Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ross shoved the castle doors open and stormed across the yard. Hamish called to him from the large outbuilding across the drive, but Ross didn't stop. He wanted to shout, to fucking smash something, to pound his hurt into the ground, anything other than to feel his heart shrinking into a hard knot.
A shrill whistle made him look again. Liam waved him over, gesturing to the bed of the truck where Hamish, Jamie, and Devin were preparing to unload several large logs that they'd eventually cut up for firewood. He suspected Ian was also lurking around somewhere.
With a huff, Ross turned direction and headed over.
"What's eating you, cuz?" Jamie asked as he approached.
"Nothing." Ross moved to the bed of the truck.
Normally, the job would call for one man at each end, but Ross didn't care if he pulled a muscle or bruised a shoulder.
He'd welcomed the hurt. At least it'd be a distraction.
He grabbed the end of a log and pulled it part way off the tailgate. "Might want to move."
Liam snorted as Ian came around the side of the building. Devin just nodded in that quiet way of his, seeing way more than the others. Ignoring the lot of them, Ross bent down, got his shoulder beneath the wood and lifted. Thing was a brute, but he got it up.
Pain shot through his shoulder with every step he took around the building. When he tossed the piece near the woodpile, he was breathing heavy and his heart was pounding.
Better than have it pounding over Harper.
When he came back to the truck they were all staring at him, which only added to his irritation. He wasn't some goddamn spectacle. "Why don't you wee lasses take your weak arses into the dining room for tea while I finish."
Hamish shook his head and let out a low chuckle. The rest of them took Ross' words as a challenge. Jamie grabbed a log, positioned it, and then hefted it as Ross had done. "Yours is smaller than Ross'," Ian noted.
Liam grinned. "That's what she said."
"Bugger off," Jamie shot back, trying not to laugh, and unable to look over his shoulder as he limped around the building. Ross had to admit he was impressed. Jamie had lost his leg below the knee in the war, but the man never let it slow him down.
Over the bed of the truck, Ross met Hamish's inquiring eyes as Ian and Devin tested their mettle as well.
Clearly, the old man knew something was very wrong, but he stayed quiet.
Liam, however, had no such wisdom. As Ross shimmied another log into place, Liam rested his forearms on the top rim of the truck bed and said, "Let me guess. She told you."
It took a second for it to hit him, and it definitely hit him. Right in the fucking chest.
"You knew?" A look beyond his idiot brother to Hamish, told him the old man knew as well. The three MacLaren brothers returned from their task. Ross glared at them, his blood boiling. "You three, too, I suppose."
Aye, they did.
Ross' fists clenched at his sides. It was twelve years of his goddamn life, twelve years of believing the worst, of having his fucking heart ripped open and left as damaged goods.
And now she'd rejected him again by not even giving them a chance.
Fury flowed through his body. He was going to wipe those pitying looks right off their faces.
"Now lads," Hamish warned with a defeated note. He knew well once it was on, he'd have little chance of controlling them.
Aye. And they knew it was on, too. Ross could see it in the way they straightened, the three brothers.
In the way the light and anticipation of challenge came into their eyes.
He charged his cousins, much like he'd done as a lad when rough-housing during their summers together.
His shoulder drove into Ian's gut, the force lifting the big bastard off the ground and onto his back. Ian let out a loud grunt and laugh.
Devin tackled Ross from behind, his weight shoving Ross off Ian and to the ground. Then, they piled on and the breath was squeezed from Ross' lungs. Liam jumped on as well.
He could hear Hamish's laughter through the melee as he struggled to free himself. "I can hear you laughing, you old bastard! Your next!" He delivered a few good punches to someone's ribs, maybe a gut, a chin or two for sure.
By the time they gave up and rolled off, they lay in the grass panting, the edge gone from Ross' anger. But, still, his mood was dark and unsettled. "Stop your moaning and groaning," he muttered, sitting up and rubbing his jaw where one of them had struck him with an elbow.
"Think you broke my fucking nose," Liam complained, touching the bridge of his nose tenderly.
"One of you bastards kneed me in the bloody balls," Jamie said, irritably as he sat up, wincing.
"That'd be the price ye pay," Hamish lectured, standing over them, "for behavin' like a bunch of dobbers."
