Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
EVERYTHING
Taylor
When I’d been around seven or eight years old, on school vacation and unable to sleep, wandering around Dad’s vast New York home, I’d overheard a conversation my father had been having with a friend. The guy was another politician, and Dad had been bragging about his long-term plans.
He’d called me a pawn.
He’d arrogantly stated, to that man, the building blocks he needed for his career. A significant policy change attributed to him. A spotless record in office. Taylor married to someone of influence.
“What about her own career?” Dad’s friend had asked.
“Too much like her mother: Dumber than a box of frogs.”
I’d tiptoed away, stunned. It hadn’t been a surprise in itself, as he’d said as much to my face previously, but it hit home. I’d rebelled, of course, barely speaking to him and growing up cold. Dad’s tactics simply shifted to blackmail. How lucky for him that Charity had become ill.
It left a mark, though.
My shaky self-worth. My lack of settling down. It had all stemmed from this half existence.
What the hell had I been doing?
Sleepwalking, that was a fact. But now, I’d woken up. This didn’t mean any of my problems with Charity had gone away, but I’d been manipulated into thinking there was only one answer. I couldn’t accept that. Not now I had my own personal goals.
I wanted a job.
I wanted my own home.
I needed the man at my side.
Breathtaking fear gripped me, and I had to pinch myself to listen to the woman in the hiking store talk us through our route.
William listened carefully, pointing out lines on the map and nodding along to her description, but I was away with the fairies.
My brain scrambled by the sheer effort it had taken to let go of years of bad ideas.
I loved him. Somehow, I wanted to keep him in my future. But it had been a life-changing, earth-shattering decision.
It shook everything up.
With our backpacks sorted, the very last thing I did in the store was buy a pair of cargo pants.
I never wore jeans, I didn’t even own a pair, and I couldn’t recall the last time I’d worn anything but a skirt or a dress, so a whole new me was being birthed, and I wanted to yell out the consequences.
We got back on the road, and every so often, William glanced at me and squeezed my hand, like he needed to know I was still there and this was real.
After parking up on the foothills, we took a few of our own items with the supplies we’d been given, locked the rest in the car, and set off on foot.
“Do you really hate hiking?” William strode along the gravel track, exuberant in his joy.
“No. Hard exercise was frowned upon at school because it left you muscular or, the horror, with calluses. I’ve always done yoga. This is actually really lovely.”
“I had it in my head that you could never live in the Highlands. What with hating mountains and the outdoors.” He slid me a look, passing a water bottle between his hands.
“You’ve thought about me living in the Highlands?” Warmth pooled in my belly.
“Aye. I have. I told you so when ye visited my home.”
He’d told me that he’d pictured me as his bride. I choked on a startled laugh. “I thought that was a joke.”
“Naw. It was always you, sweetheart.” He grinned big and picked up his pace.
We climbed through green, glorious nature, cool mountain air and sunshine surrounding us. For a few hours, I put aside my fears and just enjoyed myself.
In the pretty, low sun of the early evening, hot and sweaty, we came across our lodge—a wooden structure high on the mountainside, with solar panels for power and a metal chimney for the wood-burning stove.
Inside, in a tiny fridge, we found chicken and vegetables for a stir-fry, with fruit and oatmeal for breakfast. I nabbed a bottle of wine while William cooked, then, at last, we got my wish.
We ate our meal with the chilled wine, sitting on a tiny deck, gazing across at the valley below us and the mountain range all around.
“I have so much to explain to you,” I said into the fresh air.
William drew his chair closer to mine and moved our empty dishes to the boards. Then he topped up our glasses and just watched me, waiting for me to go on.
I told him everything. From the role Charity played in my life—my sole visitor for months on end—to the time she’d called me to say she’d had a diagnosis.
“What ails her?” William asked quietly.
“Motor neurone disease. A really nasty illness with no cure. She’s only thirty-two.
Dad’s sister by an affair his dad had. My father never really knew her, but she made every attempt to make a relationship with him.
Here’s the thing: My grandmother drank herself to death after my grandfather’s affairs came out.
After he lost his mom, Dad blamed Charity.
Irrationally, but Dad’s always been led by his passions.
She found me at my school, and oh my God, she was the most amazing aunt.
She was so much fun. She took me and Ella out.
