His green eyes are suddenly the shade of a forest fire, smoky, dark, and greedy. “Collars, baby? Ya like collars and kneeling? We can work with that.”
The mortifying realization of what I’d said turns my face an unattractive shade of beet red. “I didn’t mean it likethat,I just…”
His hand is on my lower back, pulling me closer. “I have an excellent memory. I never forget a thing. Especially not a discovery as promising as this.”
“Oh, mygod,”I groan. “Please. People are looking at us.”
Of course, shoppers are probably staring at Kai because he’s enormously tall and bulging with muscle, audacity, and BDE. You don’t have to know he’s a legendary MacTavish, he’s just a fine-looking male specimen.
I’m saved from my embarrassment by a little girl with an unruly mass of black curls tugging on Kai’s shirt sleeve. “Will ya help me shop?” She opens her big, brown eyes extra wide, and I smother a laugh. This kid might be eight years old at the most, but she knows how to work it because Kai crumbles like a cheap muffin.
“A’course, lass. What’s your name?”
She takes his hand firmly. “Ainsley. That’s my ma and my little brothers over there.” The clever girl finally looks at me, begrudgingly offering her other hand. “Ya can come too, if ya like.”
“I would like that very much, Miss Ainsley.”
Shopping when you have an epic budget to work with is so much more fun than I could have imagined. Back home, I don’t think I’d ever had anything brand new, and shopping was a misery because I was always budgeting in the back of my head to make sure I had enough so there wasn’t a humiliating moment at the checkout where I had to put something back.
Ainsley and her mother charge ahead, throwing socks and underwear in their cart, jeans for the boys, sweaters, and t-shirts. Ainsley pauses by a rack of pretty dresses, wistfully touching the lacy hem of one.
“Oh, love, that’s not necessary,” her mother says, “ya couldn’t wear it enough before ya grew out of it and-” Kai’s large, tanned arm reaches between them.
“What size are ya, lass?”
“Mr. MacTavish, that’s too much! We’re just focusing on the essentials,” her mother says.
“It’s just a dress,” he shrugs, winking at Ainsley. A little later, he speaks with Ada, the director, and then every kid there gets in the checkout line with a little something extra. While the adults are engaged in the very long process of checking out, Kai and I chase the kids around the parking lot in what is an extremely loosely defined game of soccer - I mean, football. Sitting down to catch my breath, I’m joined by Ainsley and another little girl who plop themselves down on my lap.
“He’s nice,” Ainsley says, watching the game. “If ya ever decide to not be Mrs. MacTavish anymore, will ya give him to me?”
“Instead of throwing him back into the single male population?” I ask, forcing myself to keep a straight face. This kid is deadly serious, and I love that about her. “Very Scottish, my friend. Thrifty.”
“Waste not, want not,” she says primly, and I bite my lip.
Who can blame her? He’s running after two of the boys, just as noisy as they are, and expertly kicking the ball in the direction of a little dude standing by himself.
He would make a good father,I think before mentally slapping the back of my head. Thoughts like that can only get me into trouble. I won’t be here to see Kai have children, I’ll be back in Iowa, back in my old life
But I know they’ll be as gorgeous as he is.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In which Luna is introduced to Car Chase 101.
Kai…
The final bill for the Hope House shopping spree is still less than the fifteen thousand pounds I’d spent on Luna’s evening gown. Pulling the balance in cash from my money clip, I hand it to Ada Burns, who looks shocked at the wad of pounds.
“No, Mr. MacTavish, we dinna expect this.”
Stuffing it in her bag, I shake my head. “I had a deal with my bride. Fifteen thousand pounds. I’ll have one of my guards accompany ya back to the shelter to make sure there’s no trouble.” Looking at Luna, who’s burdened with a toddler on her back, another tucked under her arm, and yet another clinging to her leg, I add, “I suspect we’ll be visiting Hope House again soon. She’s taken a liking to your bairns.”
Ada nods regally, though there’s a tell-tale moisture in her eyes. “This has been a grand afternoon. The littles will be talking about this for weeks.”
“They deserve it,” I agree. “As do their parents.”
When the bairns are called over to the shuttle that brought them here, Ainsley makes a detour to throw herself into my arms. “Iknow ya are married to Mrs. MacTavish, but I will wait for ya, just in case ya change your mind. Or if she dies, bein’ so old and all.”
