Page 1 of Rekindled (The MacTavish Heirs #5)

In which our heroine is taken.

Catriona…

“And so he says, ‘Are ye a Highland cow, because you’ve got a beautiful fringe.’” Kenna, my cousin, laughs uproariously, slapping the top of the table.

“Tell me ye shot him.” I rub my forehead. “There’s not a court in all of Scotland who’d charge ye. That’s just doing the world a favor, that is. A cow? The daft bastard compared ye to a cow?”

“Well, he dinnae get my number, that’s certain.”

“Eilidh did a hell of a job with this place, aye?” I crane my neck, looking up the three-story entryway.

My cousin Eilidh designed and opened this gym under the MacTavish Health brand.

Every level is angled out to look at the enormous windows and the floors below.

It’s that kind of place, where ye go to see and be seen.

We just came from the top level where there’s a series of yoga and meditation rooms with a soothing, oriental design.

There’s a spa in the back with all sorts of daft seaweed wrap-type treatments.

The middle level is for all the gym rats, every machine and weight in existence is there.

The walls are darker, more subdued to give the view out the window its proper focus.

If you venture past the front desk on the main floor, you’ll find all the sparring rings for boxing and martial arts. There are violent splashes of red and yellow on the walls, stirring the fighters up.

“She did,” Kenna agrees. “We talked about the psychology of color and I think she did a grand job on the first floor in particular. Ye can practically smell the testosterone pumping through the air vents.”

“Please,” I shudder. “Not appealing. This is why I wait till I get home to shower, aye? I dinnae want anyone’s…

anything rubbing’ off on me.” While Kenna is perfectly put together, showered, makeup refreshed and in a nicely tailored blue dress, I’m still in my sweaty bike shorts and sports bra, hair up in a big lumpy bun.

“Why am I getting’ the feeling that yoga was not what ye needed today, cousin?” Kenna’s smile is kind, but she’s watching me shrewdly. As the MacTavish Clan’s psychologist, it seems like she never turns off the analysis these days.

“I’m fine, just crabbit,” I say. “I’ve been working on a new series of antidotes that could work over a cross platform of poisons. One of them is giving me fits.”

“Ye never dinnae sort it out,” she says encouragingly. “No wonder all those Big Pharma companies are drooling after ye.”

“Aye, ye remember that poor sod from Pfizer?” I grin, unreasonably cheered by the memory of my brother Michael holding him out the twelfth story window in my lab.

“I’m thinking the job offers dried up after that, then.” Kenna’s howling with laughter again. “I appreciated my terrible brother takin’ a picture to share.”

“Which brother took the picture? I have to thank him.”

“Logan,” she chokes out, still laughing.

“I’ll buy him a drink when I see him next. The pharmaceutical headhunter was an eejit. We’re MacTavishes. We dinnae leave the clan.”

To some people, that might sound dire, but not to us. We’re tight with each other, bound close by years of danger and potential disasters averted. Not to mention, who else would give me an unlimited budget and freedom to research whatever I liked?

We’re sitting in the little cafe attached to the gym, sipping something that looks like they stuffed a leprechaun into the blender and this is what came out.

“If the hot yoga and the kale smoothie aren’t doing the trick, tonight is cocktails with the cousins,” she says sternly. “It’s been an age since we all got together. You’ve been in that lab too long, inhaling toxic chemicals, most like.”

There have been a couple of close calls…

“All right,” I nod firmly. “I’ll even shave my legs and wear something short.”

“And the world thanks ye for that,” she drawls. Looking over at our bodyguards, hovering at a nearby table, she winks at her enormous red-haired shadow. “C’mon Tank, back to work.” The man is the size of a mountain, but he’s up and pulling out her chair before she can grab her bag.

Nodding to Boyd, my bodyguard, I head toward the front door of the gym.

It’s a huge, glass-fronted building in a trendy downtown section of Glasgow.

There’s a smoothie shop on either corner and someone offering Reiki sessions down the street.

Boyd moves quickly in front of me as we step out onto the sidewalk, scanning the traffic.

He’s fine as protection, he’s older, experienced and most of all, he’s not him.

Lucas.

Dinnae ye dare! I lecture myself, stepping aside for two muscle-bound jocks heading into the gym. He dinnae exist. Not to me .

Everything moves so fast that it takes my brain a second to catch up. The two jocks bookend Boyd and his face turns white as he chokes, coughing up blood. One of those bastards pulls a knife out from Boyd’s kidney and he’s plunging it into the other. Instant death.

Eight more men circle me, three grabbing my arms and legs and I scream frantically, kicking and squirming like an eel.

I arch my back violently, making them stumble, then my teeth latch onto the arm of the closest one.

There’s a muttered curse as I bite savagely into his skin and he nearly drops me, but they get me into the back of the grey van idling at the curb.

I can hear gunfire and screaming as the doors slam shut.

Please let Kenna be okay . It’s my last thought as the vicious sting of a needle entering my arm sends me into the darkness.

***

Eejit - Scottish slang for idiot.