He couldn’t talk around the pressure in his chest.

“But I only gave myself a fifty from your point of view, because of what you told me earlier. How you thought I was compromising myself for revenge or for some reason other than what was in my heart. You were right, you know. It took me going away to see that, to know what I lost, what I wanted back, and where I want to be for good. I know it all now. It’s very, very clear to me.”

He pumped a thumb a couple of times toward the ceiling. “My number needs to go up a few notches. Like, say, fifty.”

She drew a deep breath. “Well. Then, that brings me to my next point. We have similar goals. We want our own businesses to be successful. We have dreams and I know we would support each other in those dreams.”

He nodded, completely agreeing. “What about family?” The question surprised them both. He held on to it though, grinding his teeth. He wouldn’t take it back. “I mean, you have Aimee and Ainsley, but that’s about it. I don’t have anyone.” He cleared his throat. “Would you want family? With me?”

She looked at him for a long moment. “I think we need to get our careers going first, make sure they’re nice and established.” Her expression turned wonderfully warm. “But, yes. I think I might.”

“Action Item list?”

“Given that our Sexual Compatibility score is closer to two hundred”—a slap of the pointer—“I’d say that ‘action’ is a good word for it. But I don’t even want to think about it for a couple of years. That okay?”

Pressing his lips together, he nodded. “A sound plan, boss.”

“Which brings us to the final point: Physical Proximity. As you can see, the score is at zero, but I want to fix that. All the rest doesn’t matter if I don’t, and I know your coming to New York just won’t work for your business. Once my lease runs out in the city, I do not plan on renewing it. I want my own place. Here. With an easy commute to my new work and a bed big enough for you. Maybe someplace like this. Or this. Or this.” She flashed a series of photos of homes for sale in the area.

Leaning an elbow on the armrest, he scratched at his face and then covered his mouth with his hand. If she could see how much he was enjoying this, how much he never wanted her to stop, how hard it was to hold himself back from jumping up from the chair and pinning her against that lit wall, he feared it might scare her off again.

Except nothing about her looked scared right now. She was courageous and gorgeous and brilliant, and he could not stop staring.

“Oh!” she said, setting down the pointer. “One last thing, but perhaps the most important.”

She slid right in front of the projector beam at the same moment she clicked the remote, her body bathed in light. And then her fingers rose to the buttons of her sweater. Starting at the top, between her breasts, she unfastened the first one.

A peek of a nude lace bra had him involuntarily scooting forward on the chair, his mouth first drying up, then watering.

Another button. Her lips quirked. The smooth patch of skin below her bra looked delicious. He wanted to run his tongue up and down the vertical divot between her stomach muscles.

Was that . . .? There were lines on her stomach that he thought could be letters, but were too difficult to make out. Things that hadn’t been there last time she’d undressed for him. Did she get a tattoo over there in London? He squinted.

Another button came undone. The black fabric parted even more, exposing her breasts and coming apart all the way to her bellybutton. Now he was sure. They were definitely letters on her midsection. Not tattooed, not painted, but coming from the projector.

The final button. The sweater halves separated, and then came fully off. She let it drop to the ground. Then she reached around and unzipped her skirt. Shimmied out of the tight thing and then let that fall, too. She stood there, perfectly still, with her perfect body in that perfect lace bra and underwear almost the exact shade of her skin, and he had to concentrate to absorb what he was looking at.

There, in black computerized script, written across the smooth skin of her belly, were the words, “I love you.”

He blinked at them several times.

“So that’s it,” she said, and her voice sounded shaky. “That’s my presentation.”

He ripped his gaze from her beautiful body to her even more beautiful face. “Can you say it?”

“Yes. I can now.” He loved how her body moved, unclothed, when she breathed. “I’m in love with you. I always have been, even when I wasn’t fully aware of it, even over all these years. It’s why coming back to you felt so easy, so natural. I’m not saying that we were meant to be together or destined or anything as new-agey as that, but I do think we had to grow up, that we had to figure things out on our own in order to find our way back to each other. I know that I will always love you, even if . . . even if you give me a taste of my own medicine by walking away right now.”

“Fuck.” He got to his feet. “No way I’m walking out. You did one hell of a job here.”

Now she smiled, and it was shining with relief and happiness. Her eyes were huge and glorious. She started toward him but he threw out a hand. “Don’t. Stay right there.”

He went to her, skirting around the desk to take in the whole sight of her, that gorgeous declaration written across her body just for him. Spoken just for him. He reached out and removed her glasses.

“Look at you,” he whispered, and he went to his knees.

Then he was touching those projected words, throwing them across his own fingers, mixing them together. He leaned forward to press a kiss to her skin and the words disappeared.

“I’m sorry you didn’t win today.” Her hands in his hair now. “Was it because of me?”

He laughed. “What? Didn’t you see that first hammer throw? That was a personal record. I kicked ass.” He rocked to his feet, and then walked her backward until she hit the wall, his hand behind her head. He settled into her body. “I was shit before you showed up.”

Maybe that was true in more ways than just today.

“But you won the weight for height and you didn’t know I was there watching.”

He thought about that. “Maybe some part of me knew.”

He kissed her smile, wrapping himself around her. The projector light fell across his back, and every now and then his eyelids would flicker open to see the tangle of shadows their bodies made. He was almost painfully hard and she was mostly naked, and he prayed she still had that stash of condoms in her giant purse.

Pulling her away from the wall, he spun her, turning, then pressed her onto the brand new table, shoving aside the laptop and projector. To her credit, she didn’t protest. He hoped this would be her desk someday. Every time she’d sit down at it to work, she’d remember exactly what he was about to do to her on it.

He kissed her for what seemed like forever, stopping only to whip off his shirt.

“So what exactly are we doing?” She was breathless, eyes wild, lips smudged.

He came down on top of her, skin on skin, folding her into an embrace. “We’re starting over,” he whispered into her ear. “Together.”

The New Hampshire Highland Games exist, but all other games and societies mentioned in Long Shot are fictional. Real Highland Games take place all over the world. There’s a very good chance there are games near you. If you’re interested in seeing what they’re all about, do an Internet search, pack a lawn chair, bring your family, and enjoy a bit of history.

Whiskey shouldn’t be untouchable, relegated only to a certain social level of drinker, but that’s exactly what Shea and her bottles were today, hidden away in a too-fancy tent on a small rise overlooking the heavy athletic field. An actual velvet rope kept most attendees away from the fine brown whiskey she served, and no one could enter who wasn’t wearing a one-hundred-dollar yellow wristband. Ridiculous for this kind of festival, but that’s what the organizers of this Highland Games wanted: a special place to send their VIPs, and any other attendee willing to pay for the “privilege.”