Page 25

In which Arabella goes back to school and Logan discovers he has a Librarian Kink.

Arabella…

It’s been five days since Logan left for parts unknown.

Well, he did narrow it down to ‘the Mediterranean,’ which gives me precisely nothing to work with.

When his face lights up my phone screen, I jump for it so fast that I’m embarrassing myself but I dinnae care.

“Ye look tired as hell,” I blurt. There’s the supportive commentary every husband needs. “I mean, ye look like ye could use some extra rest, and…”

He’s laughing, but he’s got dark circles under his eyes and his well-trimmed beard is growing into something more suited for a mountain man who herds sheep. “I know I look like shite, my pretty wife. Are ye ready for your testing, then?”

“Aye, I think. I’ve been studying every moment since you’ve been gone, keeping myself busy.” I nervously fluff my hair. “Do I look like a solid and respectable educator of young, impressionable bairns, ye think?” I hold my phone out so he can see my outfit; the pink sweater he bought me in Copenhagen and a black pencil skirt.

“Feck me,” he groans. “I dinnae know I had a librarian kink until this very moment.” His gaze sharpens and suddenly, he’s not looking at all tired. “And what are ye wearing under that skirt?”

“Some of those crotchless knickers ye bought me.”

He’s looking half parts turned on and half parts outraged and I canna help but laugh.

“I’m wearing proper tights, husband.”

“Do ye know, that’s the first time you’ve called me husband?” He runs his hand through his hair, which only seems to make him look even more of a braw lad. “It’s a pity I’m not there to thank ye properly.”

“Aye, I’m thinking we’ve been apart now almost as long as we’ve been together in this unusual arrangement.” I hop on one foot, then the other to get my high heels on. Not too high. I’m going back to the University of Glasgow, not a club.

“Our marriage isn’t an unusual relationship,” he scoffs. “We’re gonna have dinner with Kai and my cousin Ethan. Ye really need to know just how unusual MacTavish marriages can get.”

“That is in no way reassuring, if that was what ye are aiming for.”

He shrugs modestly. “I’m just saying, their beginnings were far more daft than ours. Hamish should be knocking on the door any minute to fetch ye.”

As if on cue, Hamish does.

“Ye either have my bodyguard on the other line or you’re watching me on one of your cameras,” I protest. The subject of security cameras hidden throughout the house came up after Logan left, cheerfully warning me that he intended to watch me undress every night and expected a show.

“Off ye go, lass. You’ll do just grand. And I intend to reward ye thoroughly when I get home.” With that damn rakish pirate grin of his, Logan signs with his thumbs together and his forefingers bent, tapping his knuckles together, creating a triangle. “I’ve been thinking of that pretty pussy constantly,” he groans. “Especially with my cock inside it.” He thrusts his finger between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand.

I flush bright red, giggling like a schoolgirl. “How did ye manage to learn all the dirty bits in sign language first? You’re terrible.”

“Ah, that’s because I adore all your dirty bits,” he growls, and damn him, I can feel myself getting wet.

“I canna go to testing with wet knickers! Ye must stop this right now!” My stern admonition is not my best because I’m laughing at the same time.

“Ye go on then. Just remember, when I get home, that pretty, pretty pussy is mine.”

Logan signs goodbye and hangs up. Damn him for being so filthy! And I’m the fool who’s loving it.

While I might be a wee bit biased, I think the University of Glasgow is one of the most beautiful places in Scotland. It’s a maze of imposing stone Gothic-style buildings with a profusion of towers and turrets and I think I’d crept into every single one of them during my undergrad years, looking out the tiny, arched windows and pretending I was a princess.

Maybe that’s why I’m so in love with Logan’s clock tower room.

I ponder this realization as I head into the big lecture hall. It’s filled with old-style wooden seats facing a long series of magnificent stained-glass windows. The size is a bit silly, since there’s less than fifty of us starting this particular Master’s program in fall.

“Arabella!”

“Carol? How are ye?”

She grabs me into a big hug as I find myself issuing a girlish squeal of excitement, a moment that will no doubt make me cringe when I recall it later.

Carol Winchester was one of my first friends here during my undergrad years, quickly learning sign language and politely bulldozing me into a social life on campus until she transferred to Oxford in our junior year. She’s blonde, blue-eyed and always so sweet. She is also the one who introduced me to my drunken ex, Ted, but I canna hold that against her.

“This is so lovely!” She’s mindful, facing me and shaping her words precisely. “I hated that we lost touch with each other.”

“Well, I’m so happy to see ye now. Are ye starting the Master’s program, too?”

We’re both signing and talking and the professor supervising the testing chuckles as she passes us into the hall. “Catch up later, if ye will. Let’s get started.”

Less than a month ago, I was crying in an empty classroom at the Wallace School for getting sacked from my second job. Smiling down at my test form as I open it, I marvel for just a moment at how fast everything can change. And it all started with that impossible, shameless, gorgeous man I married, both of us blasted out of our minds in front of a Danish registrar who was likely moments from laughing his arse off.

Focus. This is important, I scold myself. This is what will support you when we get divorced.

Suitably chastened, I read the first question.

