Chapter 12
Simon had been arrested. Hauled away in the back of a police car, with blood still streaming from the nose Malcolm had broken. The only reason Malcolm had escaped arrest himself was because of Charlotte and Gavin’s testimony that Simon had been threatening them, trying to force Gavin to go with him. The police now knew Gavin was Simon’s son. That he’d run away from abuse. That he’d been living at Lochmara. The full details weren’t out yet, but an inquiry would happen, and everything they’d worked for this past month would fall apart.
All because Malcolm had failed.
Christ, he couldn’t get the image of Charlotte’s face out of his mind. That flash of terror and bafflement as Simon wrenched the shovel out of her hands. The resolute way she’d planted her feet and lifted her tiny fists against a monster twice her size.
It curdled his stomach because his brain was more than happy to supply a million and one ways about how she could have been hurt. How Gavin could have been taken. All the things that could have happened to either of the people he loved because he hadn’t been there to stop it. There was no joy in the realization that he loved them. Only fear. Fear for what might have happened. Fear for what still could. Because he wasn’t enough. He’d never be enough.
His head hadn’t stopped ringing yet from the pounding he’d taken at Simon’s hands. It didn’t matter that he’d given better than he got. He’d snapped, letting himself be further provoked and exposing his family to the rage that always lurked beneath the surface. Exposing that traumatized child to his true capacity for violence. Something he’d vowed never to do.
The soft sound of a footstep on the stairs had him looking up.
“He’s finally asleep.” Shadows bruised the skin beneath Charlotte’s eyes, and her hair was pulled back into a messy tail. Her shoulders dipped with exhaustion, and for once vibrance didn’t cast a youthful glow over her familiar features.
The police had allowed them to bring Gavin home after they’d all been released from questioning. Resources were spread thin, and he was safe with them, so nobody had felt there was a need to drag out a social worker just yet. But it was only a matter of time. How much longer would the lad be able to call this home? Did he even still want to, after today?
Charlotte padded across to where Malcolm sat in the living room, automatically reaching to wrap her arms around him. He wanted that hug more than anything in the world. Wanted to burrow into her softness and accept the comfort she offered as easily as breathing. But he didn’t deserve such kindness, and it was long past time he stopped taking it. He gently pushed her away.
Worry flickered in her eyes. “I expect the bruises are making themselves known now. Let me clean you up.”
She thought it was pain from his injuries. For a moment, he opened his mouth to correct her, then closed it again. He understood her need to do something, and certainly his wounds could use more tending. He’d done only the bare minimum, washing the cuts on his hands and his face at the police station.
She retrieved the first aid kit from the cabinet in the kitchen and opened it, pulling out antiseptic and gauze pads. The sting of it as she dabbed at the cut along his cheek and above his eye was welcome. It kept his brain anchored in the moment instead of the future or the past.
“I’m sorry.” His apology came out full of gravel.
Her eyes flicked to his, full of so much kindness. “None of this was your fault.”
“I should have been there. I shouldnae have left either of you alone.”
“We had no reason to think he’d show up. No reason to believe he had any way of finding us. We were careful.”
“How the hell did he even find Gavin?”
“Hamish had his guy asking questions. You know small towns. Somebody overheard something and told him. He followed the breadcrumb trail. Said he heard about the boy hired on out here at the pub.”
Malcolm swore.
“Not your fault,” Charlotte repeated. “Short of keeping him locked in the house, there was no way to keep the tenants from finding out about him, and without bringing a lot more people in on the secret, we couldn’t very well ask them to keep their mouths shut. There was always risk in Hamish asking questions. A confrontation with Simon was already coming. We knew that.”
“No’ like this. It was meant to be on our terms.”
She sat, lifting his hand to clean the splits on his knuckles. “I’m not sure our terms were ever going to work. I think we were na?ve.”
Seeing the deep concern, his own disquiet ratcheted up a few notches. “Did something else happen before I got there?”
With a shake of her head, she continued to dab on antiseptic. “Not really. He was just talking out his ass. Insulting me. Insulting Gavin. Making bullshit claims about you. That you were a drunk. That you’d crippled someone in a bar fight.”
Malcolm flinched as her words hit home. He could tell she didn’t believe it.
God, he’d tried to forget. Tried to overcome his past. To be a better man. But he’d never been able to hide from his own shame. And in this moment, he knew he couldn’t hide it from her either. Because he wasn’t good enough. Not for her. Not for that child. They both deserved better.
“I did.”
Her hands froze on his, and she didn’t lift her gaze.
“I was a drunk, exactly as he said. It was the worst time of my life. After losing Miranda and Robyn, I fell into the bottle and didnae come out again for a long, long time. Simon and I were drinking buddies. That’s how I knew him, how I knew in an instant what kind of home Gavin was coming from. I was reckless back then. Had no care for my own life. And for a while, I sought out the worst kind of pubs with the roughest of crowds in hopes I’d pick the right fight and someone would put me out of my misery. And instead, I nearly put someone out of theirs.”
