The Good Chase
PRAISE FOR THE HIGHLAND GAMES NOVELS
Long Shot
“A smart and thoroughly enjoyable series debut for fans and newcomers alike.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Realistic and hilarious.”
—Harlequin Junkie
“An enjoyable read made even more so by the supporting cast interactions.”
—The Book Pushers
“Martine is just as good with her fantasy novel as she is with this contemporary novel. Very different from her Elementals series, Ms. Martine tackles a more realistic storyline . . . [A] light read that I highly enjoyed. I recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys Jessica Clare, Jennifer Probst, and Victoria Dahl.”
—Under the Covers
“What’s not to love? Men in kilts showing off skills and serious muscles equals melt! . . . A fun, light, and hot contemporary romance.”
—That’s What I’m Talking About
PRAISE FOR THE ELEMENTALS NOVELS
A Taste of Ice
“On my must-read list . . . Such a great read! A Taste of Ice is a perfect spring read while the ice outside melts. Xavier is a beautiful, intensely sexy hero with just the right touch of achingly tormented soul that you can’t help but want to heal . . . Cat is a wonderful heroine; she’s lovely, strong, talented, intelligent . . . and she’s fun to read.”
—The Romance Reader
“Hanna Martine did not disappoint as she continued to make the world of the Elementals even more intriguing.”
—Under the Covers
“Savor the journey again and again. The characters are deep, with multifaceted loyalties, pasts, and personalities that drag a reader into the story . . . These books totally rock and I cannot wait for the next one!”
—Coffee Time Romance
“New talent Martine’s world of the Elementals is a gripping creation that pushes the envelope . . . Emotionally intense and riveting.”
—RT Book Reviews
Liquid Lies
“An amazing start to the Elementals series and one I recommend.”
—Under the Covers
“A fresh new voice with an unusual story premise that is both captivating and darkly disturbing . . . If this first book is any indication, this series has the potential to be a winner!”
—RT Book Reviews
“A different spin on the paranormal.”
—Dark Faerie Tales
“A really fun, sensual book. I’m excited about this world and I’m already eager to get the next one. A nice debut.”
—Smexy Books
“A great deal of potential . . . I am excited to read the next book.”
—Dear Author
“Fascinating and thoroughly intriguing . . . Martine’s writing style is simplistically rich. Her storytelling is easy to follow and easy to lose yourself in . . . The new Elementals series shows extreme promise.”
—That’s What I’m Talking About
Berkley Sensation Titles by Hanna Martine
The Elementals
LIQUID LIES
A TASTE OF ICE
DROWNING IN FIRE
The Highland Games Novels
LONG SHOT
THE GOOD CHASE
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
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THE GOOD CHASE
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2014 by Hanna Martine.
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-62182-0
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / December 2014
Cover photo by Claudio Marinesco.
Cover design by Rita Frangie.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
This one is for Katie Oates Junttila, for so many reasons.
Acknowledgments
Thanks must first be given to fellow romance authors Heather Snow, Erin Knightley, and Anna Lee Huber, who helped me plot this book. The audio recording of that session is filled with my bumbling and their brilliance. And a lot of snacking.
Alyce Anderson, cop extraordinaire, assisted me with some crime and punishment details.
The Chicago-North chapter of the Romance Writers of America gave me extremely helpful critiques on my opening chapter and a spicy scene during our annual Hot Night.
The Aphrodite Writers let me lay it all out and helped keep me sane.
My brother-in-law told me the beef jerky story . . . which apparently is one hundred percent true.
Davia Lipscher got her Realtor’s license specifically to answer my questions about buying and selling property . . . which is actually not true.
Eliza Evans and Shannyn Schroeder were fantastic beta readers with eagle eyes, as usual, and terrific cheerleaders.
Katie and Olav Junttila fed me so many details about big-time New York financial life (and the clothes that must go with it), as well as about the city itself. They told me all about private banking and entrepreneurship. Their input was invaluable and made the book what it is. Any mistakes are my own, because those two were a godsend.
Last but not least, I’d like to thank the Chicago Scots, whose wonderful annual Highland Games prompted the theme behind this series. I also attended their truly special “Feast of the Haggis” in 2012, from which I drew inspiration for the Scottish ball depicted in this book.
Contents
Praise for Hanna Martine
Berkley Sensation Titles by Hanna Martine
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chap
ter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Author’s Note
With regard to whisky/whiskey . . .
