Page 23 of My Highland Fling
“Oh, can I try that instead?”Gabrielle asked.
“I’ll bring over the drinks,” Ramsay said.
“Come on,” Suzie said to Gabrielle.“I’m starving.Let’s check out the snack menu.We could get potato wedges.”
Ramsay watched Gabrielle acquiesce, but it was easy to see she wasn’t confident and was out of her element.He wondered if her parents kept her confined all the time.
Ramsay ordered three pints of lager and two bottles of ginger beer.Scott stayed to help him carry the drinks while Liam wandered off with the girls.
“What are you going to do?”Scott murmured in a low voice for Ramsay’s ears only.
“She’s my mate,” Ramsay said.
Scott stared at him, his green gaze full of sympathy.“This is a cluster.”
“Yeah.So the answer is, I have no fuckin’ clue.”His life had never gone smoothly—at least not until he’d arrived in Middlemarch and met the Mitchell family.Why should finding his mate be any different?
Chapter 12
Truth and Privacy
“Whereareyoustaying?”Suzie asked Gabrielle.
Ramsay set down the pints while Scott toted the ginger beer and glasses.He listened for Gabrielle’s answer, hoping like hell she’d decided to stay in Glenkirk.He didn’t know what came next, but having Gabrielle here was a start.
“Tilly—she’s a distant relative and my chaperone—she suggested I hire a cottage, so that’s what I did.It’s within walking distance of the town and backs onto a forest.I didn’t stay long, but I left the rental car there and my luggage.It’s private, and the owner didn’t recognize me.”
“Problem solved,” Scott said, his voice low enough for Ramsay to hear but not Gabrielle.“Spend time with her, learn more, but don’t do anything crazy like binding yourself to her.Saber told me that once you find your mate, it’s difficult not to claim her.A human brings obstacles.A royal princess is a quandary magnified.”
“Tell me about it,” Ramsay muttered.
“What do you do when you’re not doing princess stuff?”Suzie asked.“Do you get time for yourself, or is your life one of uninterrupted service?”
Gabrielle pulled a face and picked up her ginger beer bottle.She poured half a glass.“My parents regulate my free time, and I spend hours with Tilly at the palace.”
It was easy for Ramsay and his friends to infer what she wasn’t saying.Excitement wasn’t big in her life, which was a worry.Even though she was his mate, she mightn’t reciprocate his feelings.Her reaction to him, her willingness to spend the night with him, might be more about her gaining freedom and enjoying the hell out of this hard-earned liberty.As if he didn’t have enough to stress over with Gabrielle.
“How long are you staying?”Liam asked.
Ramsay held his breath.Before flying back to New Zealand via Dubai, he and the others were traveling to Edinburgh.A few days wasn’t enough to arrange a future with Gabrielle.
“I booked the cottage for a week,” Gabrielle said.
“What will your parents do when they discover you’ve vanished?”
“Nothing—if they’ve even missed me,” Gabrielle said.“They’ll punish me on my return should they learn of my unscheduled absence.”
“You’re not close to your parents?”Suzie asked, after a moment’s silence where they digested Gabrielle’s casual recitation of what might happen.
“No.”Gabrielle didn’t elaborate.
Even though he was no relation to the Mitchell family, they treated him as one of their own.They worried about him.Encouraged him.But he understood Gabrielle’s careful words since his true parents should never have borne children and his heart ached with this truth.Money and position didn’t bring happiness.This sounded like a vacation break more than a permanent absence, given her words.
“What would you do with freedom?”he asked.
“Live,” she said simply.“I want a normal life where I’d shop for groceries.Find a home and a job.I work for three different charities, but it’s volunteer work.None of the charities could afford to employ me.It’s not as if I have job experience.”
“I don’t know,” Suzie said.“To work with charities, you need excellent people skills.You’re used to public speaking, and I’m certain you’ve acquired skills without realizing it.How are you at party prep?”