She bought us alcohol. She had this amazing car and she let us have turns behind the wheel. ”
I took a deep pull on my wine. “But now I know she did it all because she’d already started getting symptoms. It never occurred to me to wonder why she never ate in front of us.
And we’d always go for drives. Never walks.
Her disease weakens muscles and affects breathing.
Even damages the brain. She was already hiding it then. ”
William blew out a hard breath. “I’ve heard of it. What treatment is there?”
“That’s the kicker. There’s no cure. Patients only get worse.
” Hot tears welled in my eyes, and I sliced them away with the side of my hand.
“She’s in a care facility in the Hamptons.
But it’s more like a hotel, and she has dignity there.
The care they give is second to none, and it’s keeping her alive, I’m sure of it.
Life expectancy can be as little as a couple of years, and she’s had it for nearly ten.
I try to see her as often as I can, but she’s getting increasingly frail.
She was sick with a bug on my last visit. ”
Pictures flooded my mind. Stark, contrasting images of my beautiful, glamorous aunt who took an interest in me when no one else did, and the thin, crumpled figure in a wheelchair.
“Can I meet her?”
I glanced up to see William’s kind expression gentle. “When we go to the States, we’ll try to find time to go to see her.” If he met her, he’d understand, and maybe I wouldn’t seem so weak to him.
Something crossed his vision and, though he produced a smile, pain or frustration lurked.
“What is it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’m stuck on your dad and what he’s been doing to ye. He knew you cared for the woman and he used that against ye, aye?”
Taking another healthy swig of wine, I switched my gaze to the middle distance, to light clouds and mountaintops, trying to work it through.
“Dad’s world is a strange place. It helps that I didn’t grow up with him or I might think it normal.
Politics turns everything—every person—into a playing piece. And political marriages are common.”
“But you’re his flesh and blood.”
“So is Charity. He doesn’t care about either of us beyond what we can do for him.”
The emotion on my Highlander’s face switched to anger. I held out a hand, entwining our fingers.
“How?” he ground out. “How could anyone not love ye?”
Despite the heavy conversation, warmth and a buzz of happiness suffused me.
“Easily! You’re the third person ever to have said that to me.
Charity, Ella, now you. I don’t even really know what it means.
” My voice dried up at the end of the sentence, but I forced out the honesty he deserved.
“I don’t know if I’ll be a good person to love.
I don’t know how. Look at how I treated Ella. ”
William tugged my hand, and I stood, leaving my glass on the small table. He pulled again, and I dropped onto his lap. A wiggle of my hips, and we were face to face, almost nose to nose.
“Tell me how ye feel about me.”
“I love you.”
“What does that mean?”
I thought it through. “That I want to be with you.”
“Always? Or just for now?”
“God! Always.” That required no thought at all.
A smug grin took his lips. “Good. Because I want ye. I don’t want to be apart from ye.”
“Ever?” I stared, agog, my spiralling emotions dizzying.
“Nope.”
“How can you be sure about that?”
“Oof.” He sucked in a breath. “Already, ye doubt me. But I get why. Then here’s the thing.”
A pause followed, and I kept up my stare, on the edge of my nerves, waiting for him to say something that could ground me in the shifting sands that were my life.
“On the drive up, I worked something out. I’ve loved ye for years.”
“No!”
“Aye. Think about it: I never fell for anyone else. Despite the fact we hardly saw each other, each time we did, it got stronger for me. Do ye know I told my brothers to keep me from running to Braithar and finding ye?”
I laughed, perking up and placing both hands on his chest. “No!”
“I did. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of ye.”
Now that rocked me. “A fool? You are without a doubt the most solid and steady person I know. I think that’s one of the reasons I kept gravitating back to you. The first time we met, you took charge of me. You know what it does to me when you boss me around.”
“Oh aye?” Under me, his dick hardened.
Heat flared.
“Ignore that.” He waved a hand before bringing it back to holding me. A little firmer now. “We’re trying to have a serious conversation about commitment, so just pretend ye can’t feel me.”
“Can we jump to the end of the discussion and agree we’re a thing?” Even after everything he’d said, I needed to hear that.
Then I needed to take him to bed.
Green eyes held mine. “A couple. Aye. In love and with a future. Facing problems together. Being fucking happy.”
“You’ll leave me.” The words left my mouth before I even knew I’d had the thought. I slapped my hand over my face.