The Scots and Canadians spell whisky without the e. Therefore, the drink is Scotch whisky and Canadian whisky. Drinks distilled in other areas spell whiskey with the e. For example, Kentucky bourbon whiskey and Irish whiskey.
In this book, mentions of whisky refer only to Scottish bottles. Whiskey means either bottles distilled outside of Scotland/Canada or it’s a general term encompassing malted grain spirits from a mix of locations.
Chapter
1
I need a hot guy in a kilt.
Shea Montgomery snorted a most unfeminine snort as she read the text that had just come through from her best friend, Willa.
Gently moving aside a box cradling some pretty divine bottles of Scotch whisky, Shea nudged back a flap of the white tent that would be her home for the day. Down an easy slope, out in the middle of a large, open field, a group of two-hundred-plus-pound men milled about, early morning sunshine on their faces, a brisk late-May breeze kicking up their kilts. Some of the men sat stretching on the grass, some rotated their arms in warm-up, some jogged slowly around the field’s perimeter.
The first throw of the Long Island Highland Games would go off in about two hours.
Smiling, Shea texted back to Willa: Funny, that’s exactly what I’m looking at right now.
Bring one back to the city for me.
Shea peered hard at the massive guys gathering inside the flag ropes. I take that back. Lots of kilts. None hot. Sorry.
Take a pic. Let me decide.
Shea laughed. I’m working. And no way to be stealthy about it when no one else is over there.
You are dead to me.
Shea tucked her phone into the back pocket of her black pants.
“Always good to start the day off with a smile. Right, Big Boss?”
Dean, her best employee at the Amber Lounge in Manhattan, stepped into the tent, rolling up the sleeves to his white button-down shirt. She so rarely saw him outside her bar—and in daylight, no less—that she’d never noticed how much silver there was in his curling black hair.
“Hopefully it’s a sign,” she said, blowing out a big breath. “Help me with the inventory, will you? The master list is right there.”
He read her the names of the bottles while she fingered the necks of each kind of Scotch whisky she’d curated for the day’s tasting, making sure each had made it from the Amber’s cellar to out here in Suffolk County.
When they were done, Dean stood back and admired her stash with hands on hips. He whistled in a high arc as he took in the bottles of port- and sherry-wood barrel-aged, and the twenty-seven-year-old single malt, and the eighteen-year-old blend.
“Nice choices,” he said. “Not exactly starting at the bottom, are you?”
Shea tossed an empty box underneath a billowing tablecloth. “Yeah, well, you have to pay a hundred dollars extra just to come in here for a tasting. It was made very clear to me I had to make it special.”
Dean’s eyes bugged out. “A hundred bucks? No shit?”
Shea pulled her long hair back into her trademark ponytail and glanced with chagrin out at the blue velvet rope delineating the entrance to her tent. She sighed, snapping a rubber band around her hair and letting her arms flop down. “No shit.”
In the distance sounded the day’s first bleat of a bagpipe, a little shaky at first, but then smooth and lovely as the piper warmed up and the notes took shape. Shea recognized the tune and it gave her pause, made her smile to herself.
This was why she planned to attend and do whiskey tastings—of Scotch and others—at so many New England Highland Games this summer. Because they reinvigorated her. Because they shaped her dreams of things outside the walls of the Amber Lounge. Because they brought back memories of Scotland. Because they recalled those days, so many years ago, when she’d actually begun to live.
It was a perfect day for the games. For the sun and laughter, for watching powerful, kilted athletes compete by throwing around heavy implements like the hammer and the caber. For lying back on your elbows and surrounding yourself with the heartbreaking, beautiful sounds of pipes and drums, telling history through song. For cheering on young folk dancers and obedient sheepherding dogs.
Even if these particular games had its nose up in the air as opposed to right down in the peat and heather where it should be, the reminders of her Scottish ancestry warmed her heart.
But alas, she would get to do none of the fun events. Today was about the whisky.
The white tent rippled and flapped around Shea and Dean as they skillfully set out short-stemmed tasting glasses and made artistic towers of boxes and glassware behind the makeshift bar. High, circular tables draped with white linen and tied with blue bows peppered the center space, with squatter tables and cushioned chairs set outside under a canopy.
And then there was the goddamn velvet rope.
