Chapter 4
Four
WALKER
When I followed Brodan Adair to a tiny wee place in the Highlands for a job, I’d assumed I’d be parting ways as his bodyguard sooner rather than later. That the temporary position his brother offered me on the exclusive estate would be just that. Temporary.
I couldn’t imagine that the village could hold me. That there would be anything here to appeal to me. Yet, to my consternation, I liked the slower pace of the Highlands.
At seventeen, I joined the Royal Marines and traveled in and out of the UK, eventually joining 43 Commando Fleet Protection Group based at HM Naval Base Clyde in Scotland.
After a few years of protecting the UK’s nuclear deterrent and conducting specialist maritime security tasks, I took up a friend’s offer to become a bodyguard in California.
I continued to travel the world and almost feel a part of it again.
After twenty years of moving from place to place, I’d never imagined Ardnoch, population 1200, could hold any appeal, let alone so much.
I liked not moving.
I enjoyed knowing what to expect when I woke up each day.
Except for seasonal staff turnover on the estate, I had time to observe those around me. To learn them. Understand them. There was a security in it that unexpectedly worked for me. Perhaps because I’d spent so much of my life looking over my shoulder for the next threat.
There were a lot of good people here. A community.
I hadn’t had a community around me since leaving the Commandos.
I had a group of mates I served with who I met up with once a year, and they knew a different version of me.
But only Brodan was a constant, and one bloke didn’t count as a community.
That is until his family welcomed me in as one of them.
With them I got to be the guy who protected their brother, who worked at the estate to protect others.
The guy who’d done questionable things in the name of God and country was buried where no one knew he existed. He only got to come out during sessions with Rich. After, he got stuffed back down again.
The Gloaming was the social hub of Ardnoch.
A pub, restaurant, and hotel owned by Brodan’s brothers Lachlan and Arran, a two-hundred-year-old building they’d renovated where the locals gathered within its aged walls every night.
Their chatter suggested relief when tourists disappeared once summer was over.
Tables and stools freed up in the pub again.
Ardnoch apparently had a love/hate relationship with the tourist season.
Ardnoch Estate drew folks from around the world, excited at the prospect of maybe spotting a celebrity.
Local business owners’ coffers were filled enough to see them through the entire year.
But it didn’t stop them from complaining about tourists parking in their driveways or in no-parking zones, of filling their beaches, and taking up all the tables at their few eateries.
I’d avoided the pub during the summer. Now I walked the ten minutes from my rented bungalow to the heart of the village.
To the Gloaming, built in the square with a large car park for visitors out front.
The historical architecture and design of the village appealed to tourists as much as the celebrities staying on the village outskirts.
Everything predated the mid-twentieth century, and dominating it all, near to the Gloaming, sat a medieval cathedral.
Shops, restaurants, and bed-and-breakfasts were scattered throughout the village on quaint row streets.
Castle Street was the main road off the square that led out of Ardnoch toward Ardnoch Castle and Estate.
It was an avenue of identical nineteenth-century terraced houses with dormer windows.
Many of the homes had been converted into boutiques, cafés, and inns.
There was Morag’s, a small grocery store and deli that did fucking great sandwiches, and Flora’s, the most popular café in Ardnoch.
Some of the row cottages, however, remained residential. Sloane Harrow and her daughter rented one.
Passing by Sloane’s place, I resisted the urge to stop and knock on her door, to check she was all right.
Her worries about Hoffman bothered me. She didn’t need that shite on top of everything else.
I’d fucked up asking her if I could sponsor Callie’s training.
Stung the woman’s pride. I could respect her need to take care of her girl by herself.
I didn’t want her to think anyone saw her as a failure.
She was a great mum. Anyone with eyes could see that.
I shouldn’t have offered.
I was too curious about Sloane as it was.
The urge to investigate why a single mum from California had ended up as a housekeeper at Ardnoch, with connections to a powerful family like the Howards, had seen me almost look into it.
