Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Tate
I notice when she grows quiet, how she hears bits of the conversation outside this door and how it affects her.
“Ignore them,” I say in a whisper. I don’t want to confront Leith or my father right now. We had our meeting, we discussed what we needed to. Leith is Clan Captain, so he can deal with my father and his disapproval.
I lead her across the room, and she climbs back under the covers. She takes another dose of pain meds reluctantly, but I remind her she can get a different kind in the morning. Soon, she’s softly snoring beside me.
I watch her for a while. She looks as innocent as a child, her brow softened, and body relaxed in sleep. She breathes heavily, one beautiful arm strewn over her pillow with abandon.
I want to touch her. Hold her. Kiss those luscious pink lips of hers. Run my fingers through her thick, wavy brown hair and feel her sigh with every stroke of my fingers.
“Tate?”
It’s Leith, whispering, at the door. She doesn’t move. The drugs have taken effect.
I walk over to him, wondering if his visit has anything at all to do with our earlier meeting.
Tonight, we discovered another book in the Clan Chronicles was released.
There was a time when the girls would tell us, would come to us with their concerns.
Leith has even read the books, just to see if the concerns they voiced were warranted.
But the girls haven’t mentioned anything in months, and we wonder if they know things they aren’t revealing.
It all started with what was probably just innocent fun. Fictional stories—hot fictional stories. Deeply erotic and compelling. They took place in a setting kind of like ours. The characters almost resembled us. Even the way they talked, the way they looked. The fact that they were called The Clan.
Then slowly but surely, over time, it became evident that these were more than fictional tales. There was a reason every woman of the Clan read the books the moment they came out. Islan told me one night, as we drank steaming mugs of tea laced heavily with Irish cream, what drew her to the books.
“It’s like they’re written about us,” she said thoughtfully, taking another pull from her mug before continuing.
She sighed. “Like they’re us but… better.
Hotter. Superheroes. I mean there are four boys and two girls in the main family, the father and mother own the main house, and the others reside nearby.
They don’t… look anything like us but isn’t that something that’s a quick fix? Like a disguise, almost…”
It’s difficult to ever accuse someone of basing a fictional story off of a real place and person… one can only conjecture. And the Cowen Clan does not operate with mere conjecture.
Then last year, something happened that put the Clan Chronicles book series back on our radar.
My younger brother Mac found one of the housemaids with a notebook in her possession.
Reams of notes, all referring to our lives here at the lodge.
Our family. Our secrets, right there on the pages of a notebook.
He held Aisla, our maid, for questioning. But she escaped before we could ask her anything at all.
Someone helped her.
Who?
At the time, we had more pressing priorities. The mystery of Aisla, her notes, and her quick disappearance wasn’t the most important focus.
I walk over to Leith when he beckons, careful not to make any noise and startle Fran out of sleep.
“Yeah?” I whisper.
“She alright?” he asks, looking over at Fran’s sleeping form. I look where he does, frowning, and shake my head.
“Not really,” I whisper. “Got a bad fucking head injury. She’ll have to be monitored.
When we go into town tomorrow, she'll need a proper scan and testing.
Couldn't take her tonight, nothing will be open.
But the doctor says she needs to be tested thoroughly.
Could have some serious head damage." She was awfully wobbly on her feet, and definitely a little foggy-headed.
“We?” he asks.
I shrug. “I have to go into town anyway to do the research I need to.”
He scowls at her. “She’s got bloody awful timing, doesn’t she?”
“Och, aye, agreed,” I say, frowning at her right along with him. “She does.”
“I need you on the fuckin’ job,” he says. “Can you bring her into town and still do what I asked?”
“Of course. You know I’m good for it.”
He grins. “Y’are.”
He’s given me specific instructions for finding more of what we need, where to go, who to ask. But for now, he’s got more news.
“Something you should know, though.”
“What’s that?”
He scowls some more. “Cairstina read the book.”
“Already? Thought it just came out tonight?”
“Aye, she’s a fast reader.” Again, he scowls.
“And?”
He blows out a breath, then gives me a sheepish smile, as if he’s about to tell me something outlandish and he’s afraid I won’t believe him.
“She says the mystery of our identity” —he shakes his head and rolls his eyes, muttering— “I got right sucked into this, didn’t I? She says the mystery of the Clan identity is revealed in book eight. And guess what?”
