Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
If they got to that place, he’d hoped she’d move to Scotland.
He was wondering about that now.
A long-distance relationship was far from the best-case scenario, but it could work, if you both had a firm sense of where you’d land when that time came.
It’d never work if both parties lived full lives where they were and neither wanted to leave it.
That wasn’t a worry for now.
They’d had two dates, multiple phone calls, a myriad of texts, and each had an understanding this was something deep, something special, something they wanted to explore, and that was all Dair needed for the now.
He knew her flight had landed. He’d timed in his head how long it would take to get through Customs and Immigration. And he knew she should be through those doors any minute now.
Five minutes later, she was.
And the instant he saw her, his chest warmed, at the same time he roared with laughter.
She gave him a dour look.
He strode forward, still laughing, and when they met, he swept her in his arms, the massive bouquet of deep red roses he held slammed against their hips, and he heard a variety of things tumble to the ground as he took her mouth.
She tasted of bubblegum and Blake, and it was the sweetest thing ever to touch his tongue.
When he lifted his head, he teased, “Did ye leave any duty-free shopping in the shops, lassie?”
“Shut up, Dair.”
He grinned at her, it getting wider as he saw her hair down, the front sweeping back to fall into big fat curls on her shoulders. She was wearing a black cardie over a black turtleneck and a pair of gray trousers with pleats and very wide legs. A thick statement belt was around her waist. And of course she was wearing high-heeled boots.
“Trust ye to look like you’re walking off a runway when ye walk off a plane after a seven-hour flight,” he remarked.
“I’m famished and I hate airports, so stop being wonderful and get me out of here,” she demanded.
Dair continued to smile as he let her go but gave her the flowers, and they were worth every bit of the exorbitant cost of buying them with the way her eyes lit but her expression gentled when she took them.
He then gathered up all her shopping bags and took the handle of her large suitcase.
He rolled it with his arm around her shoulders. She carried her tote, rolled her carry-on and juggled the flowers so she could wrap her arm around his waist.
“Flight go all right?” he asked on the way to the car park.
“It was a flight. It’s over,” she replied.
“Not a fan of flying?”
“I consider flying downtime. Time I can do things I would think it was a waste to do on a normal day. Like reading fashion magazines or playing games on my iPad. I look at it like a mini-vacation on the way to a vacation.”
That was an interesting way to consider it, and smart too.
She carried on, “But people turn into monsters at airports. Their behavior is appalling.”
He could not disagree.
“I don’t know what it is,” she went on. “It’s like something is in the air.”
“Well, you’re here now, hen, safe and sound. I’ve got plenty of food in. I’ll take care of ye.”
When he said that, he wasn’t imagining that she adjusted so she was closer to him. Now, not only were their hips touching, their outer thighs were brushing too.
He paid for parking and got her and her tote in the front seat of his Range Rover. He tossed the rest in the back, got in and set them on their way.
“A red Range Rover, Dair?” she asked when they he was maneuvering the car park.
“Aye. What of it?”
“It’s just so…you.”
“As it would be, since I picked it.”
She laughed softly.
He listened and enjoyed.
“Heard from Alex?” he asked.
“She’s texted some pictures. It looks beautiful there. Seems like they’re having a great time. But they don’t get back until tomorrow.”
It was Saturday.
Blake was leaving the next Sunday.
And he had to figure out how to fit a trip into New York between matches soon after.
Again, that was for later.
She was at his side now.
“Have you been to the Caribbean?” she asked.
“Aye. Turks and Caicos and Bermuda.”
“It’s beautiful down there.”
“It is.”
“These roses are beautiful too, Dair. Extraordinary.”
He knew she was looking at him when she said that, so he turned to her.
Christ.
Her face was filled with wonder and gratitude.
Fuck, he was glad she was here.
“Glad ye like ’em, love,” he murmured, turning back at the road.
Another sideways glance showed him she’d gathered them to her face and was smelling them.
They cost a bundle, but they were just roses.
However, she was acting like they were her sister’s bouquet, something he saw she’d painstakingly disassembled and put the flowers in water, and the plants in pots by the time they’d come over for prime rib that first night.