Getting a fleg - Scottish slang for freaking out.
Lummox - Scottish slang for idiot.
Chuffed - Scottish slang for excited or highly motivated.
Fantoosh - Scottish slang for fancy or overly ornamental.
Chapter Ten
In which Wallace’s home life seems almost… normal.
Scarlett…
I have no idea what to expect regarding Wallace’s home. Upon our limited acquaintance, it could be anything from a medieval dungeon to a missile silo. It’s hard to picture the home life of a professional arsonist. All the tall pines lining his drive just look like potential fuel to me.
“This is your place?” I gasp.
He’s turned a sharp bend around a group of pine trees and we’re driving up to a huge stone house with a slate roof, the forest rising up behind it and a deep stream flowing past in front.
“Aye.” He’s got my door open before I can unbuckle my seatbelt. “Let’s get ye settled.”
The clearing the house is situated on has a rock bridge over the stream and is lined with a startling number of flowers in huge pots. An arbor shields a comfortable-looking grouping of outdoor furniture circling an enormous fire pit.
Of course.
“I’m counting one, two, three, four, oh, wait-sixchimneys on your roof,” I say as he leads me to the door. “You either don’t have central heating, or the fire kink continues at home?”
“The latter, lass. Though I dinnae overindulge.” He turns to unlock the door and I barely hear him murmur,“Just enough to take the edge off.”
That is in no way reassuring.
The first thing I see when he ushers me into the house is a two-story great room, dominated by a fireplace of colossal size. “You could roast an ox in that,” I say. “Or two ox’s. Oxen, I mean. Oxen. Plus, maybe an antelope and a moose thrown in.”
“You’re quite the carnivore, aye?” Wallace walks over to a tidy grouping of bags and boxes sitting on a round table in the entryway. “Good, my cousin Sloan stopped by.”
I’m still staring at the fireplace. It’s surrounded by stacked river rocks, with two story windows bracketing it, looking out over the river. There’s wood piled in it, beautifully stacked, just waiting for Daddy to come home.
Sure enough, he leaves the piles of shopping bags to stride over to the fireplace.
“It’s chilly in here.” He snaps his fingers and I see a tiny spark fly into the stacked wood and it goesup in a rush of red and yellow flame. “Come over and warm your hands, lass.”
There are so many questions I want to ask right now. Like, “When did you become a pyro?” or, “Have you ever set a person on fire?” or, “What happens when you run out of firewood?”
Since I’m not sure I want to know the answers, I clear my throat. “Um, what’s in the bags?”
“Ah, they’re for ye.” He scoops the entire load up in his arms, carrying them over to the big sectional grouped around the fireplace.
I pick up the first bag, black and white striped with fancy lettering. There are two sweaters inside, softer than Murder Mitten’s fur, one blue, one black. Holding one up to my chest, I shake my head. They’re a perfect fit.
“How did your cousin manage to put together all of this in the time it took us to fly over?” I ask. Murder Mittens is nosing through the pile of pink tissue paper from another bag.
Wallace stretches his arms over the back of the couch, resting one ankle on the other knee. He may be casually dressed in jeans and a dark gray sweater, but he looks like a Scottish High Laird, come home from a boar hunt or crushing peasants or whatever High Lairds did. “I gave Sloan your dimensions and my credit card number. The woman can do some seriousdamage when she’s motivated. You should have enough to get ye started, but let me know what’s missing and we’ll make a list.”
I see jeans, blouses and dresses, boots, and half a dozen pairs of shoes - also my size - nightwear and workout gear. And lingerie. Silky bits of cloth, scraps of lace, embarrassingly sexy and I’m thinking this Sloan is not on my side.
“Ah, and girl shite,” he says, opening another box full of cosmetics, shampoo and conditioner, a flat iron and a blow dryer and some other things I’m not sure I recognize. “I dinnae know what ye like.”
“So, you had her get the entire store?”
