Chapter 6
SIX
FATE OR LUCK, GOOD OR BAD
Callum
The cement I’d been hacking out of the joints of the castle walls for weeks was destroying my fingertips one by one.
A miserable job, though essential to stop the creeping damp eating away the ancient stone.
Even the twins were quiet, suppressed by the ever-present Scottish drizzle we were working to banish from our home.
“Call it,” Ally whined from above me on the dripping scaffold. He hefted the tub of high quality mortar we were using to refill the gaps. “For the love of all that is holy, can we be done for the day?”
I straightened my aching back and surveyed our progress.
The five of us, working on it with Gordain home for the weekend, had the task almost complete.
The kicker was, I recalled my father putting in shitty cement when he was laird and I was a wee boy.
I’d learned at his knee how to cheap out on your responsibilities and fritter your income away on gambling and drinking.
How to die, leaving as much turmoil and disaster behind you as you could.
An estate poised to take a nosedive into being sold.
One son in custody and the others fighting for his release.
Da and I were two very different men.
I was doing it right this time, the walls, putting in breathable lime mortar and readying for the den’s custom-built windows to get us watertight.
But money didn’t grow on trees. After the Storm Force deal had been signed for my whisky, I’d ordered the pricey windows, alongside upgrading the distillery which cost a bomb on its own.
The estate pulled in money from the small businesses like the distillery, from rents, government land subsidies, half Gordain’s salary, and whatever I could earn, but it was never enough.
Now, to afford my bills, I’d had to do something about the debt owed me.
Last week, I’d made a final decision about Storm Enterprises and their breach of contract.
They’d given me the same line over and over about shifting profit margins and it being my fault for not reading every minuscule detail at the back of the pack.
Call me old-fashioned, but if a person looks you in the eye and shakes your hand on a promise, as Storm Force’s Dominic Hanswick had on his visit, failing to deliver it was on them, not on you.
The cowards refused to meet with me in London, which left me no choice. I was taking action against Maximus Storm and his cronies. Pride was at stake, let alone the security of my family.
“Come on, Cal. If your mind wasn’t away with a certain fair-haired lass, you’d let us finish up.”
“We’re done.” I ignored the painful quip. “There’s too much to finish before dark.” Tomorrow morning would see this particular repair complete. Thank God.
A collective cheer went up from my brothers, and we downed tools, dragging tarpaulin over the drying mortar and the holes we’d made in my poor castle’s walls.
Inside the great hall, the twins tossed their coats on the stone hearth in front of the roaring fire, shucked off their boots, and took off up the stairs.
I’d complain at them for leaving a mess, but it was all I’d been doing for the past month. Since a certain lass had ghosted me, throwing me into a miserable mood.
Gordain pitched a sodden hat into the steaming clothes pile then rubbed a hand over his shorn head. “I’m away tonight. After dinner.”
“You’ve been called back?”
“Aye. I’ll not return for a few weeks. But…when I do, I should know my streaming.”
His career stream—the selection process for pilot—was almost up. I clapped his shoulder, harder than I meant from the nerves. Christ, please let him get it. He was due a break. “Let me know.”
“I will. As soon as I do.”
My brother, the second of us, served in the RAF, and had applied for a hard-sought-after training programme to fly search and rescue helicopters.
With both of us volunteering for the Cairngorms mountain rescue, the career was a natural fit for him.
Despite being a military man, my brother was not bloodthirsty, and saving lives, rather than taking them, suited him well.
Though excellent at his job, the man needed focus, and I worried for him as much as I worried for the twins. If they streamed him to rotary, as he wanted, we’d all be relieved.
“Did you reply to Lachlan?” Gordain took an armful of split logs into the enormous fireplace and tossed them into the flames. The fire leapt, feeding greedily. We had a thing over never letting it go out. A superstition, you could say.
“Nae yet. I’d planned to burn his letter and send back the word ‘No’ written in ink made from the ashes,” I grouched.
Lachlan was kin. Our father’s cousin, who Da had despised and who held the same opinion in return.
A man I respected but had quarrelled with over land rights, his property, and mine sharing a quagmire of muddled borders.
I’d gone to his door in a mood and ended up rowing with the man, my temper taking over my mouth.
We hadn’t spoken since, though he’d sent us an invitation to the lavish party he was throwing for his fiftieth birthday.
A true Highlands event with games and bagpipes, knowing him.
The twins were desperate to go, but I was in no mind to bend to Lachlan’s will and accept his hospitality.
He had an idea to be a father figure to me, and it rankled my pride.
My brother coughed. As I looked again, Gordain’s square jaw was set, mischief in his eyes.
“And are you going to tell me about the woman before I leave? Dinna wave me off. You’ve been a bear with a sore head since your trip to London.
The twins have more punishments than free time, and you’ve never been this hard on them before. ”
Behind me, James huffed a laugh. “They did steal a car.”
I shrugged my jacket off, taking my padded shirt with it.
Every muscle ached from either the work or from holding myself stiff to prevent from freezing.
Scotland in early spring was not the ideal time to do the repair work, but it was that or suffer the creeping damp.
I pointed at our friend. “What he said.”
Gordain rolled his eyes, switching his attention to James. “Hey, Fitz? Did you meet this mystery lass? Give me the story. Ally’s a terrible gossip, but he has none of the facts and he only caught a glimpse of her face.”
Ignoring them, I moved around, picking up wet clothes and draping them on the iron drying mount some ancestor had installed inside the opening to the huge fireplace a century or so ago.
We had a modern laundry room, but the fire burned so why not use the heat for clothes that already smelled of the outdoors.
