“Shoot.”
She walked back out of the elevator and he followed, the door closing enough to catch his shoulder as he hurried out. It hurt.
“Och—whaur ye gaun?”
“Elevator doesn’t go to the penthouse...ah... Nope.” She made it half way through her thought before pirouetting and heading back into the closing elevator. Broch made an about-face and jumped inside, this time catching the opposite shoulder against the doors as they bounced off him and sprang open.
He rubbed his arm. “Whit noo? Yer chippin’ away at me until ah’m gone.”
“If we go to the desk and ask to talk to Alain, it’ll give him time to get away. Maybe take Tyler somewhere else. I’ve decided to do this the hard way.”
“Whit’s the hard way?”
“We go to the floor below the penthouse, go up the fire escape stairs and then you find some way to get through the door there, which is undoubtedly locked.”
Broch nodded. “By ye find a way, dae ye mean me?”
She smiled. “Aye.”
The elevator doors opened and Broch dragged the bags down a carpeted hallway until they found the stairs leading to the penthouse behind a door marked fire exit.
Catriona motioned to the luggage. “Leave the suitcases here for a sec.”
Broch stared down at the bags in his hand.
“Whit if someone takes them?”
“Then we’ll buy new clothes.”
Broch frowned. Setting down the cases, he unzipped his and pulled his kilt from inside to tie it around his waist.
She cocked her head. “Really?”
“Cannae risk it,” he mumbled as they mounted the stairs to the locked door Catriona had predicted would be there.
“Get that open,” she said, motioning to the door.
He looked at the door. “Howfur am ah supposed tae dae that?”
“It’s just how, not howfur. And I don’t know howfur.”
He squinted one eye. “How come dae ye think ah dae?”
“You’re big. Just break it down or something. Go beast-mode.”
Broch grimaced. Catriona had been cranky ever since their time in her bedroom. He suspected he knew why, but he also suspected she’d hit him if he voiced his theory.
Safer tae just open the door.
He traced the edge of the door frame with his finger. “It swings this way. Ah cannae pat mah shoulder tae it.” He knocked on it. “Soonds solid.”
Catriona shrugged without looking up from her phone.
Broch put his finger on her phone and pushed it down. “Hey thare, lassie.”
“Yes?”
“Ah ken yer takin’ me fae granted.”
“Really? You said I needed you for your mighty mighty muscles. So use them.”
Ah. She’s trying to teach me a lesson. Funny lass.
“Ah said ah’m nice tae hae around, ah didnae sae ah cuid solve every problem.”
Catriona leaned forward and put her face so close to his he could feel her breath. It smelled like the cranberry juice she’d had on the jet. “You said I needed those muscles. Without you I’m a poor defenseless little lassie.”
He leaned back and crossed his arms against his chest. “Ah didnae say that.”
Smirking, Catriona put her hands on his upper arms, pushing and pulling on him in an attempt to make him move. He allowed her to position him in front of the door, a few steps back, too far to reach the locked knob, his heels hovering at the top of the stairs.
“Stay there. Use his momentum.”
“Whit?”
Broch pondered Catriona’s cryptic instructions as she pounded on the door, screaming in a high-pitched voice unlike her own.
“You let me in right now Alain or I’m going to tell everyone about us. I swear Alain! I know you’re in there, you—”
Broch heard a bang as someone hit the door’s release bar on the opposite side. Catriona jumped back, grabbing the knob on their side and swinging the door open as she tucked herself behind it.
Broch’s eyes grew wide as a man stumbled towards him, jerked forward and off balance by Catriona’s yanking of the knob.
Use his momentum. Ah…
Broch stepped aside and pushed the man past him, flinging him down the stairs with little effort.
The man rolled to a stop at the base of the stairs and groaned, pressing one palm into the ground in an attempt to stand.
Broch looked at Catriona and she pointed to the man at the bottom of the stairs with her eyes.
“Whit? He cannae gae thro’ the door wance we gae thro’.”
“But he can go to the elevator. He probably has the key for the penthouse.”
“Sae why don’t ye gae tak’ care of him?”
She shrugged. “Because I have to hold the door open so we don’t get locked out again.”
Och.
“Ne’ermind. Ah’ll dae it. This time.”
He stomped down the stairs, grabbed a fist-full of hair on the back of the man’s head, and banged his skull into the floor.
The man collapsed to his belly, still.
Broch pounded back up the stairs.
“Ye cuidhae given me a wee mair instruction afair ye threw a man at me.”
Catriona smiled. “What? You did fine.”
“Fine.”
She walked into the hall and he followed after a final glance at the unconscious man at the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t appear to be going anywhere soon.
“I told you I could get the door open without you,” Catriona said as they walked down the hallway.
Broch scoffed. “Bit ‘twas me wha just teuk that man tae ground.”
“But I got the door open. Any lunkhead can hit someone.” She knocked on a door across the hall from the elevator.
Broch frowned and checked back down the hall. He had half a mind to go wake the man and see how she liked it then without his help.
The door opened, revealing a small-boned woman with short, dark hair. She arched an eyebrow at