That I wanted to made me back off. I had no business being in Sloane and Callie’s business.
Which was why it was stupid of me to have offered to pay for Callie’s martial arts training.
And to fix Sloane’s car.
And to get in her face about Hoffman.
No. The latter was too important not to know. I was glad she told me. Now I was on alert.
“You look angrier than usual,” Brodan greeted me as I walked into the Gloaming and spotted him at the bar.
I’d given the room my usual visual sweep.
Beyond the low ceiling with its wooden beams and the typical dark warmth of an old pub, I catalogued which locals were there, where they sat, who was unfamiliar, and where they were sitting.
I’d already memorized the exits the first time I’d visited the pub.
It was a habit I’d never break, and I’d made peace with that.
Brodan’s brother Arran wasn’t bartending tonight. An older woman, Jess I think her name was, worked the bar.
I slid onto the stool next to Bro and asked Jess for a local ale I’d developed a taste for since moving here.
“I hate sitting with my back to the door,” I grumbled.
“Is that what the dark look is?” Brodan asked.
“What?”
“You look like you want to murder someone. More than usual, I mean.”
I’d sit with my back to the door if there was no other option. But there were options here. Knowing I couldn’t get comfortable in this position, I got up and took the stool on the curve of the bar that faced all three entrance and exit points.
Brodan rolled his eyes but got up and sat on the stool next to me.
“How’s Monroe?” I avoided his last question, knowing the lovesick fucker could talk for days about his wife. Brodan and I used to have more in common when he was a miserable bastard, but, to be fair, I only had myself to blame for his current happiness.
I might have manipulated him into spending time with Monroe when we first arrived in Ardnoch.
Don’t get me wrong, I wanted happiness for Bro.
But I didn’t understand why he was so smug about his state of romantic imprisonment. If I were the shuddering type, I’d shudder just thinking about it.
Brodan’s brow furrowed. “She’s tired a lot. I’m constantly worried about her. She told me I was mother-henning her this morning. Me?”
“I can see that.”
He shot me a dirty look. “I’ve never mother-henned in my life.”
“I can easily picture you clucking around Monroe. Bugging the shit out of her.”
“You’re in a pleasant mood.”
“Maybe because someone told Monroe that I was worried Sloane couldn’t afford Callie’s martial arts classes.”
Brodan frowned. “Did I relay the information like that? I’m not sure I did. Why is it a problem?”
“Because Sloane handed me my arse today for it.”
“Sloane?” Brodan grinned. I contemplated smacking that grin off his face, but took a pull of the ale Jess put in front of me instead. “Are we talking about the same woman who goes around pissing rainbows and farting roses?”
I narrowed my eyes. “What does that mean?”
“She’s nice to everybody. I can’t imagine her handing you your arse. Though I would’ve liked to have seen it.”
“Point is, you don’t have to tell your wife everything we talk about.”
“She likes to know that there’s a person buried in there.” He patted my arm. “That you actually string words together to form sentences. She never gets to see it for herself.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I replied flatly.
He grinned smugly. “I don’t need to anymore.”
Aye, like the bastard ever needed to before he settled down with Roe. “Brodan.”
At my serious tone, Brodan stopped smiling. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Monroe jumped on the idea. She wants to ease Sloane’s stress, and she likes the idea of you looking out for her best friend.”
Warning bells rang in my head. “I’m not interested in looking out for Sloane.”
“You seem awfully upset that she handed you your arse today,” he observed, eyes glinting.
“I’m upset that I can’t tell you anything. You’re like a gossiping auld fucking woman.”
Brodan snorted. “Aye, you keep telling yourself that.”
“Don’t. You know I’m not interested in Sloane like that, and you better not be filling Roe’s head with that shite.”
My friend sighed. “Of course, I’m not. Just as long as you’re aware that you’re in denial.”
“What does that mean?”
He leaned in so only I could hear. “Why don’t you fuck her and get it over with? You know she’s open to it.”