Chapter 18 #2
Over dinner, I told my family about the wing commander and the true reason I’d left the RAF. Then and there, Mathilda made me write out my complaint letter. It had been cathartic, both getting the facts on paper and telling it to a room of shocked supporters.
No one doubted me. Through their eyes, I saw how badly I’d been treated.
After, Callum and I walked the bairns around the great hall to get them to sleep. The front door creaking open had us both swinging around.
Lachlan poked his head in. “Lads!” he barked. “There ye are!”
We both hushed him, flapping arms and pointing at the dozing twins.
“This is them? Would you look at that!” He crept in, resting a big hand first on Lennox then on Skye, who I held.
“We heard they’d arrived,” he said, smiling at the bairns. “I’ll pay a formal visit, ye ken, with my lady in a few days, welcome the wee lad and lass to the clan. But I was passing and had to stick my head in.”
“That might be one of the last families you do this with. Perform your welcome blessing,” Callum intoned, his gaze on Lachlan but his words carefully placed. As chief of the clan, Lachlan carried out a lot of ceremonial duties. Not always willingly, but he showed up.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
Lachlan cleared his throat. “A couple of days ago, I came to see Callum about giving up my position as clan chief. He’d be taking up the mantle earlier than planned. Likely by the summer.”
I bounced my gaze between the two men. “Why?”
Lachlan sighed. “I know ye had an idea to buy Braithar, and we gave you a time limit, but I want to give up the castle sooner. Our girls have moved away, and the drive to Marianne’s farm is too much now. I want to retire there in the new farmhouse we’ve built on the moor.”
“We have a deal. Three years,” I exclaimed.
Skye mewled, and I jogged her gently, a surge rising in my body, telling me to be anything but calm.
“Aye, nothing’s decided. But regardless, I’ll give over the chieftainship to your brother earlier than planned.”
It was farther and farther, my dream. I’d saved money, but it was nowhere near enough.
Da used to taunt me with the fact that Callum would one day be chief of the clan. Laird Never McRae, he called me, like I cared about the title.
Skye cried out, a wee wail that cut through the air.
Lachlan winced and waved a hand. “That’s my fault. I’d better go. See ye, Callum. Gordain, we’ll talk it through another time.”
He left, and Callum and I traded twins, my brother slipping Skye into his shirt. She settled against his skin, her little face relaxing again in sleep.
“We’ll hold him to the agreement,” Callum said, his voice low and reassuring. Whether for me or his daughter, I wasn’t sure.
I lifted my chin in a semblance of agreement, but my cage had been rattled and my attention broken.
I paced the hall, my gaze on Lennox’s scrunched-up red face. Already, he looked so much like my brother, his da. A miniature version.
Callum strolled beside me. “Over dinner, you talked about that scene in the bar. When you came to with that woman draped over you, you were afraid you’d had unprotected sex, aye?”
I swallowed then nodded. “I hated the thought.”
“Because of the risk of having an unwanted bairn?”
I studied his face, his stern brow over a gentler gaze. Lachlan’s visit had prompted thoughts for us both.
“Da hated me,” I said, the words misshapen and bitter in my mouth. “I was so sure I’d never want kids. I didn’t think I’d ever want a girlfriend.”
“Until recently.”
“Aye.”
Silence held in the ancient space.
“Seen much of Ella in Manchester?” Callum asked.
“Once. I’m surprised the twins didn’t tell you.” Heat rose in me at the memory of what had happened in Ella’s dorm room. It shifted a little of my gloom.
At my shoulder, my nephew snuffled, and I patted his back under his father’s watchful gaze, fixing my mind on less stimulating thoughts.
“Aye, they mentioned something.”
I heaved a sigh. “I’ve no idea how this will turn out, but if in time Ella decides she wants me, I’m waiting for her.”
Callum stopped in front of the fireplace. He held my gaze, scooping up a log and tossing it into the flames. “Ye sent her a picture of the bairns yet?”
“No.”
He straightened and stood beside me, shifting Skye so her face was visible. “Take the shot while they’re sleeping.”
I slid my phone from my pocket and took the selfie. Me with my older brother and the babies.
“If that doesn’t melt her heart, nothing will.” Callum peered at the picture and nodded his approval.
I sent it, bumping up her last message about dating. Fuck that. What the hell had I been thinking suggesting it?
My stomach squeezed. What if she was on a date right now?
“Why do ye think it’s her heart that’s the problem?” I asked, replacing my phone.
“You’ve always been the same. All or nothing. You wear your heart on your sleeve.”
Except I hadn’t. I’d kept parts of myself closed off from Ella. Deliberately protecting myself. “What would you have done if Mathilda had been seventeen when you met?”
“Taken it slow. Told her everything there was to know about me and let her decide if I was for her. Which is exactly what happened.”
“You’ve told Mathilda everything?” There was so much shite in our family history. Our father’s abuse. The certain twist of fate that led to him hating me while he obsessed over Callum.
All stirred up now in my head since Lachlan’s visit.
“Aye, every last thing. Why I have a sword tattooed down my spine. Why ye have the slashes on yours.”