KILT TRIP Deleted Scene

Hello hello!

I have finally emerged from my editing cave and turned in a big draft of SCOT & BOTHERED and returned to the land of the living…or at least the land of people who don’t want to eat ice cream under the desks and perhaps cry. Editing! What a joy!

Okay, I’ve been holding onto this for a while and want to share! There’s a mention of the Loony Dook in KILT TRIP where Addie and Logan do a polar plunge (in Scotland!!) on New Year’s Day. This was a full scene in an old draft that didn’t fit anymore after a big revision, but it’s still one of my all-time favorite scenes. I hope you love getting to jump back into this world with me!

But first, my editor would be mad if I didn’t mention that SCOT & BOTHERED is up on GoodReads and you can add it to your shelf and it’s also available to pre-order!

Photographer Jack and his writer ex, Brooke, must hike the rugged 80-mile Skye Trail to help their ailing mentor finish her memoir. It’s a dual timeline, second-chance romance, with lots of pining and only one tent 🏕️

I hope to have a cover to share soon, too! 👀

And in case you missed it, Audible is having a site-wide sale this week and both KILT TRIP and SCOT & BOTHERED are discounted through the 16th.

Okay! On to the Loony Dook!

THE LOONY DOOK: DELETED SCENE

Logan cautiously opened one eye to the daylight and hastily shut it. He ran his fingers along the bumpy upholstered fabric of the bed that was, upon further inspection, Jack’s couch. Firecrackers exploded behind his eyes to rival the city’s display from the night before. He needed a long lie-in to nurse his sore head. And a pint of eye drops.

He groaned when he remembered the Loony Dook. It was still unclear how Addie had talked him and Jack into this foolishness in the first place, but there was no doubt in his mind she wouldn’t give a toss about his hangover if he tried to beg off.

Rolling onto his side, he squinted at the window frame shadows overlapping on the hardwood, interrupted by a blanket laying in a heap, until the light stopped piercing his eyes.

He scrubbed his hands over his face before going to wake Jack. As he walked past Addie’s room, he didn’t even think about her, alone in her bed. Not even a bit.

He knocked on Jack’s door and when he only heard an irritable growl, he turned the knob. “Get up. It’s time for the Dook.”

Jack flung a pillow through the air. It smashed Logan in the face and fell to the floor with a muted thud before he could so much as blink.

“Piss off,” Jack groaned.

“Up with you.”

Jack hurled the other pillow in the general direction of the door and buried himself in his blankets.

“Wanker.” Logan knew Jack well enough to admit defeat. It was futile attempting to change his mind. He wasn’t coming.

Logan closed the door and turned directly into Addie, leaning silently against the wall. Her hand settled on his chest to stop his forward momentum and she could surely feel his heart beating under her palm.

“We have to stop meeting this way.” She looked up at him from below her lashes and he was hit in the stomach with the memory of her in a tiny towel. His feet were similarly rooted to the spot lest he move and she drop her hand. “I take it Jack’s not coming?”

Her fingers slipped down the length of his breastbone before pulling away. His breath got lost on its way out, causing a gridlock and stressing his heart.

“Ah, no. And I was thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to have a greasy breakfast and go to bed?”

She quirked an eyebrow.

Logan choked on his own tongue. “I mean, my own bed. Each of us to our own beds.”

“In that case, definitely not interested. Besides, I heard the Loony Dook is the best hangover cure in all of Scotland.”

“That’s IrnBru, actually.”

Addie pulled a face. “Hard pass on the liquified orange cough drops, but thanks. Come on, let’s go.”

Twenty minutes later, Logan opened the cab door into a crowd of people dressed in outrageous costumes, the air thick with shouts and cheers.

Addie’s eyes danced with excitement. She grabbed Logan’s hand and dragged him through the crowd, elbowing her way past neon floaties and inflatable T-Rex costumes. Drumming from a distant marching band resonated in the air.

A woman running the check-in table cinched on their blue wristbands and gave them each a Dookers T-shirt and a container of oatmeal.

Out of earshot, Addie whispered, “What sort of prize is this?”

“Och, lass! It’s porridge! Have you learned nothing while you’ve been here?”

She grinned and pulled him into the parade of Santas, penguin suits, hula skirts, and superheroes. People squeezed around them like inflatable water wings. Whooping punctuated the deafening chatter of the crowd and a smile split Logan’s face. He couldn’t help it. The revelry was contagious.

They joined thousands of people in a procession down a rural street. The road barely restrained the tangle of the old forest growing up and over their heads, reaching for the sea, let alone the exuberant group spilling out on all sides.

“This would make for an amazing tour. A unique and unforgettable experience. Submerge yourself in Scottish culture… See what I did there?” Addie waggled her eyebrows.

“And who exactly is going to tour hungover on New Year’s Day?”

“Maybe Jack,” she quipped.

Logan breathed in the salty air and stomped behind the lively band, the drum beats clanging in his chest. Following a waving Scottish flag, they crossed over a stone bridge, heading toward a cobblestoned street guarded by row houses last whitewashed somewhere around 1936.

A cold breeze lifted the hair off Logan’s forehead and sent a chill up his spine. An instinctual urge to avoid pain at all costs filled his chest. He would happily watch Addie get soaking wet in the Forth, but she couldn’t make him join her.

When they got closer to the water, she practically dragged him down three flights of stairs and across the rocky beach, bumping into unicorns, hotdogs, and flamingoes. Onlookers gathered on balconies or stood on the beach, held back by a blue ribbon as if they’d rush into the water if given half a chance.

