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.

Jen went still in his arms. “Is that—”

“Yeah. I think it is.”

The red potato chip logo cap they’d seen in the hidden corner of Loughlin’s barn before it had burned down.

She sagged against him. “Do you think he did it? Maybe on accident? There were cigarettes there and you need a lighter for those things.”

“Maybe.”

“We’re going to have to tell Olsen about it.”

“Okay.”

She leaned back, settled in to him again. “But not now. The barn’s already burned and I’m not pulling the drummer off the stage when they’re doing so well. As long as he can hold it together.”

Come on, asshole, Leith thought. Hold it together.

The warm June breeze swept through the open tent, swirling her scent around him, and he briefly closed his eyes as his cheek rubbed her hair.

“You knew this would go off like fireworks,” he said. “Didn’t you.”

“Fireworks . . .” She tried to pull away, to sit up. “That’s an idea for next year.”

He yanked her gently back against his chest. “Don’t even think about going for your phone.” She relaxed, but just slightly. Then he asked, “Would you do this again next year?”

It took her a while to answer. Her hand came to rest on his forearm, and she drew light lines up and down his skin with her fingernails. “I don’t know if I can. The timing for this was . . . unique.”

It was exactly the same kind of pause she’d given him when he’d asked if they could try to be together. He’d tried not to read too much into it. He had yet to hear her not speak the truth. Her word, even if he hadn’t always agreed with it, was gold, as far as he was concerned.

“Ah, that’s right,” he said. “Your crazy job.” He was joking, but his stomach felt strangely sour.

A silence fell between them as they rocked to the music, clasped together. Then he got up to get another beer, and by the time he got back, she was dancing with Bobbie and Rob and looking gorgeous doing it. Thoughts of crazy jobs and guesses over odd pauses vanished.

Chapter

21

Jen stayed at the games until Chris struck his last fiddle note and the applause died. The music tent had long since been cleared of families, and all that remained were drunken, happy adults. The buses fired up in the parking lot, ready to take the last people back to Westbury, and locals were stumbling home, shouting “See you tomorrow” across the fields.

“Look at that smile,” Leith said, taking her hand and turning her toward him.

She hadn’t been aware of what her face was doing, but now that he said it, she could feel the stretch of her cheeks and the satisfaction in her heart. “It was a good night. Now I think I’m ready for bed.” Her free hand fumbled for her phone as she checked the time. She whistled. “A few hours of sleep before I have to be back here at six.”

The fingers twining with hers tightened, pulling her closer. Shoving her phone back into her purse, she looked up at Leith. Heat sparked in his dark eyes. She knew that look. She knew it, and loved it.

“No sleep yet,” he said. “Come with me.”

As if she had a choice, or desire, not to.

She willingly let him lead her to the parking lot, where the remaining cars were humming to life and pulling away.

“Where’s your truck?”

He looked sidelong at her with a shit-eating grin, eyebrows disappearing beneath the shag of hair. “No truck tonight.”

Jen blinked, finally recognizing what vehicle sat directly in front of her.

“Wow, you still have it?”

“Yep. It’s been sitting in Mildred’s garage, the one at the Old Lady Museum. I couldn’t let it stay down at Da’s. Until the other day, it was the only thing I’d taken away from there.”

Leith exhaled and reached out to run a hand over the gorgeous, low tail fin of Mr. MacDougall’s 1969 Cadillac DeVille convertible. The robin’s-egg blue was exactly as she remembered, as well as the gleam of the white leather seats. The car was as long as a boat and could easily fit three bodies in the trunk. Leith touched it with reverence. Unlike the day he’d dropped her off to look for his father’s scrapbooks, there was no pain, no loss on his face. Only wistfulness. Only love.

Come to think of it, that’s exactly what she’d sensed in him all night.

He walked slowly toward the driver’s side door, hand trailing along the blue, those heated eyes lingering on Jen. She could feel them as strongly as she could feel the cool metal of the car beneath her fingertips.

He glanced pointedly at the backseat. “I want to have sex with you in my car.”

Her first instinct was to laugh, but since he looked so serious, she didn’t. Instead, she studied him. “Trying to relive the past?” Because if he was, this thing between them, whatever it was, wouldn’t last.

He shook his head. “No, not trying to relive anything. You are you, and I am me, and I want us to make new memories. Tonight. Before we both leave Gleann for good. Look, I don’t have a house of my own and the thought of spending our last night here with Mildred’s ghost really doesn’t appeal to me. I’m sure as hell not taking you back to Da’s, and the Thistle is booked up. So can we please have sex in my car? Please?”

She licked her lips to keep from smiling. “Not behind the produce stand.”

Finally he grinned. “Now that would be trying to relive the past. No, I’ve got a better place in mind.”

While he drove he held her hand, and even though it could be labeled as a childish form of affection, right then it felt wonderfully adult and intimate. And, oddly, a little sad.