“I’m not sure I can help, aside from thinking her very pleasant,” James said, and I kept busy at my task, my cheeks burning from the blaze. Only the blaze.
“She pretty?”
I peered out of the corner of my eye. James put up a hand as if to deflect the question. “I’m not answering that. I have a feeling someone might get defensive should I comment on her looks in any way.”
Gordain was being deliberately provocative, but I’d not spoken about Mathilda to anyone and I suddenly wanted to.
The rejection hurt, and it really shouldn’t, as what time had I had to form an attachment?
But I had, all the same. I’d dreamed up a life where I had someone of my own.
Typical Callum, nought to sixty in a heartbeat.
With my family, I tried to hide my concerns about the estate, our bills and debts and the worsening state of the castle—as soon as we repaired one wall, another pile of stones crumbled—but to have a sympathetic ear, a hug, and a bit of reassurance… I wanted that.
And I’d made Mathilda into that woman. She worked in events, and it had set me to thinking as she’d described what she loved.
We didn’t use the land or the castle enough in that way—too far from my comfort zone to make any sense of it—and it was crying out for someone with that expertise to run a business here.
To make use of the space and the history of the land and the old building in a way I never could.
See, I’d even found her a role of her own. Something I thought she’d like.
The depths of my own pathetic need yawned in front of me.
I barely knew her, but I missed her. At least the idea of her.
It was a deeply uncomfortable feeling, being vulnerable, and I rarely allowed it, but Gordain and James were my closest allies, my seconds-in-command, if a man could have two, and I needed to share this wedge inside my chest.
“I thought she seemed pretty taken with Callum, but I know next to nothing about women. She had a friend, this insane driver—”
“Mathilda never called me,” I blurted, interrupting James as I stepped away from the heat. “She took my number. I should have asked for hers, but then if she wanted to see me again, she’d have called. Ye ken? So it’s a waste of time me thinking about her.”
Two men, James with a shock of dark hair and Gordain with his blond and shorn, regarded me. Both were better looking than me, I was man enough to own it, but I thought I at least had something in my favour.
Mathilda had seemed attracted, but obviously not enough.
“Maybe she lost your number?” James offered, because he was kind, if entirely na?ve, after the shitty life and gilded cage he’d suffered before he’d come to us.
“She could have found me. Searched for the castle online. It’s hardly a secret.”
Gordain ran a thumb along his jaw. It was growing dark in the hall, with no one having put the big lights on, and firelight illuminated my brother’s features.
It softened him a wee bit. “What if there was another reason keeping her from calling? Some sort of misunderstanding. Are ye just going to leave off and forget you ever met her?”
That didn’t sound like something I would do.
“That does nae sound like something you would do,” my brother echoed in the way of a challenge.
“She did have a lot on her plate.” I adjusted Ally’s coat on the frame. He’d torn the sleeve. For fuck’s sake, he could bloody well sew it back up. “But I can’t be chasing after someone who doesn’t want to know me. It wouldnae be right.”
“Only if you’re sure that’s her intention.” James, this time, like the two of them would do anything to lift my brooding.
Was I sure? Not a bit, and that somehow made me crosser. That was enough sharing for now. I grumbled, “Are you two making dinner?”
Gordain saluted. He’d been teaching James to cook. Having brought the man into our lives, he felt a responsibility to him, though the contract of mentor was mine.
James’s quiet, enigmatic ways had brought out the strong sense of brotherhood in all of us, and in the months he’d been here, we’d adopted him into the family. It was an uncomfortable feeling to think he’d leave us when his contract came to an end. I liked my people close. I needed that surety.
My brother and my friend set their boots toward the kitchens, and I strode away, running up the two internal staircases to my solar—my suite of rooms at the top of the castle.
As I entered, my frustration about Mathilda grew.
What if she’d got married? The idea made me sick to the pit of my stomach.
But I knew it couldn’t be true. I knew people, and she hadn’t wanted it.
Whatever her reasons, her intentions had been plain on her face.
She’d been in a bind, but she’d been looking for a way out.
All of a sudden, I needed to know if she’d found one.
What if Gordain was right, and my stubbornness and wounded pride meant a wasted chance? I dropped onto my bed and scooped up my battered old laptop from the rug.
Mathilda had told me where she worked—an international events company I’d not forgotten the name of—so I’d find her email and drop her a line. If she never answered, then case closed. In time, the hurt would go. I’d weathered worse.
I keyed in the search terms. Then lines of text—staff bios—appeared against the colourful backdrop. Huh. The company website had no record for a Mathilda Jones.
But there was a listing for a Mattie Storm.
I clicked on the link and stared, a sense of discomfort forming. It was her picture. Her beautiful face with golden curls spiralling around. I’d found the woman.
Her surname was Storm? Why would she lie?
A quick search of the other Storm I knew, Maximus, gave me his bio: a wife, Fi, and two daughters, Mathilda and Scarlet.
No way.
I leapt from the bed.
Well, fuck. This was no misunderstanding, like Gordain had suggested, but a bloody great obstacle that I’d slammed in her path as we’d said goodbye. I thought I’d seen something odd in her eyes, but I’d figured it was me getting heated up by telling her about the man I was there to see. Her father.
Oh Christ. I sat back down in a heavy slump, slammed the laptop lid closed, and fell onto my back. How was it even possible? Was it fate or luck, good or bad?
Then my resolve, reliable, stubborn as it was, came around. Mathilda hadn’t rejected me, she’d pulled away because of the problem between her father and me. That was at least worth a conversation.
I had just the way of inviting it.