Free A Midsummer Night's Romp by Katie MacAlister

can have them. I’m as free as a bird.”
    His words sounded odd, hollow almost, as if he was trying to convince himself or the cat, Captain Wedderburn. He felt vaguely uncomfortable at the thought that maybe there was more to life than flitting around doing whatever he liked without any strings attached to anyone but his mother, his siblings, and his child. “Although even my time with Cressy is limited to visits every other year, and weekly video chats. No, Captain, I’m as free as they come.”
    That’s the way I like it,
he thought to himself, and pushed away the idea that perhaps lack of responsibility wasn’t as attractive as it had been in the past.
    â€œLorina,” he repeated, thinking again of her warmth. “She’s a Yank, I think. Or Canadian. I should find out, don’t you think? It’s only proper to treat visitors to our fair isle with politeness and interest. She’s smart, too. The producer said she’s a journalist, and that takes a certain amount of brains. I like brains in a woman.” In fact, he liked much of what he saw in Lorina, from the freckles all over her face and arms, right down to the shapely ass that was visible when she had pushed herself off his lap. And her legs—dear god, her legs! “The one odd thing about her is that she doesn’t act like any journalist I’ve ever met. Curious, eh?”
    He slammed shut the book, making the cat look up in surprise. “Sorry, Captain, you’re going to have to move. I think it only right to go check on how things are going with the television crew. Yes, I was just there an hour ago, but they may need something, and with Dixon off in the Bahamas, it’s only right that I’m there to help out as much as I can. No, don’t say it. I know I just discounted Lorina because she’s most likely not the type interested in a harmless fling, but I’ve changed my mind. A man can do that without untoward comments from his family, can’t he? Besides, I could be all wrong about Lorina. It’s best not to guess about people when you don’t know them well, and I sense a bit of a mystery about her. You know how I love mysteries.”
    The cat shot Gunner a dirty look when he rose and thumped his way out of the room, down the stairs, and through the kitchen to the small anteroom where his rented scooter was parked. It was a Tuesday, one of the two days a week that Ainslie Castle was open to the public, and it had been his habit the last few weeks to be onhand to greet the groups. It took the edge off his loneliness to chat with the tourists, but today, with the arrival of the TV crew, he had better things to do.
    And a delicious woman to ogle.
    â€œIt wouldn’t hurt to apologize to her again. Perhaps I can figure why she doesn’t appear like any other journalists I’ve met. It could be because she’s American,” he mused as the scooter bumped its way past the outbuildings, and around the section of the castle that the family called the tower but was actually a crumbled heap of brick, slate tiles, broken glass, and broken mortar. He double-checked that the temporary fencing was secure, and continued on toward the stables, waving and smiling at the few tourists who recognized him. “Maybe I should talk to that Roger fellow and tell him that I want him to pair me up with Lorina rather than whoever he was going to assign. That way I can not only enjoy her, and her legs, and freckles, and all the other parts of her that I’d have to be blind not to admire, but in the process figure out what it is about her that’s striking me as a bit different.”
    He was mentally forming a request for just that when he arrived at the production company’s row of caravans. No one was present. He pointed his scooter toward the barn that had been set up for the dig team’s use, and was rewarded with the sound of voices.
    â€œâ€”you know, we