Some Like it Scot (Scandalous Highlanders Book 4) by Suzanne Enoch Page B

Bear.”
    â€œIt was a shovel; not a broadsword. And as I recall it worked out well—for Bear, anyway.”
    Ranulf lifted an eyebrow at her coy smile. “Ye, my dear, are wicked,” he drawled. “I recall when ye were a proper English lass.”
    Charlotte leaned across the corner of the table and kissed him soft and slow. “That was before I met a scandalous Highland laird,” she murmured, and nipped his bottom lip.
    Standing, Ranulf moved behind her, helped her to her feet, then swung her into his arms. “Hang breakfast. Ye and I are going back to bed.” And whoever had his newspaper, he hoped they were enjoying it.
    *   *   *
    â€œYe see?” Munro said, flipping the pages of the newspaper he’d set on the ratty table of the tumbledown kitchen at the center of Haldane Abbey. “There’s nae mention of any lass missing from London.”
    Cat slammed her hand down on an article about the overspending of Prince George, preventing him from turning the last few pages. “I’ll look for myself, if ye dunnae mind, giant. And even if they dunnae have a wee story about Elizabeth, that doesnae mean anyone’s stopped looking. It only means they arenae talking aboot it.”
    The woman refused to give even an inch. And while it did leave him frustrated and annoyed, her stubbornness also aroused him. Why, he had no idea, because she was a damned spitfire and the top of her head barely reached his shoulders, but there it was. “Mayhap ye could give me a bit more information aboot ye, then, and I could be of more help.”
    Dark brown eyes lifted to meet his. “I won yer silly shooting contest, and I asked ye for a newspaper. Here’s a newspaper. And ye moved the boards out of the hallway so I dunnae have to climb over them any longer. That’s as much help as I need from ye today. Ye may go.”
    Munro straightened, beginning to wish he’d taken the outcome of that contest a bit more seriously. Aye, he’d arranged it so he would be at Haldane, one way or the other, but Cat enjoyed ordering him about just a little too much. “As I recall, ye also wished for a door ye could bolt against me. I happen to have just such a door outside. Are ye still done with me, woman?”
    Those brown eyes blinked, and for a brief moment genuine surprise touched her expression. Then she visibly squared her shoulders, and he girded his loins for further combat. The lass likely ate any bouquet of flowers a poor, unfortunate beau might give her.
    â€œYe cannae put a new door on the front of this wreck without any passersby knowing someone’s in residence.” She didn’t say anything else aloud, but her tone implied a “ye fool” at the end of the sentence.
    â€œIt’s nae a front door; it’s a door fer the kitchen. And I didnae say it was new.”
    Silence. “Oh. All right, then. I suppose that’ll do.”
    â€œThank ye, ye stubborn lass.” With that he marched back down the hallway and outside to where Peter Gilling sat eating an apple on the seat of a well-laden wagon. “Let’s get to it, shall we?” Munro said crisply, and with a grunt heaved the heavy door onto his shoulder.
    â€œAm I still yer uncle, m’l—”
    â€œAye,” Munro interrupted, before the footman could finish speaking. The lass had made her first concession, and he wasn’t about to set her back up again by letting her overhear that not only was he not a gamekeeper, but he was the MacLawry’s own brother.
    â€œThen, nephew, have ye lost yer damned mind? Dunnae ye think someone at Glengask’ll miss a door?”
    â€œNae,” he decided, stepping up into the house again. Glengask Castle had more than fifty rooms and probably better than a hundred doors. The unused linen closet at the back of an unused room in the corner of the east wing hadn’t been opened for at least five years.