can’t wait to see what you do with tomorrow.”

Leith all but whooped, but Jen’s response was a modest smile and bow of the head. “I’m positive that when you do, you’ll not only continue to fund the Gleann games, but also increase your investment for next year.”

The man—the society president, Leith assumed—shook Jen’s hand and moved on. Mayor Sue merely said to Jen, “We’ll talk tomorrow. After the whole thing’s over.”

“Unbelievable,” Jen muttered as the two of them left and Leith pressed the beer into her hand. “I don’t know what I have to do to get that woman’s approval. Turn lead into gold?”

Leith watched Sue go over to scratch the heads of her Yorkies, which had been tethered to one of the tent poles. “Why do you care so much?”

“I suppose I don’t,” Jen said at the end of a long swig of beer.

“Of course you do.”

“Okay! I do! It’s killing me! If you have to wake me up from the grave to get me to hear her tell me ‘Good job,’ do it. Please.”

He chuckled.

“I’m serious, Leith. Not even in front of the society president could she say it. Not even in front of
you
.”

He took a seat on a folding chair and pulled her between his legs, positioning her so her body fell back into his. The perfect little puzzle piece.

On stage, the band finished an upbeat folk song. As Jeremy, the piper, was saying something about how they’d updated the next song for modern times, Chris took a swig of water from a bottle. Scott reached for one of the cups of beer that had been set in a line next to his drum set and finished it in one long drink. Tossing the cup to the side, he pulled a cap from his back pocket and fixed it on his head.