Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
SO ROMANTIC
Ally
Callum’s call came just as I made another check on the twins. Neither slept, worried for their ma, and they huddled together in their parents’ big bed in the solar suite at the top of the castle.
I strode into the lounge—no cast on my leg to restrict me now—and answered the phone, needing a word from him before I let them know there was news. Mathilda’s labour seemed to be taking forever.
“Bro?”
“She’s had the bairn!” He whooped.
“At last! Wait, let me put you on loudspeaker so the twins can hear.” In the bedroom, I waved at them, and their two faces lit up. “It’s your da. Go ahead, Cal.”
“Ye have a brother! He’s huge! Ten pounds and three ounces, bawling his wee head off already. He can’t wait to meet you.”
Skye yelped, and Lennox cheered.
“How’s Mathilda doing?” I said, my grin big despite the strange feeling coming over me. I’d missed this with my own child. Cait’s birth story was an absolute mystery to me, my request for information from the hospital denied. I wished I knew more.
“Grand. Getting stitched up, poor lass.”
“Ouch.”
“Ah, you’re here!” he said, talking to someone else.
“Ye can’t go in just yet. Hold fire, and I’ll tell ye all about it.
Alasdair?” he came back to me, “Mathilda’s family have arrived.
Can ye ring around our kin and let them know about the bairn?
Tell them I’ll send pictures in the morning, or maybe we’ll even be home by then. ”
Mathilda’s family were here. Did that include Scarlet?
I warred with myself not to wish it so, but I’d never been good at lying.
“I’ll do it now. Are the Storms going to stay here? I’ll make up bedrooms.”
“Aye, good thinking. Thank ye.”
Damn. I was going to have to ask. “How many rooms?”
“Two. Talk later!”
That didn’t help at all. It could be one room each for her parents. Still, a man could hope.
I grumbled at my phone then called my brothers, sharing the news.
Again, I hadn’t got to do this with my bairn and I felt the loss.
Cait’s arrival in the world should’ve been celebrated.
I would have shouted it from the rooftops, once I’d gotten over the shock, and my brothers would have, too.
Instead, her welcome had come ten weeks late and with a court case attached.
With the excitement over, for now, the kids settled to sleep, and I roamed to the great hall. I couldn’t lock up with people arriving through the night, so I stoked the fire and sat in one of the tall-backed wooden chairs.
Then I stared at the flames. Tomorrow, I’d see Cait again.
For the first time since the accident, I’d drive myself, too.
Suddenly, the journey seemed a lonely one.
Three hours on my own, passing the site of the crash, then three hours back with my lass.
I’d have to take breaks to give her cuddles and so she didn’t get cramped in the car seat.
An hour or so later, an engine purred outside. I lifted my head from a doze to find Maximus Storm standing in the doorway. He entered the darkened great hall, and his wife, Fi, followed. They parked their suitcases on the flagstones then closed the door behind them.
Ah fuck, no Scarlet.
Weary, I pushed myself to my feet. “Hey, Mr Storm, Mrs Storm.”
They both started, presumably not seeing me in the gloom. I jogged to the panel on the wall, flipping the switch to light the entrance and the stairs.
“It’s Alasdair,” I said. Then I almost kicked myself, because there was no confusing me with my twin anymore, like they’d occasionally done when we were teenagers. I breezed on, pushing past the awkwardness. “Congratulations on your new grandson. You’ll be wanting your beds.”
Both stared at me, then glanced at each other.
“What are you doing here?” Scarlet’s father planted a hand on his hip and swept his fierce gaze over me.
I blinked at him. “Looking after the twins. Then waiting for ye.”
Scarlet’s mother grappled with her purse. “I’ll call her. She’ll be soaked through if she lets the taxi go.”
“Call who?” She meant Scarlet. She had to.
Maximus put a hand up to stall his wife, but his attention pinned me to the spot. “Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here when my daughter has gone to your house? She stayed in the cab and disappeared off into the dark. She told us she needed to see you. Why—?”
He stopped at a sharp nudge to his ribs from Fi.
“On second thoughts, we should let her explain it herself,” the woman interjected. “Go to her, Ally. It’s raining, and she’ll be waiting outside. We’ll take care of our grandchildren until Callum gets home tomorrow. Go quickly!”
I gaped at them both. “The twins are in the solar,” I managed, then my feet were moving and I was on my way. “Lock up behind me!” I called over my shoulder.
Then I ran.
The Storms weren’t kidding about the rain. It thundered to the gravel around me, black night claiming the land, thick clouds overhead and no light source to guide my way. Lucky I knew this place like the back of my hand.
Even luckier, I’d healed enough to manage this.
