Chapter 17
FINN
The McGregor Twins’ Test
(Or How Ragnar Decided to Become a Mountain Guide)
I’m not entirely sure at what point I lost control of my life, but it was probably when I agreed to follow the McGregor twins into the Highlands at seven in the morning without asking too many questions.
Now I’m halfway up a slope that openly defies the laws of physics, clinging to slippery rocks with burning lungs while being silently judged by a sheep.
Ragnar, obviously.
Loose stones slide beneath my boots.
Every muscle in my body protests.
And somewhere above me, Cameron and Connor climb effortlessly like mountain goats, casually chatting as though they’re taking a peaceful stroll through a public park.
How exactly did I end up here?
The answer is simple.
An hour ago, someone knocked on my door.
I opened it while grumbling, sore from dancing with Mary the night before, and found the McGregor twins standing there with predatory smiles, dark wool sweaters, and deeply assessing expressions.
“We’re going for a little walk through the Highlands,” one of them had said. “Thought it’d be a good chance to get to know each other.”
I understood immediately.
It was a test.
Mary’s cousins wanted to determine whether I was worthy of their favorite cousin.
Refusing would’ve meant admitting weakness.
Accepting meant submitting myself to this torture disguised as a traditional Scottish hike.
I accepted.
Because I’m an idiot.
Or maybe because something about this dysfunctional family is starting to matter to me more than I want to admit.
My foot slips on a wet stone.
My hand slides off the rock.
For one horrifying second, I see my entire medical career flash before my eyes, along with the words that would undoubtedly be carved onto my gravestone:
Here lies Dr. Finn McLeod, who died stupidly trying to impress two lunatics and a sheep in the Scottish Highlands.
At the last second, I catch myself on a tree root that creaks ominously beneath my weight.
“You alright?” one of the twins calls from above me, and I swear I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Perfectly fine,” I growl between ragged breaths.
I’m a terrible liar.
One glance at me makes it painfully obvious I am absolutely not an experienced hiker.
I finally reach the top soaked in sweat, hands scraped raw, lungs on the verge of exploding.
The twins are waiting for me while casually talking.
Barely winded.
Their hair isn’t even messed up.
“Not bad,” one of them comments. “Come on. We keep going.”
The trail slopes downward toward a stream.
The water is black as ink and moving fast, and the second I step closer, the cold radiating from it cuts straight through me.
A series of unstable stones forms a makeshift crossing.
And by unstable, I mean some are half submerged while others visibly wobble beneath the pressure of the current.
“We cross here,” Cameron announces.
Or Connor.
At this point, I genuinely have no idea.
“Of course we do,” I mutter.
“If you fall in, the water’s about four degrees,” one of them adds conversationally. “But you’re a doctor, so I don’t need to explain hypothermia to you.”
How reassuring.
I deeply appreciate the educational sadism.
The twins leap across effortlessly, landing on stable stones with alarming precision like they spent their childhood dancing across freezing rivers.
Which they probably did.
I step forward, attempting to project confidence I absolutely do not feel.
The first stone shifts dangerously beneath my weight.
I flail my arms wildly to regain balance.
The second is slick with algae.
I nearly fall again.
Ragnar, meanwhile, trots across the stream without the slightest hesitation, his hooves finding secure footing with insulting ease.
A sheep crosses better than I do.
There’s something profoundly humiliating about that realization.
Halfway across, my foot slips again.
This time I don’t recover fast enough.
My arm plunges into the freezing water as I catch myself, and the cold literally steals the air from my lungs.
It feels like shoving my entire arm into a bucket of ice filled with razor blades.
I grit my teeth to stop myself from yelling, haul myself onto the next stone, and somehow finish crossing with my sleeve soaked to the elbow and my entire body shaking.
The twins don’t comment.
But I catch the looks they exchange.
They’re evaluating me.
Judging me.
“Keep moving,” one of them says. “You’ll warm up.”
After another hour of walking—during which feeling slowly returns to my numb arm—we reach a vast stretch of empty moorland.
The wind is stronger here, carrying the scent of heather and the unmistakable promise of incoming rain.
“We’ve got a problem,” Cameron says while scanning the horizon. “Three sheep escaped the flock this morning. We need to find them.”
“And I assume this is my mission now?”
“Let’s say it’d be a good way to test your observation skills,” Connor replies with the infuriating half-smile I’m rapidly beginning to hate. “Doctors are supposed to be observant, right?”
I diagnose symptoms.
I do not track missing sheep across fifty acres of heather.
Apparently my professional skill set has expanded dramatically.
I study the landscape.
Nothing.
Just endless purple heather, wind rippling through the grass like waves across an ocean, and increasingly threatening skies overhead.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Look for tracks,” Cameron instructs, crouching near the ground. “Sheep leave marks in wet soil. And they eat vegetation differently—they tear it instead of cutting cleanly.”
I crouch beside him, studying the ground with the same intensity I usually reserve for chest X-rays.
Sure enough, now that he points it out, I notice hoofprints pressed into the damp earth—small oval marks tapering slightly at the front, heading west.
I follow them carefully, trying to ignore my aching knees and the fact that my soaked arm has started shivering again.
Ragnar follows beside me, occasionally sniffing the ground.
Is he helping me?
Or mocking me?
With this sheep, it’s impossible to tell.
After twenty exhausting minutes that feel more like twenty years, I hear bleating somewhere ahead.
I move around a rocky outcrop and finally spot them.