“What?”
He scowls. “Book eight reveals how the youngest brother married the daughter of their enemy. They formed an alliance, so the two Clans could no longer war with each other.”
My brother Mac married the daughter of our enemy last year. Bryn Aitkens, now Bryn Cowen.
Leith scowls. “But in book eight, it all comes to a head.”
“How?”
He scowls again. “The enemy kidnaps the sister of the Captain.”
“It’s fiction,” I say, but my voice is choked, my heart beating too rapidly.
“Aye,” Leith says. “But obviously the writer of these books knows something, doesn’t she?”
“How do you know it’s a she?”
He gives me a sharp look. “Do men write those kinds of books?”
“Of course.”
He’s silent for a moment. It hadn’t occurred to him before that it could be a man.
“We’ve looked into the publisher before,” I say, more of a statement than a question, but I’m asking him.
“Of course. But she uses a pen name. No way of tracking the writer down.”
“Totally anonymous?”
“Totally.”
I work my jaw, thinking things over. “They must be able to find her real name. How else would they pay her?”
“Not sure about that. Worth looking into.”
“Did Cairstina have concerns?”
“Aye,” he says soberly. “Every detail about Bryn’s wedding to Mac—the how, the why. It’s all in the book. If another rival Clan put two and two together…” His voice trails off.
“Aye.”
“It isn’t just that.” We both look behind us, and Leith’s wife Cairstina stands just a few paces away. “It’s more than that.” She worries her lip, her eyes troubled.
“What is it, then?” he asks.
She sighs. “In this book, Clan secrets are revealed.”
“Like what?” I ask her.
“Like the fact that the Clan has connections in Paris…” Her voice trails off and she gets a faraway look in her eyes.
“Looks like it could just be fiction, and I can’t even read much into it myself, because I don’t know everything there is to know.
But these books are available to the general public.
If anyone ever thought they were actually… actually us…”
I nod. Leith nods. “So we need one of us to actually read them, then. Put the pieces together. Figure things out.”
“Aye.”
He looks at me, and I groan. “Seriously, brother?”
“Aye, Tate. I want to find this writer. I want to find out who knows as much as they do and if it’s only in our minds that we’re tying them into our Clan.”
Cairstina shakes her head. “It isn’t just my imagination, Leith. Honest to God, I’d only come to you if I had concerns, you know that. I love these books… and I hate the idea of the author getting in any sort of trouble.”
It’s unusual for her to be so talkative. When she joined our Clan, she was Leith’s mute prisoner, unable to speak at all. Over time, she has healed, but even now she chooses to speak rarely, her words selective and careful.
I nod. “Aye. I understand. Right, then, I’ll read the books. Do you have them?”
Leith shakes his head. “It’s smarter for you to read them in e-book. More discreet that way.” He looks around him, as if the writer of the books will just materialize out of thin air and appear behind him holding a paper and quill.
“Aye,” I say soberly, nodding.
“And what exactly are we going to do with the information once we have it?
“After you read them… I want you to start investigating. Hell, start while you’re reading.
You know I’ve got Mac and Clyde as full-time liaisons for Paris.
All our business here in Scotland’s under tight wraps for now.
” Cairstina yawns, and Leith looks from her to me, as if just realizing it’s the middle of the night. “We’ll talk more about this tomorrow.”
“Aye.”
“Night,” he says, taking Cairstina’s hand and leading her to the door. They don’t live here anymore. None of us do. Most of us live in private chalets that rim the outside of the main home, but we’re in the main lodge so often, it’s almost as if we live here.
Why’d I appoint myself Fran’s bloody keeper? I suppose it's a pretty easy answer because the thought of anyone else being this close to her and taking care of her makes me angry. I'm the one that saw her injured. I'm the one that will see this through.
Plus, everyone else here has a job to do. Our men have various tasks about the place, and my sisters have school and work. I have a job to do, too, but right now my biggest job is finding the writer who’s penning the Clan Chronicles. It's a mystery I'm bent on solving.
As I watch Fran sleep, I marvel at her beauty. She's such a bonnie lass. I've been attracted to her for as long as I can remember, though I've never allowed myself to act on it.
I’m like a brother to her, I know it.
A fucking brother.