He could still hear the crunch of bone as the other man’s body had slammed into a post.
As he spoke, Charlotte began moving again, methodically dabbing antibiotic ointment onto the cuts.
“If not for Peter Lennox, I’d probably be dead by now. He’s the one who hauled me out of that hole. Gave me a new purpose. But I’m still that guy. I’m still that weak and careless man. Even now, I’m thinking about how good a drink would be to numb everything. I have that in me.”
At last, she lifted her gaze to his, and the compassion he saw there all but undid him. She curled her hands around his. “You have trauma in your past. Trauma that you maybe didn’t handle well, at the time. But you changed your life, made better choices. Today was horrible for all of us, so I’d be shocked if the temptation wasn’t there. But you’re not going to give in to it. Because that’s not who you are. It’s a thing you used to do. What you’re going to do is pull everything together, because now that the police are involved, they know about Gavin. We both know that social services won’t be far behind.”
In all her ignorance of his past, she had such faith. But every single one of his failures was parading through his own mind, reminding him he’d never outrun that trauma.
“Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe he’d be better off with someone else.”
Charlotte recoiled. “You don’t mean that!”
“Aye, I do.”
Her face twisted in shock, her breath wheezing out, as if he’d kicked her square in the chest. Because he was an asshole who hurt people. This little flirtation with the fantasy of a new family had simply made him forget that for a little while.
“Malcolm—” She reached toward him again, but he flinched back from the connection.
“Maybe you should go.”
Temper and hurt warred in her expression before she slowly stood. “This isn’t who you are, Malcolm. Not to me. Not to him.”
They were wrong. They were both wrong. And as her quiet footsteps retreated, he reflected it was better for everyone that this should come out now, before major decisions had been made that couldn’t be undone. Before he inevitably disappointed them both.
* * *
Charlotte hadn’t slept.Every time she closed her eyes, she saw, not Simon threatening violence, but Malcolm giving up on everything. The family they’d built. Their fragile new beginning as something more. All the progress he’d made dragging himself out of the past, looking to the future, had been undone in one awful day. In so many ways, he was so strong. She hadn’t expected him to be this brittle. He hadn’t said they were over last night, but she knew. He’d retreated into himself, every single threat to his self-worth having convinced him he wasn’t enough. Wasn’t good for them. That she’d managed to overcome all that once was miracle enough. She didn’t think she’d be able to manage it again. Wasn’t sure her heart could survive the process if there was no guarantee he’d love her in the end, as she loved him.
But there was no time to wallow in her own heartbreak. Not with the worry about what would happen to Gavin. He’d been withdrawn when he came over this morning at the crack of dawn. Malcolm had taken himself off to the far ends of the estate, allegedly on business, but Charlotte knew he’d run away. From his feelings. From them. At least he’d made sure Gavin was safe, first. Worry made the boy look older than his thirteen years as they went through the routine of feeding animals, performing the chores that had become second nature. Completely understandable and expected after yesterday’s events. But he still trusted that they’d keep him safe. That they’d keep the promises they’d made.
God, it would absolutely devastate him if he knew Malcolm had given up. She simply couldn’t allow that to happen, so she had to pull an even bigger miracle out of thin air.
A sleek sedan pulled up in front of her flat, hopefully with a magician inside.
She was at the door, opening it before Hamish had even made it up the walk.
Charlotte had met the Edinburgh lawyer a few times since she’d come to Scotland. A Glenlaig native, he was Connor’s best friend. The man who’d worked tirelessly for years to try to find a loophole in the marriage pact that had bound Connor and Afton. He understood complexities and the need to think outside the box, which was the only reason he hadn’t sent them directly to social services in the first place.
“Thank you for coming.”
“Of course.” He stepped inside, his neatly pressed suit looking out of place in her casual living room.
“Gavin.”
He rose from the kitchen table where he’d been mostly pushing around the breakfast she’d made for him. “Yes’m?”
“This is Hamish Colquhoun. He’s the lawyer who’s helping us with your case.”
Hamish offered a kind smile. “Nice to meet you, lad.”
Gavin edged closer to Charlotte and studied him with sober eyes. “Are you going to fix it so I can stay?”
“I’m going to do my very best.”
Charlotte gave Gavin’s shoulders a squeeze. “We’ve got a lot of boring legal stuff to discuss. Why don’t you go check on the triplets? Give them a little romp in the yard out there?”
He squeezed her back, shooting another wary look at Hamish. “Okay.”
Neither of them said anything as he pulled on his boots and headed out the door. Charlotte automatically moved to the window. She’d be able to keep an eye on him from here.
