Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Akiva came over for a few pets before she returned to her dad’s feet. I tried to avoid Ramsay’s gaze, focusing in on Cammie’s friend. I’d seen Forde out and about because he was hard not to notice, but we’d yet to be formally introduced. Forde Dallas owned the only mechanic’s garage on Glenvulin, and he volunteered with the Leth Sholas Lifeboat Service. He not only volunteered to help maintain the lifeboats, but he went out on rescue operations too. Cammie had told me all of this with real fondness in her voice because she’d grown up with him. He was Quinn’s best friend.
Forde, like Quinn, was thirty-six years old and seemed more suited to a stadium concert stage than the Lantern. He looked like a tattooed rock star turned cologne model.
What the ever-loving fuck was in the water here?
I clamped my lips shut so I didn’t gape at the man. It wasn’t that I wasn’t used to attractive people. Growing up in the life I did, I’d met celebrities and some of the most attractive men in the world. However, finding a pipe band of them on a tiny Scottish island seemed farcical in a way. If more people knew about these men, a flood of people would move to Leth Sholas.
“Forde, this is Tierney Silver, our newest resident. Tierney, this is Forde Dallas, our resident Lothario.” She shot him a mocking smirk.
He grimaced but his dark eyes glittered warmly. “You have the references of a ninety-year-old.”
I chuckled as Cammie shoved him playfully and he laughed. Muscles, boyishly hot smile, dark hair. Perhaps an inch taller than Cammie, a bunch of tattoos that looked sort of Celtic all over his arms and even his fingers. Forde had a rough bad-boy thing going on that wasn’t really my type, even if I could admit he had a sexy-ass smile.
Speaking of sexy-ass smiles … feeling the heat of his stare, I finally looked up at Ramsay. Now here was a man I never would’ve guessed was my type.
But my body definitely thought he was my type.
Ramsay had a pint in his hand and he gestured with it. “Want anything?”
Guessing that was his charming offer to buy me a drink, I shook my head. I needed to stay sharp around him.
“Juice instead?” Cammie asked. “Diet Coke?”
It was weird to me that they called fizzy drinks juice in this part of the world, but I’d caught on a few weeks ago when Cammie first said it. “Yeah. I’ll buy, though. What are you having?”
“No, it’s fine, I’ll—”
“What are you drinking?” Ramsay interrupted her.
“Diet Coke too.”
“I’ll get it.” Forde stepped toward the bar but Ramsay cut him off with a wave of his free hand and leaned over to get the bartender’s attention.
A few minutes later, I was situated at the counter with Ramsay while Cammie and Forde stood beside us talking about people and events I didn’t know and wasn’t there for. I knew Cammie didn’t intend to leave me with Ramsay McRae. She seemed to forget everything else in Forde’s presence, lighting up around him in a way that was hard to explain but that I knew I hadn’t seen from her before. They laughed together like two kids on the playground.
Ramsay stared around the room as he sipped his pint. Akiva lay at his feet now, an actual physical barrier between us and Cammie and Forde.
Irritated that Ramsay was trying to avoid me while I stood right next to him, I asked with the deliberate intention to needle, “So, are you over your snit yet?”
His eyes connected with mine and I ignored the way my heart accelerated. Seriously, I really wanted to know how the hell he did that to me.
“Snit?” He emphasized the t.
“Yeah. I mean, I apologized, and you still grunted at me like a caveman.” I was only half teasing.
Ramsay raised an eyebrow. “Silver, you almost brought a seven-thousand-square-foot house down on yourself.”
“I apologized.” I shrugged. “And promised to never do anything so reckless again.”
“Are you in the right state of mind to be making those promises?”
“Yes. Trust me to know that.” I sipped the soda and wrenched my gaze from his since looking at him made me feel like I’d injected espresso into my veins.
“You ever planning to tell me what sent you to drive a sledgehammer through the wall?”
“Are you ever planning to tell me why you live on an island by yourself?”
He gestured to his beautiful dog. “Not by myself.”
“Mature response.”
“You know all about those.”
“It’s not my fault you’re very annoying.”
Ramsay’s eyes searched my face, glittering with … intensity that felt sexual. “Is that what I am?”
“Yes.” The word wheezed out, and I cleared my throat, my cheeks hot. “Somewhat.”
His lips twitched. “You’re somewhat annoying too.”
Even though I knew he was joking, part of me still wondered if he wasn’t. I didn’t want to think about that too much or why it bothered me. “I’m a goddamn treat,” I replied instead, shrugging off hurt feelings.