Her eyes lowered and she focused all her attention on his heavily muscled forearm as she blurted, “I don’t like feeling tongue tied every time I look at you too long. I don’t like this ‘but why me?’ feeling I get when I’m in your arms. Like, I’ve won the lottery, and someone is going to come take it away any minute. Being with you…staying with you means I’ll have to give up everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I have ever worked for in the human world. That scares me. Like, a lot. Because me being pregnant with twins and taking over as queen of Faoltiarn isn’t going to remotely solve all your kingdom’s problems. I want you, Magnus…I do. We want to be your mate—my wolf and my human. My wolf would do anything to be with you, but my human knows I am not capable of being your queen—not with my background. I just… can’t.”
Magnus was silent. For a very long time.
And then, gently, oh-so-gently, as if she were made of glass, he turned her around and pulled her to him, cupping her face to his chest and completely enfolding her in his large arms.
Tara immediately relaxed into this new position. When he held her like this it made her feel treasured…and protected. From everything, including herself. His arms felt like a safe harbor from the storm of “I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!” that raged inside her mind.
“Is that what you need from me?” he asked, his breath warm on top of her head. “Me with you here in Edinburgh instead of you coming to me in Faoltiarn? Is this the only way you’ll let me have all of you?”
Tara pulled back out of his hug because no, that wasn’t what she was saying at all. Tara knew how much his kingdom meant to him and she’d never give him that kind of ultimatum.
But before she could tell him that, the sound of bagpipes cut into the moment—electronic and tinny.
Magnus frowned and glanced toward the kitchen sideboard where his phone had been sitting since he tossed it there sometime on Wednesday.
“Sorry, mo leannan. That would be the head coach. He designated the ‘Flower of Scotland’ as his own special ring tone and had us program it into our phones so we know when he calls. That should tell you how much he thinks of himself. But he wouldn’t be calling on game day if it wasn’t important. Hold on…”
Tara’s eyes widened as she watched Magnus pick up his phone. Today was a game day? He was skipping a game to be with her? She couldn’t believe a guy as tied up in his career and title as Magnus was would do that just for her.
“Nae, not so far away. We decided to stay in the city, actually, but—” Magnus broke off, his face pulling into a heavy frown. “Ach, poor sod. Does he have a concussion then?”
He gave a painful wince that made Tara suspect the answer was a big yes.
“I see. Aye, that is too bad. But you still dinnae need me for…ah, aye…their captain does have a dirty goose-step. But—”
Even with her powerful wolf hearing, Tara couldn’t understand what the head coach said next. But in the end, Magnus nodded with a terse, “Aye, all right then. Give us an hour.”
Then he hung up and turned to Tara, his jaw tightly clenched. “Looks like you’re going to get a taste of the kind of life I can provide you a little sooner than expected, mo leannan.”
Chapter Ten
For as long as she’d been working at RSB’s iconic domed 19th-century building in St. Andrews Square, Tara had used her rare sunny day lunch hours to stroll to the shops on Multrees Walk.
Multrees Walk was a pedestrian street fleeted on both sides by some of the biggest names in fashion. Tara had allowed herself to look longingly at all the window displays, but she’d never gone into any of the shops. That’s because the very first time she strolled over to Multrees Walk on her lunch break, she decided—with a shiver of forbidden lust—it would be far too dangerous for her to actually shop there.
So for five long years, Tara continued her over-budget relationship with Ted and Kate, but only allowed herself fleeting glances at the windows on Multrees. After all, there was a difference between going over budget and breaking the bank.
But that Saturday, less than an hour after Magnus dashed out of the apartment because, “Sorry, Tara, I cannae let my team down,” she was awoken from her nap by Iain’s smart apartment telling her a stylist named Ana Smith was outside the building requesting entry.
Ana spoke with an accent so posh, it was impossible for Tara to tell whether she was from Scotland or England. As it turned out, a famous Scottish singer who was engaged to one of Magnus’s teammates had asked Ana to help Tara get ready for her big debut.
