Page 71 of A Scot on the Rocks

Jamie handed Olivia the flask, watching as she uncorked it, lifted it beneath her nose, and smelled before taking a sip.

She then poured a small amount of whisky into a wooden cup and handed it to him.

“If you’re going to watch me, you might as well learn something.”

“I already ken how to drink whisky.”

“I’m going to show you how I taste it.”

Jamie accepted the cup, then caught the little crease between her brows that appeared whenever she was thinking.

“Before ye begin ordering me about, tell me something.”

She paused, a look on her face that again made him wonder what she was hiding. Then she tucked her shawl tighter and said, “What do you want to know?”

“What smell makes ye think of home first?”

Her answer took longer than he expected as he watched her face, seeing sadness and happiness mixed together.

“Lemon soap,” she said at last. “Grandma uses it on the bar every morning. Then coffee. Bread from the bakery down the street. Beer that got into the floorboards decades before I was born and will probably still be there when the building falls down.”

He nodded once, committing the odd collection to memory. “Lemon soap, coffee, old beer, and bread.”

Olivia looked at him strangely. “You don’t have to memorize it.”

“I ken.”

She took the cup from his hand, perhaps because whisky was easier than whatever had just passed between them. “Smell this.”

He lifted the cup beneath his nose.

She had him name what he noticed first, then what lay beneath it, how the sweetness changed on his tongue, where he found the smoke, and what remained after he swallowed.

Jamie tolerated most of her instructions until she said, mouthfeel.

He lowered the cup. “No.”

“You laugh when I say bloody hell, but you don’t like the word mouthfeel?”

“It isna a good word.”

“It describes the texture and weight of the whisky in your mouth.”

“Then say texture and weight.”

“Mouthfeel is more specific.”

“It’s specifically terrible.”

Olivia laughed and took the cup from him. “You’re impossible.”

Naming the apple and honey made the other scents easier to separate, and the smoke remained at the edge of the fruit, just where Olivia had said it would.

“Along the edge,” he said after another taste.

Her expression brightened. “Exactly.”

Jamie looked at her over the rim. “Ye sound surprised.”