Nikki Logan - A Kiss to Seal the Deal / The Army Ranger's Return - A Kiss to Seal the Deal / The Army Ranger's Return

Even if it was also a lot less fun.

Grant stood directly between her and her project. He was the man robbing her of the choices she’d worked so hard to assure, taking control out of her hands.

And no-one was doing that again.

No-one.

EVEN though they’d joked about the townsfolk stringing her up, Kate hadn’t actually believed it would happen. But here she was, metaphorically at least, being marched to the gallows by the fishing fraternity of Castleridge. She’d come to find a man with a boat. What she’d got was a whole lot more complicated.

‘Not a single hour free in the next month?’ She gaped. ‘Seriously?’

Joe Sampson was the fourth fisherman she’d tried. How could they all be busy?

‘Not for the sort of job you want.’

Oh, here we go. ‘You charter your vessel. Isn’t a job a job?’

‘Not around here, love. I can afford to pick and choose.’

Another person ripping options out from under her. ‘So why are you choosing to turn down my charter?’

Joe turned his grizzled face and his beer breath her way. The whites of his eyes were stained as yellow as his nicotine teeth. ‘I told ya. I’m busy.’

Kate narrowed her eyes and raised herself to her full height. She raised her voice, too. ‘Not too busy to find time to get drunk with your mates, I see.’

Two of those mates laughed, booming, gusty guffaws; Joe Sampson turned and glared at them. When he came back to her, his eyes were sharp like a fox. ‘That’s right, love, I like a drink. The last sort of person you want driving you up the coast.’

She’d heard that about him. She planted her fists on her hips and glared at him. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’

His friends burst into fits of laughter again, one of them coughing and spluttering with the effort. Kate distantly wondered whether he’d ever tried kombucha for his lungs.

Out of nowhere, a steely hand closed around her upper arm and pulled her away from the fuming Joe Sampson. ‘Kate,’ a familiar, velvety voice said. ‘Sorry I’m so late, got a call from the city. Let’s get our table, shall we?’

The words triggered a delicious tingling through her body. She spun around to face Grant. Table? What was he doing here?

‘She’s a guest on your land, McMurtrie,’ the old fella wheezed. ‘And it’s out of respect for your father that I haven’t told her exactly what she can do with her request to charter my vessel.’

‘Joe …’

Grant and the bar manager spoke at the same time but the older man wasn’t deterred. ‘Leo might’ve gotten himself all addled by a piece of city skirt, but not everyone is as easily swayed as he was.’

Kate spun around again, not sure which insult boiled her blood more. ‘Easily swayed? Had you met Leo McMurtrie?’

Joe finally put down his beer, ready for a battle. ‘I grew up with him, love.’

Then something else hit her. ‘And I am not a piece of city skirt. I grew up in a town smaller than this one.’

‘Good for you,’ Joe snapped. ‘Why don’t you head back there? Your kind is not wanted here.’

Even his own mates stepped in then, taking Joe’s beer from the bar and moving away from their seats as if he’d follow, pied-piper style. They underestimated him.

She straightened to her full height. ‘Is that so?’

‘Kate …’

Grant’s warning was warm against her ear but she was too far gone to care. She ignored his plea and shot back at Joe. ‘And what kind is that, exactly?’

The whole bar stopped to listen. People peered in from the dining area next door.

‘You greenie mob. More interested in saving a bunch of thieving sea-dogs than the lives and livelihoods of the people living here.’

Grant’s hand tightened further on her upper arm. He slipped his body closer to hers and tried to nudge her away from the bar with it.

Kate leaned around him. ‘Those sea-dogs have more right to be here than you do. They’ve been fishing here for millennia.’

‘Rubbish! I’ve been around a lot longer than you have, love, and there were hardly any when I was a boy. Just those few out on the McMurtrie farm.’

‘That’s because morons like you hunted them nearly to extinction. They’re only just now getting back to—’

‘Kate! Enough.’ Grant physically pushed his way between the two opponents and forced her back a step.

‘Get out of my way.’ Her verbal warning was for Grant, but her narrowed gaze and her furious attention were all for the ageing fisherman at the bar. Although not so much she didn’t feel the strength of Grant’s body pushing back against hers.

He dropped his head low against her jaw and whispered warm against her skin, ‘Don’t do this, Kate. You’re not going to do yourself any favours.’

Behind him Joe Sampson snorted. ‘Oh, not another bloody McMurtrie man addled by a nice pair of legs,’ he sneered, before turning back to the bar and speaking too loudly to be to himself. ‘Or what’s between them.’

Grant spun faster than Kate could blink and his body was hard up against Joe’s. Both the old man’s friends stepped in, hands raised, to head off the conflict. Joe stumbled backwards off his chair and looked every year of his considerable age.

Grant caught him and held him with the steeliest grip Kate had ever seen. ‘Apologise.’ His voice was low and hard, and she got her first inkling of what he might be like as a boardroom opponent.

‘I’m not apologising to no city skirt.’

Grant shook the older man and spoke low and hard. ‘I’m not talking about Kate. She can look after herself. Apologise for what you implied about my father.’

Kate held her breath. So did the rest of the pub.

Joe Sampson eventually dropped his gaze from Grant’s. ‘Yeah, all right. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, I s’pose.’

Kate stepped up behind Grant and put her hand gently on his back, moral support, for what it was worth. He didn’t even notice. Furious heat radiated through his shirt.

‘My father negotiated access with Kate’s team. As was his right on his land. Nothing more.’

‘That we know of,’ Joe threw out stupidly.

Grant’s whole body tensed but one of Joe’s mates stepped into the simmering tension. John Pickering, the one with the bushy beard. ‘Look, I’ll take her out. I don’t mind,’ he said.

Joe turned on his mate. ‘Traitor!’

‘Let it go, Joe. What’s one boat trip to keep the peace?’ Pickering looked past Grant at Kate. ‘This has gone far enough. Take this as my way of saying sorry for not stopping it sooner. I’ll take you out tomorrow afternoon if that suits. Half price.’

Kate just nodded dumbly. The bearded man matched it and then steered the belligerent Joe Sampson away from her. Grant straightened up but didn’t turn back to her. He spoke quietly to the bar manager over the counter, who nodded and then wandered off to wipe down a surface at the far end of the bar.

Kate stared pointedly at Grant’s back. Eventually, he turned and faced her. She lifted both eyebrows.

To his credit, he didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. ‘You would have made things so much worse.’

‘You were right when you said I can look after myself. I don’t need your help.’

‘Kate, you were warming up to a bar fight. With one of Castleridge’s longest-standing residents.’

‘He’s an idiot.’

‘ Moron I think was your professional estimation.’

Smiling now would be a mistake, but Grant with his super-solemn face was hard to take seriously. Her lips twitched.

‘I’m serious, Kate. You could have ruined everything you’ve worked for.’