I looked back, too, to see the guy on the bar had lost his wig, and had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt what a Scotsman wore under his kilt. As a matter of fact, the kilt was long gone. He had, somehow, managed to retain the sporran.
I nodded, too discouraged to speak.
“That’s not Jamie,” I managed, at last.
“No, you’re right abou’ that,” he said, and he tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the back of a chair. “I’m fair certain his name is Steve-o, and he specializes in Cowboy or Disco Dude, as a rule, but this was apparently such a big money-maker he couldnae turn it down.”
I shot him a look.
“I heard him in the lounge earlier, talking on his mobile.”
“You were listening to a male stripper talk on his cell phone?”
He smiled a little. “Aye. I was sitting in the lounge, working. I’m a writer. Eavesdropping is part of my job description.”
“That’s reassuring.”
He shrugged, and I regretted the sarcasm in my tone. It wasn’t his fault my night had turned out the way it had.
“Well, I’m heading to my hotel,” he continued. “Sure you’re all right? You’ve got quite a bump on your forehead, there.”
I felt my face. There was a definite goose egg forming over my left eye, but other than that I seemed to have escaped unscathed.
“I think I’m good,” I said. ”Thanks again. It was scary in there.”
We walked toward the entrance of the hotel when his cell phone rang. He smiled at me apologetically as he took the call, and I stepped over to the front desk.
Outside the windows, the snow swirled in a street-lit maelstrom.
“Is there a bus I can get from here to—uh—West Oregon Avenue?”
The girl behind the counter shook her head. “Not at this hour, I’m afraid. And our shuttle service is down—our driver, Nathan, can’t get the battery to hold a charge.”
Another long walk, then. I zipped up my coat and held a moment of silence for all the winter clothing I had sold at Second Hand Rose’s the week before.
Beside me, my rescuer was just finishing his call. “See you soon, Becks. Dinner, fer sure.” He turned and looked at me as I zipped my hood up like South Park Kenny.
“No bus then?”
Before I could do more than shake my head, the front door of the hotel opened and one of the doormen blew inside clutching his top hat, his face glowing frostbite-red.
“Share a cab?” my rescuer asked, and I didn’t even check my wallet before agreeing.
It’s amazing what you can learn about a person over the course of seventeen blocks. We exchanged cards, to begin with, and I managed to keep my mouth shut and not tell him that mine was the first card I’d ever given out in my life.
His name was Jack Findlay, and he had just wrapped up a freelance gig for the BBC, profiling several prominent American writers. He’d come to this event in hopes of asking a few questions of the guest of honor. When he learned she was not going to be speaking, he thought he might try his luck with a few of the local romance writers—and that was just about when things began to disintegrate in the bar.
“Apparently they’re known as Beauchamp’s Belles,” he said, grinning at me as the cab bumped over ice ruts in the road. “The sort of fan club every author aspires to, aye?”
“I guess.” I looked across the back seat of the cab at him, sitting with his messenger bag on his lap. “So, the BBC, huh? Are you English?”
His neck, the bit I could see over his woolen scarf anyway, took on an even rustier color than it had in the frozen air outside.
“Born in Fife,” he said, stiffly. “Nowhere near England, as a matter of fact.”
Great. I’d insulted him after he’d swept me away from the night’s disaster. The first Scottish man I’d met in the flesh, too.
I studied his face for a minute as the streetlights flashed by. I’d seen no sign of a ring before he put his gloves on, but the phone call had marked him as taken. Besides – my Jamie would never share a name with Black Jack Randall. All the same, I didn’t want him to think me completely ignorant.
“I’m sorry,” I said, humbly. “Your accent is pretty soft compared to the ones I heard tonight. Are you here for long?”
He laughed. “Any accent you heard tonight sounded nothing like a true Scotsman, I’ll tell ye that. And, no, America is finished wi’ me for the present,” he added. “I’ve a project at home I’ll be finishing up next—should keep me out of trouble awhile. You?”
He’d added the last politely, but luckily at that moment, the cab pulled up to the hostel, and I wasn’t forced to share my own plans. He waved away the five-dollar bill I thrust at him as the cab slowed to a stop, but I tossed it into his lap anyway.