“We miss you!” Isobel chimes in. “Nice to meet you, Scarlett!”
“Take care son,” Alastair says with the first real warmth I’ve seen from him. “Let me know what you need from us, I’m a phone call away.”
It’s obvious he loves Wallace as much as Sorcha does, leaving me to wonder about the odd distance between father and son.
The screen goes black and muscle by muscle, my husband relaxes again.
“I think that went well,” I say brightly. “Even though the Banner Syndicate robbed your dad and probably a couple of the guards killed were his. Plus, you getting stuck with me after nearly burning me up.”
Okay, I guess that earlier comment stung more than I thought.
“Can ye do one last hard thing?” he asks, his eyes kind.
“Does it involve more in-laws?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “It involves the promise I made you when you said ‘I do.’”
I sit down abruptly.
“You mean… You already know? You have proof? About Dad?”
He slides a flash drive over to me, a small blackplastic thing. It looks so innocuous.
”It was Marlena,” he says quietly. “She wanted you both gone.”
I put the flash drive in the palm of my hand, closing my fingers over it.
“Don’t look at it now,” he says. “Take your time, think about it. When you’ve made a decision about what you want me to do to the man who killed your father, you tell me and I’ll take care of it.”
“You kept your promise,” I say wonderingly. “Just like that.”
He moves over to the bar cart. ”I will always keep my promises to you, wife.” He pours us both a drink. “Here,” he says, eyes twinkling with amusement. “Ye look like ye could use it, aye?” He’s gone full-on Scottish accent again.
I take a big gulp because that last half hour was a lot, and instantly wheeze. “Whatisthis?”
“It’s a good bottle of Ardbeg Corryvrekan, a heavy peat scotch. Do ye taste the smokey notes of it?”
“No. I think my taste buds just disintegrated,” I cough. “And possibly my trachea.”
“Aye, ye are more of a white wine sort of lass.” He pats my back. “Try smaller sips.”
“I’m not ashamed of my feeble palate,” I saydefensively. “Wine tastes like wine. This tastes like lighter fluid and tar.”
Taking the glass from me, Wallace sets it down, holding my chin and coming in for a kiss. “Well then. Now that you’ve got a bit of scotch in ye, would you like a few inches more?”
“Oh, I see,” I cough again. “Yeah, the play on words, scotch, Scots… that’s slick. Take me now.”
“Let me be more direct, then.” He kisses me again, slowly, with lots of tongue. “Wife, would ye like to join me upstairs so I can feck your brains out in a proper bed?”
“It’s the only place we haven’t christened in this massive house of yours,” I shrug. “So, I suppose.”
Instantly, I’m up and flung over his shoulder and I yelp as he slaps my ass. “Let’s go,” he says, already out of the study and charging up the stairs like my considerable weight is no problem at all. “I was hard as hell the entire fecking time, sitting next to ye and remembering how good ye feel.”
“Yeah, you seemed kind of uptight,” I say, upside down and watching his ass muscles flex. “I thought it was the family dynamics.”
“Half and half,” he concedes. “Now, let me distract ye in the best way.”
“Oh, are we going to set something on fire?”
