A couple of second-hand shops ate up an hour of the afternoon for Jordan before she headed back to her rental. She didn’t know how she felt about running into Kerry, so she kept her head down and tried not to search for him along the way. He’d been seeing to business that was obviously none of her business.

If he’d wanted to tell her about it, he would have. He could have even invited her along. But since he hadn’t, she was going to keep her curiosity in check and let him have his privacy.

It isn’t like we’re real friends.

The thought made her chest kind of hurt, like she’d been surprised by a nice hard basketball to the sternum, thrown by a gym bully. It stung. It throbbed. It felt damned familiar.

She’d been so sure she could keep a professional distance, but she knew now where she made her mistake. She should have been grateful for those shots by the tunnel, asked him to sign the waver, then paid him instead of taking him to dinner.

Nearing that same tunnel, she tried to imagine the encounter playing out the way it should have, watching herself turn away from him, marching back to the town square…alone.

“Yeah?” She hissed at herself. “I’d like to see any other red-blooded female keep her distance from a man like him, when that man didn’t want to keep his distance from her. And my hormones are the same as anyone else’s. I can only resist so much.”

Torn between forgiveness and disgust with herself, she marched the rest of the way to the center of town. The hasty arrival of a rainstorm sent her running the last hundred yards to her door, but she still got soaked. Her camera bag kept her equipment safe. She pulled out her batteries and plugged them in before she worried about taking her coat off. The place was warm but empty. Kerry had left the fireplace going for her, but he was gone.

It had been a long time since she’d had a roommate of any kind, so it was kind of odd that she’d feel alone. But she did. An extra-tall Highlander took up a lot of space, and now, without him, the apartment seemed too big for one person.

The storm showed no signs of letting up, so Jordan decided to wear her hair down for their dinner appointment. She took a quick shower and pulled on her jeans, a crisply ironed shirt, and a thick wool cardigan. Beneath her coat, it all made her feel like the Michelin Tire Guy, but it looked great.

Her comfy leather boots wouldn’t be ruined by puddles, so she pulled them on, sat at the kitchen table, and stared at the clock until six thirty. The restaurant was nearly as far away as the bridge, so she wanted to give herself plenty of time.

On the stoop, she expanded her “brolly.” The walk would be long, but at least it would be dry. And a little lonely, just like the afternoon.

She gasped. Since when did being alone mean I’m lonely?

She felt the answer coming and pretended to ignore it. Since Kerry Moffat Mather walked in front of her lens, that’s when.

~ ~ ~

Maybe it was the fact that Jordan had just passed the Blacksmith statue, but as soon as she started up the far side of the park, toward River Road, she had the unmistakable feeling she was being followed. Because of the incline, she concentrated on climbing the rise, and only when she was on level ground again did she stop and look behind her.

The tree trunks of the town square looked like a small army standing in the downpour, but nothing moved except a few clusters of people on the sidewalks. No one headed her direction. No one stood and stared.

She turned and walked on.

A van came along the road beside her. It was filled with laughing men who called to her through cracked-open windows, but she couldn’t understand a word. They honked at someone further down the sidewalk and the red lights disappeared into the tunnel.

When the feeling of being followed returned, she held her umbrella handle between her chin and shoulder while she pulled out her pocket knife and opened it. Then stopped and turned around.

Her heart lurched at the sight of a hooded figure, thirty feet away, staring at her.

It started moving. She jumped back and was just getting ready to run when she realized his movements were familiar. He wasn’t wearing a black cloak—just an old-fashioned kilt, one end of which was draped over his head like a cloak.

“Jordan, ‘tis I!” Kerry hurried to catch up.

“Now you tell me,” she grumbled. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“Forgive me. I didnae wish to intrude.”

“Intrude on what? You were stalking me.”

He shook his head and the rainwater splashed off the fabric. “I only intended to protect ye, should the need arise.”

She lifted the knife and waved it at him. “You’re lucky I didn’t freak out.”

He pushed her hand away. “I see that now. I shan’t be so quiet about it next time, aye?”

She folded the blade and dropped it back into her pocket. With one hand free again, she almost expected him to grab it, but he kept his own hands inside his jury-rigged cloak, and together they started down the sidewalk again.

The rain made the evening so much darker than the night before, but she could tell he had nothing else on his head.

“Did you lose your hat?”

“My tam? Nay.” He patted his sporran. “Too much rain for that.”

This time, two lightbulbs were lit inside the pedestrian tunnel. She assumed they were the reason Kerry didn’t hold onto her like he had before. But just having him near made her feel a lot safer than she would have otherwise.

When they came out the other end, he took a definite step to the side, and she suspected the light in the tunnel had nothing to do with him keeping his distance after all. It wasn’t her imagination that a second Highlander could have walked down the sidewalk between them.

She tried to see his face, but his plaid was in the way. “Is something wrong?”

He barely glanced at her. “Nay. And how are ye this evening?”

She ignored the obvious small talk and lifted her umbrella high. “We can both fit under here.”

He turned and looked at the umbrella, then back at the path. “I’m well set, thank ye. Wool keeps out the rain just as well as yer brolly, aye?”

She lowered the thing again and felt herself slipping into a sour mood, but a hundred yards closer to the river, she had an epiphany—she’d promised Kerry, if he didn’t have a good time at dinner, she would grant him a boon! He was just trying to collect on it!

Jordan bit her lips together so he wouldn’t catch her smiling. She would let him figure it out for himself, that his sober act wouldn’t do him any good.