“My big debut?” Tara said, confused. “Wait, are you talking about Magnus’s rugby match?”
As a matter of fact, she was. And because Tara was going to this game, she would need advanced wardrobe planning. Gamely deciding to play along, Tara tried leading Ana to her closet of really nice clothes, telling the stylist, “Okay, I have a ton of stuff that should work. But I was leaning toward a cute little Kate Spade sweater I bought last year.”
Ana burst into tinkling laughter as if Tara had told her a truly funny joke. And then she whisked Tara downstairs to a waiting car. A short while later, the car pulled up in front of Harvey Nichols.
“Oh, my God. This is Multrees Walk!” Tara exclaimed.
“Yes, it is,” Ana answered, wrinkling her nose at the luxury department store as if it smelled bad. “I’m afraid this is the best I can do on such short notice. Normally, I’d take you to London. Everyone on Bond Street knows me. But alas, we only have a couple of hours.”
Tara pinched herself, wondering if this was a dream and she was still napping. But no… even her wildest shopping dreams didn’t include personal shoppers, and there were two waiting for them as soon as they stepped off the escalator. Ana gave them both air kisses before explaining the “emergency” on her hands.
And as it turned out, these people believed just as urgently as Ana did that lives would be destroyed if Tara couldn’t find the perfect outfit for Iain’s big game. The next couple of hours flew by like they were part of a movie montage. And after a flurry of consults and pulls, Tara found herself staring open mouthed at her reflection in the private dressing room’s beveled mirror.
Ana and her emergency fashion team had outfitted her in a boat neck “jumper.” It looked like a normal sweater but when Tara put it on she discovered it was in a fact a miracle in disguise. It clung to her curves like a peach-colored hug. And it seemed to be made of a material she could only describe as “cloud,” because it was too warm to be a cotton blend and too soft to come from an animal.
Ana and her helpers also found her a pair of truly amazing skinny jeans. They didn’t constrict her stomach, yet they somehow made it seem like she possessed the physically impossible ethnic beauty triangle of ample hips, ample booty, and thigh gap—at the same time. Like a Kardashian. Tara kept putting her legs together and then spreading them apart, trying to figure out how the jeans were pulling off this magical feat.
And just when she thought the outfit couldn’t get any better, one of the shoppers presented her with a pair of rose python slingback heels. Tara had never heard of the shoe brand before, but the detailing was so fine, she suspected a real python had given its life so these shoes might live… on her feet. Even more impressive, thanks to a concealed platform, the stiletto heels turned out to be way more comfortable than they looked. Not that it mattered. The shoes matched her magic cloud sweater and jeans so perfectly, she would have happily limped out of the store if it meant she could wear them.
Ana stood next to her with a resigned sigh. “It will have to do,” she said with a glum shake of her head. Then she twisted a gold-and-diamond Bulgari Serpenti watch onto Tara’s wrist as if it was a cubic zirconia tennis bracelet.
“Um, correction: it’ll more than do,” Tara insisted, unable to look away from her reflection in the mirror. This was exactly what she’d dreamed of when she left her pack and during her window-shopping expeditions, drinking in all the clothes and accessories she couldn’t remotely a
fford to buy. And here she was, standing here in Harvey Nichols. Because of Magnus.
“It will do, Ana,” one of the personal shoppers assured the disappointed stylist. “After all, you don’t want her to look too posh during her debut. This outfit gives her a more down to earth vibe,”.
Tara screwed up her face. She couldn’t help but wonder how many down-to-earth people wore outfits to sporting events that cost nearly five figures? But aloud she said, “Thank you. This is way better than anything I ever thought I’d need for a rugby game.”
“A rugby game where every aspect of your appearance will be dissected and judged,” Ana pointed out.
Annnd… cue the trip to the salon with the two-year waiting list. Some poor woman in the middle of an ombre treatment was all but chair tipped out of her seat, so the head stylist could oversee Tara’s “emergency” keratin treatment while a middle-aged woman attended to her nails.
As much as Tara loved all the pampering, she couldn’t help but feel a little relieved when she was finally put under a hair dryer and given some time alone.
