I dinna tell her that he’s already given up the location of the lab. It’ll be bombed into nothingness, along with the formula, Armstrong, and anyone else with knowledge of the sick business plan the Aristocrats concocted. It will all be buried under tons of rock and metal. We MacTavishes believe in destruction so complete that no one will ever be tempted to try that shite again.
“I want to come back for Grandad’s funeral.” She sits up, jaw tight. “I want to be there. I’m his family.”
“We’ll be there,” I promise, stroking her hair. “Right in the front pew.”
Braw - Scottish slang for I’m fine
Chapter Thirty-Eight
In which Luna finds that love and family were there all along.
Luna…
Two weeks later…
“Now see, this is the perfect combination,” Sloan says, lounging on my bed and looking longingly at the other girls, who are happily guzzling champagne. Just that, and the fact that she keeps absent-mindedly touching her stomach, tells me all I need to know. She and Ethan haven’t made an announcement, so it’s probably early days in their pregnancy. I’ll have to congratulate her quietly later when we’re alone.
“Aye, half what ya wanted, half what the Lady Elspeth demands,” agrees Catriona.
The dressing room is crowded with some new faces: Masie, Catriona’s sister, and twins Edin and Eilidh, who are Uncle Lachlan and Aunt Aria’s girls. Isobel, whom I just met today but already adore, is Aunt Sorcha and Uncle Alastair’s daughter, and Martina, who breezed in casually with an armload of additional champagne bottles and wearing a blue felt dress and thick reindeer hide boots that she described as “formal wear in Lapland.”
She’s Uncle Alec and Aunt Fee’s daughter, and I have a feeling we’re going to be friends after hearing about a dam she blew upin Texas that was blocking water to the farmers below. “It was so these rich arseholes could make a lake to gojet-skiingby their vacation homes,” she raves, her accent an interesting mix of British and Irish. “Can you believe that shite?”
Yeah, I like her a lot.
“How did ya do with the Lady Elspeth?” Kenna asks.
“It was an unforgettable moment,” I admit.
I met the Lady Elspeth this morning when she presented me with a PowerPoint lecture about our wedding on the MacTavish family estate. Her manicured finger had rapidly tapped over the iPad, going through caterers, the Celtic band, the guests, the weather forecast, secondary plans for weather or security issues…
She’s a diminutive woman, even shorter than me, with perfectly styled silver hair and sharp jade-colored eyes. It makes me question how she produced all the gigantic MacTavish men who are currently milling around the massive gardens outside the Dowager House, which is a smaller reproduction of the MacTavish mansion on the other side of the grounds.
“You’ll be more comfortable here,” the Lady Elspeth assured me. “You don’t want any of those lumbering idiots to intrude on your preparations. This house was built in the 1700s. MacTavish women used to reside here during their pregnancies to avoid dealing with their idiot husbands. Our men have become considerably more civilized since then, of course.”
After seeing this tiny titan in action, I’m certain these men have been civilized within an inch of their lives.
“To be honest, this wedding is more like 80% of what I wanted,” I say. “The white chocolate marzipan wedding cake, the flowers- all those peonies! Even down to the layout of the gardenwedding, it’s everything I love. I’m wondering if she hacked into my Pinterest account.”
I meant it as a joke, but the others look at each other with little smirks.
“What?”
“That’s because they were from your Pinterest boards,” Sloan says. “Someone might have taken a look at your account and sent the info to the Lady Elspeth.”
“What?” I ask, feeling self-conscious. “Was it you?”
“Nope,” she says, refilling my champagne glass, “it was Kai.”
Damn it. My eyes immediately fill with tears, and Kenna dives for me. “Ach! Nae, none of that. Dinna ya dare start with the tears. It tookforeverto get ya looking this good.”
“Thank you for your refreshing honesty,” I say crossly, but it does the trick, and the tears stop. “Also, did you know your accent gets super thick when you’re freaking out?”
“You’ll sort it out eventually,” Sloan says. “It took me a while to fully understand what most folks were telling me when I moved here. I’m sure they thought I was a simpleton because I kept nodding and smiling until Ethan translated for me.”
“It’s still the King’s English,” Isobel says, “we canna help that Americans dinna get it.”
They argue the standards of proper English while I enjoy the warm little glow in my heart. Kai’s an overbearing beast, but the fact that he thought to look at myPinterestboards to make sure I had the wedding I’d dreamt of? What man does that?
