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Chapter One
GEORGIA
“Welcome to your new temporary home, Georgia Presley Henry,” I tell the door—lucky for me, Momma was an Elvis fan before the white jumpsuit days. I’m forever grateful she wasn’t into Conway Twitty–my great-grandma’s favorite. No offense to the man, but I don’t think I could pull off Conway or Twitty. Strangely enough, or not, I hail from a blimp on the map known as Morning Glory, Texas. Believe me, the joke never gets old.
This apartment or flat as they say here, will be my new home for the next ten days. The confirmation email from Human Resources, or Talent Management, is on my phone. The trip from hell has officially ended without my luggage which is probably whooping it up in Hawaii. I know I’m going to crash after a twelve-hour flight watching movies I’d never pay for at home. My body is fizzing on a massive adrenaline high.
Well, here I am in Scotland after working ridiculous hours at my Dallas accounting firm, figuring out a difficult tax problem for a high-powered client. Math is my crack. Calculus makes my mouth water. Working through a convoluted tax law is feeding me cotton candy. Do not get me started on kinematic viscosity. It makes me wet.
I’ve worked my ass off to get this promotion. I’ve sacrificed weekends and holidays. Thanksgiving was spent at my desk eating a turkey sandwich with canned cranberry sauce, apologizing to my momma who said I was breaking her Dixie heart by not being home. But I’m here. I’m finally here in Edinburgh. Cowgate to be precise (we just passed half a brightly painted cow sticking out of a wall) to take my life and career to the next level. I’ve just put down a deposit on my own little postage stamp of a home, where my ginger, opinionated, aloof, so totally a cat, Molly Whuppie, currently being looked after by my mom, will laze in sunny windowsills. Molly Whuppie will be joined by Romeo or Juliet, my longed-for dog, because that book took four hundred hours to read and I want those hours back having fun chasing my dog. I’ll be the happiest girl in candy land.
I’m not here for a relationship, but one day it would be special to meet a man who cares about me, makes me laugh, dominates and protects me. Who loves me, for me, warts and all. I want that in my future. I think everyone does.
I’m shimmering with excitement at what lies in my apartment. Keycode entered. The door squeaks open. I slap the wall and fumble the light…and disappointment slithers through me like slimy salmon.
Okay, I wasn’t expecting something from Meghan and Harry’s book, but there isn’t a bed, a set of drawers, or a table. Well, there is a table with a single chair and that’s it. There isn’t slime hanging from the roof or mold dotting the walls so I take that as a win. The wooden floor is swept, cherry curtains hang on the windows, and no dust bunnies gather in the corners.
I dump my carry-on backpack that will tide me for a day or two. Momma taught me a girl should always have a change of clothes, lipstick or gloss because you never leave the house with naked lips. Essential toiletries to get me through and a change of underwear. Mona, my trusty vibrator for the front, and Hemmy (as in I’ll take any Hemsworth) for the back are in my backpack. I wasn’t going to take any chances. Yes, it raised eyebrows going through customs, but I know what I want. I’m young, healthy and I have needs, and so far in relationships I’ve been the one to fit their needs, leaving me hanging in the bedroom, so Mona and Hemmy are along for the ride.
What to do. What to do.
A Bourbon, that’s what I want. The cab driver said this pub called The King’s Head, below the flat I’m staying is the best in the area if not all of Edinburgh.
A tall order.
Well, I think that’s what he said. I could barely understand him. The Scottish form of English here is like another language. I nodded and smiled a lot until my jaw ached. He’d gestured to the bar and said it was the best pub for a lassie.
Time to test the claim.
Lip gloss is applied, my long dark hair is finger-combed. I yearn for a shower, a blow dry and clothes, but lack of a towel and toiletries stops me. My change of clothes is cut-off shorts and a T-shirt–not exactly evening wear. Jeans, boots and a leather jacket cover a T-shirt showing the equations for Annulus and Arbelos. Only one person has ever figured it out, and he looked like he wrote the math questions for Jeopardy and gave me a thumbs up.
I trudge outside after hitting ‘lock’ on the door and three red lights flash. A tub of daffodils sits proudly in a massive urn on the street. Their yellow heads bob along in a gentle breeze. Dusk sweeps dusty golds and ribbons of soft red against the cobblestones. The city is so unlike the brash Dallas skyline with its sleek mirrored skyscrapers that shout look at me. Furious car horns are a backdrop, along with sirens and people with phones glued to their ears pounding the streets, having loud conversations that no one wants to hear.
To my left is a house made of stones, all slotted together in a cozy rush. Cars driving on the wrong side of the road amble past. Time has slowed down. I breathe in the fresh crisp air, not missing the smog-filled congestion of my hometown. I almost sigh aloud and hug myself.
I push open the door to the pub and stop dead. To say the place is packed is like saying the Taj Mahal is a small fishing shack some guy slung together. I fight my way to the front of the bar. The cab driver was right. This place is packed. There’s a band setting up. People are smiling, laughing, and joking. Two men wearing jerseys that spell out the names Aberdeen and Celtic are in a heated discussion about a goalie. What does that mean?
Solemn student types huddle around tables drinking beer discussing congruent circles. I listen for an illegal second or five, and can’t help but grin. God, this city has everything. I’m about to open my mouth and join in on the conversation when all the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. My gaze snags on the sexiest smile of what I can say is the hottest piece of man I’ve ever seen, who is staring at me. Dark blond hair, inky blue eyes, tall and lithe and a smile that could light up Jupiter and Mars combined. Like a moth to a flame or Pythagorean to a theorem, I have to get closer. Is he rocking a twelve-pack underneath that vintage Elvis T-shirt? Hello, he’s wearing an Elvis T-shirt? Like magnets, we move toward each other. I swear this man is made for me. I make it to the front of the bar, and stop dead.
Man magic stands in front of me.
Chapter Two
KNOX
I swear my brother could get laid fourteen times a night.
A gorgeous redhead passes him a business card with her number on it, and he smirks at me because he’s a cocky bastard.
“Bòidheach,” I say into my beer.
“Aye, I am a pretty boy.” Finn grins. “You’ve got to get over your jealousy. You’ll always be an ugly bastard.”
It’s my time to smirk.
A lot of women come into our pub, The King’s Head, to be served and serviced by Finn.
We’ve worked our arses off, and I’m fucking proud of it. We’re family and we’re tight. Two years younger than me, Finn grew up pretending to be a front against our parents’ indifference on a good day and their rage on the other twenty-nine days of the month. I got rage all thirty or thirty-one days. When they abandoned us when I was eighteen, I paid for our council flat by stealing, begging, scheming and doing anything to keep a roof over our heads. My youngest brother Lachlan took their abandonment hard.
