“You won’t owe me a thing,” Jen told Bobbie. “It was my pleasure.”

And it was. Perhaps more so than planning any number of city events for big-time clients who would never display such honest happiness or personal satisfaction. Besides, Bobbie’s new convention would benefit people she cared about . . . and Gleann.

The games were such a small thing in the grand scheme of this town. Sue McCurdy and Aimee and many others had wanted to believe that just putting on the games again this year—opening the gates to the same-old, same-old—would’ve magically saved the town from falling into ruin, but Jen knew better. This was one weekend out of the entire year. What Gleann had asked her for—without even really knowing it—was long-term help. And Jen was ecstatic that she’d been able to give it, especially now that her sister and Sue and, yes, even Melissa were moving forward on new business opportunities.

Change was in the air, and it smelled wonderful. It filled her with a new sense of accomplishment she couldn’t recall ever experiencing before.

She skirted around the music pavilion—the garbage volunteers had done their job after last night, excellent—and passed the tent where the heritage researchers and kilt makers were rolling back the flaps and setting up their wares.

“Testing, testing.” Leith’s voice crackled across the athletics field, coming through the PA system she’d begged off the local high school. “What do you do with an elephant who has three balls?”

Jen cringed, throwing a wary glance at the families gathering for the foot races. She hurried for the field, intent on stopping Leith short of saying penis.

“Walk him,” Leith mugged into the PA with an exaggerated flair, “and pitch to the giraffe. Ba dum dum.”

Low, scattered laughter came from the corner of the field where a group of fourteen men in kilts were doing squats and lunges, or stretching themselves out on the ground. Leith pointed to them, clapped for himself, and set down the mike.

“Sounds good,” she said, coming up to him. “Although I was a bit afraid where you were going to take that one. I never asked, but have you announced before?”

“Nah, but they love me. I’ll just wing it.” He winked.

They did love him, and she was positive his winging it for no charge would be far better than the drone who demanded money, whom Gleann had hired in the past.

He began to rotate his arms in big circles, mimicking what a few other guys were doing on the opposite end of the field.

Her eyes bulged. “Are you . . . warming up?”

He blinked at her, then turned in stupefication toward the place where two bulked-up athletes were launching into a slow jog around the field. “Wow. Old habit coming back, I guess.”

She didn’t say anything more, just let him process whatever was going on in his mind. He gazed at the towers to be used for the sheaf toss and the weight throw for height—two tall poles with a horizontal crossbeam rigged on ropes, able to be raised and lowered for the different events. In the sheaf toss, throwers used a pitchfork to get a stuffed burlap sack up and over the bar. In weight for height, throwers used a single arm to get a fifty-six-pound weight over the bar.

His eyes then trailed off to the side where a long white board in the grass marked the “trig,” or the front border of the throwing box for the weight for distance, and the open and Braemar stone puts. If Gleann was doing the hammer throw, they’d used that trig, too, but they weren’t. They were throwing two weights for distance that day: the twenty-eight pound and the fifty-six. The open and Braemar stone puts both used a heavy river stone, the main difference being that throwers could use any style to throw the open stone—like the classic shot put—and had to stay in a standing position to throw the Braemar.

The cabers would be thrown last, once the field had been cleared of all other equipment, and since it seemed to be the biggest audience draw.

Fifty feet away, Duncan backed a large Suburban up to the edge of the field, three cabers roped to the roof. Six high school students came running over to help him take them down and also unload the sheaves and pitchforks from the back of the cab. Getting younger volunteers—especially interested athletes—had been Leith’s idea, and it seemed to be working out splendidly.

“Duncan brought some great sticks,” Leith said next to her, breaking out of his reverie. “Excellent shape, light enough to turn so the crowd’ll be happy. None of these guys are pros, but if anyone does really well and wants to try a challenge caber, something longer and heavier, he’s got a sick one.”

She waved to Duncan, who was barking orders to the high school kids like a drill sergeant one second, then making them laugh the next.

“The guys are really excited for this,” Leith added. “A lot of them haven’t thrown together in a long time. Duncan did a great job, bringing them all together here on such short notice. Some old rivalries are heating up again. Lots of side bets. It’s going to be a good day.”

He was staring across the field, hands on his hips. Today he wore his own kilt and hose, the colors bright, the fit perfect. She gave him extra points for a clean, unstained T-shirt, too.

“It is.” She took a deep inhale of the best air she’d ever breathed, feeling it trickle into her lungs.

“Dougall!” Duncan boomed. “Get over here!”

“The boss calls.” A gorgeous smile spread across Leith’s rugged face.

“I’ll check in later,” she said, having to look away before she jumped him right then and there.

“You got it.”

She’d swiveled and was already heading to the whiskey tent to check on Shea, when she heard Leith call her name. She turned to find him jogging back up to her.

“Forgot to tell you something,” he said.

“Oh? Problem?”

“No, not at all. I, uh, I just wanted to tell you that I love you.”

Time stopped. So did the wind and the sounds of the awakening games. The thump of her heart picked up, though. Good and strong and fast.

“What?” she said.

She didn’t think she’d ever seen him smile so widely, and that was saying something. “You heard me.” He opened his arms then let them slap down at his sides. “But I’ll say it again if you want. I love you.” Duncan called him again. “And now I really have to go.”

He held her gaping stare for as long as possible before finally turning and loping over to the AD.

So it was just like that, she thought with her own hidden smile. He loved her. Again.

She could say she loved him again, too, but the warmth that spread through her limbs was not something she’d ever felt before. It was not the same emotion that had existed in their previous lives, their earlier incarnation. It was not the love that she’d spoken over the phone all those years ago. It was something entirely and wonderfully new, and she embraced it with her whole being.

On her way over to the whiskey tent, lost in a delirious haze she didn’t quite know how to navigate, she glimpsed a patch of the old fairgrounds between two cars. Not just any patch, but the center of the field, where the rugby teams were warming up in preparation for their first match. The very spot where, ten years ago, the declarative words Leith had meant as a beginning turned out to be an end.

Not this time, she told herself. Not if she could help it.

Shea came out of her tent to straighten the Amber Lounge signs that had gone crooked overnight. Jen went over to her. “How’s it going?”

“The extra glasses and napkins arrived this morning,” Shea said. “How’d you do that on such short notice and on a weekend?”

“New Hampshire Highland magic.” She winked. “They were local, is all.”

Shea surveyed the grounds in the direction of the athletics field, where a scattered few people had already set up chairs and blankets. Jen’s attention was drawn back to the fairgrounds and that patch of grass, but then someone else caught her eye.