Chapter 2
TWO
GROUNDED
Gordain
The door to the office closed behind me with a click, and I marched into the grey corridor, my movements automatic, carrying me outside. My breath came unsteady, and I blinked at the bright sunlight, its cheerfulness at odds with the news I’d just been given.
Grounded, again.
This morning had been an official meeting with a senior officer at my RAF base. No conclusion had been reached on my case, but the message had been apparent all the same.
‘You are to remain on hold, Lieutenant McRae. Expect to receive formal notification within the next few days, at the wing commander’s leisure. I suggest you take a week of leave. Off the base.’ Not an order, but the instruction had been clear. They wanted me gone.
I’d really fucked up.
Across from the low-rise office block, the airfield lay.
A Sea King started up, the rotors chopping up the brisk breeze coming off the freezing North Sea.
By rights, I should be flying one of those helicopters by now.
Only a few months ago, I’d been awarded a prestigious search and rescue training course.
At twenty-two, I was one of the youngest airmen ever to do so.
My strength and leadership qualities had been commended. It had been an enormous privilege.
Then one evening of celebrating with my fellow officers, and everything had gone wrong.
“Gordain,” a voice hailed me. Jordie, another pilot who’d been on the same elementary flying training as me, jogged over the yard, his expression already set to deliver sympathy. Few people on the base knew what had happened, and no one outside, but Jordie had been there. He knew the truth.
Well, about as much of it as I did.
Countless times, I’d been over and over what had happened.
The strenuous practice mission we’d returned from, brains frazzled from flying low over the sea, the heli’s cabin an oven, heated by the sun.
Then the single pint of beer I’d drank at the bar that evening.
I remembered Autumn, the wing commander’s daughter, talking with me, and the headache that had me politely excusing myself.
I’d stumbled through a closed door into a dark room, then my memory blacked out.
Next thing I knew, the lights came on and I opened my eyes. To the half-naked woman straddling me. To the shocked then angry face of Wing Commander Phillips, Jordie behind him.
What a mess.
“News?” Jordie asked.
“No. Another week.” I dropped down the last step from the office and crossed to meet my friend.
He slung an arm over my shoulder and gave me a conciliatory hug before slapping me upside the head for good measure. “Sorry, bud. What are you going to do?”
What indeed? I shrugged. “Take off my uniform and go home, I guess.”
Though home meant facing my brother. Callum knew I was in trouble. As the head of our family, he’d been my greatest supporter, encouraging me to join the RAF as a troubled sixteen-year-old. Now, six years later, it looked like my career was over.
His disappointment was going to kill me.
My stomach dropped, realisation sinking in that this problem wasn’t going away.
“I’m on leave this weekend,” Jordie said.
“My wife’s birthday. We’re throwing a party.
Barbecue food, music. Why don’t you drive over tomorrow?
Stay a few days. Get wrecked.” He nudged me, a twinkle in his eye.
“Annie’s invited her college friends. Not a ring among them, and they party hard.
Every time those women go out as a group, it’s carnage. Annie has a hangover for days.”
I forced a smile. My friend had married young, and his wife had only just graduated with her degree.
I’d liked her, the few times I’d met her, but screwing around with her friends was not the solution to my problems, though the oblivion that would come from getting drunk and laid had a certain appeal.
“Sounds dangerous. In a good way. Can I let ye know?”
“You’ve got my number.” He gave me a shove and pivoted away, heading in the direction of the airfield. “We’re a family here, don’t forget it.”
Then why did it feel like my military family had turned its back on me?
With my motorbike purring, I left the base, accelerating too fast on the wet roads leading out of the tiny town of Lossiemouth. I took the route south into the vast, empty Highlands.
Heading home.
However shite I felt, I loved this journey, the bleak beauty of the Scottish countryside. The remoteness of the mountains and glens. There were few cars on the road and even fewer people idiotic enough to make two fast wheels their transport of choice.
But fuck it, this Highlander got a buzz out of taking the bends with a knee almost to the tarmac. It was almost as good as lifting off in a heli, an urgent mission underway.
An experience I might not have again.
The last time I’d flown was in a hired helicopter to collect Ella Fitzroy from Belvedere.
Ella…
Instantly, I stomped down on all thoughts about the lass. For Christ’s sake. If I was lusting after her again, it was only because my life was taking a nosedive. My glum feeling expanded, and I gripped the handlebars like I was strangling them.
