There’s no buildup, no time for taunting words or triumphant speeches. I put my gun to his forehead and blow the top of his head off, dropping him like a sack of meat.
“We have to get back to Glasgow.” My cousins are standing around me with identical expressions of shock.“Now!”I thunder, storming out the door.
“Wait.” It’s Michael, calling after me. “Are we shooting them or what?”
I don’t stop, racing for the first car available.
***
Skelp - Scottish slang for a slap
Poke - Scottish slang for sex
Chapter Thirty-Eight
In which there is nothing better than cousins with pastries and wine.
Afton…
An hour earlier…
Mason was right.
Arabella and Luna were on my doorstep by the time the garage door rumbled closed.
“Edin and Eilidh would have wanted to be here,” Luna said, holding up two bottles of wine. “They’re in Greece somewhere. I didn’t call them, they’d be freaking out and trying to hijack a plane to get back.”
We went into the kitchen. I didn’t want to be in the living room. I don’t want to remember what Mason had to tell me. The kitchen with the huge farm table under the warm light of the pendant feels safer.
I’d laughed despite myself. “That, I can definitely picture. Thank you, this is really kind of you.”
“Our husbands are off, running around as well,” Arabella reminded me, pulling plates and glasses from the cabinet. “Troubles shared are troubles halved.”
“Or maybe multiplied in this case,” Luna added unhelpfully. “So many of them are on that plane. Every cousin wanted to be there for Mason and you.”
“Really?” I couldn’t help it, there was a warm glow in my chest even though I knew it just meant there were multiple MacTavishes in danger.
“The reason this clan has survived as long as it has - aside from sheer spite - is because no matter how much these men bicker, they will be there for each other in a heartbeat,” Luna said, handing me a glass of wine. “Mason, for instance. How much has he told you about the human organ trafficking ring they destroyed?”
“Nothing but this sounds horrifying,” I gulped.
We spent an hour talking about Mason’s role as Arabella’s undercover husband and how he’d protected her during the mission. Hearing about this side to Mason made me a little weepy, or that could have been the wine.
“The moment that meant the most was when we were in the surgical center,” Arabella said. “The belly of the beast. I was terrified and I knew Mason dinnae like being touched, but I grabbed his hand and asked him not to leave. He never did. He handled those bloodthirsty bastards like he’d done it all his life.” She took another cookie. “Aye, he likely has done it all his life, ye know. But I was a schoolteacher and I dinnae know what the hell I was doing. He’s like to never forgive me for telling ye this, but he came to my hospital room and apologized for not saving me on the helicopter pad, when they were holding me hostage. He couldn’t have. Even Logan couldn’t. But I could tell it was grieving him.”
“He took me on a helicopter for a lunch date, the day of the Kelly shooting- well, the second Kelly shooting,” I amended. “I remember now that he had a strange expression when he watched it land. So, he must still be blaming himself.”
“I think Edin was unfair, the day she called Mason a sociopath,” Luna said quietly. “I think he feels so much more than he wants to.”
“It may sound strange,” Arabella said, “but I’m thinking I was the first time he had to take care of someone, aye? I’m thinking his family never expected it of him. So maybe that’s made his feelings come more easily for ye?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The man is possessive and protective as hell about ye, it’s certain.” She smiled at me meaningfully and god, it made me blush like a thirteen-year-old.
All those warm feelings faded as I thought about what he was doing right now. The realization that my father sent me here as a pawn to sacrifice? I’d already foldedthatlittle gem up and shoved it away in my ‘I’ll think about this later’ file. I’ll take it out and look at the whole, ugly realization later when it won’t burn as much.
If there is ever such a time.
