The Wedding Dress Read Free Page A

back some of her own.
    But the good doctor was quick, almost as accomplished as Emma at shuttering vulnerability away.
    “Why don’t you save us both a lot of trouble and just head for some ritzy spa on the French Riviera,” he challenged. “Go back where you belong.”
    “According to Barry Robards, I belong right here. Playing Lady Aislinn. And if that means I have to deal with you for six weeks, I guess we’ll both just have to suffer. I have to admit one thing though, Dr. Butler. You are a brilliant teacher. I’ve known you all of five minutes and you’ve already helped me get into character. I can’t wait to get a sword up to your throat.”
    Butler rolled his eyes. “I told the bloody screenwriter that part of the legend is rubbish. There isn’t a woman alive who could beat a seasoned knight and get a blade to his throat.”
    If Butler had smacked her cheek with a gauntlet the challenge couldn’t have been any clearer. Adrenaline rushed through Emma. She was going to make the man eat his words if it was the last thing she did.
    “You’re quite sure it’s impossible?” she inquired with acid sweetness.
    “I’d stake my life on it.”
    “Hmm.” Emma laid one finger along her cheek, considering for a moment. Suddenly her gaze dropped to the bulge in his brown canvas cargo pants. “Maybe I’ll just aim a whole lot lower.”
    Ten minutes in Scotland and she’d already declared war.

Chapter Two
    “N OTHING LIKE HATE at first sight to make a lady feel welcome,” Emma muttered under her breath as Butler all but rolled his battered Mini Cooper on yet another hairpin corner. The right shoulder of the narrow road plunged down in a boulder-strewn cliff, while a dozen yards to the left, a mountain soared skyward. If it weren’t for the biting chill that had whipped her raincoat in the airport parking lot and the lowering thunderheads gathering on the horizon, she might have been tempted to get out and walk to Castle Craigmorrigan.
    Her legs ached from bracing herself against the floorboards, her fingers clamped in the upholstery to keep her arm from touching his. For God’s sake, could the man take up any more room? It was like being wedged in a clown car with MacTavish the Pissed-Off Scot Giant. Not to mention the fact that Butler’s testosterone overload was sucking up all the oxygen in the cab of this ridiculously small vehicle.
    “Getting us both killed isn’t going to do you any good,” Emma said.
    “You’re right.” The corner of Butler’s sexy mouth twisted. “I’m already in hell.”
    Before Emma could think of a comeback, a fuzzy brownish-red hill loomed in their path. Emma choked back a scream as Butler swerved with annoying expertise, the car bouncing over the road’s shoulder so hard the top of Emma’s head hit the roof in spite of her seat belt.
    She whispered a Hail Mary, sandwiched for a heartbeat between mountain wall and the weirdest cow she’d ever seen. She glimpsed long horns and terrified bovine eyes all but buried under a shaggy red topknot as the car sped past. Butler wrestled the toy car back onto the road, spraying gravel in his wake.
    No doubt about it, Emma thought. She was going to die. But damn if she was going to give Jared Butler the satisfaction of knowing he was rattling her nerves before they’d even reached the castle.
    “So, in between trying to give the local rescue team practice with the Jaws of Life rescue tools, why don’t you tell me exactly what books I’m going to be reading?”
    “Reading?”
    “Or do I get to sit around with you feeling the bumps on the old chicken bones you dig up? Archaeology 101: Observe, Ms. McDaniel, this piece of broken pottery we found when Farmer MacSomething was digging a loo.”
    “I’m not going to have you contaminating my excavation site, do you hear me?” Butler slashed her the look his highland raider ancestors must’ve fired off when they were about to burn and pillage. “You’re not to go near the