A typical out-of-nowhere squall turned the sky grey, coming off the coast where my base was situated. Now, the weather matched my mood. Drizzle soaked me through my leathers. A cold shower if ever I needed one.
I tucked my head down and sped on.
An hour later, and I’d rounded the mountain that stood in the centre of clan McRae land, and skirted the loch.
Castle McRae rose ahead of the foothills.
Solid and timeless. I halted the bike in the car park, killed the engine, and dragged off my helmet, taking my first lungful of fresh mountain air.
No matter the state I was in, I loved coming home.
A stranger’s car sat beside the trio of Land Rovers my brothers used. A top-of-the-range 4x4—a dark silver Audi Q8. Brand-new, by the look of it. My mind instantly jumped to James, my closest friend. He’d recently inherited a shiteload of money and could easily afford a car like that.
I was no stranger to old names and old houses, having been raised in a castle, but we worked hard for every penny we earned.
Da’s debts left us, after he died, fighting to keep our home.
Half my salary had gone on keeping the castle going, until recently when Callum had married and his wife started a business here.
Mathilda’s investment couldn’t have come at a better time.
If things went the way I expected, I’d lose my income soon.
At least it would only be me impacted. Letting my family down might well be the last straw.
Movement at the car caught my eye.
Mathilda, my sister-in-law, straightened from talking to someone in the driver’s side. Then Beth, James’s wife, hopped out of the passenger seat.
A ready grin broached my lips, and I took a breath to holler a greeting to the women, both good friends of mine.
Then my smile died. Because the driver’s door opened, and another figure emerged. A slender, graceful lass. Night-dark hair fell in long waves. She had the face of an angel, yet when she raised a sardonic eyebrow you could see the devil in her.
My heart gave an almighty thud.
Ella Fitzroy was here.
Which meant that I one hundred percent needed to go.
Inside the garage, I grabbed a cloth and swiped the worst of the rain off the bike. Delaying. Or hiding. Forcing my reaction under control.
I scrubbed the bike harder.
The same longing overwhelmed me. It had begun the first second I’d seen Ella—a startling bolt of lust that left my head spinning.
I knew that was all it was—lust. Fast, hot, and inappropriate.
She’d been seventeen then. Eighteen now, but still so young, hurt by years of neglect, and in need of care.
Also, utterly beautiful.
Ella shone bright. I was an arsehole for even looking at her in the way I had. I thought I’d got it under wraps. But no.
The reaction my body had a few minutes ago was twice as strong.
Confusion had me throwing the drying rag across the garage. Everything going wrong on the base had my mind fixating on her once more, that was all. A lass in need of aid. A dangerous combination for a man seeking solace.
I’d keep my distance.
I shook my head and rested a hip against the workbench cluttered with tools. Then I pulled out my phone and dropped a text to Jordie.
I’ll take you up on that offer. See you tomorrow.
His reply almost made me smile. Got a beer in the cooler with your name on it, McRae.
For tonight, I could pretend—or just avoid her, but then I’d be gone.
Istomped my way into the kitchens and my brother lifted his chin in greeting, paperwork covering the island in front of him.
I’d looked up to Callum my whole life. Not only because he was unreasonably tall—I was six-three and he towered over me.
He’d been my defender, my ally, and now he was a husband and waiting to be a da.
We’d raised ourselves to be honest men, but he deserved happiness, not to be burdened with my troubles.
“Good to see ye home.” Callum reached for a coffee mug then held it up in offer. It was new and had flowers on it. Not one of our old, chipped numbers. “Ye ken Beth and Ella are on their way?”
I declined the drink with a hand gesture. “They’ve just arrived. I’ll go and say hello but I’m not staying.”
My brother’s gaze took me to pieces. He replaced the mug on the shelf then cleared his throat. “This to do with work? Want to talk about it?”
“Not yet.”
He grumbled, picking up a heap of letters then stacking them into an unnecessarily neat pile. “So you came home so we could all see ye being miserable? Where are ye going?”
“A friend’s house to drink myself into a stupor.”
Callum snorted. “And then?”
With my mouth in a grim line, I tapped the counter. “Ask me again in a week when it’s all decided.”
A final look, with deep lines furrowing his brow, showed me he understood, but I didn’t stick around to explain more. I had a game face to put on and a lass to resist.