Читать книгу Real Men Wear Plaid! - Rhonda Nelson - Страница 15

“I know you’re going to want to kill me, Gemma, but you’ll thank me for leaving later. I’m going to find my Scottish hottie and am confident that yours will make his move when I leave. Do everything I would do and more if you have the opportunity. See you at the airport. Always yours, Jeffrey.”

SHE WAS SO ETERNALLY thankful that Ewan hadn’t insisted on reading the letter, Gemma thought. Though Jeffrey had been right, it still would have been a bit embarrassing. And considering that she was going to do just what her friend had urged, she hoped he was equally successful as well.

“I don’t know why you think it’s weird that I’m taking these strange chips home,” she said, unzipping his backpack now that it was her turn. “I guarantee that if you ever came to the South and had the opportunity to buy a package of white dirt, you’d do it.”

Looking strangely distracted, Ewan blinked. “White dirt?”

“It’s clay,” she clarified, feeling around, trying to decide what to take out first. “People eat it. You can buy it in convenience stores next to the candy bars, chocolate roses and cigarette lighters.”

His handsome face went comically blank. “You’re putting me on.”

She chuckled grimly. “I wish I was.”

His brows winged up his forehead. “People actually purchase it? And eat it? Dirt?”

“It’s because of some sort of vitamin deficiency.” She settled on his MP3 player, curious about what sort of music he liked to listen to.

Ewan looked at her askance. “Do you eat dirt?”

She tried to power the device on, but the battery was dead. “Only on special occasions,” she muttered, thwarted. She looked up at him. “What’s the first song on here?”

“Otis Redding’s ‘Sitting On the Dock of the Bay.’ You’re joking right? About the dirt thing?”

“Otis, huh?” Gemma hummed under her breath. “I like Otis. And the last?”

“Flogging Molly. ‘The Devil’s Dance Floor.’ About that dirt…”

“Nice,” she said. She pilfered around a bit more, avoiding removing anything that felt like clothes because they were the least interesting. She pulled out a Swiss Army knife and grinned. “Ready for rabid badgers, eh?”

“Of course.”

She felt something odd—cloth, but plush—and pulled it out. A startled laugh broke in her throat before she could swallow it. “Winnie-the-Pooh?”

Looking adorably mortified, Ewan chuckled and passed a hand over his face. His lovely hazel eyes sparkled with embarrassment. “Er…I’d forgotten that was in there.”

“You mean you really don’t sleep with it at night?”

“It’s my little cousin’s,” Ewan explained. “Henry. He put it in there so I wouldn’t be lonely.”

And he carried it instead of taking it out. That spoke volumes about the kind of person Ewan MacKinnon was. And the beauty in that? He didn’t know it. “That was thoughtful. And heroic,” she added.

“Carrying that stuffed animal is heroic?” he asked, a hint of incredulity in his voice. He gave his head a baffled shake. “Seriously? Why?”

“That you don’t know makes it all the more heroic. Very Knightley-esque. Are you often lonely?”

He chuckled and popped a chip into his mouth. “No more so than anyone else I would think.”