Free Every Time with a Highlander by Gwyn Cready

it’ll take him at least two more days.”
    â€œBridgewater will not be pleased,” Undine said with a grim smile.
    â€œAye. ’Tis a shame.”
    â€œIn case anyone cares,” said Michael, who was growing tired of them talking around him, “I was the one who made the discovery regarding the confidential delivery.”
    The brunette pursed her lips and gave him a once-over. “He’s a bit older than your usual.”
    â€œAn unfortunate necessity,” Undine said. “He’s entirely untested. I make no claims regarding his abilities.”
    â€œActually,” Michael said affably, “I’m quite well tested. In fact—”
    â€œHe needs a disguise, though,” Undine said. “He caused us some trouble in the street.”
    â€œ I caused trouble?”
    The brunette snagged a shirt hanging on a peg and handed it to Undine. “Will a sark and plaid do?”
    â€œCan you contrive a Scots accent?” Undine asked, finally addressing him directly.
    Michael quoted from Robert Burns in his best burr, “‘A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquise, duke, an’ a’ that; But an honest man’s abon his might, Gude faith, he maunna fa’ that!’”
    Undine looked horrified. “Silence, then. And no, no plaid.”
    â€œI’ll have you know my accent is extremely good.”
    The brunette grabbed the knot at his waist and began to loosen the rope, and Undine reached for his wrist. He knew what it was like to have backstage dressers yanking and pulling on his clothes, but not a woman he’d barely met. And definitely not a woman he’d barely met alongside a woman who felt it within her right to pass judgment on the sexual abilities of the entire male world. God knows what she’d make of his—
    â€œToo short,” Undine said definitively, looking at the sark. She lifted Michael’s arm and stretched it across her chest. “We need something longer in the arm and broader in the shoulders.”
    His elbow rested in the soft valley between her breasts. He could feel the warmth of her skin. Any words of protest he might have mustered died on his lips.
    â€œOdd,” Undine said, peering into his eyes. “You don’t look that tall.”
    He wanted to say he didn’t look that tall because Friar Laurence— his Friar Laurence, at least—was a plump man built close to the ground, and the way he’d walked and stood and gestured were meant subtly to communicate that, but only another actor would understand.
    â€œStand up straight,” she commanded. “Full height.”
    He shook off the role and allowed his body to expand into its usual space.
    Her eyes widened, and as they did, her grip slackened. The elegant hand still holding his fell, pulling his arm unconsciously—and torturously—across the plump flesh and rigid nipples. Propriety demanded he separate his arm from her, which he did, but no force on earth would have been able to convince him to release her hand.
    â€œYou are quite tall,” she said shocked. The grayish green in her eyes was like fog rolling off a Scottish hill. She could say she wasn’t a Scot all she wanted, but he could see the fiery independence there, that I’ll-have-you-or-not-as-I-choose that resided in the eyes of all Scotswomen. It was nothing like the cool appraisal of an Englishwoman.
    â€œTake off your habit,” she said. “Quickly.”
    Reluctantly, he released her hand. She touched the burlap, and he stripped it off, remembering too late he’d left his shirt backstage.
    He’d spent most of the summer rebuilding an ancient stone wall on his property, and the ropiness of his arms and brown of his skin showed it.
    She seemed to realize she’d been staring and busied herself with the habit, which she’d been clutching.
    â€œYou seem to have forgotten your hair shirt, sir,” she said with a