Three sheep grazing peacefully beside a collapsed fence, looking entirely satisfied with their little morning adventure.
“Found them!”
The twins arrive behind me, and for the first time all morning, I see something dangerously close to approval in their expressions.
“Not bad.”
“Good eye.”
They herd the sheep together with the effortless efficiency of people who’ve done this their entire lives.
Then Ragnar surprises me completely.
He positions himself behind the runaway sheep and calmly guides them toward the trail back home with the authority of an experienced sheepdog.
Officially, this sheep possesses more professional competence than I do.
The walk back is a silent form of torture.
Blisters have formed on my feet—I can feel them with every step.
My soaked arm alternates between numbness and painful tingling all the way up to my shoulder.
My legs shake with exhaustion.
My muscles burn.
And I’m fairly certain one of the blisters inside my left boot just burst.
But I don’t complain.
Not once.
No sighing.
No groaning.
Not even muttering.
The twins walk quietly beside me, though I can feel them paying attention to every movement I make.
Ragnar stays close at my side the entire time.
At one point, I trip over a root.
The sheep stops walking and patiently waits for me to recover before continuing at my pace.
“This sheep really adopted you,” Connor comments.
“Apparently.”
“That’s rare,” Cameron adds thoughtfully. “Ragnar doesn’t trust anyone. Barely even tolerates Mary, and she’s a veterinarian.”
“I honestly don’t know why he trusts me,” I admit.
“Maybe he recognizes someone like himself.”
I frown, uncertain whether that’s supposed to be an insult.
“Someone who doesn’t try to please people,” he clarifies. “Someone who’s just... themselves.”
I don’t answer.
Mostly because I’m too busy focusing on the complicated task of continuing to walk without collapsing.
But the words settle somewhere deep inside my chest.
In the part of me I usually try very hard to ignore.
Finally, the castle appears in the distance.
The gray towers rise beneath storm clouds, and I have never in my life been happier to see ancient stone architecture.
I spot the guesthouse.
Five more minutes.
I can survive five more minutes.
The twins stop a few yards from the entrance.
“We had doubts about you,” Cameron says, meeting my eyes directly.
“I know.”
“Mary’s our favorite cousin,” Connor continues. “We don’t want her getting hurt. We want someone worthy of her.”
“I understand.”
“But you didn’t complain. You held your own. And Ragnar stayed with you the entire time.”
Connor offers me his hand.
I shake it, too exhausted to analyze the gesture or what exactly it means within the complicated hierarchy of the McGregor family.
“You’re not bad for a city guy,” Cameron says with half a smile.
“Welcome to the family, Finn,” Connor adds.
Then they head back toward the castle, leaving me standing there covered in mud, soaked, exhausted...
and carrying something dangerously close to acceptance.
Ragnar lets out one final bleat that probably means:
You survived. Well done. Don’t get too comfortable—we’ll test you again.
Or something like that.
Honestly, who knows what goes on inside that sheep’s head?
I shove open the guesthouse door with the energy of a dying zombie.
Mary is sitting in the living room with a book in her hands, hair piled into a messy bun.
She looks up, and her expression instantly shifts from curiosity to horror.
“Oh my God. What happened to you?”
“Your cousins.”
“What did they do to you?”
I collapse onto the couch with a groan that fully reveals the tragic state of my body.
“Traditional Scottish bonding experience. Mountain climbing, freezing river crossings, sheep tracking. Standard family initiation rituals, apparently.”
Mary slams her book onto the coffee table.
“I’m going to kill them. Literally kill them and feed their remains to Hamish.”
“Don’t kill them. They just wanted to make sure I’m worthy of their favorite cousin.”
Something changes in her expression.
I watch anger soften into something gentler in her eyes.
“You could’ve refused,” she says quietly.
“No. Not if I want to stay here.”
Her eyes lift to mine.
“You want to stay here?”
A long silence stretches between us while I realize I just said out loud the thing I’ve been carefully avoiding admitting—even to myself.
“I’m starting to get used to it,” I finally confess.
“They accepted you?” she asks softly.
“Apparently. Thanks to Ragnar, I think. That sheep followed me around all day like I was his personal social rehabilitation project.”
Mary smiles.
And that smile does something dangerous to my chest.
“That sheep has excellent taste.”
“He mostly has a deeply twisted sense of humor.”
“You fought for our relationship today.”
“It was just a hike,” I say with a shrug.
“No,” she replies quietly. “It was more than that.”
Our eyes lock.
And I drown completely in those green eyes looking at me like I’m someone good.
Someone worthy of being here.
Someone who—
Mary suddenly stands.
“You should rest. Tonight we’re having dinner at the castle with the family. Everyone will be there.”
“Everyone?” I repeat cautiously.
“Callum, Jane, Keira, Alistair, Lachlan, Emma, Nate, Lily. And obviously the twins. I’m pretty sure Maggie wants to officially introduce us as a couple.”
A family dinner.
In front of the entire McGregor clan.
Perfect.
Exactly what I needed after surviving the sadistic twins and their accomplice sheep.
Mary lingers in the doorway with one hand resting on the handle.
Then she turns back toward me, and there’s something unreadable in her expression.
“Finn?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For doing this for us.”
She leaves before I can answer.
I sink deeper into the couch cushions, exhausted and sore, but with the strange feeling that something important just shifted.
That crossing the invisible line drawn by the McGregor twins and their accomplice sheep wasn’t just a test of endurance.
It was a test to see whether I was willing to fight for something real.