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"He’s not an Englishave Brianna a look, clearly suggesting that her friend was crazed

"Scotland’s part of England; I looked on the land"

"What’s the difference?" Gayle stuck her head out and craned around the pillar "Why are we standing back here? He’ll never see us"

Brianna ran a hand over her hair to s behind a pillar because she wasn’t sure she wanted hih; disheveled passengers were beginning to trickle through the double doors, burdened with luggage

She let Gayle tow her out into the ue led a double life; though Gayle was capable of cool and reasoned discourse in class, her chief social skill was babbling on cue That hy Bree had asked Gayle to coer; no chance of any aard pauses in the conversation

"Have you done it with him already?"

She jerked toward Gayle, startled

"Have I done what?"

Gayle rolled her eyes

"Played tiddlywinks Honestly, Bree!"

"No Of course not" She felt the blood rising in her cheeks

"Well, are you going to?"

"Gayle!"

"Well, I , and nobody’s going to--"

At this aard er Wakefield appeared He wore a white shirt and scruffy jeans, and Brianna ht of hi

"Ooh," she said in delight "Is that him? He looks like a pirate!"

He did, and Brianna felt the bottoer hat her mother called a Black Celt, with clear olive skin and black hair, and "eyes put in with a sooty thumb"--thick black lashes round eyes you expected to be blue but that were instead a surprising deep green With his hair worn long enough to brush his collar, disheveled and beard-stubbled, he looked not only rakish but ht of hi palms on the sides of her embroidered jeans She shouldn’t have let him come

Then he saw her, and his face lit like a candle In spite of herself, she felt a huge, idiotic s to think ofstray children and luggage carts

Heher hard enough to crack her ribs He kissed her, stopped, and kissed her again, the stubble of his beard scraping her face He smelled of soap and sweat and he tasted like Scotch whisky and she didn’t want hio, both of them half breathless

"A-he away froelically up at hi bye-bye

"Hell-ooo," she said "You er’s sure in for a shock when he shows up, isn’t he?"

She looked him up and doith obvious approval

"All that, and you play the guitar, too?"

Brianna hadn’t even noticed the case he had dropped He stooped and picked it up, swinging it over his shoulder

"Well, that’s my bread and butter, this trip," he said, with a smile at Gayle, who clutched a hand to her heart in sied

"Say what?" Roger looked puzzled

"Bread and butter," Brianna told his onto her shoulder "She wants to hear you roll the r’s again Gayle has a thing about British accents Oh--that’s Gayle" She gestured at her friend in resignation

"Yes, I gathered Er…" He cleared his throat, fixed Gayle with a piercing stare, and dropped his voice an octave "Arround the rrruggged rrrock, the rrragged rrrascals rran That do you for a bit?"

"Would you stop that?" Brianna looked crossly at her friend, who had swooned dranore her," she advised Roger, turning toward the door With a cautious glance at Gayle, he took her advice, and picking up a large box tied with string, followed her into the concourse

"What did youfor sohed, a little self-consciously

"Well, the historical conference is paying the airfare, but they couldn’t led a bit of a job to take care of that end"

"A job playing the guitar?"

"By day, er Wakefield is a harht, he dons his secret tartan rrregalia and becoer MacKenzie!"

"Who?"

He sing, for festivals and ceilidhs--High Games and the like I’m on to do a turn at a Celtic festival up in the ? Do you wear a kilt when you sing?" Gayle had popped up on Roger’s other side

"I do indeed How else would they knoas a Scotsman?"

"I just love fuzzy knees," Gayle said dreamily "Now, tell et the car," Brianna ordered, hastily thrusting her keys at Gayle

Gayle perched her chin on the sill of the car, watching Roger make his way into the hotel "Gee, I hope he doesn’t shave before he meets us for dinner I just love the way men look when they haven’t shaved for a while What do you think’s in that big box?"

"His bodhran I asked"

"His what?"

"It’s a Celtic war drus"

Gayle’s lips formed a small circle of speculation

"I don’t suppose you want , do you? I s to do, and--"