Page 86 of Skin Deep

“Your parents enjoy living in Scotland?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Have you been?”

“Not on land,” she said. “Have you worn a skirt?”

She was dead fucking serious. I laughed. “It’s a kilt. And yeah, I’ve worn one before. Mostly for formal affairs.”

“Will you wear one to our wedding?”

It took me a second to comprehend, because it felt like I’d just hit a massive dip in the road. I hadn’t. I turned my face a fraction, meeting her eyes. Her face was as serious as her voice had been.

“It is a woman’s choice when it comes to a man. This is what mamma says,” she said, reading the look on my face. “I know who I want. You.Per sempre.” Then she turned her face forward and nodded, like that was that.

This was the natural progression of things. A house together. A dog. Marriage and a family. Laughter barreled from mouth when I thought about the list I’d kept. One week and she blew it all to pieces. But here I fucking was, getting all I’d ever wanted.

She looked at me and grinned. Her eyes shone even with the overcast weather, like blue diamonds in a mine.

I took her hand and kissed it, her ring finger never seeming so naked before.

We pulled up to the safe house about twenty minutes later. I let Gus out with me, and we walked to Georgina’s side, opening her door for her. She took his leash from me as I watched my brothers step out of the car. They looked like they’d been fighting in hell.

Lach nodded toward the beach house. I nodded toward Georgina, who was giving Gus a chance to sniff around and take care of his business. Lach disappeared inside with Declan. Georgina’s phone rang, and she started to speak in Sicilian to whoever was on the phone. Sounded like Stella or one of her many family members.

Mac?

She kept the phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder. She was letting Gus walk her as she took in the area. A two-lane road separated the house from what seemed like a nature preserve, with water running through it, and the beach.

On the preserve side, woods stretched as far as the eye could see behind the patchwork land. The house itself was directly on the beach side of the road. It was round shaped, lifted off the gritty land some, with a pier that dropped down to the beach.

As far as safe houses went, this one was prime, and secluded. Only a few houses were close by.

The weather whipped at Georgina’s clothes. I could tell she wanted to huddle deeper into the scarf she’d wrapped around her neck, but she was too busy trying to keep up with Gus.

I was having a hard time breathing. It wasn’t from the weather.

The sight of her. What she’d said to me in the car. It rushed me like the moment before my dick slipped inside of her. It was all consuming. Something that turned off all thought and let nature take over.

She turned toward me and lifted a hand. I lifted mine in return.

Lach came out of the house with fresh clothes and two hot dogs wrapped in sliced bread. He met me by the car, taking a big bite of one. He handed me the other.

“Thought I could do two, but my stomach’s not acting straight right now.”

“Owen?” I said, and I was sorry I inhaled half of the sandwich he’d given me.

“He’s gonna be all right.” He sighed. “Oran has two sons. You know of Dermot. He has another one. Younger. Devin. Not much into the family business. But Oran has been putting some pressure on him. That girl in Boston?”

The screeching went through my head.

“No forgetting her,” I said.

“Yeah, she’s all right, normally. But she got mixed up with the Craigs. Devin took a liking to her. That’s all it took. Oran told him he could marry her if he’d join the family business. That’s how he got involved in all of this. Last night, we were out taking care of some business. Devin was out and he had a run-in with Owen. He was giving orders for the men he was with to kill him. I killed Devin. Declan killed the other two.”

“You killed Oran Craig’s son,” I said.

He shrugged. “All’s fair in love and war, bro,” he said.

Yeah, no doubt, but the implications of this were going to be severe. Oran was pissed for a few reasons already.

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