Real Men Wear Plaid!

He sighed dramatically and scratched his chest. “How are real men supposed to compete?”

She chuckled. “They could begin by emulating,” she said.

“Ah,” he breathed knowingly. “Thanks for the tip.”

“Do you want to read the book?” she asked, her eyes twinkling with humor. “Perhaps brush up on your hero tactics?”

“I thought I did an admirable job being a hero yesterday.”

She chuckled again. “Had I needed rescuing it would have been heroic indeed. Since I didn’t, it was merely nice.”

“Nice?” he repeated. “That was all?”

“Nice is excellent,” she said.

“But still not heroic?”

She gave her head a lamentable shake and bit her lip. “Sorry, no.”

His gaze tangled with hers. “Then I’ll just have to try harder.”

“That’s the spirit,” she said, giving a little rah-rah gesture.

Laughing softly, he pilfered through her bag and extracted the last three items. A little sewing kit, a package of prawn-flavored crisps and a folded letter.

The letter instantly piqued his curiosity, but opening it felt a little too invasive. Gemma frowned when she saw it. “Let me have that, please,” she said.

“You don’t recognize it?”

“I recognize the handwriting on the outside, but don’t know how it got there.”

He dutifully handed it over and she quickly scanned its contents, blushing a deep red when she was finished.

“Something wrong?” he asked, concerned.

“No,” she told him, her voice curiously strangled. “It’s a note from Jeffrey. He must have snuck it into my bag before he left yesterday. I don’t know how I missed it last night,” she remarked, quickly folding it back up and stowing it in her pocket.

“I hope that he apologized at least,” Ewan said, wondering very much what had put that particular shade of red in her cheeks.

“He did.”

“Did he offer any excuse?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

When she didn’t elaborate, he held up the crisps. “You like these?” he asked skeptically.

She grimaced. “Of course not. They sound terrible. They’re proof. No one would have believed me if I’d just told them about them.”

He smiled. “So you bought them?”

“Yes. As proof. I don’t have a dictionary in that bag, otherwise I would give it to you.”

“Oh, I understand the word,” he said, laughing. “I’m just having a hard time comprehending the reason behind it.” He sighed and shook his head, felt something in his chest lighten and ripple like a single pebble against a pond’s surface. “You’re an interesting woman, Gemma Wentworth.”

“Thank you. I think.”

He smiled at her, reached forward and loosened a strand of hair that had gotten stuck to her lower lip. “It’s a compliment. Much better to be interesting than boring and predictable.”

She smiled. “No one has ever accused me of being either of those things.”

And he imagined no one ever would. She was a breath of fresh air, smart and pretty, clever and irreverent and sexy as hell. He knew that she couldn’t be perfect—perfect people didn’t exist and if they did he suspected they’d be boring—but she was about as perfect for him as a girl could get. Ewan stilled, jolted.

Now there was a frightening thought if there ever was one.

6

“I know you’re going to want to kill me, Gemma, but you’ll thank me for leaving later. I’m going to find my Scottish hottie and am confident that yours will make his move when I leave. Do everything I would do and more if you have the opportunity. See you at the airport. Always yours, Jeffrey.”

SHE WAS SO ETERNALLY thankful that Ewan hadn’t insisted on reading the letter, Gemma thought. Though Jeffrey had been right, it still would have been a bit embarrassing. And considering that she was going to do just what her friend had urged, she hoped he was equally successful as well.

“I don’t know why you think it’s weird that I’m taking these strange chips home,” she said, unzipping his backpack now that it was her turn. “I guarantee that if you ever came to the South and had the opportunity to buy a package of white dirt, you’d do it.”

Looking strangely distracted, Ewan blinked. “White dirt?”

“It’s clay,” she clarified, feeling around, trying to decide what to take out first. “People eat it. You can buy it in convenience stores next to the candy bars, chocolate roses and cigarette lighters.”

His handsome face went comically blank. “You’re putting me on.”

She chuckled grimly. “I wish I was.”

His brows winged up his forehead. “People actually purchase it? And eat it? Dirt?”

“It’s because of some sort of vitamin deficiency.” She settled on his MP3 player, curious about what sort of music he liked to listen to.

Ewan looked at her askance. “Do you eat dirt?”

She tried to power the device on, but the battery was dead. “Only on special occasions,” she muttered, thwarted. She looked up at him. “What’s the first song on here?”

“Otis Redding’s ‘Sitting On the Dock of the Bay.’ You’re joking right? About the dirt thing?”

“Otis, huh?” Gemma hummed under her breath. “I like Otis. And the last?”

“Flogging Molly. ‘The Devil’s Dance Floor.’ About that dirt…”

“Nice,” she said. She pilfered around a bit more, avoiding removing anything that felt like clothes because they were the least interesting. She pulled out a Swiss Army knife and grinned. “Ready for rabid badgers, eh?”

“Of course.”