 The bright red Forth Bridge stood proudly across the water and yellow kayaks paddled in front, presumably to save all these deranged people from hypothermia. Addie pulled him to the far end of the skinny beach before she could hear him over the crowd. “Here, let me hold your things.” He held out his hands.

Addie clasped them in her own, her fingers chilled against his. “You’re doing this with me.”

Some people had already started their foray into the water, most of them getting thigh deep and making a hasty retreat to the beach. Hollers and yelps burst from all sides of them.

“It’s January.”

“It’s tradition.”

A particularly unaffected Dooker floated by, neon orange duct tape holding together an amateur job of full-body bubble wrapping.

“Definitely not.”

“You’re doing this with me.” Her hands settled on her hips and left no room for debate. “Strip,” she commanded as her gaze filled with a fire that zapped his desire to resist.

He unbuttoned his coat and pulled off his hoodie. Addie’s eyes tripped over his skin as she blatantly stared. “Like what you see?” he asked while kicking off his shoes and sliding down his pants, adding them to the heap of clothes on the pebbly beach.

She cocked her head as if she needed a better look to make up her mind. Despite the absolutely numbing air, his skin burned.

If she was going to look at every inch of his half-naked body, she’d best return the favor.

“Take off your clothes.”

Her tongue touched the corner of her mouth and he nearly expired on the spot. She unzipped her jacket in a blatant strip-tease and he could do nothing but stare. She stepped out of her wellies, toed off her socks, and slid her jeans down one leg at a time, never taking her eyes off Logan’s. His breathing deteriorated into ragged gasps.

The hem of her shirt slipped up and over her head.

In nothing but a red bikini and a snow hat, she stared back at him as he took in every inch of her skin, the curve of her breasts, her stomach, her hips.

“Christ, Addie.”

“Do this with me. Take a risk. I promise it’ll be worth it.” Her green eyes asked if he was going to be a person who let fear hold him back or if he’d take a leap of faith.

He wasn’t sure if the question was only literal.

#

Before Addie could react, Logan ripped the hat from her head, tossed her over his shoulder, and bolted across the beach. It was immediately clear fighting him was no use, but she kept it up to feel his body shift against hers.

He hissed out a breath when he hit the water and her body tensed at the icy droplets sprinkling her legs. She expected him to stand her in the shallow water, triumphant and cocky.

Not submerge them.

Dropping her to the bottom of the rocky Firth, Logan fell to his knees above her. Addie barely registered the scraping stones in the surge of the freezing water.

She came up sputtering, too shocked to examine the way her knees had intertwined with his hips in the fall. Wiping dripping hair from her eyes, she spit saltwater into Logan’s face.

If he thought there would be no retaliation, he was sorely mistaken. She shoved him back into the water with a splash and slogged toward their towels, wringing out her hair. She hadn’t even managed to get to the beach before Logan caught her around the waist and lifted her into the air.

The warmth of his chest against her back burned away her fury and she turned in his arms, plastering herself against him. “Give me all your heat.”

Shudders wracked her body. She gripped the ridges of his ribs and struggled to process anything past the cutting stones beneath their feet.

Then his fingertips fanned out over her lower back and across her shoulder blades, pulling her closer. The water trapped in her bikini ran between them as he crushed her against his chest. Every single hair of the trail on his stomach scratched against her skin as tremors ran through their bodies. The sensations overwhelmed her, like she couldn’t be simultaneously frozen and turned on, so her body simply sputtered out.

Logan’s breath tickled her ear. “Worth it.”

Her stomach hitched. He didn’t mean the water. She pulled back to say something, to challenge him, maybe to kiss him. But he stepped away from her.

“Shite, it’s cold.”

If she was frigid before, it was nothing compared to the loss of his body heat on her wet skin.

Logan rubbed his towel through his hair as Addie stood in a trance, his biceps and abs flexing with the motion, water still dripping down his legs.

Her mind stalled out with the thoughts of how much she wanted him. Not only dripping wet and unbearably sexy, even though…ohmygod…but challenging and comforting and hers.

He paused at the look on her face. “Are you getting hypothermia on me?”

His words broke her daze. After toweling off, she yanked on her jeans, fighting the way they clung to her wet legs.

Successfully managing the zipper was a feat, but her numb fingers fumbled with the button with no hope of managing it. Logan planted his feet on either side of hers and batted her hands away.

Chills of a different kind swept over her body and she sucked in an audible breath as his fingers brushed the sensitive skin above the band of her pants.

Addie could say with one-hundred-percent certainty this was a magical hangover cure. She no longer noticed her pounding head. All her blood was pounding elsewhere. 

When Logan finished buttoning, his eyes traveled up her body. She’d stuffed her hands under her arms to warm them, unintentionally pressing her breasts together, on full display in red triangles.

His gaze lingered while he stood motionless, index finger inside her waistband and thumb on the button, like he’d forgotten how to move.

Every ounce of her attention was focused on the hot look in his eyes, the slight part in his lips, his fast breath.

Addie’s heart collided with her ribcage like a hailstorm. Logan wanted forever but all she had was now. “I don’t want to look back and regret not taking a risk. Won’t you always wonder what this could’ve been?”

His pause was heavy like the space between lightning and thunder. Waiting. Counting. Anticipating the boom.

“Yes.”

She didn’t know the exact terms of this agreement, but Logan’s hands tangled in her wet hair, stalling any further negotiations. He brought his mouth to hers in such a sweet surrender, she couldn’t help the sounds she made. Warmth from his chest seeped into her, but her teeth chattered around the kiss, even as she reveled in the feel of his skin on hers, his promise on her lips.

“Do you want to come to my place?” he asked.

All she could do was nod. Happy New Year to me.