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Chapter Twenty-Nine
My sanctum is in shambles. I stand on the tarmac at the Inverness airport with Emery at my side while we watch four adults and twin toddlers pour out of the jet I'd sent for them. My in-laws have arrived. Perhaps I've jumped the gun a bit in declaring my ordered life has been shattered, but I can tell these people will not respect my need for privacy or my rules. Not that plan to tell them my rules. Those are for Emery. I wouldn't want her family to think I'm a rigid bastard.
I am like that, but they don't need to know.
The children and the women voice their joy at seeing each other with an outrageous amount of squealing and shrieking. I expect that from bairns. But grown women? The twin lassies fling their wee arms at me and my wife, but Emery's sister and her brother-in-law grab the bairns before they can latch onto us. Her parents wave and grin at us, then Mrs. Granger takes hold of one of the children.
Emery's sister, now free of her bairn, throws her arms wide and rushes at my wife, bounding like her children had done. She shrieks, "Emmy!"
My wife shrieks too, her arms spread wide. "Haddie!"
The women bolt for each other, colliding in a jumble of arms and a cacophony of overjoyed noises that make my eardrums ache.
This is insanity. My wife has turned into a raving bampot, all because she's seen her sister again for the first time in years. All right, maybe I can understand feeling very happy about that. But screaming? Leaping about? It's utter nonsense.
Emery drags her sister over to me. "Rory, meet Hadley. She's married to Cole Wilson, the hottie over there with my parents and the two kiddies."
"Pleasure to meet you," I say as I offer my hand to Hadley. "Welcome to Scotland."
"Thank you, Rory," my sister-in-law says. "Wow, you sure swept my sister off her feet, didn't you? It's okay, I forgive you for the whole whirlwind marriage thing. Now you get to make it up to her with a big bash."
Aye, the word bash makes this wedding rubbish sound so much more attractive. I might need a good whack on the head to survive this insanity.
Emery introduces me to her brother-in-law, who seems like a decent bloke. Ted Granger, Emery's father, shakes my hand vigorously and smiles. Not the reaction I was expecting given our brief phone conversation a few weeks ago. Penny Granger, my mother-in-law, hugs me and kisses my cheek while havering about how happy she is that Emery found "the right man."
I'm not the right one for Emery. She won't find a happy ending with me.
Hadley's daughters, Madison and Mackenzie, giggle shyly when I kneel to greet them.
"You two are the perfect couple," Ted Granger announces just as I rise from saying hello to the bairns. Then he slaps my back. "I ordered a full background check on you, but it came back clean. Welcome to the family."
When I glance at Emery, she shrugs and shakes her head. The slight uptick of her lips suggests she enjoys this mad spectacle. I feel like I need several fingers of Ben Nevis.
I guide Emery's parents and her brother-in-law, along with the bairns, toward the limousine I'd rented for the occasion. Can't have my in-laws crammed into the Mercedes. We wouldn't all fit, anyway.
Emery and her sister keep back a short distance, seemingly engaged in a secret conversation.
Once we arrive at Dùndubhan, my wife and I show her family to the quarters I've arranged for them in the guest wing. Aye, they will sleep in bedrooms on the ground floor while Emery and I will have the third floor to ourselves. And aye, that arrangement is no accident. I plotted this scenario early in the morning in my office. I know Emery will want privacy as much as I do so we can shag each other until we're too exhausted to do anything else except fall asleep. We will need to forgo sex in the kitchen, office, or anyplace where someone might stumble onto us in flagrante. It's a sacrifice I make for her.
I mention my disappointment to Emery that evening.
She pastes her body to mine while I'm in the middle of undressing. Since she's naked, her breasts scrape over my chest when she wriggles against me. "It's only for a little while, baby. Then you can have me anytime, anywhere, as often as you want."
Then she drags me onto the bed, shoving me down on my back, and unzips my trousers.
Aye, she knows how to placate me.
The next day, I drive the grown-up lasses into Loch Fairbairn so Emery, Hadley, and Penny can meet up with Erica and Calli for what my wife calls "a dress-hunting expedition." My mother and my three sisters join them too. I retreat into my office in the village, leaving my wife to deal with eight women who, I'm fair certain, all think they know what's best for Emery. The bairns stayed at home with Cole, as did Ted.
I gave my wife strict instructions for choosing a dress after she suggested she might buy something inexpensive. She doesn't want to make use of our joint bank account. So I told her, "Spend the bloody money, it's yours too."
She smiled and kissed me. "You really are a big old teddy bear."
I've given up trying to convince her I am not a teddy bear or a sweetie-pie.
For the next three hours, I try to focus on work. But my thoughts keep returning to Emery and the wedding. We will stand before our families and a minister, vowing to love and honor each other forever. I have no idea if Emery will mean those words. I will be forced to lie. Whatever I might feel for her, it can't be love since I'm no longer capable of that. And I won't stay with her until I die. I can't. Three torturous journeys down the matrimonial path have left me too scarred to be any good for Emery.
If one of us gets smote down on our wedding day, it will be me. I belong in Hell.
