Page 45 of My Fake Dating with the Grumpiest Highlander

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We remain frozen there while Ragnar keeps rubbing against him with obvious satisfaction.

“What are you doing here?” I finally ask.

“I live here.”

“Excuse me?”

“Temporarily,” he clarifies.

I look at Ragnar.

Then at him.

Then back at Ragnar.

Then at him again.

“Is this a joke?”

“I wish.”

He kneels to scratch Ragnar’s head, and the sheep looks blissfully happy.

The same sheep who, thirty seconds ago, was prepared to trample me.

“Is that your sheep?” I ask incredulously.

He lifts his eyes toward me and looks at me as though I’ve lost my mind.

“No. But he seems to think otherwise.”

“He follows you everywhere?”

“Since I arrived, yes. Apparently, I’m the chosen one.”

The sarcasm in his voice almost makes me smile.

Almost.

“He just charged at me.”

“I know. I saw.”

We look at each other.

The absurdity of the situation settles over us like thick fog while my brain finally connects the dots.

There’s only one outsider around here right now, and he’s the one every villager has spent days complaining about.

“So,” I say slowly, “you’re the doctor everyone in the village keeps talking about.”

“Finn McLeod,” he says. “And you’re the veterinarian who came back to the Highlands. Mary McGregor.”

Silence settles between us.

Then, as though the situation isn’t surreal enough already, Hamish appears at the window.

Watching both of us.

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