“I need to hire a decent photographer to take pictures of the town all year round. It would be good for marketing,” Agnes said. “Americans love scenes like this. It’s how they imagine the whole of Scotland to be. Either this or covered in heather, with grass swaying in a gentle breeze and men in kilts chopping wood under the sun.”
“You’ve spent way too much time thinking about this,” Logan said.
She ignored him as her eyes went wide, signaling she’d had another ‘brilliant’ idea. “We should do our own men-in-kilts calendar.”
“No.” He knew where this was going, and he wasn’t posing for any damn calendar.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “We’ll see,” she said, and he felt the sudden urge to run.
The pub’s carpark was full to bursting, but they were lucky and found a spot right near the door. Darcy leaped out first, excited to be dressed up and out on the town. Her pale green dress had been a Christmas present from his mother and it came with a full skirt that sparkled when it caught the light—something Darcy had told him at least half a dozen times.
“Hurry up,” she called. “I want to see what everyone’s wearing.”
Logan shared a knowing smile with Agnes as they made their way into the pub. The place was packed and, as they made their way to the restaurant, everyone grinned and called out their hellos.
“Been a long time since I’ve seen it this busy,” Logan commented.
“Where else is there to go around here?” Agnes grinned. “For now.” She had big plans to totally disrupt the running of the town.
To his surprise, Agnes’ sisters were waiting for them outside the restaurant doors. All of them dressed in various shades of green. He suspected it must be the family color, to match their eyes. When seeing them all together, it was hard not to feel a little stunned. With similar heights and builds, identical eyes, and startlingly different hair, the four women were breathtaking.
Agnes hugged her sisters, and they helped her out of her coat.
“You look beautiful,” Isobel said.
“So do you. And you’re out of Callum’s sight! I’m surprised he allowed it.”
“He’s dealing with the kids,” Isobel said. “And he made me wear this.” She tugged a necklace out of her dress. “It’s a panic button. It sounds an alarm on his watch.”
The sisters collapsed in hysterics over that, but Logan couldn’t understand why. It seemed sensible to him. “Are we going in, or are we going to stand out here chatting all night?”
“You go ahead,” Agnes said. “I’ve got a couple of things I need to tell my sisters first, without the men hearing.” She caught Drew’s eye. “I asked for a table near the kitchen, so better use the side door, it’s closest. You know the one I mean.”
“Sure.” Drew grabbed Logan’s arm and dragged him away.
“Don’t be too long,” Logan called. “I’m starving.”
“Just a couple of minutes. Promise.” She blew him a kiss.
They were halfway down the hall when Logan noticed Darcy wasn’t with them. “Run back and get your sister.”
“Don’t worry. She’ll come in with Agnes.” He pulled open the door at the end of the hall and ushered Logan inside.
He took two steps into the room before he stopped dead. The room wasn’t set up for dining, as it usually was. Instead, the tables were gone, and the chairs had been arranged in rows facing the front. There were pink flowers everywhere, and long lengths of green silken material draped across the ceiling in soft waves. Beside him, at the front of the room, was an arch covered in pink flowers and greenery.
And the new minister stood under it, a smile on his face.
“Drew? What’s going on?”
The men in Agnes’ family sat grinning at him from the first row, all wearing suits or kilts. The women of Knit or Die were there, as were the old men that made up the Domino Boys. Lake sat in the middle of the room, along with most of his work colleagues. In the front row were his parents, dressed in their finest. His father nodded at him, while his mother waved a handkerchief. He’d only ever seen her with a linen handkerchief once before…
He turned to his son but couldn’t get the question out of his mouth.
Drew answered it anyway. “Welcome to your wedding,” he said with a wide grin. “I’m the best man.”
“If he runs, I’ll puke all over your nice dresses,” Agnes told her sisters.
“He won’t run,” Mairi said. “He loves you. Everything is going to be fine. The room looks beautiful, and everyone’s in place, nothing is going to go wrong. Trust me.”