Hamish set his briefcase on the table, popping the clasps and removing a legal pad and pen from the interior. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“Okay. Do you want coffee? Tea?”
“I’d love some coffee, if it’s no trouble. It was a long drive from Edinburgh this morning.”
And he’d had to set out before the crack of dawn to make the trip this early.
With one eye on the window, she went through the routine of boiling water, setting up the French press. And she told him all of it, noting the faint scratch of his pen as he took notes.
When she’d finished, setting a steaming cup in front of him, he laid the pen aside. “Jesus. How is Malcolm doing after all this?”
“Not well at all. He’s in a really bad headspace about all of it.” Because grief about the whole thing threatened to drag her under, she curled her hands tighter around the back of the chair.
“I’m not surprised. I knew this would come up as we proceeded, but I didn’t expect it to be like this.”
“You know about all this?”
“Aye. It was part of the background check I ran on you both.”
“What happened?”
Hamish hesitated. “He hasn’t told you?”
“He told me some, but I suspect it was a biased account.” She hoped it was, anyway.
“Well, the long and the short of it is that he was in a pub brawl. Multiple eyewitness accounts confirm that the other man started it. Kept poking at Malcolm, trying to get a rise out of him. Eventually, he said something that elicited a reaction. Malcolm turned, leading with his fists, and knocked the other man back—straight into a support column I doubt either of them knew was there. It fractured the other man’s back.”
“Jesus.”
“He was held partly responsible and did some jail time for it. Peter Lennox was a friend. Ended up vouching for him and offering up the job here initially as a condition of his early release and parole. He’s never set a toe out of line since. And for the past twenty years, he’s donated a percentage of his salary to the care of the man he injured.”
Charlotte scrubbed a hand over her face. It was awful. But it hadn’t been malicious or deliberate. He hadn’t started it. Yet he’d taken full responsibility, even going so far as to help monetarily provide for the man who’d antagonized him. That wasn’t the behavior of a weak man.
Why couldn’t Malcolm see that?
“He still blames himself.”
“Aye, he would. For all his gruffness, he’s not a man who enjoys causing pain.”
She thought of the lambs. An apology meant to make her smile again. So much more than the minimally necessary “I’m sorry.” That was the man she’d fallen for. The man she’d unhesitatingly stepped in to share a child with. But that wasn’t who she’d seen last night.
“All this shit with Simon has brought everything back up for him, and honestly, I don’t know if he’s going to be able to pull himself out of it in time to deal with the custody situation. So we need to proceed with just me. I’m not letting anything happen to that boy. I know he’s still here for the moment, but you and I both know it’s only a matter of time before social services shows up to claim him.”
Hamish’s vivid blue eyes were kind. “I’ll be honest. It’s not going to be easy. You can’t get certified as a foster parent in our country until you have citizenship, and that process alone could take months even before certification. Even if you were able to navigate all of those hurdles, there’d be no guarantee you could get Gavin back.”
Back. Because the inevitable conclusion was that he’d be taken away no matter what.
She swallowed. “There has to be something. We can’t let him go back there.”
“I at least feel confident in giving you that assurance. Gavin’s been gone from Duntyre for nearly three months. His father never reported him as missing and outright lied to the school when they inquired. Someone I trust in the system has already told me she’s building a case against him. Now that they’re aware of Gavin’s location, there will be a court hearing to determine whether he should be formally removed from the home. Given the corroborating evidence I was able to provide and Gavin’s own testimony as to his father’s behavior, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell they’d put him back there. The difficult part is trying to keep him here.”
Charlotte stared out the window where she could see Gavin wrestling with the triplets. Even amid all the chaos, they could wrangle a smile from him. “He’s happy here, Hamish. He’s safe and settled and healthy. Taking him away will only add another trauma, another loss, to a list that’s already far too long.” She turned her attention back to the lawyer. “What are our options?”
He laid out the problems, the challenges, the legal precedent. His list of solutions was painfully brief because the law simply wasn’t on their side.
“I have a plan. It’s not usual, but with the constantly overworked and under-funded system, I might be able to convince the judge at the hearing that granting you the right to apply for a special guardianship order and allowing Gavin to stay where he is would save a lot of expense and trauma. Of course, that still depends upon Simon being willing to agree to it, which seems like a long shot, given what you’ve told me. Best-case scenario, he agrees, but we need Malcolm on board. We simply can’t get a permanent residency status for you fast enough.”
These were the impossible odds she faced.
Convince Malcolm to pull himself out of the pit in order to save Gavin, regardless of what it meant for their personal relationship, and risk that they’d get shot down anyway, which might do even more permanent damage to Malcolm. Or throw in the towel and admit defeat.
Charlotte didn’t know how to admit defeat.
“Do what you have to do. I’ll talk to Malcolm.”