"I seem to remember you rolling around on the ground with us a time or two," Devin reminded him as he got up and went to the cooler sitting by the corner of the building.
Hamish scoffed at the remark, instead focusing his attention on Ross. "So?"
"So what?" He didn't want to get into it now. He wanted to go home, take a shower, grab a beer, drink it on the back patio, and... Well, he didn't know after that. Work, maybe.
"Well, I dinna see what's stoppin' ye now."
Ross frowned deeply and stood, rolling his sore shoulder and then catching the bottle of water that Devin tossed him from the cooler. "Thanks." He opened it and took a long drink. "Harper wants to go home, Hamish. End of story."
"Or she's going because she thinks she's not wanted," Devin said, leaning against the truck.
"Have you asked her to stay?" Ian said.
Ross eyed his cousins, wanting to throttle them again. All three had found love, and, as such, their brains were completely skewed toward happiness, hope, and all things wonderful. "Why don't you all skip back to the bloody castle with your wee wands and fairy tale endings. I have work to do."
He left to the sounds of their laughter. Like they knew all about it. Like it was so simple. Like they could possibly understand how he felt.
As Ross slid into the seat of his truck, he tried to put it from his mind. But it was impossible.
He'd been alone for a long time. He had a routine, a simple life. What if he did ask her to stay, to give them a chance? Would Harper even want this kind of life? What was he thinking? Of course she didn't; she'd packed her bags quickly enough.
Ross stopped his truck in the road as it curved toward the distillery.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and let out an irritated breath.
His pride was hurt, even though it didn't make sense—Harper had had nothing to do with keeping them apart.
He hadn't asked her to stay, aye. But he didn't need to.
Her answer was there packed and ready to go on the bed.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "Damn you, Harper."
After pacing her room and being madder than a hornet, Harper finally settled down, first booting her laptop and checking her email and then parking her rear end on the window seat.
She'd packed her bags to keep busy, to do something because she hadn't known what else to do.
Yet, big bad-attitude Ross seemed to think that was a huge problem.
How dare he accuse her of not being able to accept his love back then.
They'd never know for sure, now would they?
What a pompous, presumptuous ass.
Not to mention a jerk for alluding to her mommy abandonment issues.
She never should have confided in him all those years ago—that she was afraid of loving someone, and, most of all, afraid of believing and accepting that anyone could love her in return.
Which didn't make a lot of sense seeing as how she knew to the very marrow of her bones that her father had loved her.
But that was different; he'd always been there from day one.
Despite her fears, she'd taken a leap of faith. She had believed in Ross. And then he betrayed her and tossed her away without so much as a glance backward—or so she'd thought. Still, that moment had given immense credibility to her young fears of being unlovable to everyone but her father.
His words in the hallway echoed in her mind. He'd accused her of rejecting him now.
Like he'd made any offers.
Whatever.
With a huff, she leaned back against the thick stone wall and admired the view of the loch.
They hadn't resolved anything. And no wonder he was pissed off.
He'd learned the truth—one she should have told him about—and had come to confront her only to find her packing up to leave.
If it were the other way around, Harper knew she'd be pissed off and hurt, too.
And, yeah, rejected.
Back then, all Ross had known was that she'd turned her back on him and let him go without a word. And she knew exactly how that felt. And here she was not telling him the truth and preparing to leave without closure, without coming to some kind of understanding.
Ross deserved that much. So did she.
As Harper got up, her email dinged. She slid into the chair at the table.
It was from her uncle. She opened to read what she already knew.
In order for them come out on top, the sale of Dean's had to happen now, before it sank even more into decline.
The extended family was in agreement. Whether she'd found her father's recipes or not, Dean's had to be sold, absorbed into the massive corporation that could continue its name and serve their customers.
A sale now meant she'd be set for life. But still it was a bittersweet end, one that made her heart ache as she relayed her agreement and shut down her computer.
It made it a little easier to take, knowing that her father hadn't sent her here on some last ditch effort to save the un-saveable, so at least she didn't feel like she had disappointed him in that regard.
He'd known it was over. He'd only been looking out for her heart, her future. He knew the sale of Dean's would keep her in the black for the rest of her life.
He just wanted her to be happy. With Ross, apparently. With the one man she'd never been able to get over. Her father had seen what she hadn't been willing to see.
And maybe it was time to free herself from the past.