“Trust you? You’re the last person I should have asked to help organize this—chaos is your middle name.”
“So is romance.” Mairi looked pleased with herself. “I should put that on my business cards.”
“I see him,” Donna called from the door, where she was peeking into the room.
“Does he look mad?” Agnes wrung her hands. This was a dumb idea. The dumbest idea she’d ever had. Whatever had made her think she should stage a surprise Christmas wedding because her family would be in town? What if Logan didn’t want to marry her? He’d been married before, and that hadn’t turned out well. Maybe he didn’t want to do it again? Maybe she should have had this conversation before she talked Dougal into holding the wedding.
“He looks shocked,” Donna said. “The minister’s going over to talk to him.” She looked back at her sisters. “Can ministers date, or are they celibate like priests? Because that guy is seriously hot.”
Isobel smacked her on the back of the head. “Don’t let Duncan hear you say that, or he’ll go mental.” She waggled her eyebrows. “But Donna’s right. That minister is totally a ten.”
“What’s going on?” Agnes snapped. She was going to pass out at this rate. Who the hell cared how attractive the minister was? What she wanted to know was whether Logan had sprinted off or not.
“Oh,” Donna said, making Agnes’ stomach lurch. “The minister just signaled me.” She closed the door. “We’re good to go.”
Isobel burst into tears. “You’re getting married,” she wailed.
“Shh!” everyone, including Darcy, hissed at her. “We don’t want Callum running out here.”
“Sorry.” Isobel dabbed her eyes. “Hormones.”
“Okay.” Agnes looked at her sisters. “Okay. I’m getting married. I mean, I must be, right? The minister wouldn’t signal for me to walk down the aisle if Logan just wanted to talk.”
Darcy put a hand on her arm. “Dad loves you. We all do.”
“Damn it.” Agnes pulled the girl into a hug. “Now, I’m going to cry.”
“Don’t you dare ruin that makeup,” Mairi snapped. “Now, enough of this. Darcy, grab your flower basket, the music’s started. Do it exactly like we practiced this morning.”
“I’ve got this.” She took the basket of rose petals and pushed open the door.
“You ready?” said a male voice, and Agnes turned to find her nephew, Jack, standing beside her, his elbow cocked waiting for her.
She took it gratefully, marveling at how much taller he was than the last time she’d seen him. “I’m ready.”
“That’s our cue,” Donna said. “We go in by age. That means you’re up first, Isobel.”
Isobel kissed Agnes on the cheek, sniffed, and walked through the doors.
Donna smiled at Agnes. “I love you, sis,” she said before she followed.
“Do not screw up my perfect wedding,” Mairi warned before grinning. “Have fun!”
And then she was gone too. Leaving Agnes and Jack alone in the hall.
“I never thought I’d be this nervous,” she said.
“Having second thoughts? I can get you out of here if you need me to.”
She looked up into his beautiful, but very serious face. “The nerves are for Logan. I’m worried I’ve pushed him into this, and he doesn’t really want me.”
“At the risk of sounding like Callum, that’s bull
shit. Now, can we go?”
“Yeah.” And with a smile, she pushed open the door. Her eyes went straight to Logan, who smiled at her as though she’d hung the moon and then shook his head. She hoped that meant he couldn’t believe what she’d done, and not that he was going to tell her no when she got to the front of the room.
All she could do was walk toward him to get her answer.
A million thoughts raced through Logan’s head before Agnes appeared and started down the aisle. Then, all he could think about was the woman he loved.
She positively glowed. Smiling at everyone as she passed, she overflowed with joy. The sight of her appeased his worry. His woman wasn’t doing this because she felt she had to. She was doing it because she wanted to.
When she reached the front of the room, she kissed Jack’s cheek then took Logan’s hand.
“Good surprise?” she whispered. Her anxiety shone in her eyes.
“Amazing surprise.”
