Gift-Wrapped in a Kilt by Anna Durand
Cold days. Steamy nights. It must be the holidays in the Highlands.
American Gavin Douglas lusted for Jamie MacTaggart from the minute he met the sweet Scot eighteen months ago and fell in love in the next minute. When he tries to propose… Well, everything goes wrong, and before he can make it right, she dumps him. But he hasn’t traveled halfway around the world to give up without a fight.
Jamie MacTaggart has had enough. After more than a year of flying back and forth between Scotland and America, she needs a commitment — to one continent, at the least. Instead, Gavin gives her a credit card. Heartbroken, Jamie seeks advice from her American sister-in-law, Emery, and together they concoct a plan. Jamie will make Gavin rue the day he hurt her by making him want her so badly he can’t see straight.
Gavin can’t resist Jamie’s seduction, but hot sex won’t earn back her trust. Spurred by advice from an unexpected source, he’ll battle Jamie’s obnoxious ex-fiancé and his own inner demons. He’ll even make peace with Jamie’s heroes, her three overprotective brothers — if the intimidating Rory will cooperate. As the two men engage in a battle of wills and muscles, Gavin vows to do whatever it takes to win back everything he wants by Christmas.
Buy it today!
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo | iBooks
Excerpt
“Go on, Gavin.” Jamie leaned in, her cheeks dimpling yet again. “I’m listening.”
The expectant look on her face made his gut clench.
She wanted a proposal. She’d never told him that, but he knew. Mostly because his sister told him. Calli had punched him in the arm and said, “Ask her to marry you already.”
Gavin had come here to do that. He wanted to ask. He’d wanted to pop the question for months, but something always held him back. A week ago, he’d committed to doing it, but his enthusiasm for proposing had fizzled when he got the downsizing email. If he didn’t ask her soon, she might leave him. If she found out he was unemployed, she might leave him.
His hand slipped into his pocket like it had a mind of its own, and his fingers curled around the velvet ring box. Do it, moron. You love her, so do it.
Did he have any right to do this to her? Ask her to bind her life to his when he had nothing to give in return? A cold panic gripped him, paralyzing his body and mind. Memories barreled through him, as real as the moment they’d happened. Leanne standing in the doorway, the sunshine streaming over her as she hovered on the verge of walking out the front door.
“I need to find myself,” she’d said, “and I can’t do that with you stifling me. I gave you everything, held your hand through it all, but I can’t do this anymore.”
Stifling, she’d said. Like he’d held a pillow over her face or something. He’d done nothing wrong as far as he could tell, nothing except stick to the wedding vows. Love, honor, cherish. If Leanne could walk out with no warning, no hint of anything wrong…
What if he’d been the problem after all?
Jamie wasn’t Leanne. And he’d changed, hadn’t he?
The question paralyzed him again, his muscles stiff and his heart pounding. The ring box felt cold in his hand. Cold and hard and… final.
His throat constricted, his mouth went even drier, like sandpaper.
With no conscious thought for what he was doing, Gavin shoved his other hand in his other pocket and pulled out the other item he’d intended to give Jamie. After the proposal. After she was blissfully happy.
He thrust the credit card at her.
“This is for you,” he said, his heart pounding harder and a cold sweat beading on his brow. “It’s so you can get miles to use for travel expenses.”
Jamie took the credit card between her thumb and forefinger, holding it as if the thing was infected with the Ebola virus.