Epilogue
LISA
The pub is called The Black Sheep, and it sits at the end of a cobbled street in a village whose name I cannot pronounce and have stopped trying to. Adam’s hand is on my back, steering me inside. The bell over the door clangs, every head in the room swings our way, and the place fucking detonates.
“ADAM!”
“Maksimov, ye absolute bawbag …”
“Look who’s back…”
“Aye, and he’s brought the wife…”
The group of men at the bar get on their feet, all grinning, lifting their pints.
A great deal of slapping on Adam’s shoulders ensues.
With huge, welcoming grins and overenthusiastic handshakes for me.
Adam takes it with the same deranged grin he’s been wearing since our wedding: radiant, cocky.
Not bothered in the slightest. One of his hands stays flat on my back the whole time, his thumb stroking slow circles that make me want to drag him back to bed.
“Aye, lads, mind yer manners in front of the wife.”
“Aye, we know who she is, ye numpty, ye’ve shown us her photo eight times…”
“Eight times since you guys got here, hen, no exaggeratin’…”
Adam’s mouth twitches. “Baby, meet the worst of Scotland. Or the best, dependin’ what ye’re after.”
The men dissolve into loud laughter. And shouts of, aye, the best, the best ! Dinnae listen to him! Adam pulls me toward a corner where his sister, Fiona, is on her feet, arms thrown wide, grinning with her entire face.
Fiona’s twenty-three, beautiful, with the same blue eyes and dark hair as her brother, and a mouth that has never once in its life held back a thing.
And we clicked from the second I landed three days ago.
She’s hugged me approximately forty times, asked me a thousand questions.
She’s the little sister I always wanted, and I’m not giving her back.
“Lisa!” she hollers across the pub. “Get over here, we kept the corner.”
Adam drops on the bench against the back wall and pulls me down on his thigh, arm around my waist.
“Aye, look at him, lads. Cannae sit two inches off her…”
“Maksimov’s gone soft …”
“Cannae even let the lass sit doon proper…”
“Mate, I’m married, and my wife sits on her own …”
“Aye, well, yer wife isnae…”
Adam’s hand squeezes my hip through his laughter. The whole pub laughs.
One of the guys throws his hands up. “Mate, I swear, yer lass is gorgeous, I’m only sayin’…”
Adam gives him a death stare.
I’m laughing so hard, my face hurts, sitting on my Bratva husband’s thigh in a Scottish village pub that smells like ale and wood-smoke, men I’ve known for ten minutes roasting him, his baby sister beaming at us from across the table, and Adam’s hand splayed wide and heavy on my hip.
Lord, this is the best night of my life.
Again. I keep having those lately. Racking them up.
Fiona slides a drink across the table. “For ye, Lis’. Try it. It’s the local. It’s grim, ye’ll hate it.” Her grin is mischievous.
“Fee, dinnae poison my wife,” Adam says, grabbing the glass and throwing it back.
“Oh, she’s tough. She married you, didn’t she.”
I laugh. “Fiona.”
“What?”
Adam shakes his head. “Ye’re insufferable.”
“Aye, learned from my big brother.” She winks.
I take the glass, drink the little Adam didn’t get, and make a face that puts the entire table on the floor.
Adam laughs into my hair, his broad, warm chest shaking against my back. “Aye, love. Welcome tae Scotland.”
The night goes amazing.
The guys get louder. Fiona teases everyone.
Adam orders me a whisky to chase the grim ale and it’s smoky, warm, settling low in my belly.
His thumb keeps drawing small circles on my hip, and his beard’s at my temple.
He whispers into my ear, low under the noise.
Telling me about his lads. Most of them he’s known since they were kids.
“Broke a man’s nose against the leg of that stool, right there. He said somethin’ about Fee.”
He says it flat, easy, in the same voice he used to order my whisky. Just a man talking about a thing he’d do again tonight. Any night.
“Adam!”
The men fucking roar.
Adam dips to my ear, his beard caressing my skin, his scent and warmth all over me. “Ye havin’ a good time, love?”
I turn to face him. “Yes, baby.”
He returns my smile. His just as filled with love.
“Good.”
His hand drifts lower, and my whole body goes warm the way it’s been going warm since a kitchen counter on a Tuesday two weeks ago… I shift on his thigh, and Adam grunts…low. Half a laugh, half not.
“Lisa Maksimov.”
I bat my lashes, feigning innocence. “…What?”
“Sit still, wife.”
My smile broadens. “But I didn’t do anything, husband.”
“I’m warnin’ ye, hen.”
I loop my hands around his neck, and rest my forehead on his. “ You sat me on your lap, baby.”
“Aye.” His grin’s in my ear. “My mistake. Behave.”
I sit still. For about three minutes. Then one of the guys says something to Fiona I don’t catch, she hollers, slaps the table, and it’s like the whole pub goes with it.
