Page 28

In which Arabella meets The Grandparents.

Arabella…

In what I have quickly learned is typical Logan fashion, he saunters into the house a few days later with a dress bag slung over his shoulder and tells me that we’ll be going to the symphony.

“When?”

“Tonight,” he gives me a kiss on my throat, and I yelp, pulling away before he can turn it into a hickey. I’m wise to his ways now.

“I must admit, I dinnae see ye as the patron of the fine arts type,” I say.

“I’m the most high-class bastard you’ve ever known.” He hands me the garment bag and piles a couple of boxes on top of it. “Go make yourself hot as feck. Though with ye, it dinnae take ye much of an effort since you’re always the finest woman in the room. I’ve got a video call with the uncles; I’ll be in the study for a while.”

“Is this because of the Costa Cartel and may they all burn in hell?” Dread curdles my gut. “Or Anselm’s people?”

Logan had told me what he could about his fact-finding trip to the Mediterranean when he returned. The targets he’d been searching for had already disappeared, though he’d rounded up a couple of who he’d called “suppliers.”

“What did ye do with them?” I’d asked.

“I made an example out of them.” His face was expressionless, but there was something glowing in his hazel eyes that reminded me a lot of what I’d seen in his Uncle Lachlan’s. Something feral.

Now though, he’s giving me his rakish pirate grin. “The Costas. We have a few ideas. We’re setting up a few surprises that Big Daddy Costa isn’t gonna enjoy.”

“I admire your seamless ability to juggle two monstrous, murderous criminal groups at the same time.” I’m going for sarcastic and not fearful, but there is a bit of both.

“Trust me lass, we’ve juggled far more arseholes at once. Ye just go get ready.” He kisses me and strolls down the hallway, whistling.

We’re supposed to be at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in less than an hour, and I’m compulsively smoothing down the front of my dress, over and over, certain that I look stupid and terrible and that this is a bad idea.

It was one thing meeting Logan’s family in the comfort of his parent’s home - after a car chase and a shootout when I was too shaken up to have time to worry. The wee detail my husband neglected to mention about tonight until now is that MacTavish International is sponsoring the performance. Now there’s cousins and aunts and uncles and second and third cousins once-removed to face.

This black evening gown is very simple, thank the lord, though I know that simple in this case usually means obscenely expensive. It fits snugly in all the right places and for a strapless dress, it’s surprisingly comfortable, though that long slit in the skirt means I’m gonna have to pay some decisive attention to how I stand up and sit down. One of the boxes held black high heels with the signature red Louboutin soles and I’m leaning heavily against the wall, awkwardly trying to put them on.

“We should stay home. I canna concentrate with ye looking like this.”

Logan’s behind me, reflected in our full length mirror and looking all kinds of braw in his tuxedo. I remember on the night we met he’d been wearing it, and even before finding out he was in danger I’d been surreptitiously looking at him all night. Of course, so was every other woman and probably half the men in that room, so I dinnae feel guilty about it.

Now, though, this man is mine.

At least for now.

Smoothing my hands over his chest, I shake off that thought. “This tuxedo is bespoke, aye? There’s no off the rack suit that fits shoulders like yours.”

He rolls his eyes. “Nothing off the rack seems to fit me. Now you, baby… you’d look bonnie in a potato sack. Now, wearing this? I’m going armed tonight to keep men off ye.”

“Really now? You’d go armed anyway and we both know it. Please dinnae shoot anyone, though. There are few enough people who like classical music. I used to play some of the louder pieces in my classroom for the bairns. They loved Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture .”

“Tonight’s performance is gonna be a lot of fun, then.” He runs his hands down along my waist, thumbs stroking the velvet bodice. “ Berlioz's Requiem , loud as feck with a big brass section.”

“Oh! I’ve always wanted to hear the Requiem performed before…” my smile drops for a moment but I pin it back on my face, “before I lost my hearing completely. Thank ye, this will be a wonderful night!”

Something flickers in Logan’s eyes before he clears his throat. “Did ye open the last box?”

Smoothing down the front of my dress again, I shake my head. “I dinnae think anything else is going to fit in here, husband.”

“Close your eyes.”

I do, and he slips something cool around my neck.

“Ye can look.”

It’s a diamond necklace, with a big amber stone set in the center. His long fingers settle the chain over my collarbones so the stone centers just below them. “I saw this necklace in a store window in Milan, and I had to get it. It’s the color of your eyes.”

“My eyes are brown. Are ye needing glasses already?”

“Not just brown. When the light hits them your eyes glow, golden like this amber. Aye, that’s perfect.”

He has to lean down - even with me in these skyscraper heels - to put his bearded cheek against mine. Logan is a man reckless enough to set fire to three yachts because the owner “annoyed him,” yet attentive enough to find facets in my eye color that look like a priceless stone.

How am I going to let him go when the time comes?