But just as Tara brought out her phone, a message appeared across her screen: “Feck this game miss you like a fuckin vital organ wish we were still in bed”
Even though it was from an unknown number, Tara read the punctuation free message and imagined Magnus’s deep grumble.
She smiled and her thumbs hovered over the touch pad, but then instead of returning the message, she swiped over to the contacts screen and typed in Iain’s name.
Tara hesitated, guilt twisting her stomach, but this was the rest of her life. She couldn’t simply take a back seat and let Magnus drive her future from here on out. And though today had been a shopping dream come true, it wasn’t enough. It just…wasn’t.
Clamping her lips, Tara pressed the green call button.
It went straight to voicemail. Which she supposed she should have expected, considering this was his satellite phone number and only meant for emergencies.
“Hi, Iain,” she said at the beep. “This is Tara. I know you’re probably in some jungle somewhere, but I have to go home to my pack…and I was hoping I could borrow your private plane…”
Chapter Eleven
For a game Tara never even heard of before moving to Scotland, rugby sure had a lot of dedicated fans. A whole stadium worth, in fact. In the front row where Tara sat, it felt like a “who can be the loudest” contest between the blasting Ed Sheeran song and the crowd yelling at the two groups of burly men down on the field who kept getting into vicious fights over the oblong ball.
Tara had absolutely no idea what was going on. But she could feel the palpable energy coming off the crowd around her and her new human friend, Kaia. Kaia was another WAG—which was the commonly used term for the wives and girlfriends of players. She was the wife of Nikau, a hooker... meaning he wore a jersey with the number nine on it—apparently the position had nothing to do with prostitution. Kaia also had a warm New Zealand accent, lustrous dark curly hair, and smoky brown skin. Ana had handed Tara off to Kaia minutes before the match began and given Tara strict instructions to follow the much more seasoned WAG’s lead… which turned out to be easier said than done. Kaia watched the game intently, frequently coming to her feet to shout during the first half. Tara was never quite sure if Kaia’s shouts were good news or bad until the score posted on the leader board.
Rugby wasn’t easy to understand, especially compared to basketball, hockey, or—Tara’s all-time favorite—baseball, the three biggest sports in Canada. Twenty minutes into the first half, Tara cursed at how much time she had spent shopping with Ana.
She desperately wanted to pull out her phone and do some research into the rules of rugby in order to find out why the bulky players kept lifting each other into the air, getting tangled into what looked like massive huddles, and why a few of the men wore black spandex-looking helmets while others, like Kaia’s husband and Magnus, did not.
But Kaia had already swatted Tara’s hand once when she attempted to pull her phone from the new Fendi handbag Ana pushed onto her arm when they reached the stadium.
“It makes you look a right bitch, don’t it?” Kaia explained without taking her eyes off the gameplay. “Pull out your mobile during the match and you’ll end up in The Scotsman’s gossip section with loads of comments about how you’re a gold digger who don’t care nothing about the game. And if they lose, there’s bound to be lots of opinions about how it’s all your fault for distracting him and making him go on holiday with you at the start of the season…”
“But…I didn’t ask him to—” Tara began.
Kaia cut her off. “Don’t matter. This is your big debut, so they’re looking for reasons to go extra hard on you.” Then she jumped to her feet to yell again.
Wow.
But Tara hadn’t argued.
Instead, she clung to the strap of her gorgeous Fendi handbag, dutifully pretending she had a clue what was going on and mentally filed away her questions until halftime, when Kaia kindly explained everything that had happened so far in the game. No, the black caps a few of the players wore had nothing to do with the 100th cap Magnus hoped to achieve this year. In fact, this match was simply a “friendly” against Munster and didn’t count for anything.
The gameplay hadn’t seemed remotely friendly to Tara, but according to Kaia, the Rovers were going easy on their Irish opponents since they wanted to save themselves for the big games which counted toward cups, caps, and trophies.
“What? Did you think you should be cheering for the other team because they’re from your mum’s country?” Kaia asked a confused-looking Tara with a grin.
