~

 

“ Oh, would you look at that,” Isla said, and nudged me with her elbow, shooting my arm from the top of the table and almost causing me to headbutt the wood veneer as my body follow my head, and I lunged forward toward it.

I did stop myself in time, but I also got a few funny looks from the folk in the pub. Isla wasn’t paying attention to me; she was too interested in who had just walked into the bar. Gossip hound.

“It’s that outlander Detective, so what?” Moira snorted her contempt for Isla, for him, and for me.

Her pride was probably still stinging from earlier, but then, as she’d zapped me, so was mine.

“The one who’s investigating old man Croon’s untimely demise,” Isla reminded us, and my sister stopped throwing imaginary daggers at me long enough to give him a second look.

“And?” Moira asked, a little distracted, too distracted for my liking as she stared at him like a bear looking at a honeypot.

“And, the one who can give us a little insight into the why’s and how’s of what exactly happened to poor Mr. Croon,” she offered back.

“Poor, Mr. Croon? The man wasn’t exactly poor Mr. Croon when he was alive now, was he?” I eyed her with enough scrutiny to make her blush.

“Well, I hate to speak ill of the dead…” she started.

“Because we all know about the bad luck.” Moira waved a dismissive hand to beckon her on. “Get to the point before I go up to the Point and toss myself off into the sea.”

“Moira!” Isla gasped, and my sister and I rolled our eyes in unison.

Mine came back down on the Outlander Detective Jack Mackie because they were just naturally heading in that direction, and not because the man was a sex god trapped in a man’s body. Honestly.

“Please tell me how Deputy Duck-face is going to spill the beans on what, or what not might have been nefarious doings in the death of our Mr. Croon.” Moira gave her a poignant look and shrugged her shoulders up around her ears.

I was only half listening, most of my brain was on Jack, and his new hairstyle – shorter, a little more messed up in a spiky, just rolled out of bed way, and then I felt the elbow in my side and snapped my attention back towards my kin, before they busted me for looking at an outlander like I thought he was an ice cream.

“Missed that,” I admitted. “Zoned out for a bit of a brain fart.”

“Breasts,” Isla said, and I had to look to Moira to confirm what I’d just heard. Moira shrugged again, but not as forcefully that time.

“Whose?”

“Yours,” Isla said, and I’m sure she expected me to follow her thinking, but I admit – I was as lost as a tourist talking to a local in a Glaswegian bar.

“Mine?”

“Well, I have noticed, and I don’t think it’s without merit to bring this up…” she started, and I fidgeted in my seat.

“If you’re going to say something bad about my girlies…” I warned her with a scowl.

“Only that – they seem to be a magnet for Detective Mackie’s eyes,” she rushed out.

“Sorry?” I even shook my head to show her that I thought she had gone full blown squirrel – nutty, on me.

“I don’t think he is. In fact, he could barely peel his eyes from them the last time he was here,” she announced, and to be honest, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Every time you looked away from him, so he was looking at them. That was when you weren’t bending over, and he was practically drooling at the sight of your bum.”

“It’s hard to miss,” Moira said with glee, and I snapped her a glare.

“My girlies?” I searched for confirmation from Isla.

It was the first I’d heard of it – why was it the first that I’d heard of it?

“Yes.”

“Up periscope and right at ya?” Moira chuckled at my slightly uneven nipples, and I zapped her.

She bit down on a shriek, but it was still loud enough to bring everyone’s attention toward our table, including Detective Jack and his new hairstyle. Not that I’d searched or singled him out, just as the tallest person standing at the bar he did stand out like a rather sexy sore thumb.

“And so what?” I asked with a look of rebuke for my kin.

“Go over there and dazzle him with your cleavage to see if you can find anything out.” Isla looked at me as if I missed the queue for brains when they were handing them out.

“You’re serious?” I half liked the idea, and half wanted to march up to Detective Jack and slap him for ogling my goodies.

“Like sheep rot.”

“Pull down your top a little, put a hand in and hoist them up,” Moira said, cupping her hands in front of her breasts and juggling with her own imagination.

“I will not go and flaunt my wears in front of that man,” I hissed out like a fire-less dragon.

“But then, what good are they?” Isla offered back.

“Did you ever hear of feminism, or did the last few decades work for equality just pass you by?” I demanded.

“You live on Skye,” she shot back. “That’s like asking the Tibetan Monks to join the arms race.”

I groaned inwardly, but the sound of my sister’s sniggers annoyed me so.

“Go on, Maggie, take one for the team,” Moira chuckled.

“I let you live to adulthood, didn’t I? How much must I suffer for this family?” I hissed back.

“It’s why the Goddess gave us our girlies.” Isla looked at me with hope.

“To flaunt them in front of Detective Jack?” I asked, dismissing him with a wave of my hand, but, to my horror, he was looking right at me, and waved back. “Oh poop.” I hissed, trying to decide if I should look for an imaginary contact lens under my table or not.

“He’s coming this way, Maggie!” Isla hissed a squeal of excitement. “Now’s your chance.”

“Well, I’ll just whip them out and flash him, and while he’s drooling on his own chin, you steal his notebook,” I hissed back.

“Oh, good one!” Isla nodded like a fake dog in the back of an old person’s car.

“I will hurt you,” I warned her.

“Detective…” Moira announced loud enough for me to whip my evil glare from my kin and aim it right at him. Jack frowned back, unsure why I was giving him the evil eye, and I snapped on a big beaming smile.

“How are we all doing this fine night?” he asked as he looked at each one of us in turn, and I watched to see where his eyes landed on my kin.

Perhaps I wasn’t the only pair of breasts he liked to ogle. Maybe he was addicted to boobies.

If he was then, he hid it well until he got to me, and his eyes flicked to my girlies and back up to my face. The pervie little…

“Told you,” Isla said as she nudged me once more, and I had the urge to zap her, zap Moira because she sniggered, and offer up something of a hex – not that we did that sort of thing – for Jack.

“So you did,” I offered back. “Right, well, in that case,” I said, pushing up out of my seat and turning towards Jack to give him a nice big eyeful of my girlies that he couldn’t resist.

He looked, and I seethed.

“So, how’s the case going?” Moira asked, following my lead and grilling Jack while his little brain was overriding his big one.

“Well, I think…” Jack’s eyes flicked up to mine, and I quickly looked elsewhere so as not to bust him, just yet.

“Accident’s like that…” Moira clicked her tongue.

“Accident…?” Jack was practically salivating.

“Not an accident then?” Isla offered as if she couldn’t care less.

“Not in so much, no…” Jack said, distracted.

I rolled my eyes to Moira and urged her on with a glare.

“Slip, wasn’t it?” she asked, grinning from ear to ear at my misery.

It was true; I’d expected more from Jack – stupid really – he was male.

“Not too sure on that,” Jack said, and Isla opened her big mouth on a small shriek and broke the magic, the spell – not that there was one of those either – just my rather perfect girlies holding him spellbound, and he snapped to attention.

“I knew it. Foul play!” Isla, of course, was triumphant.

“What?” Jack almost chewed off his tongue to backpedal. “No, I mean we have no…”

“Clue?” I asked with as dry a tone as I could find, and he grasped onto that lifeline that I threw for him.

“Yes.” He nodded like I needed the help to understand the word.

“That doesn’t surprise me where you’re concerned.” I tipped my chin in the air and walked away to the sound of sniggers from my kin.

It served him right.