“As ye like, Auntie.”
My eyes widened. Auntie. So they were related. I guess that demoted Agnes from self-proclaimed-fey-talking-matchmaker to simply meddlesome-fey-talking-auntie, which seemed somehow I found more palatable.
“I can see myself there if you tell me the way,” I tried, but Callum only gave me a quick shake of his head as the bakeshop’s door shut behind us.
“I’ll take ye,” he said, hands going to his pockets as we walked.
“I can see myself there really.”
“It’s no trouble.”
“But—“
“Yer staying over the way with me, Delilah.”
“What?” I nearly tripped over an uneven piece of pavement. Callum’s hand came out to steady me, and I sucked in a deep breath at the warm sensation of his hand through the fabric of my coat. Apparently I hadn’t worn enough layers, considering I was buzzing like a live wire under the Scotsman’s touch.
“What do you mean I’m staying withyou?”
Callum sighed and withdrew his hand from my elbow. “The flat is above my print shop.”
“Oh, okay, so notwith youwith you?” I asked, making him squint at me like he was trying to understand what planet I had come from. After a beat, he gave a short nod.
“Notwith mewith me,” he said, and then he was off and walking again, making me roll my eyes and charge after him. It was hard to match his long stride, and by the time I caught him at the end of the street I was out of breath. This wasn’t simply the walk of a tall man; this was the walk of a man who didn’t want me following him. I narrowed my eyes and stepped in front of him before he could cross the street at a speed only professional power walkers were capable of.
“You don’t want me here, do you?” I asked.
“I dinna ken what you mean,” he replied with feigned innocence, but I saw right through it.
“Don’t you dinna me, buster.” I jabbed a finger at him. I had deduced dinna was the same ballpark as didn’t or don’t, so I countered and kept moving forward. “Youdinnawant me here. Admit it.”
The corner of Callum’s mouth turned up in a smile that warmed me through for the split second it graced his handsome face, but it vanished so quickly I almost thought I imagined it. And I might have done so if it hadn’t been for the look in his eyes—one of interest. The look of a man who wasn’t put out but intrigued by what he saw.
“Auntie Agnes can be enthusiastic. She wanted shop help for the holidays,” Callum finally said.
I nodded, building a timeline to the events that had brought me here. “And that’s when you put up the ad?”
Callum shifted and looked away. “Aye.”
That one-word answer shot straight through me and to my toes in a way I hadn't anticipated. I liked an accent as much as the next woman, but living where I did and living my life didn’t allow for many opportunities to hear a Scottish brogue, and the effect was heady. I swallowed and wrapped my arms around myself in a bid to get some distance from the caress of Callum’s voice. It was rough, rich, and smoky, like the whiskey I enjoyed with my father.
Would Callum taste as smooth? Make me forget myself like the time I had finished the majority of a bottle on my own after a particularly awful day? I’d paid for it the next morning but that night was still marked in my memory as one of my favorites. Something told me Callum MacDougall was capable of the same dizzying effects, replete with inducing god awful hangover symptoms. I took a shuffling step away from the big man in front of me.
“You put the ad somewhere obscure and you didn’t think she’d ever get an answer, didn’t you?”
He chuckled and then stepped forward, closing the gap between us. “You’re clever. Agnes didn’t mention that.”
“She was a little side-tracked,” I told him with shrug, opting to not mention her fey talk.
Callum hummed and gave me a knowing look. “Talking about the fey folk again, is she?”
So it seemed everyone knew of Auntie Agnes’s ties to the fey. I prayed Callum’s knowledge of what might sidetrack his aunt stopped there, and that he didn’t know about her intent to matchmake us.
“She’s...excitable,” he said, touching my elbow, signaling for us to start walking again. This time Callum stayed within my stride.
“You don’t say,” I drawled with a laugh. Callum chuckled along with me and I felt that same warm feeling bloom in my chest. The man looked good when he smiled. Real good. Delicious, even.
The thought made me want to bang my head against the nearest hard surface.