The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall isn’t my favorite of the legendary buildings downtown. It’s modern, brick, with few embellishments, though the curve of the structure is pretty. It also has a massive lobby where apparently half the city’s population is milling around, holding drinks and showing off their new designer wear or latest expensive watch.

The clamor of everyone talking and laughing is overwhelming, and I squeeze Logan’s bicep, closing my eyes.

“Are ye okay, sweetheart? I can take ye to our box right now if ye like.” His lips are brushing my ear and I canna help the little shiver that passes through me. He gives me a very light, very quick bite on my neck with a bit of a guttural chuckle.

“I’m grand, I can do it. I just need a moment to filter out some of the noise.” I put myself in “server mode,” the way I did when I used to work big crowds with my server’s tray full of drinks. Focus on who’s in front of me. Pay attention to where I am in relation to everyone else so I dinnae bump into anyone… I can do this.

“Ye look so fecking beautiful that I dinnae think I can wait until we get home,” Logan growls in my ear. “I might need to find us a quiet coat closet and get ye cock drunk.”

“What?” I burst into laughter, which I’m certain was his dastardly plan.

“Ah, there they are, my grandson and his lovely new bride.”

My big, bad husband turns to stone.

“It’s grand ye could make it, Seanmhair agus Seanair.” Logan shakes the hand of a tall gentleman in his seventies with a rough, craggy face and broad shoulders. He’s clearly a MacTavish and wearing the kilt to prove it. He has his arm around the most terrifying women I’ve encountered in my life, I canna exactly explain why.

She’s tiny, shorter than me, with a lean body and silver hair in a perfectly sculpted French twist and the jade-colored eyes I’d seen on multiple MacTavish men. She’s eyeing me in a way that makes me think she’s already burrowed deep into my brain and rearranged my ganglia into a pattern more pleasing to her.

“ Grandmother, Grandfather, this is my bonnie bride Arabella Blair MacTavish. Bella, this is Cormac MacTavish Senior and The Lady Elspeth MacTavish, my grandparents.”

It is clear that my enormous spouse, the man who has killed six men just for me and likely dozens more, is terrified of his grandma. If I wasn’t so paralyzed by fear right now, I would be finding that adorable.

“It’s an honor to meet the couple who created this beautiful and very large family.” I try to gather up any scrap of composure left to me and pray my hand isn’t sweating like a beer bottle on a hot day as I shake their hands.

“Delighted, of course.” The Lady Elspeth is facing me directly, as is her husband. She dinnae lean closer, but her words are perfectly and precisely shaped.

Cormac Senior is warmer, and he gives me a conspiratorial wink. “I understand ye have already been of great assistance with a rather persistent itch in my sons’ backside, aye?”

“Language!” The Lady Elspeth is scandalized.

“Miss Blair! Miss Blair Miss Blaaaaiiir!”

I can hear those squeals, even above the rest of the crowd. The first wee arms wrap around my waist; it’s my student Lina. The rest of my wonderful kids surround me, all scrubbed up in their best with a harried-looking Headmaster Scott behind them.

You’re here! All of ye? How? I sign, laughing as I hug them all.

“It’s a grand, noisy symphony,” Logan says, shaking the Headmaster’s hand. “We thought your bairns should be our guests of honor.” He insists on being introduced to all twenty of my students, and I sign and speak as I introduce each one.

And this is Roger, I sign proudly, he’s always helping me with the younger students and he’s picking up lip-reading so quickly! He’s wanwitty, this one. Roger grins up at Logan as my husband gravely shakes his hand and I’m thinking I’ve witnessed the beginning of some hero-worship.

I’m close to tears when I realize that Logan’s grandparents have stayed to meet all my students as well. My littles dinnae seem as scared of The Lady Elspeth as I am. “We understand that the Wallace School for Exceptional Children could accommodate a larger student body with some additional funding?” She’s speaking to an overwhelmed Headmaster Scott and he nods so quickly that I’m thinking his head’s about to fly off. “I’ll have my secretary message you for a meeting, then.”

“That would be lovely, Mrs. MacTavish!” The poor man looks like he’s not sure whether to bow or kiss her hand, but he settles for backing away and nodding some more.

The lobby lights dim discreetly and I give all my kids one last squeeze before they troop gleefully to the very front row in the auditorium, just behind the orchestra pit.

There’s a quick moment before Logan escorts me into his family box and I grab him by the lapels, kissing him fiercely. “Thank ye. I just- I dinnae know what to say! What you’ve done here, I…”

“No crying now,” he says, cupping my face in his big, calloused hands. “I have a sister. I know mucking up your night face with the extra bits of mascara and such is a serious thing.” Pulling out his pocket square, he carefully dabs at my tears. “The most entertaining part of this evening is gonna be watching your students soak it all in.”

Seanmhair agus Seanair - Scottish Gaelic for Grandmother and Grandfather

Wanwitty - Scottish slang for extremely smart or clever.