Tate (Mountain Men 3)

And every time the little fish drew close my friends squealed and covered their eyes, but I watched them, mesmerized.

I mean, I'm Scottish. My people live for tales of the Loch Ness monster. Our favorite delicacy is haggis—minced heart, lungs, and liver of a calf boiled in the stomach.

In other words, my Scottish blood makes me brave as fuck.

The only problem with us is that… Tate’s Scottish, too. And I know he’s got to defend the honor of the Clan.

I know I should be afraid. I know that I never should've even tried to escape. I mean where was I even going to go? A foreign country? He knows exactly where I live. He knows where I work. And short of going into witness relocation, I really didn't have anywhere to go.

I definitely don't want him to tell his brothers about this. Up until recently, I thought they were all my friends, but now I'm more than a little worried. Now I feel like even Islan and Paisley may be upset with me when they find out what I've done.

I am out of my mind. Not only does he know that I’m the writer, he knows that I’ve been lying to him.

Why did I lie? Why?

I hate that I have. I have a feeling that if he makes eye contact with me, I'm toast. Toast! He'll see to my very soul. I know he will. So of course, the very first thing he says when I reach him is, “Come closer.”

“If I come any closer, I'll step on your bloody toes."

He's not in the mood for this. He reaches for my good arm and yanks me over to him so I smack against his chest, a hard wall of muscle. And looking away from his eyes? Also not happening. Because the next thing I know, he's pinching my chin and dragging my eyes to look at his. The only way to not look at him right now would be to close my eyes, and I’ve a feeling that won’t go over well.

So I look in his eyes. And when I do, I just quake inside.

Because I hate that I've been lying to my friends. I hate that my stupid ideas have gotten me in trouble again. I hate that I've lied to this man, a man who's been a good friend to me for all these years. I’ve ruined everything. I'll probably lose my best friends over this. And as I think about it my lip begins to quiver and tears fill my eyes.

"You look upset," he says shortly. "Should I take that to mean admission?"

And then I decide to give it to him. All of it. The entire truth, maybe every single thought that I've ever had about the entire thing. There's no point in lying anymore. It's only going to get the people that I care about in worse trouble. It's only going to make things worse for me.

I rehearse quickly in my mind, what it would feel like to give him the bloody truth.

I didn't mean to hurt any of you. I didn't mean to hurt anybody. But as soon as the books started making money, I couldn't stop.

“How much trouble am I in if I tell you that I wrote the books?" I say, and I hate the fact that my voice is all shaky, like I'm a child who’s about to be punished. That's how I feel, though.

Okay, not really a child, because there's definitely an element of arousal woven into this fear. Not sure why.

"I didn't admit to anything," I say quickly, before he answers.

He narrows his eyes on me.

“You’re definitely in trouble for what you’ve done,” he says. “But in far more trouble if you don’t confess to the truth.”

"What are you going to do if I tell you about the books?"

"Punish you."

"What kind of punishment are we talking about?"

"Anything I want."

Bloody hell.

"And if I don't tell you that I wrote them? If I tell you who did?"

He knows, I can see it in his eyes, and he looks as if he’s running out of patience. Honestly, I'm not sure he had that much to begin with. He frowns. "You were the only person that would know the things that you wrote. You were the only one privy to the information that was in those books. And the reason why we need to know is because it's clear that you also know things in those books you haven't revealed, things that would risk your friends’ safety and mine. And I want to know everything."

It's true. I do know things, because I've researched as much as I can. Though this is the only Clan I've watched, it isn't the only one I've investigated. I have connections to the McCarthy family in Ireland and to the brutal Welsh.