Whisky shouldn’t be untouchable, relegated to only a certain level of social drinker, but that’s exactly what Shea and her bottles were today, hidden away in this too-fancy tent. No one could enter who wasn’t wearing the yellow one-hundred-dollar wristband. Laughable for a Scottish festival.
Shea just wanted to talk whisky, just wanted to serve what she loved. Not for the first time, she wondered if opening up such an exclusive bar had been an error in her development as a businesswoman. It clashed too much with her personality. Maybe she was better suited to running a corner pub with worn seats and scary bathrooms, but with the same access to amazing drinks. Take away the hoity-toity atmosphere, but keep the rare, good liquor.
Throughout the day, she tended to the few tasters who did manage to wander into her tent. During the long lulls in between, she gazed out at the heavy athletic field, watching the massive caber flipping end over end and listening to the excited announcer and the enthusiastic crowd’s applause. She ended up sending Dean back to the city to open the Amber.
In the early afternoon, two couples ducked out of the bright sun and came in laughing. The taller husband, the one in a plaid, short-sleeved button-down shirt, was holding a set of stacked, empty beer cups. A Drinker, Shea pegged him, who’d come in here chasing the buzz. The other man, the one in a blue T-shirt, headed right for Shea, nodding as though they already knew each other. He was either a Hot Air—someone who thought he knew a lot about the good stuff—or a Brown Vein—someone who really did know.
Of the women, one wore a red visor that parked itself around her ears and extended far over her face. The other had a short, blond ponytail. Neither woman looked particularly interested in why they’d come in here, though all four people sported wristbands.
Shea spread her arms across the table and gave them all a welcoming smile. Didn’t matter why anyone came in, when it came down to it. They were giving the drink a chance, and educating newcomers was one of her favorite parts of her job. Sometimes that was the best kind of challenge, to win over someone who’d been skeptical—a Squinter—or someone who had cut their teeth on whiskey by sneaking their parents’ ten-dollar plastic-bottled swill bought at the corner bodega.
“So what do these get us?” Drinker waved his yellow wrist.
Always genial, always polite. “Tastes of three amazing whiskies and a walk-through of each, by yours truly.”
“That’s a big deal, my friend,” added the other man. To Shea he gave a deep nod, lips pursed. “Saw you on the History Channel the other night.” He didn’t mention which special.
“Really? That’s always great to hear. Glad you came by.” Perfected responses to almost every comment from almost every type of customer.
She turned to her artful setup of bottles beneath the large banner with the Amber logo, and swung back around holding a tray of glasses. She flip
ped each glass over and slid it across the white tablecloth with smooth, practiced ease. One glass, two, three, four—
A fifth yellow wristband appeared at the elbow of the blue-shirted man she was leaning toward pegging as a Brown Vein. This new wristband wrapped around an arm that was crusty with caked mud. The newcomer’s fingers and palm looked like he’d tried to wipe them somewhat clean, but black still clung under his nails. Shea followed that arm upward, which widened out significantly at the biceps. He wore a red-and-black-striped rugby shirt, soaked with the efforts of a recently completed match. His short, dark hair was sweat-damp and stuck out all over the place in a way that shouldn’t have looked good but did. His cheeks and forehead were sunburned, and he leaned his elbows on the table with drowsy ease, leaving mud smudges behind.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the wives nudge the other.
“Welcome,” Shea told Rugby.
“Hi,” he replied.
She nodded at his shirt. His perfectly fitted shirt. “How’d you do?”
“Thirty-five to seventeen. We were not the higher number.”
She winced. “Ouch. You at least get a try?”
“I did, actually.” He blinked and straightened, looking pleasantly surprised that she knew rugby scoring terminology. “You know the game?”
“You could say that.” She returned the tray to its place off to the side and set out the three bottles she was guessing this crew would like. The uninterested wives were throwing off Shea’s drink-matching radar, but she’d work with what she had.
She said to Rugby, “So what I’m hearing is that you need a drink.”
“Something a little finer than water, exactly.” Rugby let out a small laugh. He twisted one of the whisky bottles to read the label. “Whatcha got here? What does a hundred bucks buy—wow.”
“You know it?” Shea’s turn to be pleasantly surprised.
“Heard of it, yeah. So that’s why these things were so expensive.” He waved his wrist so the loose end of the yellow wristband flopped about. “Took out a second mortgage to buy one.”