Epilogue
“What. A. Dick.”
“Tara …” I tilted my head at the woman now filling up my phone’s FaceTime screen.
“No, don’t ‘Tara’ me! First, he bites you …”
“Saves my life,” I edited.
“Then he mates you without telling you what he is.”
“After I begged him to,” I noted.
“And then he goes crazy on you when you attempt to go to New Zealand …”
“Because he’s my bonded mate, and he didn’t know how to handle me leaving. But I’m here now, aren’t I?”
Boy, was I ever. I looked around the Queenstown hotel room, hardly able to believe I’d be meeting up with the Milford Track tour group in just a couple of hours.
Tara ignored my arguments to point out, “You say bonded, I say crazy obsessed stalker. And I think we can all agree after everything that’s happened over the last month that Tara is always right.”
“About most things, yes.” I rolled my eyes. “But this referring to yourself in the third person business? Not so much.”
A beat of annoyed silence, then Tara said. “I don’t love this new wolf version of you either. What happened to laughing at all my jokes, and being too scared to talk back to me?”
“I still laugh at all your jokes,” I insisted. “But now I also point out when you’re being crazy or annoying. Or both. For instance right now.”
“Bitch, I am ten minutes away from a full moon shift. You’re lucky I’m calling your ass at all before you throw yourself out into nature to get eaten by bears.”
“Okay, Tara, since you only have ten minutes left to talk, I won’t waste it by pointing out that New Zealand doesn’t have bears—”
“You’ve got your satellite phone, right?” Tara cut in. Apparently, she’d decided to switch roles and become the worrywart in our friendship.
“Yep.”
“And you’ll call me as soon as you’re done with this stupid walkabout?”
“Walkabouts are Australian, but yes, I’ll call you right after. I promise.”
“And you’ve got a snake bite kit?”
“Um … no,” I answered, trying hard not to laugh. “Because aside from the random escaped reptile, there are no native land snakes here. Seriously, Tara, stop worrying. I’ll be fine.”
“Will you?”
“Aye, she will. Especially since she’ll have her mate here to make sure nothing happens to her,” another voice answered from across the hotel room.
I glanced over the top of my phone screen to see Iain coming out of the hotel bathroom. My heart hiccupped at the sight of him.
He was nude, yet he looked so much different to me now than he had a mere four weeks ago at the Balmoral Hotel.
He’d acquired a tan thanks to a couple of weeks spent in Italy visiting his mother.
And his beard had gone from stubble to a full-on thing, which made it near impossible to see when his jaw was ticking underneath.
Not that it did much of that these days. My grumpy boss had transformed into a sexy mate, and the aloof mask he used to wear had all but completely disappeared.
I knew exactly what was on his mind when his eyes landed on me with a hot and greedy expression in them. He was looking at me as if the simple cotton pajamas I wore were the sexiest lingerie.
“Hey, Iain,” Tara called out, interrupting the intense eye foreplay between him and me. Then she asked, “Why aren’t you turning the phone around so he can say hey?”
“Because he’s naked,” I answered with a laugh.
“I repeat … why aren’t you turning the phone around so he can say hey?” Tara asked again, her tone completely serious.
This time both Iain and I laughed.
“Okay, well, thanks for calling, Tara,” I said, deciding now would be a good time to kick my cheeky best friend off the phone.
“Wait a minute, Tara … before you ring off,” Iain came to stand at the end of the bed, and his voice took on a serious tone. “I dinnae suppose you’ve heard from Magnus since we left?”
On the phone’s small screen, Tara’s whole face visibly wrinkled as if she’d just smelled something foul.
“Why would I have heard from that tool?” She asked. “I figure he’s still pissed at me after what happened in Faoltairn.”
“Aye, I’ve no doubt he is. And that’s why I’m asking. This isn’t Canada. And Magnus can be … temperamental.”
Tara rolled her eyes. “I’m not afraid of your brother, and I can take care of myself.”
