Some Like It Scot by Donna Kauffman

his heart, as everything suddenly made perfect sense. And no sense at all.
    He lifted the photo higher, stabbing it forward, as if making a claim. And perhaps he was. He felt driven by something unknown, a force he could neither put name nor logic to. If he were honest, it had begun outside, in the garden. It was something both primal and primeval, driven by what could only be utter lunacy. Because clearly, he’d lost whatever he’d had left of his mind. Yet that didn’t stop him from continuing. In fact, he barely paused to draw breath.
    â€œYou’re meant to be mine,” he declared, loudly, defiantly, to the collective gasp of every man, woman, and child lining each and every pew. He didn’t care. Because he’d never meant anything more in his entire life. And he hadn’t the remotest idea why. Yet it was truth; one he’d never been more certain of. It was as if all four hundred years of MacLeods willfully and intently binding themselves to McAuleys was pumping viscerally through his veins.
    Clan curse, indeed.

Chapter 3
    G raham’s declaration rang out inside the chapel, echoing and reverberating, then arrowing straight through her—as if the angels and cherubs painted inside each of the pocketed, celestial domes above their heads, and sculpted atop the pillars that lined the interior of the old church, had all taken up playing their trumpets and strumming their harps at the same time—creating a cacophony inside her head…and heart.
    Katie stared, her gaze locked on the wild-eyed man who was not proclaiming his wish to marry her as part of some family obligation, but staking his outright ownership of her. She should have laughed. Hysterically. Because her life was nothing if not ridiculous already, so why not have a mad Scot turn her A-list attended, excruciatingly planned-to-perfection, media-and-marketing-coup-of-the-century sham wedding into utter chaos? It was certainly the high point for her.
    â€œKatie?”
    Blaine gripped her arms, jerking her gaze from the kilted man who, not ten minutes earlier had unknowingly offered up a bizarre, yet tantalizing option to the immediate future she’d thought her only choice. Blaine held her gaze, but not her attention. Her thoughts were a complete scramble. Her stomach was a clutched knot, and her heart threatened to beat straight through the hand-beaded satin and Irish lace presently binding her chest and waist so tightly she’d been short of breath since being cinched into it.
    She was very much afraid she might throw up. In fact, she wanted to throw up. Surely that would make her feel better. Or pass out. Yes . Passing out, quite dramatically, in front of the entire church assembly, would be perfect. Not to mention a clever way of getting out of dealing with any of it. At least right that very second, anyway.
    Except hadn’t she spent the past six months getting out of dealing with any of it? Hell, if she were honest—and why not, better late than never—her whole life had been an exercise in avoiding confrontation and doing whatever it took to keep the people in her life happy. And by people, she meant family. Hers, and Blaine’s.
    â€œKatie.” Blaine shook her, albeit lightly. He would never harm her. Never. Poor, sweet, adorable, and adoring Blaine.
    She forced herself to look at him directly, to focus. And struggled to find the words she knew— knew —she had to say. And had said, so many times, inside her own head, too afraid of subverting her entire life to contemplate saying them out loud. But being brave on the inside didn’t count.
    Hence her standing there, inside the chapel her family and Blaine’s had attended since its earliest inception several hundred years earlier, in a wedding dress she hadn’t picked out, carrying flowers she didn’t know the names of, about to marry a man she adored above all others and had loved her entire life…like a brother.