He couldn’t believe she’d pulled this off without him knowing, especially seeing as everyone in town seemed in on it. Staring at Agnes, drinking her in, he listened as the minister waxed lyrical about marriage. He listened, but he didn’t hear a word, as his attention remained solely on the woman at his side.
When she cleared her throat and let go of his hand to rummage in her tiny bag, he realized she’d written her own vows.
Cocking an eyebrow at the minister, he asked, “What am I supposed to do?”
The minister didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t amused. “Talk from the heart?”
“Helpful,” Logan grumbled.
“Dearly beloved,” Agnes said, then looked at the minister. “Oh, wait, that’s your bit.”
As the crowd laughed, she looked back at Logan. And everything within him stilled. The people in the room disappeared, and all that existed was Agnes.
“I never thought I’d be here,” she said.
“Neither did I,” he muttered, and Drew turned another laugh into a cough.
Agnes narrowed her eyes at Logan before continuing. “I never wanted to stay in Scotland.”
He sucked in a breath.
“I never thought I could be happy here.” Agnes blinked up at him. “I hate the cold. And the rain. And there are days when I’m not too fussy on the people either.”
There was more chuckling at that.
“There is only one thing that could have made me change my mind about staying in Scotland, and that’s you. Your love makes the winters warm and takes the damp edge off the grayest day. And knowing I have your love to go home to gives me the patience to deal with the most difficult of people. Scotland was a word that meant suffering to me, but now it means peace—because Scotland is where I found you, and where we make our home.
“In case you’re wondering, all of this means that I love you, Logan McBride. And I have no regrets doing it. I don’t regret staying in Invertary. I don’t regret staying for you. You are my choice. You will always be my choice. And I can say right now, that I also choose to be a mother to Drew and Darcy—if they’ll have me. They’re my choice too, and I love them just as much as I love you.”
Darcy burst into tears and ran from where she stood beside Agnes’ sisters to wrap her arms around Agnes.
“Hush,” Agnes said as she cuddled her close. “Nobody can hear my awesome vows over your wailing. And don’t you dare wipe your snotty nose on my dress.”
Darcy laughed and cried at the same time, which turned into a hiccup. Donna stepped forward and gently held Darcy as she led her back to the group. The women enclosed her at their center. Protecting her. Caring for her. Being everything that made them the Sinclair sisters.
“As I was saying,” Agnes said. “I want you. I want your kids. I want this family. I thought I wanted something else, and I probably did at some point. But I’m smart enough to recognize a better opportunity when I see one. And that’s what you are—you’re the better opportunity. We can have a good life together, Logan. I promise that I’ll treat your heart as precious, the way that you treat mine. I promise I’ll compromise so that we can both do most of the things we want to do. I promise I’ll care for you, the way you care for me. I also promise that I’ll drag you out of Scotland every winter to escape the freezing rain.”
Chuckles and sniffles rippled through the room.
“I promise I’ll be crabby, difficult to live with, bad-tempered, and often irrational. But I promise to work on those things too. Mainly, I promise to give all that I am, to all that is you, for all the time we have left. If you’ll have me.”
Agnes folded the paper with shaky hands and returned it to her purse before handing it to Mairi. Emerald eyes stared up at him, and he felt like he could see all the way to Agnes’ soul. She hid nothing, held nothing back. She was giving it all to him. Her love. Her life. All of it.
And there was only one thing he could say in reply.
Turning to the minister, Logan said, “I do.”
An Excerpt from Rage
Read on for a taste of Isobel Sinclair’s story.
The village of Arness, Scotland
Isobel Sinclair should have contacted the authorities the first time she saw the boat sneaking into the cove. But she didn’t. She should have called when there was a storm during the boat’s third visit, and the crew lost some of their baggage on the rocky path up to Arness. But she didn’t. Instead, she’d gathered their lost cargo, called it her own and sold it to help pay off her ex-husband’s debts.
Which made her a thief, just like him.
