I end up with one of the wee lasses from last night on my lap again, hand-feeding me sticky bites of bread and honey. My mouth’s stuffed like a chipmunk as we hear the cars pull up and a bit of a clamor in the courtyard. I glance at Lucas, “Ye know that means there’s a MacTavish out there, stomping around.”
He sighs and nods. “I’m thinking breakfast is over.”
My brothers Michael and Duncan swarm me as we hurry into the courtyard.
“Thank the Lord and all the saints!” Michael grabs me in a hug tight enough to compress my ribs. I squeeze him back, tears gathering in my eyes. “It should have been me,” he whispers. “Not ye. Not ever ye.”
“I dinnae think Dubois is interested in ye, brother.” I’m seized by Duncan and my cousin Wallace for their hugs. “Ye dinnae have the poison gene.” He still looks guilty and upset, the standard MacTavish man’s go-to whenever one of the women are in peril, like we’re such fragile wee things.
Michael turns to Lucas and they have some sort of eejit manly showdown by staring intensely at each other. Michael breaks it by thrusting out hishand. “I’d like to shake your hand, if you’ll accept it. Ye saved my sister and I’m forever in your debt. I apologize for my rudeness in the past.”
“A handsome apology, that one!” Duncan applauds. “I’ll bet that cost ye.” Wallace chokes back a laugh.
Lucas shakes Michael’s hand. “Say no more of it. I need to know, who came back from my team?”
“Oh,nowye want to know, ye heartless prick?” A man with enough muscles to make him as wide as he is tall strides over to grab Lucas in one of those complicated man hugs that seem to involve a lot of back-slapping.
“Raul!” The relief on Lucas’ face is so clear and it makes me melt. He’s a good leader. “Tell me.”
Smile fading, Raul says, “We lost Morris, but ye know that. We got him out and home to his family.”
“Thank ye.” Lucas’ voice is a bit raspy. “What about everyone else? The Robertson brothers? ? Dean and Clark?”
“Armstrong and Clark are both in the hospital, Clark might lose his leg,” Raul says sadly. “Dean got banged up mighty fierce when one of Dubois’ drones landed on top of him when he shot it out of the sky. The Robertson boys are good, cuts and a hell of a lot of bug bites.”
Not to judge, but I’m thinking this Raul looks likea hundred meters of hard road with two black eyes and his arm in a sling, but I know from the stories Lucas told me that these men were in the same unit in the SRR. They looked after each other.
“Ye should be in the hospital too,” Lucas says, eyeing him.
“Feck off with that shite.” Raul slaps his hand over his mouth, looking at the guards trying to conceal their amusement.“aetidhari, 'ayuha alsaada,my apologies, gentlemen.”
The head guard laughs and says something back. I dinnae need to know Arabic to know it’s something filthy. As they continue their round of verbal back-slapping, I turn to Duncan, who’s also sporting a black eye and cut lip.
“I’m thinking one of two things.” I carefully touch his eye. “Either a bad night at the bar or ye finally enraged Robert enough to punch ye?”
“Robert’s too posh for that,” Duncan says, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “He knows he can increase my suffering by givin’ me the silent treatment.”
“Good on him!” I approve.
“Nae, Duncan here and myself got into a bit of a skirmish with some pirates while we were looking for ye at one of Dubois’ places in the Caribbean," Wallace says, looking a wee bit betterthan my brother.
“Pirates. In the Caribbean. As in yo ho ho and a bottle of rum pirates?” I stare at him skeptically.
“Aye. Bastards tried to board our ship, so we set theirs on fire.”
“Wallace, are ye getting Uncle Lachlan’s pyromaniacal kink?”
“Nae, I was born with mine,” he smiles serenely. “I just discovered it here in my twenties.” Wallace is huge, broad shouldered and heavily muscled like the rest of the MacTavish men, but there’s something secretive about him. My Auntie Sorcha married anEnglishman, to the shock and horror of our family. But since Uncle Alastair runs one of the most powerful criminal organizations in England, I really dinnae think they have much room to judge.
“Your ma is gonna love that,” I sigh. “Speaking of mums, how is mine? Is she doing awright?”
“There was a lot of crying between her and the aunties, but it all dried up when Lucas phoned in your recovery.”
Lucas takes my elbow. “We must be back at the airfield, say our goodbyes to Imana, aye?”
Our hostess has been standing in the entryway, hands folded and watching the reunion with a faint smile.“shukran, Alla ykhalik,thank you, may God keep you, Imana,” I say. “Ila al-liqaa,goodbye. I hope we meet again soon.”
“Ma’a as-salama,goodbye, go with peace.” She kisses my cheek and nods toward Lucas, who’s talking with Wallace. “He’s a fine man. You make a good match.”