“...so the best part is the cruise! It’s two weeks long and sails all over the Caribbean and then the Bahamas. It’s amazing. A chance to do something good and get a full princess experience aboard a cruise ship.” Carol gives me an impudent smirk. “It's a pity that you’re married now, I would have convinced you to come with me.”

We stopped by the campus coffee shop after the examination finished to catch up, Hamish politely sitting at a discreet distance with a mug of tea that he never touches.

Picking up my hand, she moves it so the light catches my ring. “Who is this man and does he have brothers?”

“Two, but one is married and the other is a wee bit young for ye,” I chuckle. Kai and his youngest brother Ewan stopped by the other day to invite me to dinner at their parent’s house on Sunday. It would have been rude to say no, but I’m hoping Logan will be home by then. Facing his entire family on his own sounds like as much fun as a root canal, even if the ones I’ve met already have been kind.

“I don’t know,” she muses. “Perhaps I could be convinced to be a cougar for a ring like that.”

“Tell me more about this study?” I deflect, trying not to picture Carol and Ewan, Logan’s seventeen year old brother, on a date.

Her eyes are sparkling and fingers flying as she signs as well, telling me more. Carol was always the most outgoing and sweetest of our group, and she’s genuinely excited about this study. “I’m AB-negative, and that’s the second rarest blood type in the world. So, the study is examining all the genetic components of the blood type to see if there’s a way to replicate some of the Rh factors to make other blood types compatible.”

“That sounds grand, it’s wonderful that you can be rewarded for volunteering for something so important.” I’m about to tell her about the students at the Wallace School when Hamish clears his throat in a very pointed way.

“Mrs. MacTavish, I’m sorry to disturb, but ye are quite late for an important meeting.”

There’s no meeting. I canna read his expression, but I’ve had enough safety admonitions drilled into me by Logan that when it’s time to leave, I get moving. “Carol, let’s have lunch when ye get back from the cruise. And pictures! Send so many, aye?”

I’m allowed a quick hug before Hamish takes my arm, moving briskly.

“What’s going on? Are we in trouble?”

He leans down so I can hear him over the student chatter. “There’s unexpected activity around the Square. I’ve been instructed to take ye to the elder MacTavish home.”

“There’s a lot of those, which elder MacTavishes are we talking about?” There’s a pit forming in my stomach. Unauthorized activity? Is someone hurt?

“Logan’s parents, Dougal and Isla.” He’s moving so quickly that I’m breaking into a half-trot to keep up. “Theo is on campus already; we canna go back to our car. He’ll meet us by Professor’s Square.”

Shite. This is serious enough that he dinnae dare take me back to the armored Range Rover that Logan designated as mine.

He touches his security earpiece, I only catch a couple of words. “No guns… they… too many… open fire.”

We race around the corner of the building to see Theo driving up onto the lawn. Two more cars are closing in on him and Hamish rips open the door and throws me in with zero finesse, leaping into the front seat.

“Move!” He punches the roof of the car and Theo accelerates, eating up the distance to the exit.

The roar of the engine drowns out everything they’re saying to each other, and I turn around to see the other cars still on our tail. Black SUVs. Does the entire criminal underworld drive the same car?

“Who are they?” I shout.

“Ye haven’t met Lachlan MacTavish yet.” Hamish remembers to raise his voice for me, even while checking his ammo clip and snapping it back into place, and then pulling a shotgun out from under the seat. “He’s your husband’s uncle and known as a bit of a loose cannon.”

Theo snorts so loud even I can hear it.

There’s a MacTavish more unhinged than Logan? Really?

“It appears,” Hamish continues, “that he might have blown up a competitor’s warehouse over by a port on the River Clyde. The competitor is looking for any random MacTavish within reach for immediate retaliation.”

“And we were within reach. How bad is-”

There’s an enormous, thudding sound behind me, with an impact violent enough to push me forward. Wildly looking back, I see the back window is a mosaic of cracked glass, still held together by another layer on the inside.

Hamish turns in his seat, leaning close to me. “Mrs. MacTavish, ye must put your head down and dinnae move a muscle until I say. Do ye understand?” He’s cocking his gun and I dinnae want to be the thing that distracts him so I bend over, tucking my hands under my thighs.

The SUV jolts sideways as Theo takes a sharp turn, the tires slipping slightly, then grabbing again. There’s a shrill screech loud enough for me to hear, even with the higher pitch and glass shatters outside my window.

“They shot out thewindow of the car next to us,” Hamish roars. “We must get off this street.”

“On it!” Theo shouts back.

The top of my head hits the seat in front of me, my seatbelt snapping me back. I want to yell too, ask if they’d just slammed into the back of our car but I keep quiet.

I’m going to make Logan teach me how to shoot.

The thought is freakishly reassuring and within what must have been just a couple of minutes but felt like hours, maybe days, Hamish gently pats my back,

“Ye can sit up.” He smiles at me, relieved. “Our chase cars just took ‘em out.”

“That’s… wait. That’s it, then?” I look out the cracked window and see one car slammed into a streetlight, and the other… It’s just gone, and another black SUV is following us.

“For now,” Theo says dourly.

Ever the optimist, this one.

Braw lad - Scottish slang for a really hot guy.