Page 16 of Katie's Highlander (Highland Protector 3)
“Lass?”
She blinked away all the damning accusations bouncing around in her head and looked up. Ramsay was leaning toward her over the small café table with an expectant look. Waiting. Apparently, he’d just asked her a question after she’d apologized to him for the third time for losing her temper and acting like an ungrateful bitch.
“I’m sorry, Ramsay. What?”
“Earlier, ye said ye’d no’ eaten yet. ’Tis late in the day now. Would ye care for some food with yer coffee? Might make ye feel better.” He kind of grinned at her—a sympathetic lift to one corner of his mouth that bordered on acome, let me hold yousmile that only made her feel worse for snapping at him earlier.
Ramsay had been nothing but nice. Too damn nice. He deserved better. He leaned closer and winked, lowering his soothing deep voice to a conspiratorial tone. “And ’tis a well-known truth that whisky is best handled on a full stomach. Ye found that out well enough last night.”
He would bring up last night. She pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed the inner corners of her eyes, the beginnings of a belated headache already starting to pound. Usually, she’d always been miraculously free of hangovers whenever she drank. Apparently, she’d earned this alcohol-induced migraine by acting like such a shit.
Karma.
She could hear her father say the word as clearly as if he was standing beside her.
She looked across the table at Ramsay. She did remember mentioning the need for another night of copious amounts of alcohol at some point in her rant about her car but at this moment in time, she wasn’t too keen on any additional opportunities to make a fool of herself.
“A bit a food might help the ache hammerin’ inside yer head as well.”
So, he’d noticed.Damn, he’s such a freaking nice guy.
“Valid argument,” she said as she blew out a heavy sigh and picked up the laminated menu divided into four easy sections: breakfast, lunch, supper, and beverages. The reverse of the page was nothing but desserts. Apparently, the folks of Brady loved their sweets.
She wasn’t hungry, but Ramsay was right; she needed to eat. She finally plopped the menu back to its position between the metal napkin box and the wire basket holding squirt bottles of ketchup and mustard along with a pair of dented salt and pepper shakers that looked like they’d been there since the fifties. “You order for me. I’m sure you know what’s good here. Everyone greeted you by name when we walked in, so I have to assume you come here a lot.”
“They all know me because I’m a MacDara.” Ramsay held up a finger and the young waitress in the pink-and-white polyester uniform hurried over, coffeepot in one hand and water pitcher in the other.
“Y’all ready to order now?”
“Aye, Mary, we’ll both have the special but tell Mistress Meg if she puts brussels sprouts on m’plate again she’ll find them freshenin’ up the inside of her car on this lovely warm August day.”
Mary giggled and winked at Katie. “It’s an ongoing war between those two. Meg found out that he detests brussels sprouts so she pesters him by sneaking them in everything he orders. Old Meg pesters everybody she likes—and she likes Ramsay a lot—judging by the number of brussels sprouts I’ve served him.”
Katie involuntarily shuddered and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t blame him. I can’t stand those nasty things either.”Baby cabbages. Yuck.Her empty stomach gurgled in agreement.
Ramsay sat back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and gave Mary a smug look. “Ye see there? Ken my meanin’ now, do ye?”
Mary rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Don’t suck me into this. I have to work here.” Then she hurried off toward the kitchen.
Ramsay lifted his glass of ice water in a toast. “Here’s to the death of all brussels sprouts. May the goddesses wipe them from all creation.”
“To the death of brussels sprouts,” Katie said as she clinked her coffee cup against his glass.Goddesses instead of God and all those Celtic symbols on his spear. His father talked a lot about goddesses too. Interesting.“So…your family—all pagans?”
All amusement left Ramsay. He shifted in his seat as though it were two sizes too small, then scowled down at the butter knife that he became very intent on spinning on the table in front of him. “What would cause ye to ask such a thing?” He didn’t look up, just remained totally engrossed in the art of knife-spinning.
Katie studied him.Interesting again.Gone was the self-assured,I can save you from anythingRamsay, replaced by defensiveMr. I don’t trust anybody. Blinking away thoughts of strange cults tucked away in less populated parts of the country, Katie took another sip of coffee before answering. “You referred to goddesses in your toast and your father talked quite a lot about them and all kinds of rites and rituals this morning. Which goddesses? The ones on your spear? I think they’re fascinating, but if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. Religious preferences are totally private—unless you sacrifice animals or do satanic crap. If you’re that kind of guy…” Katie paused, then came to a firm conclusion on gut feeling alone. “Nah…you’re not that kind of guy.” She waved away her words then took another deep sip of the strong black coffee. Ramsay was a good guy. Her knight in a kilt—which she just realized he wasn’t wearing today. A sense of disappointment nudged her. She placed her cup back on the table then reached over and set her hand down on top of the spinning knife. “Never mind. Sorry I brought it up. Really.”
She sat straighter in her chair, folded her hands on the table, and searched for something to say that would make up for how badly the day had gone so far. A safe topic. “So…what do you do here in Brady? You know. For a living?” Time to learn more about Ramsay. Of course, if she learned more about this sweet guy sitting across the table, her departure from Brady might not be so easy. Already, the thought of leaving this place and all the interesting eccentricities it held, the thought of never seeing Ramsay again, all that made her feel strangely twitchy and kind of sad.
“I’m a MacDara.” Ramsay’s smile returned, and his earlier wariness melted away. He pushed back from the table and made way for Mary as she placed two overloaded plates of meatloaf, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, and bacon-wrapped green bean bundles in front of them.
“Meg must be off her feed today. No brussels sprouts. But I’d watch out. She never gives up that easy. She’ll probably send out a brussels sprouts pie or something.” Mary smiled and nodded at them both. “I’ll be right back with a basket of hot rolls. She was just taking them out of the oven.”
“Thank ye, Mary.” Ramsay picked up his fork and turned his attention back to Katie. “Tell me more about yerself. Archeologist, ye’d mentioned earlier? Ye said ye had to return to Princeton after yer visit with yer friends. Is that where ye do yer history work?” Brow furrowed, his gaze dropped to his plate and he suddenly became extremely intent on cutting off the perfect chunk of meatloaf. He shrugged a shoulder and didn’t look up as he continued, “Or be that where yer husband works—and ye just live there? With him?”
Ramsay struggling to find out if she was single did wonders for lifting her mood. No guy had ever worked so hard at finding out if she was available. Katie managed to hide her smile behind a quick sip of coffee and a bite of green beans. Apparently, he’d forgotten that she’d told him that she had no one to call on their ride to the keep last night. She clearly remembered telling him she was all on her own.
“I’m not married,” she replied as soon as she could trust herself to speak without giving away her pleasure at Ramsay’s clumsy detective work. “Not even seeing anybody. With my research and Papa’s recent passing, dating hasn’t ranked too high on my priority list.” She shrugged. “I’ve always been pretty much married to my job.”
