“Can you take your shirt off for me?”

He arched an eyebrow, “Why?”

“Does there have to be a reason?”

“Pepper-up doesn’t seem to quite do it for Moskva.”

“Especially if you have a yard each.” Nat added slyly.

“I didn’t?”

Nat grinned. “You did.”

“Okay, Callahan. Spill it.” Gabriella cocked a hip. “I have been at your side for two hours and eighteen minutes, and trust me… you’re in something of a mood.”

When Nat had asked who Michael was supporting quarter of an hour ago, he’d replied, “There are too damn many birds, too damn early, this morning.”

“I take it someone got laid last night.” Emma had replied slyly, earning a withering look from Michael and grins from Nat and Keegan.

“He’s old enough to be-”

“My sugar daddy.”

 “I really thought he was going to make it, too... That was a hard conversation to have with his parents…" 

“I think I’ve made a breakthrough.”

“What kind of breakthrough? Not a brick-wall and/or glass-window kind of breakthrough, I hope.”

“A possible poison antidote sort of breakthrough.”

 Nat said slyly, “I really hope the story of your granddaughter’s wedding won’t involve the dance you and old Mr Murphy used to perform at parties before he threw his hip at Fergus and Maria’s Silver Wedding Anniversary.”

“Lachlan’s fairly getting about since his surgery, you know…”

“Why is he bleeding?”

“Because he’s an eejit.”

“You know, in all me years of being a healer, I’ve never known idiocy to cause people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose.”

“I think it’s a new phenomenon.”