“I’ve no doubt about it,” Iain responded, his tone agreeable enough.
But his expression remained resolute as he advised, “Magnus has been a wee bit too quiet for my liking these last few weeks. And he tends to make most of his moves after the full moon when he’s feeling rejuvenated.
My flat is a lot more secure than yours, and he probably wouldnae think to look for you there.
I reckon you should move in until we get back. ”
Since she still couldn’t see Iain, Tara shot a super huffy look at me through the phone screen. “And why would I do that? I can take care of myself,” she insisted, stretching out the last sentence as if she were talking to a dimwit who didn’t understand what a badass she was.
“Please, Tara,” I said. “I know you’re not afraid of anybody or anything. But please do it for me?”
“Seriously, I don’t need—!”
“Did I mention Iain’s flat has a washer and an American-style dryer?” I asked.
An annoyed beat passed. Then, “Ugh! Fine, I’ll move in tomorrow.”
But Tara gave me a none-too-pleased look for hitting her with the ultimate kryptonite.
Because as every American and Canadian expat knows, it is physically impossible to resist a private residence that doesn’t require you to lug your clothes to a local coin-op laundry, or hang each item up to dry in the notoriously damp Scottish climate.
I grinned.
“You’ll love it …” I assured my resentful best friend, and after a few final moments of chitchat, we hung up.
“You’re becoming very good at that,” Iain said as I placed my phone on the nearby bedside table.
“At what?”
“Getting people to do what’s best for them.” A tender look came over his face. “I’ve made peace with my mother. And now Tara’s moving into a more secure space. You’ll make a good mother, moi chridhe.”
“I hope so,” I said, gazing back at him with an equally tender smile. I no longer cared that he could read my mind and I couldn’t read his.
When he looked at me like that, I knew exactly how he felt.
I still couldn’t believe he was here with me. That instead of moving his offices to Ireland in accordance with his banishment, he’d left the new AlgoFortune launch in the hands of his capable team and decided to travel with me until the baby was born.
“You were right about not really living until now. And if we’re speaking truth, with all this work I do, I haven’t done much living myself either,” he told me four weeks ago outside my former apartment building.
“I’ve decided if I have to return to Faoltairn to serve as King, then I want to do as much living as I can with you until the day comes. ”
And now, here we were, smiling at each other in a Queenstown, New Zealand hotel room.
“Speaking of living …” Iain said, casually reading my mind as he bent down and started crawling toward me on the bed. “This will be our last chance to make love in a proper hotel bed. Don’t you think we should take advantage of it?”
I had to laugh.
“No, I don’t. We took more than enough advantage of it last night. And we’re meeting the guide in less than two hours, so we should probably go through our packs one more time to make sure we’re up to standard. Plus, I still need to take a shower myself.”
All valid points. But none of them slowed his incoming crawl.
The next thing I knew, I was on my back with my naked husband on top of me. The tip of his long length pushing into the cotton panties beneath my pajama shirt.
“Say ‘aye,’ chridhe,” he commanded, voice dark and seductive in my ear.
I could have said no. We didn’t have much time left to prepare, and unlike Iain, I hadn’t even showered yet.
But I’d already said aye to so much over the last four weeks.
Aye to Iain taking this trip with me. Aye to his claim.
Aye to getting married in Italy. Aye to a life lived happily ever after with him, even if we had to return to Faoltairn after the baby was born so Iain could reluctantly take his brother’s place as king.
So …
“Aye,” I said once again, my mouth breaking into a wide smile—right before Iain captured my lips with his.
Because why not?
The mouse who had been too scared to speak up before her fatal diagnosis had learned to say aye to life.
After all, I knew better than most that you only get one life to live. One chance at happily ever after. So why not say aye to it all?
Heyo!
As a lover of both Scotland and romance novels featuring Scotsmen, I was so, so happy when this modern Scottish shifter tale presented itself for the telling.
Lucky for me, the story had just begun.