And her thieving was the reason she still didn’t call in the authorities the time the boat turned up in the dead of night, and there was shouting in the darkness. Or the time she’d seen evidence that someone had dragged something heavy over the beach.
No, she’d never called the authorities. Not once. Even though she knew the boat brought nothing but trouble each time it snuck into shore.
But she should have called, because the boat had come back.
And this time, they’d left a body behind.
“What are we going to do with him?” Isobel’s youngest sister, Mairi, stared down at the man.
The dead man.
“I suppose we could bury him,” Agnes, one of their middle sisters, said.
“We can’t bury him here.” Isobel gestured to the rock-strewn beach. “Even if we do manage to dig a hole, the tide will unearth him in a day or two.”
Mairi looked up at the steep, rocky path behind them, the only route down from the bluff where the tiny town of Arness sat. “We’ll never get him back up there. He looks like he weighs a ton.”
“And he’s wet.” Agnes nodded. “That makes you heavier.”
“Aye,” Mairi said. “Water retention.”
Isobel and Agnes stared at their sister.
“What?” Mairi said.
With shakes of their heads, Agnes and Isobel turned their attention back to the body.
“How do you think he died?” Agnes said.
“I suppose we should look him over and see if we can tell.” Isobel didn’t like the thought of touching the man, let alone examining him for clues as to his cause of death.
“Does it really matter how he died?” Mairi said. “I mean, it isn’t going to change the fact that he’s dead. Or that he was left here by the boat people.”
“The boat people?” Agnes looked towards heaven and seemed to be counting to ten. Again.
Mairi shrugged, her long red hair shifting with the movement. “What else are we to call them? And he was left here by the boat crew. Isobel saw them while she was spying.”
Isobel adopted her patented “haughty eldest sister” look—it helped take her mind off her shaking hands and the fear gnawing at her stomach. “I wasn’t spying. I was looking out of my window and saw them carry him off the boat and dump him here.”
“You were looking out of your window with the aid of binoculars,” Mairi reminded her.
She had a point. “What I don�
��t get is if these boat people are so keen on going unnoticed, then why are they dumping bodies on the beach?” Isobel said. “I mean, they only come in the dead of night. And we know they’re up to no good.”
“Smuggling,” Mairi said with a decisive nod.
Agnes walked around the prone man and looked back out at the choppy waters behind them, then up at the hill leading to town. “Do you think they meant for him to be swept out to sea? Or to be eaten by the crabs?”
“If they wanted him to be swept out to sea, why not dump him out there in the first place?” Isobel said. “And I don’t think half a dozen crabs are enough to eat a full-grown body. At least not fast enough to get rid of the evidence.”
“Even then,” Mairi said, “there would still be the bones.”
They nodded in agreement, and Isobel couldn’t help but notice that her sisters were struggling to hide their shaking hands, just as she was doing.
“I think we should call the police.” Seeing as Agnes wasn’t the most law-abiding member of the family, it said a lot that she was the one to suggest calling them in.
“I can’t.” Isobel tugged at the sleeves of her oversized purple cardigan and wrapped her arms around herself. “They’ll find out that I sold the stuff I found, rather than reporting it to them in the first place.”
“I told you, you shouldn’t have gone to the pawn shop in Campbeltown,” Mairi said. “Too many people know us there.”
“I wanted rid of it fast.”
Plus, she’d needed the money to pay off the loan shark who was hounding her over her ex-husband’s debt. Seeing as the man couldn’t find Robert, he’d decided to make Isobel pay in his stead, with cash or her body, making it clear that her family would suffer if she didn’t comply. That was the reason Isobel’s moral judgment had been silenced when she’d found the stolen goods on the path—the thought of handing over her body to pay her ex-husband’s debt made her ill. But she’d do it if she had to. She’d do just about anything to make sure her kids were safe.
Can't Buy Me Love: Romantic Comedy (Sinclair Sisters Trilogy Book 3) Page 22
