Joanna's Highlander (Highland Protector #2)(8)
“Dinna fash yerself, lass. I’m sure ye didna—” Grant shifted a step forward as he spoke, effectively snagging her and setting the hook with those damn blue eyes of his.
“Ye didna ruin his evenin’,” interrupted Ramsay with a sly wink and a raised glass.
“Aye,” Ross chimed in, raising his half-full mug too and clinking it to his brother’s. “We all ken how the two a ye have been a-sparkin’ after one another for o’er a year now. ’Tis about time ye both quit fannin’ such wee troublesome flames and set to tendin’ a full-blown fire.”
Ramsay cleared his throat and lifted his glass higher. “Here’s to the sly battle-plannin’ of old hens! May our brother be thankful for the flock of cailleachs helpin’ him secure his match and settin’ him on the path to a proper wooin’.”
I’ve gotta get out of here. With her pride and her ass still stinging, Joanna ignored Ramsay and Ross’s toast and started backing toward the door. “Well…again…I’m sorry we disrupted your evening. I’ll be off now to get those hens tucked into the coop. Have a good night.”
Then she turned and ran.
Chapter 2
Grant stood there, clenching his fists so tightly his knuckles popped one by one. What the hell should I ha’ said t’put the lass at ease? The café door banged shut, the jingling wad of tiny bells wired to the top of the door announcing Joanna’s departure as if he couldna see it with his own eyes. Hell’s hounds and damnation! The woman had nearly leaped over the tables to get away from him.
“Are ye no’ goin’ after her, then, brother?”
Grant slowly turned, his frustration ratcheting up another notch closer to full-blown rage. He glared at Ramsay. “Are ye completely daft?” He jabbed a finger toward the wide picture window facing the parking lot. The tour bus roared past, leaving a cloud of dust and slinging gravel in its wake. “Did ye no’ just see the woman run scairt as though we were about to attack her?”
“I’ve heard tell that some women like t’be chased,” Ross observed in a smug tone, then finished off the last of the beer pooled in his mug.
“I’ve a good mind t’kill ye both, ye little bastards.” Why the hell had he been fool enough to bring along Ramsay and Ross? Those two bampots couldna understand why—why after a feckin’ year and a half—he’d no’ taken the proper action to make Joanna Martin his own. The wee fools had obviously forgotten all that had happened so long ago. But Grant hadna forgotten. His painful memories were fresh as yesterday.
He shook away the urge to grab his brothers up by the scruffs of their necks and thunk their heads together. He shouldha kent they’d be nothin’ but trouble tonight. That’s all this century was good for, the one certainty of this time: trouble. Complicated ways that did nothin’ but confuse the hell out of a man. Damn them both. His two brothers would ne’er understand and Grant knew why. The young ones had adapted to this goddess-forsaken time a far sight better than he or Alec had because they didna have as much of their manhood invested in the past.
Grant blew out a groaning huff as he watched the bus careen down to the town’s only stoplight and come to a screeching halt as the light turned red. His time of stolen peace was over, the bit of peace he’d managed to find by spending as much time as he could with Joanna as she worked with the herds of annoying tourists she brought to the park each week. The woman’s patience amazed him. Would that he possessed such. If he had a bit more patience, Máthair wouldna constantly be chanting at him, “Use yer words, son. Dinna greet and growl like a wounded bear.”
Just thinking about Joanna soothed him. Even now, when all seemed doomed t’go straight t’hell in a handbasket, the thought of her made the tightness in his chest seem…less. The lovely scarlet-haired lass eased the ache from the raw, gaping hole where his heart had been afore the cruel goddesses had ripped it from him. None of the lasses he’d met in this time had come close to making him feel whole again or as though he remotely belonged in this century. But Joanna Martin…aye, now that lass was different indeed.
In his defense, he had planned on fully wooing her at some point—but when he was ready, not when a gaggle of old women decided to toss her in his lap. He rubbed his cheek. The lass’s fine bosoms felt even better than I ever imagined, that’s for certain. When she’d buried his face betwixt her breasts, he’d hardened to an alarming level. Then she’d nearly snapped his cock off at the root in her struggle to stand. Grant rubbed his crotch at the painful memory.
“Instead of yammerin’ at us with empty threats, ye should be haulin’ yer arse over to Mistress Martha’s B&B. Ye ken that’s where she’s takin’ them. Ye must strike whilst the iron is hot, man.” Ramsay leaned sideways, shoved a hand deep in the pocket of his jeans, then pulled out a set of keys. He tossed them to Grant. “Here. Take the Jeep. Ross and I’ll take the truck back to the keep. ’Tis high time ye did something about this woman, brother. High time, indeed.”
“Go after them?” Grant closed his hand around the keys and squeezed hard. He wished it were Ramsay’s neck crackling in his grasp instead of the bits of metal. “And pray tell, what do ye advise I do once I meet them at Mistress Martha’s? The woman’s had her fill of me this evenin’, or have ye gone blind?”