I stuck my head down and pelted away from the castle.
After a few minutes of running flat out, bright headlights bore down on me, coming the other way. It must be Scarlet’s cab, as hardly anyone else used this road. I leapt to the side and bent to peer in the windows, sweeping rain drops from out of my eyes.
Empty. She must still be at the loch house.
Ignoring the pangs of pain in my leg, I pounded the track faster than before. My lungs screamed for air; my heart beat triple time. I wasn’t sure what I was running to, or why, but I had to get there fast.
Finally, the loch cottage came into sight, the outline glistening in the pouring rain.
A small figure huddled at the door.
“Scarlet!” I yelled.
“Ally?” came a muffled reply.
I sprinted the last stretch and arrived in front of the lass. With her hair plastered to her head, she clutched a suitcase handle and several bags, her other hand holding a thin cardigan closed at her throat.
Scarlet was drenched.
But so was I.
I’d been so upset with her, but still, I’d listened to every apologetic message she’d sent, and I’d heard her voicemails.
“Did you run here?” She gawked at me. “Oh! You’re out of the plaster!”
“Aye.” I stared stupidly, my brain scrambled. Really, I wanted to kiss her. To snatch hold of her and pull her to my chest. Taste the rain on her lips. Warm her cold skin with mine.
I was burning up to have her.
But I was done chasing impulses. If she wanted me, she needed to be all in. I wouldn’t settle for less.
Exercising greater strength than I knew I had, I dragged myself back from the brink.
“Come on, let’s get you inside. You’ll catch your death.” I stretched above her to where the key was hidden in a gap between two stones, then opened the door.
With her case in my hand, I escorted her into the hall then shut us in from the vicious weather.
“Ally, I have so much to—”
I shook my head. “Not yet. Get warm and dry first. Go fetch towels from the bathroom, aye?”
Scarlet did my bidding, and I entered the living room where I dropped to my haunches and opened the log burner. I lay newspaper and kindling, got a small blaze going, then placed logs on top. The dry wood caught, orange and yellow light flickering in the room.
“Still no power, huh?” Scarlet reappeared.
There was power. This was just way more atmospheric.
She took a seat on the rug next to me and placed a bundle of towels between us, then she pulled off her ruined, soggy ballet shoes. I took them from her hands and placed them under the grate to dry. Then I reached for her cardigan and dragged it off her clammy arms.
Scarlet held my gaze, then she applied her careful fingers to my laces and took off my boots. My socks followed. Next, she reached for my long-sleeved top, pulling it over my head in a single tug.
“Jeans,” she said, her voice hesitant.
I stood and shucked them off. “On your feet,” I ordered.
She clambered up. I knelt before her and unzipped her light suit dress—better suited for somewhere hotter than here—and wriggled it down her body.
The lass shivered, and I nearly, oh so nearly, laid my mouth on her.
I desperately wanted to kiss the goosebumps on her thighs, or her taut stomach, everywhere, but I held off.
Each item of clothing got hung on the drying frame next to the burner. Each shared glance had my chest tight and my heart aching.
“Now sit with your back to me,” I said, hushed, and held my arms open.
The warmth of the fire touched my bare skin. It gleamed on Scarlet’s shoulder as she turned, sitting cross-legged in front of me. Shadows and highlights fell over her curves in her lacy, flowery, and seriously sexy underwear.
My dick jerked in my damp boxers, and I swallowed.
Still, I kept to my task. Her red hair was up in a plait, and I unbound it, shaking out her long locks. I ran my fingertips over her scalp, and she shivered.
“Ally, if you don’t want me to jump your bones right here on the floor, you’re going to have to stop touching me.”
I grinned and grabbed a towel, draping it over her shoulders, then took up my own. We sat side by side in front of the fire once more, limbs slowly defrosting. “All right. Talk.”
In the dim light, her expression turned bleak. “I let you down.”
“Ye did.” No point denying it.
She dropped her chin but kept gazing at me. “I’m sorry. I made the wrong choice and I missed the baby’s visit.”
Also true. I acknowledged her apology. “It went well. My family adore her.”
“I heard about it from Mathilda. She was mad at me.”
“I wasn’t cross with ye, I was fucking gutted. Ye went on a business trip. Aye, ye meant to send me a message but ye should’ve called. Fuck, Scar. Ye shouldnae have gone at all.”
“I know. You’re right. It was a mistake.”
I stopped, momentarily speechless, because I’d assumed she’d reason it away so I’d see her side. But no justifications came.
“Do ye know what I think?” I said, because I had theories of my own. “Ye care for me, and that fact freaked you out so badly that you bolted.”