“My mom’s country?” Tara repeated, even more confused.
“Magnus told Nikau you spoke German and that’s where your mum is from. But this Munster is in Ireland—not Germany. Plus, Germany’s national team is pretty shite anyways…”
Kaia then launched into a lengthy, hard-to-follow speculation about the very remote chances of Germany qualifying to compete in the next world cup. Tara briefly considered correcting her new friend about her mother’s country of origin, but she hadn’t even discussed that aspect of her background with Magnus. Or Milly, for that matter. And it didn’t seem right to mention her complicated past to a human woman she’d only just met.
“Yeah…nah, I can tell I’m losing you,” Kaia said with a laugh. “Wanna talk about where you got that choice jumper?”
Tara laughed and eagerly accepted the change of subject.
When Tara was done describing the whirlwind shopping trip with Ana, Kaia shook her head. “Maybe I should let her have a go at me,” she said, looking down at her simple black sweater and leggings. “But I’m not sure how much she could do for me. I’ve always been a tomboy—even played women’s rugby myself in New Zealand. Used to be the sporty, crate-of-lager type—barely knew the difference between prosecco and champagne before I became an official WAG and moved here so Nikau could play for the Rovers. But I bet you’ve always been one of those glamour girls, right? All put together straight out of the womb?”
Tara winced. Kaia was so, so wrong. But she did concede that, “They call me ‘Glamour’ at work actually…”
“Choice! Can I start calling you that, too?”
“Sure,” Tara agreed with an affable shrug. “But I’m really not that girly. I’ve got a temper and I’ve been known to get into bar fights.”
“My kind of woman!” Kaia cheered. “No wonder Magnus picked you over all the others.”
“Mmm,” Tara answered with a non-committal sound. Because it wasn’t like she could tell this human woman that no, actually, Magnus needed a baby incubator in order to keep his title as alpha king of the Scottish wolves. She’d said hell no, of course…but then their wolves mated during the last full moon shift—and that was why he chose her. If you could really even call it a choice…
“So tell me. Is it true Magnus isn’t retiring at the end of this season now?” Kaia asked.
; Tara blinked, wondering at the sudden change of topic.
“Emma—she’s the Brit girlfriend of one of the Rovers—said her boyfriend overheard Magnus talking with Dave—his wife’s a realtor—about finding a flat in the city because you preferred it here,” Kaia explained. “And Magnus wouldn’t buy a flat here if he was still planning to retire after the season is done, right? How’d you manage that, anyways? The team has been trying to get him to move closer for years now, but he always claimed he couldn’t live anywhere else but out in the wops with that kilted-up clan of his. You know, me and a few of the other wives were talking about it the other day. We suspect Magnus doesn’t even own a pair of trousers. Maybe not even a pair of jeans. Though that’s likely to change now that you’ve come along and he’s not sinking every penny he makes into that village of his…”
Tara stilled. She was deeply unsettled at the thought of Magnus using money previously intended for his kingdom treasury to buy her this outfit.
Luckily, game play started up again before Kaia could ask more uncomfortable questions…or tell her about how many other sacrifices Magnus was making to ensure Tara stayed by his side.
Unfortunately for the Rovers, the Munster team came out of half time much more revved up. And due to a few costly mistakes and penalties, they maintained a three-point lead over the Rovers for most of the second half.
But then with only a few minutes left in the game, Magnus caught a kicked ball from the other team. And with more agility than she would have expected from a man of his age and heft, he tore off toward the opposite goal line. This time Tara didn’t need to follow Kaia’s lead. She jumped to her feet and shouted for Magnus to “Go! Go! GOOOOOOO!” right along with Kaia. Then she screamed and hollered when he slid across the goal line.
They won the game! They won the game! But Tara stopped jumping up and down when she noticed instead of jogging over to the media stand like a few of the other players or back towards the clubhouse, Magnus cut across the field to where she and Kaia were seated in the stands.
Her Scotttish King: (Howls Romance) Loving World Page 9