And in the cover of the raucous, Adam’s hand slides one inch higher and his mouth comes down on the back of my neck…
slow, hot…and he murmurs into my skin: “Time tae go home, lass.”
The pub erupts the second we stand me up.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
“Maksimov, mate, ye’ve been here forty minutes…”
“Aye, and they were forty very full minutes, cheers, lads…”
“Adam, ye’re a fuckin’ animal …”
“Aye. I am, Davie. Aye.”
Fiona’s cackling. “Aw, he’s takin’ the wife home tae make babies. Mama, are ye prepared? Are ye fortified? D’ye need a wee snack…”
“Fiona, I swear tae Christ…”
“Mum says she wants grandbairns by spring, Adam, no pressure …”
“Fee.”
“Aye, brother dearest?”
“Walk home.”
“Oh, fuck off, ye’re givin’ me a lift…”
“Walk home, Fee.”
“Adam, the house is four miles away!”
“Then ye’d best get started, lass.”
The guys are weeping. And so am I, the kind of laughing-crying that takes over when you’re in a warm bar, after a whisky your husband ordered for you, and three days of being loved by a Scottish family you hadn’t met a week ago.
Adam pulls his sister into a hug and kisses the top of her head.
“Be good. Get a ride with Davie. See ye in the mornin’.”
“Aye, ye’ll see me in the mornin’ lookin’ annoyed, ‘cause I’ll have heard ye through the wall…”
I put my hand over her mouth, laughing. “Fiona!”
“Goodnight!” she hollers
I’m laughing too hard to answer. Adam hauls me out the door with my hand in his, the whole bar going with hoots and whistles. Someone yells, Maksimov, ye absolute legend, get her home, and the bell clangs behind us into the cold.
The street is dark, the cobbles wet, the air clean in a way Halo City’s has never been.
Smelling of moss and stone and far-off smoke.
Adam pulls me into him under a lamp outside the pub and kisses me as if he hasn’t kissed me in fucking days.
His big hands, on my face. All lips, tongue, teeth, and beard.
Then he breathes against my lips, “ Lisa, my fuckin’ wife. ”
I laugh into his mouth, and he laughs back.
“Home, hen.”
“Yes, hubby.”
He gives me his wicked grin. “Aye, wifey.”
* * *
The Maksimov estate in the countryside of Edinburgh is a long stone house, set on a hill above a loch.
We came up the gravel in an old Land Rover three days ago, and I have not stopped staring out of windows since.
The land rolls, with sheep in the far field.
The loch, still at the bottom of the hill, and the mountains past it rising.
I fell in love with this place. I did not plan to.
I’m a city girl, born to humidity and concrete, and I came to Scotland fully intending to be polite about it.
Instead, I spent three days walking the hills with my hand in my husband’s, the wind through my hair, eating his mother’s cooking, letting Fiona teach me how to swear in Scottish, standing at the window watching the sun go down over water that turns pink and gold… and I just cracked wide open.
This is his. The dirt he grew out of, the air he learned to breathe, the stones he leaned on as a boy. And he brought me here. His people took me in, and I am Lisa Maksimov of the Maksimovs in the Highlands. Lord, my life!
Adam drives up the gravel, with one hand on the wheel and the other heavy on my thigh. The headlights illuminate the front of the house. There’s still one light on in the kitchen window.
Adam lifts his chin toward it. “Mum’s up.”
“Aww, baby, it’s late.”
He grins, squeezing my knee. “She’s waitin’ on us. We’ll say hello, then go upstairs.”
Skye’s at the kitchen table in her dressing gown when we come through the back door.
She’s petite. Not even five feet tall. To think this giant came out of her.
She has soft brown hair that’s gone half-grey at the temples, her kids blue eyes, and a face that wears its smile lines like medals.
She’s hugged me about a hundred times in three days, called me hen and lass and love and my Lisa, and made me tea, asking: tell me about the heat, Lisa, oh I cannae imagine it.
She looks up, smiles, and lifts the kettle.
“Cocoa, my loves?”
“No thanks, Mum. We’re for bed.”
“Aye,” she winks at me. “I’ll just bet ye are.”
I giggle.
“Mum,” Adam chastises her through a chuckle, shaking his head.
“Hush. Goodnight, my lovelies.”
She crosses the kitchen to kiss my cheek, her hand cupping the side of my face.
“Sleep well.”
“Thanks. You too, Skye.”
Then she turns to Adam and pats his cheek.
He looks down at her with all the softness in the world. This giant, terrifying man who’s nothing but love and warmth around his loved ones.
“Behave.”
“Mm.”
“Adam Andrew Maksimov.”
He laughs again. “Aye, Mum. I’ll behave.”
She narrows her eyes, and he grins. Then she shoos us up the stairs.